Breaking News: Kindle Store Live at Amazon.ca!

[K. Molen]

Originally Posted by HarryT

To the best of my knowledge, video and "active content" has always been limited to the US. It wasn't available to Canadian users shopping at "amazon.com", was it?

I don't know about video, but I've bought lots of "active content" on amazon.com and my account is fully Canadian.

[Evan Crisp]

I read The Calendar Begins (A 12-21-12 Novella) by T. Lee Cook. It is a much more reasonable price than the others. It was awesome! I believe the date in the title is a bit misleading because the only time it is that date is the beginning when an end of the world party takes place. It is great. I'm looking for other titles by this author??

[HomeInMyShoes]

Well I transfered to Amazon.ca. I've only got the K3 and not a lot of content. We'll see how it goes when I turn the Wi-Fi on to get my first purchase soon. Probably in a few days. I usually only turn my Wi-Fi on when I need to get something to read that I've purchased.

[Pookeysgirl]

Originally Posted by HomeInMyShoes

Well I transfered to Amazon.ca. I've only got the K3 and not a lot of content. We'll see how it goes when I turn the Wi-Fi on to get my first purchase soon. Probably in a few days. I usually only turn my Wi-Fi on when I need to get something to read that I've purchased.

It worked exactly the same way after I switched. Haven't had any issues so far buying directly from the device.

[HomeInMyShoes]

^I've never bought from the device itself. I'm always trawling my reading lists far in advance and I have a TBR of about ten to fifteen books on the Kindle when in a pinch for what to read next.

So far everything seems the same and I like actually searching and finding available things and not having the price change when I follow the link or the not available to residents outside the US message. Bye bye Amazon.com.

[K. Molen]

I'm still with .com but I've been thinking about switching to .ca, but I'm not convinced it's the smart thing to do.

Does anyone know of a large scale comparison? I've done a few pricing spot checks on maybe a dozen titles, and it's pretty inconclusive which is cheaper. Sometimes .com is, sometimes .ca is.

There would need to be a larger sample done to properly answer the question, and I'm not really up for doing that. Maybe someone, somewhere have been though.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by K. Molen

Does anyone know of a large scale price comparison? I've done a few spot checks on maybe a dozen titles, and it's pretty inconclusive which is cheaper. Sometimes .com is, sometimes .ca is.

And that's the way it will probably be. It certainly is when you compare amazon.com with amazon.co.uk. There's really no reason to expect a consistent difference once way or the other.

Won't you save money, though, by not having to pay the currency conversion fees on your credit card through paying in Canadian rather than US dollars?

[K. Molen]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Won't you save money, though, by not having to pay the currency conversion fees on your credit card through paying in Canadian rather than US dollars?

I've got large gift card balances on both the U.S. and Canadian sites, so that's not much of a concern for me. I doubt I'll have to pay out-of-pocket for a book this decade, regardless of which site I buy the books from.

[xendula]

Originally Posted by K. Molen

I'm still with .com but I've been thinking about switching to .ca, but I'm not convinced it's the smart thing to do.

Does anyone know of a large scale comparison? I've done a few pricing spot checks on maybe a dozen titles, and it's pretty inconclusive which is cheaper. Sometimes .com is, sometimes .ca is.

There would need to be a larger sample done to properly answer the question, and I'm not really up for doing that. Maybe someone, somewhere have been though.

Luzme.com compares prices across different stores and diffent countries.
Example

[HomeInMyShoes]

Originally Posted by HarryT

And that's the way it will probably be. It certainly is when you compare amazon.com with amazon.co.uk. There's really no reason to expect a consistent difference once way or the other.

Won't you save money, though, by not having to pay the currency conversion fees on your credit card through paying in Canadian rather than US dollars?

$1.00 = 1.01US right now. It's been pretty even for the last few years with the Canadian dollar dipping to the 0.90 range every now and then.

With the switch to Amazon.ca, I will now be paying tax on my books when I wasn't before which for me is 10% (5% provincal and 5% federal.) Taxing books is one of the most assinine things Canada taxes. Tax literacy, way to go.

I based my decision on a few things, but mainly that I was tired of clicking on titles only to have the price change or for it to say not available outside the US. There were something like 200,000 books published in Canada and the United States last year. Add in the United Kingdom and I've got a huge supply of potential titles to find something to read from. I finally went down the Amazon.ca path based on looking at my readin list for this year which is as good a random sample as any for me and found three titles availabe on Amazon.com and not on Amazon.ca. Prices were for the most part way better than 10% better at Amazon.ca except for a couple of exceptions (Terry Pratchett at about the same price was one.) All of those titles I couldn't find were available at Chapters (except a couple which aren't available anywhere, but I expected that.)

More random comparisons for ca / com
Postcards (Proulx) 16.99 / 20.19
Joy Luck Club (Tan) 13.99 / 16.63
The Loser (Thomas) 13.99 / 16.33
Inmates are Running... (Cooper) 10.77 / 10.91
Anansi Boys (Gaiman) 8.99 / 10.40

Overall, it seems like I can buy twelve and get one free by shopping on .ca. Given that the vast majority of what I read is modern/literary fiction and then mainstream Fantasy and Science Fiction the prices work better for me. I made very few Amazon.com e-book purchases due to prices being way past $15 in most cases.

Right now sales are not as good on Canada's site. The monthly deals only has 50 titles instead of 100 for the US site, but the titles I almost always saw on the US one were not saled in Canada anyway.

[K. Molen]

HomeInMyShoes, thanks for walking us through your thought process. I appreciate it, and you've definitely made me more likely to switch. Next time I buy a book from Amazon I'll probably take the leap.

[HomeInMyShoes]

^You are welcome. I can also add that at least I know my taxes are going to my province and country and not some faceless beaurocracy...oh, wait a minute.