More disappointment with Waterstones - Page 3

Satans Puppet · 04-09-2009, 09:07 AM

Can you buy vouchers directly from the site or do you have to install the software? just wondering before I send my mate around the houses... can't view the site at work and no interweb at home at the moment

PieOPah · 04-09-2009, 09:11 AM

I think you can only buy vouchers with an American Registerd Card. This is why some people will buy the vouchers for you and you pay them through Paypal. Not done this myself, only know this from what I have read...

Satans Puppet · 04-09-2009, 09:13 AM

My mate has a US credit card as he lived there for a while and still has it

But he probably wouldn't go through the effort of downloading the stuff just to buy vouchers..

pilotbob · 04-09-2009, 10:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Satans Puppet

My mate has a US credit card as he lived there for a while and still has it

But he probably wouldn't go through the effort of downloading the stuff just to buy vouchers..

You can only buy stuff from the Sony ebook store via the software. This includes the gift cards. Sorry, he will have to d/l and install it.

BOb

Tracey · 04-09-2009, 10:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Satans Puppet

is there anyway to get onto the US Sony Connect? My mate has a US Credit card so could in theory buy me some vouchers to use.

Hi Satans Puppet,

Just to clarify, you will need to load the software for the US site on a different PC or laptop to that which Waterstones is loaded on; you cannot have both on one machine.

Leaping Gnome, a fellow Mobile Read member, will kindly buy vouchers for UK users if you pay him by Paypal. He very generously does this as a courtesy and only asks for the Paypal fee he incurs in addition to the voucher value.

Kind regards,

Tracey

Satans Puppet · 04-09-2009, 02:00 PM

I shall almost certainly be catching said gnome for funding, the us Sony store has so much more and they have the anita Blake books! And the southern vampire tales!! Awesome!!

amjbrown · 04-15-2009, 06:39 PM

Well, as expected Waterstones quoted the t&cs, which as other readers have pointed out are clear. However, I want to know why the t&cs were as they were, so I asked

Quote:

Dear [xxx],

Many thanks for you your response.

Could I please ask why eBooks are excluded from such promotions? eBooks remain consistently overpriced at waterstones.com relative to their paperback counterparts, I am starting to think that Waterstones are pushing the Sony eReader inappropriately hard given the poor offering following a hardware sale.

All the books I have purchased since buying my reader have been expensive compared to the same paperbacks in the Waterstones outlet in [xxx], and on each occasion I have had to contact customer services to get my points attributed to my card.

I look forward to your response, which I will share on mobileread.com. A growing number of UK consumers are starting to feel very short changed by your attitude to the eBook market, You seem very happy to sell the high margin readers, but very reluctant to price content sensibly.

Best regards

And of course, I got the familiar, scripted, cut and paste response...

Quote:

Dear [xxx],

Thank you for your email.

I am sorry to hear that you are unhappy with the price difference between
ebooks and other formats online.

There are a number of reasons why the prices are different online but as
this is an exclusive product prices may vary, I would like to inform you
that in the future there will be reductions and promotions as the item
becomes more popular.

I do apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Kind regards

Given they send it out so often, it would be nice if they made the third paragraph logical (why should prices vary as a consequence of exclusivity) or even grammatically correct (prices <> the item).

And I know all about using Fictionwise (and I've used it), but my reader is a British reader, bought in a British shop, and I am going to continue to harass the British distributor to start pricing eBooks fairly. Feel free to join in

PieOPah · 04-16-2009, 01:59 AM

I don't think any of the monkey's working at Waterstones know how to construct a sentence for themselves... All they are capable of doing is sending the same prewritten E-mail over and over again.

Even when I sent a mail asking them to specifically answer certain questions, I received the exact same prewritten garbage. Writing to their HQ made no difference and still didn't get me any answers!

Satans Puppet · 04-16-2009, 03:40 AM

Well I leapt into the US Sony Store last night and Grabbed Heart Shaped Box, Afraid and THREE FREE Fantasy novels... bet Waterstones don't do any free novels

PieOPah · 04-16-2009, 03:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Satans Puppet

bet Waterstones don't do any free novels

Unlikely however, when I first got my reader I did pick up a few books a 1p each - I was even able to use my points so didn't actually spend anything (no minimum purchase for points which was good)

I bought Millions by Frank Cottrell-Boyce, another of his books and something else - can't remember off the top of my head... Haven't gotten round to reading any of them either

That's the only thing I will say positive about Waterstones - I'll stop now!!!

