Kobobooks.com really needs to update their store

EMG · 08-01-2011, 01:46 PM

Their store needs major improvements, and they need thme quick! The store isn't user friendly at all! Here's why IMO:

1. There's no dedicated search (by author, collection, language, etc...). Lets say you're in the mood for a Stephen King novel and you type in his name in the search box, you get 21,433 results... No joke!

2. Ratings/reviews : It would be nice to know what people think of the book before buying it. There's only a 5-star rating system, but no reviews.

3. Book bundles : They sometimes bundle up books part of a collection at a reduced price, which is nice, but you don't get any covers for those books. I know it's picky on my behalf, but I want a cover for each book. Is that too much to ask for?

4. Book covers : speaking of book covers, some books don't even have covers. I thought it might be a copyright thing with the artists, but if you shop the same book on other sites, they have the covers...

5. Other languages : Kobo launched their German store not too long ago. I live in Canada, and when I try to go to their German store (with the .de extension) it redirects me to the regular English store. Plus you can't even search by language (see 1).

I want all my books to come from the same source. I don't want 4-5 accounts from different sites. I'm getting a little annoyed by Kobo's store right now and I'll probably make the switch to B&N sometime soon.

Come on Kobo, you're great at updating your devices' firmware, why can't you update your own site?

SF&F Reader · 08-01-2011, 01:55 PM

Try searching "Stephen King" just like that - i.e. with quotation marks.

Can't help with the rest though.

Asawi · 08-01-2011, 02:12 PM

They also need to get some sort of "shopping cart" so you can check out more than one book at a time.

Joe563 · 08-01-2011, 03:25 PM

Quote:

5. Other languages : Kobo launched their German store not too long ago. I live in Canada, and when I try to go to their German store (with the .de extension) it redirects me to the regular English store. Plus you can't even search by language (see 1).

There is a convoluted way to find foreign language books. Start the Desktop Application and then go to Account>Purchase History and enter 'German' in the READ ON box and click the GO button. This returns a 'Refine Your Search' screen where there is a 'By Language' section which includes German. Please note that although many of the books show english titles the contents are in German. You can verify this by clicking the book cover and then the 'Save for later' line and then viewing the Preview after doing a Sync in the Desktop Application.

PeterT · 08-01-2011, 03:26 PM

One option seems to be

http://www.kobobooks.com/search/search.html?l=fr

All the options seem to be:

fr french
de german
it italian
es spanish
en english
nl dutch

icedtea · 08-01-2011, 06:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Asawi

They also need to get some sort of "shopping cart" so you can check out more than one book at a time.

Yes! This baffles me, because Kobo is an affiliated retailer to earn airmiles in Canada, but without a cart function I'll never use it. My individual purchases are never $20 (purchase amount to earn one airmile).

Since they implemented paypal, hopefully a cart system is next on their to-do list.

EMG, for points 3 and 4:
As far as I know, missing covers are the publisher's fault, not the vendor's. While a cover may be shown on the vendor page, many times the actual file does NOT contain the cover art. So Kobo may be inadvertently doing you a favour in showing you which files do not have cover art.

melmac · 08-01-2011, 09:46 PM

I agree, when searching I was getting foreign language hits which are of no interest to me I assumed that their must be a setting in my account to state I'm English but I was just too blind to see it so I emailed asking. The reply I got was that I should select the English search filter on the left side of the screen. That solution seems ridicules to me because it means I have to select that filter every time I do a search it would be much more efficient to just have a tick box in your account settings stating you only want English titles.

Other than that I don't mind their site it is very clean in appearance and generally easy to use.

rashkae · 08-01-2011, 11:51 PM

The shopping cart thing is a must, and for more reasons than just useability...
Last time I bought a dozen books, I was left with my pants down at futureshop the next day because my CC got frozen for suspicious activity.. (the suspicious activity being the dozen $7 puchases at Kobo)

melmac · 08-02-2011, 12:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rashkae

The shopping cart thing is a must, and for more reasons than just useability...
Last time I bought a dozen books, I was left with my pants down at futureshop the next day because my CC got frozen for suspicious activity.. (the suspicious activity being the dozen $7 puchases at Kobo)

Actually come to think of it it would be handy to be able to have a cart so we can buy multiple items at once, perhaps then the disocunt coupons could be applied to the whole cart

melitabel · 09-29-2011, 03:19 PM

Thanks to this thread, I have the answer to a question I submitted to Kobo Customer Care 2 days ago: how to buy several books at one time. I was sure there was a way that I just couldn't figure out. Who, in this day, makes their customers go through the arduous process of paying separately for each book? I'm glad now I didn't - I never thought of my credit card being refused because of suspicious activity - I'm going on vacation in 2 days and a problem at the car rental company would have enraged me.

