Kobo Discounts: Coupon Codes + Discussion

[Blue2u]

Doesn't this new twist basically eliminate published books from having a contest code applied?

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by Blue2u

Doesn't this new twist basically eliminate published books from having a contest code applied?

By published books, I assume you mean traditional commercial publishers. They weren't supposed to work with those books and it does appear that the loophole has been trimmed significantly, if not completely shut down.

There are some smaller commercial publishers and the coupons do work with those (Samhain, Gemma Halliday imprints, Carina Press--I just checked a book from them this morning, and a bunch of others.) But the majors required "travel" and that option does not appear viable any longer.

I think you can reverse travel--you can travel to the US, UK and Canada where the contest specifically says the coupons work.

Others have posted that there are country-specific coupons at time (Japan comes to mind. And I think Russia also had codes that worked).

And the 40 percent off code is good in all countries so far.

[ShimSham]

The highest code I have managed to obtain from the contest so far, was 35%. So I just used SAV50 to purchase the 5 books, that I wanted, in India.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by issybird

I think it's exactly opposite. To change metaphors, it's the contestants who killed the goose that laid the golden egg.

Let me be clear; I'm not pointing the finger at anyone, because I happily and greedily sought and used the high codes myself. But the contests became grossly abused, with people generating hundreds of codes to the point where anything under 65% was largely disdained. So the distribution of discounts went kerflooey compared to the tables and it didn't even work as a marketing tool, as fake emails were the agent.

The contests as they were had become a losing strategy for Kobo. I think all they can do now, and what they're trying to do here, is rein in people's expectations to a much more reasonable level regarding how often they can expect discounts and how good those discounts will be. But it'll be a rough adjustment on both parts; Kobo's sales will undoubtedly be down in the immediate term and customers will feel cheated when they're expected to pay close to list for a book.

The good times had to end. It wasn't sustainable. It hasn't happened yet, but I expect one day they'll start enforcing geographic restrictions and verifying IP locations and credit card addresses. In the end, I'll miss the ability to buy books not sold in the USA more than I'll miss the discounts.

Very true. I assume Kobo would be the one paying for the discounts, so this couldn't last. It was a matter of time before Kobo would kill off the easily obtainable, usable everywhere 75%+ codes, and indeed, they'll probably start to reinforce georestrictions later on. i might even lose or become unable to use my US account, which is based on a US relative's address. That's no problem for the books I already have, because they are un-DRM-ed, in Calibre, and backed up.

When cutting down on contests, and enforcing georestrictions, Amazon.com will suddenly become cheaper than Kobo Netherlands.

[rjcchan]

Originally Posted by Mura35

Paypal works for sure. And not only when I did virtual travelling. It worked while I was - physically - in Moscow. I don't see why credit cards shouldn't.


I got a 35% off and my daughter 30% off today.

i keep getting : 500 Internal Server Error. tried 2 cards both of which have worked before ..two computers (mac and windows) and an iPad..and five different browsers ...and all I want to do is spend my last 20 rupees and "go home" for good

[shunter]

Originally Posted by issybird

I think it's exactly opposite. To change metaphors, it's the contestants who killed the goose that laid the golden egg.

The contests as they were had become a losing strategy for Kobo. I think all they can do now, and what they're trying to do here, is rein in people's expectations to a much more reasonable level regarding how often they can expect discounts and how good those discounts will be. But it'll be a rough adjustment on both parts; Kobo's sales will undoubtedly be down in the immediate term and customers will feel cheated when they're expected to pay close to list for a book.

No, I cannot buy your arguments. The numbers do not add up; the evidence shows that Kobo is running scared and they may be taking a cautious approach due to the end of agency pricing. Kobo over the last four years has undergone phenomenal growth. The number of Kobo registered users as of June 2014 is up (+38.8% YoY) to 20.9 millions of persons (compared to 2010 at 3.5). And Kobo’s global content revenue: +32.9% YoY in Q2. The number of 75% and less coupons used over the last few years is really trivial compared to Kobo's growth. I cannot see how hundreds of 75% off coupons will effect their bottom line when their growth is in the millions of users. The numbers don't add up; millions of transactions vs 100's with coupons.

I hope this months contest is a bad experiment, and we get a better one next month.

Sources: http://global.rakuten.com/corp/inves...ments/results/
http://business.financialpost.com/20..._lsa=699d-dd36

Best,
Shunter

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by shunter

No, I cannot buy your arguments. The numbers do not add up; the evidence shows that Kobo is running scared and they may be taking a cautious approach due to the end of agency pricing. Kobo over the last four years has undergone phenomenal growth. The number of Kobo registered users as of June 2014 is up (+38.8% YoY) to 20.9 millions of persons (compared to 2010 at 3.5). And Kobo’s global content revenue: +32.9% YoY in Q2. The number of 75% and less coupons used over the last few years is really trivial compared to Kobo's growth. I cannot see how hundreds of 75% off coupons will effect their bottom line when their growth is in the millions of users. The numbers don't add up; millions of transactions vs 100's with coupons.

I hope this months contest is a bad experiment, and we get a better one next month.