Tracey · 04-16-2009, 07:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by amjbrown

And I know all about using Fictionwise (and I've used it), but my reader is a British reader, bought in a British shop, and I am going to continue to harass the British distributor to start pricing eBooks fairly. Feel free to join in

I absolutely agree and i have just constructed a long email to Waterstones raising a number of issues with them and asking that they respond specifically to each point. I shall wait until i have had a reply before posting it, and any response i receive, here. However, i did mention these forums and advised that this particular topic has been read 1,153 times. I know that if i received information like that about a service i offered i would be making every effort to change the perception of both exisiting and potential clients!

I have also suggested they offer a promotion with reduced pricing for a couple of months to see if sales increase significantly as i still believe we have chicken and egg with them; their view is low sales, high price and ours is high price, low sales...

PieOPah · 04-16-2009, 08:42 AM

My guess is you will receive the E-mail exactly as posted in #37. You may even get one suggesting your write to HQ... (although I think that is the 3rd stock response you receive on a single 'query'!)

Tracey · 04-16-2009, 10:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PieOPah

My guess is you will receive the E-mail exactly as posted in #37. You may even get one suggesting your write to HQ... (although I think that is the 3rd stock response you receive on a single 'query'!)

Hi PieOPah,

To be fair to Waterstones they have already replied (after only a little over an hour) to say that they take all feedback seriously and my mail has been passed to the relevant department for investigation. I will keep everyone updated with any progress.

Kind regards,

Tracey

Tracey · 04-16-2009, 12:42 PM

Hi everyone, as promised here is the mail i sent to Waterstones and their reply. I give them credit for answering promptly, and without resorting to templates, but i am still disappointed with their views on pricing. Apologies that it is a long one. I have replied to the lady from head office again so will see if i get a further response.

My original mail -

Dear Sir/ Madam,

I would like to raise some specific points in relation to the provision of eBooks to the UK market place, particularly with regards to the fact that Waterstones have an exclusive agreement with Sony and all UK purchased PRS-505 owners are directed to your website.

1. I regularly receive discount offers from Waterstones via email but the purchase of eBooks are excluded from this offer. Can you please explain why this is?

2. I believe the eBook market in the UK is significantly greater than you perceive it to be. It is apparent from the forums on MobileRead, an online group for those who have specific interest in e-reader technology, that many thousands of pounds worth of books are being purchased through alternative companies. This competition to your sales is not just from overseas retailers; WH Smith for example, are competing competitively in the UK. I would respectfully suggest that this leads you to believe that sales are low and therefore there is no need to be competitive but, i can assure you, the sales are buoyant but your pricing policy is preventing customers from buying from you.

3. It is also the increasing perception of UK users that your Customer Service Team are not willing to address specific issues raised with them. There are examples being posted on MobileRead of standard responses being sent, rather than answers to questions raised, being provided. I can assure you, as a manager in the Customer Service industry for the past 25 years, that this is one of the most frustrating situations a customer can encounter; please revisit this policy as your reputation is being severely impacted and people are not afraid of sharing their negative opinions with others.

4. Given that i take the trouble to buy GiftCards for Sony's USA bookstore, via PayPal, and have a separate laptop to load their software on, i trust this proves the commitment i have to buy eBooks and i wish to assure you that i am far from unique in this regard. I would like to make a suggestion that you revisit the eBook pricing, even for a limited period of say two months, and see what difference is made to the volumes you sell. I would be very happy to make this known on MobileRead so that visitors to the site are aware of the promotion. There are in excess of 34,000 members worldwide and many more guests who view the site. At this moment in time, i can see there are 277 guests online.

5. Please feel free to have a look at the website yourselves to gauge opinion. Here is a link to the forums - https://www.mobileread.com/forums/ I would be happy to set up a poll to ask people why they do not buy from Waterstones and to determine who would if the pricing was to be improved upon. One of the latest threads, entitled "More disappointment with Waterstones" has been read by 1153 people at present.

6. Finally, there is also continued criticism of how difficult it is to search for eBooks on the Waterstones website. Can you please advise of what is being planned to address this?

7. Please accept this email in the spirit it is intended. I simply want to buy UK books at a competitive price and to support a UK business. Can i please ask that your reply answers the specific points i have raised and advise you that i would be happy to discuss further by telephone if required. I believe strongly that every business deserves the opportunity to make changes to address the concerns of its existing and potential customer base and this is why i am contacting yourselves rather than Sony at this time.

I would appreciate an acknowledgement of the receipt of this email and an indication of when i can expect to receive a detailed reply please.

Their reply -

My name is ****** and I work at Waterstone's Head Office. Your email was forwarded to me by our customer service team.

Thank you for your feedback; it is always helpful to us to read comments/ suggestions from customers as it helps us to improve our service.