Also, it's nice to know I'm not just missing something that others have figured out.

Kobo isn't impressing me - it's almost 48 hours and no one has been assigned to my question yet. I don't have a Kobo Reader, but I have been using the app on my Android tablet. I'm not stuck with it, of course.

estelle58 · 09-29-2011, 03:38 PM

I agree, a shopping cart would be a big improvement

Cottser · 09-29-2011, 10:00 PM

Wow, hadn't even realized there was no cart - I've only purchased one book from Kobo so far. Hard to believe, definitely needs to be addressed!

Danger · 09-29-2011, 10:42 PM

Jumping on the bandwagon here. I can't for the life of me understand wth there isn't a shopping cart. I've been one of those who've had to go through the pain of making multiple separate purchases for books on the Kobo site and believe me by the 6th book I'm pretty much cursing the lack of foresight of the ........ that designed the site. I mean even if you had to apply a discount code to only one book in your bunch there could a least be an option for which book to apply the code to and then a check to see if that book qualifies.

Btw kudos on the quotes for doing searches. Not sure why I never thought of that before when searching on the Kobobooks site as I do do that when searching for something specific elsewhere.

anonymoose · 09-29-2011, 10:46 PM

There is a way to filter for languages on the Kobo website. After you do your initial term search like Stephen King, there is a Refine Your Search section in the left sidebar that lets you pull out certain languages and categories.

The cart thing though is really irritating. I've even complained to Air Miles because they're supposed to offer points for purchases over $20 but that's almost never gonna happen without multi-book shopping carts.

ekster · 09-30-2011, 08:23 AM

My only gripe with no cart is that I wasn't able to use the 35% off for first read on more than one book.

In general though, I don't buy ebooks in bulk, so it doesn't really bother me that much.

08-01-2011, 01:46 PM	#1
EMG Member Posts: 17 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jul 2011 Device: Kobo Touch	Kobobooks.com really needs to update their store Their store needs major improvements, and they need thme quick! The store isn't user friendly at all! Here's why IMO: 1. There's no dedicated search (by author, collection, language, etc...). Lets say you're in the mood for a Stephen King novel and you type in his name in the search box, you get 21,433 results... No joke! 2. Ratings/reviews : It would be nice to know what people think of the book before buying it. There's only a 5-star rating system, but no reviews. 3. Book bundles : They sometimes bundle up books part of a collection at a reduced price, which is nice, but you don't get any covers for those books. I know it's picky on my behalf, but I want a cover for each book. Is that too much to ask for? 4. Book covers : speaking of book covers, some books don't even have covers. I thought it might be a copyright thing with the artists, but if you shop the same book on other sites, they have the covers... 5. Other languages : Kobo launched their German store not too long ago. I live in Canada, and when I try to go to their German store (with the .de extension) it redirects me to the regular English store. Plus you can't even search by language (see 1). I want all my books to come from the same source. I don't want 4-5 accounts from different sites. I'm getting a little annoyed by Kobo's store right now and I'll probably make the switch to B&N sometime soon. Come on Kobo, you're great at updating your devices' firmware, why can't you update your own site? Last edited by EMG; 08-01-2011 at 01:49 PM.

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08-01-2011, 01:55 PM	#2
SF&F Reader Groupie Posts: 150 Karma: 100855 Join Date: Jun 2011 Location: Saskatchewan, Canada Device: Kobo Touch, Blackberry Playbook, Samsung Galaxy SII HD LTE	Try searching "Stephen King" just like that - i.e. with quotation marks. Can't help with the rest though.

08-01-2011, 02:12 PM	#3
Asawi Gadgetoholic Posts: 1,467 Karma: 3865860 Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Sweden Device: Kobo Libra2, Tolino Vision 6	They also need to get some sort of "shopping cart" so you can check out more than one book at a time.

