Aura HD Ouch! Kobo ebook prices!

[Pierre Menard]

Originally Posted by BrodieKobo

Could you share some examples of ebooks where you're seeing this large discrepancy?

I can give an example I came across just today. Got my NYT Book Review email, saw a book that looked interesting: Dirty Old London: The Victorian Fight Against Filth. OK, let's look at purchasing that...

Amazon: $19.99
B&N: $22.99
Kobo: $32.29 !!

I can resign myself to paying slightly more at times for some things I personally value: for the epub format, for the convenience of having my collection (mostly) coming from one place so I don't have to search around to figure out where I bought something if I need to re-download, and to not have to deal with B&N screwing around with my ability to direct download books to my computer. But not THAT much. Without coupons, I doubt I would be buying from Kobo at all.

I'm not sure a 3-for-2 promo is something that would ever be of much use to me even if I had a fully open choice for selections and not just that tiny list.

[MacEachaidh]

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

@MacEachaidh what publishers were the books that disappeared, can you remember?

Heya lynx-lynx, to be honest, no I can't. I didn't save a previous version of the sheet (foolishly!), so now where there are blank cell for Kobo prices I can't be sure if they were always blank or if I deleted their entries in my last sweep.

With rare exceptions, I'm not sure that I even notice who the publishers are on a regular basis anyway.

[Jaden]

Originally Posted by BrodieKobo

@ Jaden - you're right about German books not being discountable. Wish I could help out there, but as you know it's beyond our control

I'll look into how many English books we sell in Germany. Maybe I can talk our merchandisers into 'testing' an English book offer, but may need your help convincing, lol.

Yeah, well, it's a bit of a bother that German books can't be discounted but we are used to it. Already used to be like that since I was a child.

I don't know how many English books are sold in Germany. But at least it seems enough for Amazon to offer English book deals (used to be daily, now they are monthly deals, I think). And lots of books aren't available in German at all and more and more people are learning English. It's international.

It would be nice if at least the contest codes would be good in Germany (again). I used to buy a lot of books with codes that generous people gave away. But without a discount almost all of the books I'd like to buy cost more than they would on Amazon Germany.

And, hey, even if not many people from Germany will buy English books from Kobo (or books in other languages that could be discounted), it's always good for marketing. Might not sell many more foreign books but might make people think "wow, great offers". And who knows? They might buy more German books just because of that...

[jiminrussell]

Originally Posted by Pierre Menard

I can give an example I came across just today. Got my NYT Book Review email, saw a book that looked interesting: Dirty Old London: The Victorian Fight Against Filth. OK, let's look at purchasing that...

Amazon: $19.99
B&N: $22.99
Kobo: $32.29 !!

Snip ...

Even worse for me, the price on Kobo's Canada site shows up as $33.69 though I can use perkopolis coupon code to drop the price to $22.84 so cheaper than B&N but still more expensive than Amazon. I haven't looked much at non fiction and though the prices do tend to be higher even for fiction, as long as the book is couponable I find the final price is better at kobo for fiction, but then most books are not couponable unfortunately, so it pays to comparison shop before you buy.

A bit more digging and the price on Amazon.ca is $22.86 so for me buying at kobo would save me 2 cents.

[doubleshuffle]

Originally Posted by BrodieKobo

@ Jaden - you're right about German books not being discountable. Wish I could help out there, but as you know it's beyond our control

I'll look into how many English books we sell in Germany. Maybe I can talk our merchandisers into 'testing' an English book offer, but may need your help convincing, lol.

I'm also German and buy almost exclusively books in English. Discounts used to work for non-German books from the German Kobo store until a few months ago. It would be really nice if you could make them work again.

[samhy]

Originally Posted by Jaden

And how about contests and coupon codes for Germany as well if that is possible?

I know that German books for the German market are not couponable, but books from other countries are (for example books from the US, UK or Canada). And we'd also like to be able to win eReaders.

Originally Posted by BrodieKobo

@ Jaden - you're right about German books not being discountable. Wish I could help out there, but as you know it's beyond our control

I'll look into how many English books we sell in Germany. Maybe I can talk our merchandisers into 'testing' an English book offer, but may need your help convincing, lol.

Originally Posted by Jaden

Yeah, well, it's a bit of a bother that German books can't be discounted but we are used to it. Already used to be like that since I was a child.

I don't know how many English books are sold in Germany. But at least it seems enough for Amazon to offer English book deals (used to be daily, now they are monthly deals, I think). And lots of books aren't available in German at all and more and more people are learning English. It's international.

It would be nice if at least the contest codes would be good in Germany (again). I used to buy a lot of books with codes that generous people gave away. But without a discount almost all of the books I'd like to buy cost more than they would on Amazon Germany.

