Which online bookstore has lowest prices for ebooks?

[Canuck_in_Japan]

I find that Amazon usually has lower prices but not always and I can usually beat those prices on the Kobo website by using discount coupons.

[xendula]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

It isn't Amazon, it is the usurious rates that telcos charge for mobile data 'international roaming' - like their bandwidth is made of platinum.

Yes, but Amazon would not charge for the delivery if 3G is not used, so what are they charging for?

[xendula]

Originally Posted by Canuck_in_Japan

I find that Amazon usually has lower prices but not always and I can usually beat those prices on the Kobo website by using discount coupons.

Where do you get the coupon codes from, how high are the discounts usually, and how many can you use per day/month/week?

[Cdesja5]

Codes are listed and updated in the Deals, Freebies and Resources "Kobo" thread. It's very active! Members receive codes by email and share the info on this thread. Some can be used only once, but in some cases changing the suffix ie: using au instead of ca etc. will allow you to get multiple discounts with the "same" coupon code. It's pretty well explained in the thread. Discounts of 30-35% are pretty frequent.

***There's some really good discounts today for Cyber Monday. See this post by Apesmom for details:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...72&postcount=1

[Purple Lady]

Kobo is having a great sale today only - see thread in Deals, Freebies, and Resources. There are good things in other threads there too.

Kobo Cyber Monday e-book sale 24 hours only!!

Kobo Cyber Monday Sale starts at midnight. 24 hours only!

80% off on Open Road titles - use code 80Cyber for 80% off.

50% off on various non-agency titles - use code 50Cyber for 50% off.

[xendula]

Thank you, cdesja5 and purrrrrrrpl lady

[Yapyap]

Originally Posted by xendula

How do they justify charging you an extra $2 per book? What do they call the extra charge? And to tie this conversation in with the topic at hand:some kindle books are cheaper in other countries.

BTW, yapyap, we read many of the same books this year

They don't call it anything. As far as I know, they've always completely refused to say what the surcharge is for. It's just there, when you don't live in one of the handful of countries that doesn't have it (all the major English-language countries by now, i.e. Canada and Australia haven't had it for a couple of years now + everyone that has their own Kindle storefront, I think).

And cool.

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

It isn't Amazon, it is the usurious rates that telcos charge for mobile data 'international roaming' - like their bandwidth is made of platinum.

See, if it had anything to do with my 3G usage, I wouldn't complain. As it is, it looks like the most likely explanation is that everyone outside Amazon's important markets gets to pay for the international "free" 3G usage of the customers in Amazon's important countries regardless of whether they have a 3G capable Kindle or not (or whether they have a Kindle at all). The surcharge is always there, included in the book price on the book page, and has nothing to do with what device I'm sending it to or how I'm buying/downloading it.

(It's the most obvious with books self-published via Amazon's KDP as trad-pubbed book prices can vary across different regions for other reasons, but when all self-pubbed books that the author has set at $0.99 cost $3.44 for me ($0.99+$2+15% VAT) and books set at $2.99 cost $5.74 for me ($2.99+$2+15% VAT) and books set at $4.99 cost $8.04 ($4.99+$2+15% VAT), it's pretty clear and usually comes as a surprise to the authors who have no idea their "very very cheap" books cost considerably more for potential customers in most countries.)

Anyway, Amazon is free to add whatever extra charges they can think of to book prices for international customers, of course, but it does mean that when I'm being honest about where I live, Amazon is practically always the most expensive shop for me and often by a considerable margin - e.g. the average trad-pubbed "genre" book that costs $7.99 for Americans tends to cost $5.76 for my Austrian friend on Amazon, $11.03 for me on Amazon and around $5.60-$5.80 for me on BooksOnBoard, depending on what their current general discounts are, and if there's a 40% off Kobo coupon around, can be had for a bit less than that there.

Anyway, yes - the Deals, Freebies etc forum here is a good place to keep up with Kobo coupons and BooksOnBoard sales, which are both excellent ways to keep costs down. Especially when you live in a country where Agency pricing does not apply so that all the books are discountable, including all those by major publishers. They're still good but probably a bit less useful still for now for people in the US and other countries where most of the big six publishers still get to set fixed prices.

[jbcohen]

Like other things in life I think the answer is that it really depends on what you are buying. I have done some comparison shopping and I have found the results to be all over the map with no one store being the lowest for everything. I think that a savvy customer needs to comparison shop before buying anything and buy from the lowest cost store. That's why I have bought a second ereader, a Simple Touch to go with my Kindle, this way I have the best of both worlds and can comparison shop among the two stores. However I had considered buying a Kobo Glo as well but in the end decided to go with the Simple Touch.