Sources: http://global.rakuten.com/corp/inves...ments/results/
http://business.financialpost.com/20..._lsa=699d-dd36

Best,
Shunter

It doesn't matter. If Kobo sees that people are 'traveling' to other countries to get their books cheaper, they will put a stop to that at some point, even if they are still making a profit, because if they don't, they are going to get into problems with the publishers.

Likewise, if they see that thousands of people are abusing the contests (in conjunction with traveling) to get books nearly for free (I admit, I did this too, completing my Forgotten Realms collection ASAP), they will try to stop that as well.

That their gains are bigger than the losses is not a reason to keep the losses going.

Maybe, just maybe, they ran those contents in the past the way they did just to generate publicity and to attract people. Nearly giving away a few thousand books a month would be a lot cheaper than advertising.

[beautifulsoup]

Cool! I just won a Kobo mini in the contest! Woohoo! Went in exactly at midnight, EST

(Weird, though - the promo for the contest specifically mentions the Kobo Touch. But that's okay; I like the mini better. )

[indyglow]

Congratulations beautifulsoup!

[BuyMore]

Originally Posted by beautifulsoup

Cool! I just won a Kobo mini in the contest! Woohoo! Went in exactly at midnight, EST

(Weird, though - the promo for the contest specifically mentions the Kobo Touch. But that's okay; I like the mini better. )

Wow. Congrats!

[library addict]

Congrats, beautifulsoup. It's a nice little device and so portable.

[peachiekene]

Originally Posted by beautifulsoup

Cool! I just won a Kobo mini in the contest! Woohoo! Went in exactly at midnight, EST

(Weird, though - the promo for the contest specifically mentions the Kobo Touch. But that's okay; I like the mini better. )

Congrats!!

But....
It's the Touch. I think they've never bothered to update the "You've won an ereader" graphic.
The exact thing happened when I won back in March.

[Anak]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

When cutting down on contests, and enforcing georestrictions, Amazon.com will suddenly become cheaper than Kobo Netherlands.

And don't forget if Kobo stops discounting, many Dutch readers will buy their books at Bol.com because the vast majority of books are protected with social DRM in stead of Adobes ADEPT(actually all other book vendors offer social DRM, Kobo is the only exception). Without a discount there is hardy any benefit to buy books at Kobo.

Or, if you search of browse for books, or look for release information of books to be released in the coming 6-12 months you probably won't find it or as easily as on any other book vendor site.

I'm active on a few general, non-technical book forums in The Netherlands (this includes Belgium Flanders) and Germany.
An overwhelming majority prefers social DRM above any other form of DRM. If there is no price difference they will buy books at the store that offers social DRM.

And why is it that general discount coupons are only offered to Anglo-Saxon countries and Japan?
I've never seen a general discount coupon or special occasion discount coupon (like 4th of July in the US) specific targetting other countries.
There are many "special occasions" to choose from:
German: German Unity Day
Netherlands: Kings Day
Belgium: Belgian National Day

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Anak

And don't forget if Kobo stops discounting, many Dutch readers will buy their books at Bol.com because the vast majority of books are protected with social DRM in stead of Adobes ADEPT(actually all other book vendors offer social DRM, Kobo is the only exception). Without a discount there is hardy any benefit to buy books at Kobo.

Even without discounts, Kobo is often cheaper than Bol.com. Most of the time it is like this, for a 'standard fantasy paperback' of around 300 pages:

Bol.com: € 7,99
Kobo NL: € 6,99
Kobo US: $ 6,59 (€ 4,95)

I'd miss shopping in the US more than the discount codes, to be honest. Often, getting the books through my US account (or more accurately, my relative's US account) saves me 30%+, because the prices are lower, and in Dollars too.

By the way: the social DRM, such as the base64 image, can be ripped out easily using some regular expressions in Calibre's ebook editor.

Or, if you search of browse for books, or look for release information of books to be released in the coming 6-12 months you probably won't find it or as easily as on any other book vendor site.

I never had any problems finding books on the Kobo website.

I'm active on a few general, non-technical book forums in The Netherlands (this includes Belgium Flanders) and Germany.
An overwhelming majority prefers social DRM above any other form of DRM. If there is no price difference they will buy books at the store that offers social DRM.

Obviously, as it offers you to convert books (and edit, if you really want to) without resorting to de-DRM-tools which may, or may not be updated to remove new versions of the DRM-schemes.

I did see, however, that if you convert a book using social DRM from EPUB to AZW3, the Kindle will display a [?] on every page on which the base64 image is encoded.

[Anak]

@Katsunami

Okay, you are talking about books published in English, newly released Dutch language books are priced at SRP as on every other site.
You should never buy a English book (or any other foreign language) at a Dutch store directly. I've seen numerous of these books sold for €12-15, while you could buy them for much less at Amazon, Kobo CA/USA/UK/AU, etc. for about US$4-8. Especially, mass paperbacks can almost always be bought much cheaper in territories where the book is officially released.
However at checkout Kobo doesn't always charge i.e. €6,99 but ocassionally charges €7. Seen it happen many times, not always though.
I'll bet you won't find any info about books (published in Dutch) that are going to be released somewhere in October-November-December 2014 or in the first half of 2015 on the Kobo website. Let alone, also can be preordered.
It is easy to strip DRM but I was not advocating illigal behaviour. Converting books to another format always needs some additional tweaking.