08-01-2011, 03:26 PM	#5
PeterT Grand Sorcerer Posts: 13,511 Karma: 78910202 Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Toronto Device: Libra H2O, Libra Colour	One option seems to be http://www.kobobooks.com/search/search.html?l=fr All the options seem to be: fr french de german it italian es spanish en english nl dutch

08-01-2011, 09:46 PM	#7
melmac Wizard Posts: 1,399 Karma: 5573651 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Perth AU Device: Sony PRS650, Sony T3, Kobo Forma	I agree, when searching I was getting foreign language hits which are of no interest to me I assumed that their must be a setting in my account to state I'm English but I was just too blind to see it so I emailed asking. The reply I got was that I should select the English search filter on the left side of the screen. That solution seems ridicules to me because it means I have to select that filter every time I do a search it would be much more efficient to just have a tick box in your account settings stating you only want English titles. Other than that I don't mind their site it is very clean in appearance and generally easy to use.

08-01-2011, 11:51 PM	#8
rashkae Wizard Posts: 1,274 Karma: 5935030 Join Date: Jun 2011 Location: Ontario, Canada Device: Kobo Aura HD	The shopping cart thing is a must, and for more reasons than just useability... Last time I bought a dozen books, I was left with my pants down at futureshop the next day because my CC got frozen for suspicious activity.. (the suspicious activity being the dozen $7 puchases at Kobo)

09-29-2011, 03:19 PM	#10
melitabel Enthusiast Posts: 34 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jun 2011 Device: entourage edge	Thanks to this thread, I have the answer to a question I submitted to Kobo Customer Care 2 days ago: how to buy several books at one time. I was sure there was a way that I just couldn't figure out. Who, in this day, makes their customers go through the arduous process of paying separately for each book? I'm glad now I didn't - I never thought of my credit card being refused because of suspicious activity - I'm going on vacation in 2 days and a problem at the car rental company would have enraged me. Also, it's nice to know I'm not just missing something that others have figured out. Kobo isn't impressing me - it's almost 48 hours and no one has been assigned to my question yet. I don't have a Kobo Reader, but I have been using the app on my Android tablet. I'm not stuck with it, of course.

09-29-2011, 03:38 PM	#11
estelle58 Cat lover Posts: 487 Karma: 1149782 Join Date: Apr 2011 Location: Montreal, Canada Device: iPhone, Kobo Vox, Kobo Glo, iPad mini, Kindle Paperwhite, Kobo Aura	I agree, a shopping cart would be a big improvement

09-29-2011, 10:00 PM	#12
Cottser Enthusiast Posts: 36 Karma: 196790 Join Date: Aug 2011 Device: Kobo Touch	Wow, hadn't even realized there was no cart - I've only purchased one book from Kobo so far. Hard to believe, definitely needs to be addressed!

09-29-2011, 10:42 PM	#13
Danger Evangelist Posts: 490 Karma: 1665031 Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Vancouver Island, Nanaimo Device: K2 (retired), Kobo Touch (passed to the wife), KGlo, Galaxy TabPro	Jumping on the bandwagon here. I can't for the life of me understand wth there isn't a shopping cart. I've been one of those who've had to go through the pain of making multiple separate purchases for books on the Kobo site and believe me by the 6th book I'm pretty much cursing the lack of foresight of the ........ that designed the site. I mean even if you had to apply a discount code to only one book in your bunch there could a least be an option for which book to apply the code to and then a check to see if that book qualifies. Btw kudos on the quotes for doing searches. Not sure why I never thought of that before when searching on the Kobobooks site as I do do that when searching for something specific elsewhere.

09-29-2011, 10:46 PM	#14
anonymoose bookaholic Posts: 108 Karma: 1032718 Join Date: Jun 2011 Location: Canada Device: Kobo Glo, Kobo Aura, Kobo Touch, Kobo app on iPhone	There is a way to filter for languages on the Kobo website. After you do your initial term search like Stephen King, there is a Refine Your Search section in the left sidebar that lets you pull out certain languages and categories. The cart thing though is really irritating. I've even complained to Air Miles because they're supposed to offer points for purchases over $20 but that's almost never gonna happen without multi-book shopping carts.

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09-30-2011, 08:23 AM	#15
ekster Currently without a title Posts: 203 Karma: 3209914 Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: Canada, Qc Device: Kobo Touch	My only gripe with no cart is that I wasn't able to use the 35% off for first read on more than one book. In general though, I don't buy ebooks in bulk, so it doesn't really bother me that much.