Kodansha’s latest sale not available for Kobo

[Cootey]

I noticed the other day that Kodansha had a manga sale going on across multiple platforms (Google Play, B&N, Bookwalker, and even MyAnimeList https://kodansha.us/2023/04/11/get-f...-digital-sale/), yet when I visited the link to Kobo from their sale announcement page, it just opened up the Kobo’s front page. Searching for the sale titles showed me that they weren’t on sale at all. So I reached out to Kodansha.

The customer support team was friendly, but they informed me that their sale, unfortunately, won't be available on Kobo. They have now removed Kobo from the sale announcement page.

Of course, if I wanted to, I could use Kobo’s price matching, but this seemed a strange development. Kodansha’s last sale was supported on Kobo, and they are currently participants in Kobo Plus (That there could be the culprit). I wonder what could be going on.

Does price match work if the item is being sold for $0 on another site? I don’t see why not, but I’d rather not lose $7 per manga to find out. Also, is there a limit to how many items you can price match?

[Cootey]

A week later and this still bothers me. I must be the only manga reader in this forum who actually buys manga.

I wonder, though. How does Kobo handle price matching when the item costs $0 on another service? With the added 10% on an $8 item, they’d owe me 80¢! (J/k. 10% of zero is zero)

What I really wonder is if it’s fair to do that to Kobo if Kodansha can’t be bothered to offer the sale on this platform. Kobo would have to write off $8 or so per comic that I show is free elsewhere.

[Aleron Ives]

The price match guarantee TOS doesn't mention an exclusion for free items, so it sounds like you could price match them, at least in theory.

[Haesslich]

Wasn't the Kodansha sale three weeks ago? That's when I bought mine.

[Cootey]

Originally Posted by Haesslich

Wasn't the Kodansha sale three weeks ago? That's when I bought mine.

They had a big one a few weeks ago for sure, but then they started a new one. They have sales monthly. I’ve never seen them exclude Kobo before. I’m betting somebody dropped the ball.

[Cootey]

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

The price match guarantee TOS doesn't mention an exclusion for free items, so it sounds like you could price match them, at least in theory.

You’re right. I checked, too. But dropping $60 on a bunch of titles to get $60 in credit doesn’t sound like a good plan for me at this time. And there’s that nagging doubt that they’d match it. LOL. I’d probably check with their CS chat before pulling the trigger.

[Cootey]

Kodansha’s latest sale is not active on Kobo as well. Ends May 1st, I believe. https://kodansha.us/2023/04/25/get-c...vol-1-for-99¢/ It’s not a good trend.

The sale is a spotlight on Clamp comics. Most are 50% off. Although, Kobo is listed as one of the participants, it is not. Curiously, Amazon’s Kindle isn’t listed as a participant.

I do notice that, as usual, Bookwalker and Nook have nice landing pages for the sale. Like Kobo, Google Play doesn’t offer a landing page. I wish Kobo would allow us to search by publisher, or list by publisher, on their website. It would be nice to see similar landing pages as Bookwalker and Nook, too.