And, hey, even if not many people from Germany will buy English books from Kobo (or books in other languages that could be discounted), it's always good for marketing. Might not sell many more foreign books but might make people think "wow, great offers". And who knows? They might buy more German books just because of that...

Jaden I agree with you. Just replace Germany by France and here are my thoughts. BrodieKobo, thank you for your input.

[Lynx-lynx]

@Brodie as you can hear there are people from many countries who would like official access to the (usually) monthly Kobo Contest.

In the meantime it would sort matters out by allowing for the discount codes that are won in the Contests to be used in any Kobo store (on books that can be discounted).

How achievable is that do you think?

I might add that it was the case that codes won in the Contests could be used on discountable books in any country, but that stopped a couple of months ago now. So it shouldn't be hard to reinstate.

Re English language books being not being sold in non English speaking countries, I don't see the logic in that because a great number of European countries have English as their second language and it is taught at school from 5 or so years of age onwards. For example, Denmark, Norway etc etc.

It's also not a problem for Kobo because you already have the English language books in stock and on offer in English speaking countries, so the inventory isn't an issue. What happens for me in the Kobo Aus store is that I often see the same book in non-English languages, and I just choose English.

Anyway some more thoughts for you.

[Crusader]

Originally Posted by BrodieKobo

RE: Contests, I'll look into that and see what's up, but I agree we need to get better at making our contests open to as many countries as possible.

I'd say that should be a top priority. Over here in South Africa the discount codes have been a big draw in converting people over to Kobo, but they've been seriously scarce over the last couple of months. Last ebook I bought was in July.

Even if you only give out coupons and not physical prizes to other countries it would be great.

[chrisridd]

It's pretty easy to find cases where Kobo is significantly more expensive than Amazon, Google, and most other sellers in the UK. Some examples (mostly science fiction from the big publishers) are below.

In fact it is hard to find cases where Kobo is *cheaper* :-( Your coupons never apply to these books, and your base prices are way too high.

e.g. "The Abyss Beyond Dreams: A Novel of the Commonwealth" - Peter F. Hamilton is £7.59 from Google, £7.99 from Apple, and £10.43 from Kobo.

e.g. "The Long Mars:" - Terry Pratchett is £6.64 from Google, and £9.99 from Kobo and most other stores.

e.g. "No Angel : The Secret Life of Bernie Ecclestone" - Tom Bower is £4.19 from Google, £4.99 from Apple, and £6.11 from Kobo.

[paola]

Originally Posted by chrisridd

It's pretty easy to find cases where Kobo is significantly more expensive than Amazon, Google, and most other sellers in the UK. Some examples (mostly science fiction from the big publishers) are below.

In fact it is hard to find cases where Kobo is *cheaper* :-( Your coupons never apply to these books, and your base prices are way too high.

e.g. "The Abyss Beyond Dreams: A Novel of the Commonwealth" - Peter F. Hamilton is £7.59 from Google, £7.99 from Apple, and £10.43 from Kobo.

e.g. "The Long Mars:" - Terry Pratchett is £6.64 from Google, and £9.99 from Kobo and most other stores.

e.g. "No Angel : The Secret Life of Bernie Ecclestone" - Tom Bower is £4.19 from Google, £4.99 from Apple, and £6.11 from Kobo.

Let me add "HIP pressure cooking", by Laura Pazzaglia, St Martin press, £16.79 on Kobo, £9.49 amazon, £13.28 google, £9.99 apple ibooks.

Pity, as I like the convenience of downloading straight onto my Kobo, but with this price differences, you pushing me towards Amazon just around Xmas time, when I may ask Santa for a kindle!

[Lynx-lynx]

Hi Paola, you don"t happen to know the discount situation in Italy do you, and also the book prices?

[tempest@de]

I’m joining the quest to ask for coupon codes to be available to other countries, I’m in Portugal and I can’t use the coupon codes in any books and the price difference is great to, here is an example
Ken Follett’s the edge of eternity
amazon uk (since we don’t have an amazon store in Portugal) 7.19£ (about 9 €)
in a Portuguese ebook store - 16,63 €.
on kobo - 26,80 €
and the Portuguese edition is 23,99 €, even less then the English edition, this to me doesn’t make sense since usually the Portuguese editions are expensive than the original.

[MacEachaidh]

OK, the thread seems to have been split into two now. Shouldn't the posts about coupons and promos (which I also would like access to, from Australia) really be in their own thread?

In the meantime: Brodie, have you had any thoughts about the issue of prices, and the examples I gave?

[Lynx-lynx]

What if the thread title was amended, and '+ coupons + Contests' was added?

[murg]

Originally Posted by MacEachaidh

OK, the thread seems to have been split into two now. Shouldn't the posts about coupons and promos (which I also would like access to, from Australia) really be in their own thread?

Nope. The coupons and promos are related to the price discussion, as those activities affect the price of the books, which are generally over-priced to being with.