Kobo Discounts: Coupon Codes + Discussion

[bgalbrecht]

I took their most recent survey just so I could tell them that I find their select ebook coupons and deals to be worthless because they never have books I want to buy.

[Blue2u]

Originally Posted by murg

Unless you're lucky enough to get a 'we miss you' code that works...

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by peterwardgd

hi everyone, I've not been on the kobo code thread for a while is there much happening code wise or have i missed much recently regards competitions or (and i might regret asking) any 90% unlimited codes been and gone? ta

I think the last all-books multi-use code was 50% at the end of January. They have had two big super points bonus days though, one in Febuary gave 5000 extra points for spending $50, and one in March was a 5x bonus day ( = 1000 points per $10 spent for VIP members.)

With my current wishlist containing mainly non-discountable books i'd rather have another 5x bonus day than a 50% multi-use code at the moment.

[peterwardgd]

Cool, thanks everyone. Glad that i haven't missed anything (while obviously at the same time equally sorry for others that nothings doing!) Also a little sad that kobo seem to have turned off the goodtime tap. hmm, here's hoping for a little give from them near future as im buying again.

[Amaryllis]

I'd be very curious to see their sales numbers from with coupons, to the last couple of months without. Certainly it seems as though the consensus in this thread is that the majority of us have curtailed our buying without the coupons. I would love to know if it has affected their bottom line. I'd like to see the statistics not just in terms of $$, but I'd like to see the stats on actual # of books sold.

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by Amaryllis

I'd be very curious to see their sales numbers from with coupons, to the last couple of months without. Certainly it seems as though the consensus in this thread is that the majority of us have curtailed our buying without the coupons. I would love to know if it has affected their bottom line. I'd like to see the statistics not just in terms of $$, but I'd like to see the stats on actual # of books sold.

I suspect that contributors to this forum are outliers who buy a lot more ebooks than the average Kobo customer. If they tend to binge purchase heavily discounted ebooks, and Kobo cuts back on the sales, the loss of the outliers' business could be saving Kobo money. If the outliers spend an average of $X monthly on books, and they're waiting for sales that never come, presumably they'll just start buying again and just buy fewer books from Kobo for that same $X monthly, at a higher profit margin than before. On the other hand, if Kobo is pricing higher than the competition, and the buyers find price matching to be a pain, the outliers may just leave and not come back.

[disconnected]

I used to only buy from Kobo if the price was appreciably less than Amazon -- which usually meant only when I could use a good coupon. I bought all my agency books from Amazon.

Then Kobo introduced their point system. I joined the VIP version when it was discountable and had a free book that I wanted, making it effectively free to join. Now I buy all my agency titles at Kobo to get the points and for non-agency books I buy from Kobo unless the VIP price is appreciably more than Amazon's price. I've also taken advantage of one or two promotions when I got five times the basic number of points. My default is now Kobo rather than Amazon.

[BearMountainBooks]

I think the VIP route is the best way to go with Kobo for agency books. I was very disgruntled about the whole program when it started, but it seems to be working out for readers for the most part. From a sales standpoint, I don't see much difference with the coupon changes that have occurred. My books always sell better during the coupon events, but it almost doesn't matter whether they were trivia contest coupons or other coupons. I'd like them to do a few more "broad" coupon sales because that was always another opportunity during a given month to get a boost in sales, but I don't think this has harmed their overall sales pictures (and has probably helped profit since they plugged a number of holes).

[lkmiller]

The VIP program has been worth it for me. I've earned enough to buy a few books on points. If the price is slightly higher, I get a price match. If it's a lot higher, then I just buy it elsewhere. But I still get most of my books from Kobo.

[Lynx-lynx]

Originally Posted by bgalbrecht

I suspect that contributors to this forum are outliers who buy a lot more ebooks than the average Kobo customer. If they tend to binge purchase heavily discounted ebooks, and Kobo cuts back on the sales, the loss of the outliers' business could be saving Kobo money. If the outliers spend an average of $X monthly on books, and they're waiting for sales that never come, presumably they'll just start buying again and just buy fewer books from Kobo for that same $X monthly, at a higher profit margin than before. On the other hand, if Kobo is pricing higher than the competition, and the buyers find price matching to be a pain, the outliers may just leave and not come back.

Yep, I'm in that category. I reckon that, for me, I don't want to buy around 5 full priced books in order to get 1 full priced book using points.

Nor do I want to pay more for the same book at Kobo that I could have paid at Amazon and then try and get Customer Service to acknowledge price matching. I've found that Cust Service works as it should about 75% of the time, and I'm just not interested in the risk of them not acknowledging the price match or the hassle of trying to get them to respond and understand the matter.

Nor am I interested in having the price match difference sitting in my account 'waiting' for me to use. I just want to buy the book at the cheapest price without having to expend extra effort.

[bgalbrecht]

I still get most of my ebooks from B&N because I have a B&N reader and I use credit card cash rewards to get a 10% discount there. If Kobo would just start selling gift cards in the US (and sign up at my credit card companies), I would probably switch, especially since their VIP program works on agency books.

[ottdmk]

Kobo Canada has a buy 2/get 3 sale on. Limited selection, as usual, but there's some stuff there I wish I could pick up (I'm short on cash.) Always meant to get into Katherine Kurtz' Deryni stuff...

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by ottdmk

Kobo Canada has a buy 2/get 3 sale on. Limited selection, as usual, but there's some stuff there I wish I could pick up (I'm short on cash.) Always meant to get into Katherine Kurtz' Deryni stuff...

FWIW, I liked the Deryni stuff a lot! Good stuff.

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

FWIW, I liked the Deryni stuff a lot! Good stuff.

I have to reread it in English, I have some of the books in Spanish.

[zelda.owns.link]

Someone in here had posted about a plugin for Calibre that splits ebook packages into the individual books. Would you be so kind as to inbox me with what to do?