In response to your questions:

As with traditional books, the RRP of each eBook title is dictated by the publisher of the eBook. Waterstone's is working with all publishers to agree what is the appropriate price for an eBook. In the meantime, Waterstone's will discount all eBook titles to try and offer the best possible value to our customers. This continuing discount means that when Waterstone's offer extra savings for a particular period, we are not in the position to reduce the price of eBooks any further.

It is also up to publishers which books are converted into the epub format for sale on Waterstones.com, and we expect that as the popularity of eBooks grows, the number of available titles will continue to increase.

With regards to the standard responses used by our customer service centre, the agents are given templates to work by however I realise that they can cause frustration to customers such as yourself who have asked specific questions and get standard answers. The use of templates is something that I am personally working to abolish at the moment but would like to apologise in the meantime for the frustration.

All prices of eBooks are set by the publishers, but as a general guideline they should be around the same price as a hardback or cheaper. At Waterstones.com we are making every effort to offer our customers good value on this new format, therefore you will often find reductions from the RRP on our site. eBook pricing is something that is likely to change as time goes by, as the format becomes more popular and more publishers choose to provide books in this format. Inline with this we are constantly talking to publishers about making sure we offer our customers the best value possible.

I am sorry you have struggled with the search engine on our website, we are currently working on improving the way you can search for e-books and place orders online. We do have an advanced search tool at the top left of the Waterstones.com homepage, if you click on Advanced search, then select format and then eBooks, you can enter either title, author or keywords to help find one of the 6,000 eBooks. We are currently making the availability for eBooks up to 25,000 downloads which will benefit Sony Reader owners immensely.

Please be assured that improving the search functionality on the site is a priority for our business both in the immediate future and going forward into 2009, when we hope you will be pleased with the upgrades which we implement.

I hope that this answers your questions and if there is anything else I can assist you with please do not hesitate to ask.

Tracey · 04-16-2009, 12:58 PM

Sorry to be monopolising this topic but i have had a further reply from the lady at Waterstones Head Office. She advises me that she has passed my latest mail to the Product Team in order for them to investigate further. I feel it is important to acknowledge that i am getting prompt and personalised responses after the experiences of other members.

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04-09-2009, 09:07 AM	#31
Satans Puppet Enthusiast Posts: 45 Karma: 100 Join Date: Mar 2009 Device: Sony Reader PR(whusit)505	Can you buy vouchers directly from the site or do you have to install the software? just wondering before I send my mate around the houses... can't view the site at work and no interweb at home at the moment

04-09-2009, 09:11 AM	#32
PieOPah Addict Posts: 398 Karma: 914 Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: UK Device: Sony PRS-505	I think you can only buy vouchers with an American Registerd Card. This is why some people will buy the vouchers for you and you pay them through Paypal. Not done this myself, only know this from what I have read...

04-09-2009, 09:13 AM	#33
Satans Puppet Enthusiast Posts: 45 Karma: 100 Join Date: Mar 2009 Device: Sony Reader PR(whusit)505	My mate has a US credit card as he lived there for a while and still has it But he probably wouldn't go through the effort of downloading the stuff just to buy vouchers..

04-09-2009, 02:00 PM	#36
Satans Puppet Enthusiast Posts: 45 Karma: 100 Join Date: Mar 2009 Device: Sony Reader PR(whusit)505	I shall almost certainly be catching said gnome for funding, the us Sony store has so much more and they have the anita Blake books! And the southern vampire tales!! Awesome!!

04-16-2009, 01:59 AM	#38
PieOPah Addict Posts: 398 Karma: 914 Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: UK Device: Sony PRS-505	I don't think any of the monkey's working at Waterstones know how to construct a sentence for themselves... All they are capable of doing is sending the same prewritten E-mail over and over again. Even when I sent a mail asking them to specifically answer certain questions, I received the exact same prewritten garbage. Writing to their HQ made no difference and still didn't get me any answers!

04-16-2009, 03:40 AM	#39
Satans Puppet Enthusiast Posts: 45 Karma: 100 Join Date: Mar 2009 Device: Sony Reader PR(whusit)505	Well I leapt into the US Sony Store last night and Grabbed Heart Shaped Box, Afraid and THREE FREE Fantasy novels... bet Waterstones don't do any free novels

04-16-2009, 08:42 AM	#42
PieOPah Addict Posts: 398 Karma: 914 Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: UK Device: Sony PRS-505	My guess is you will receive the E-mail exactly as posted in #37. You may even get one suggesting your write to HQ... (although I think that is the 3rd stock response you receive on a single 'query'!)

04-16-2009, 12:42 PM	#44
Tracey Connoisseur Posts: 67 Karma: 68 Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Wilburton, Ely Device: Sony PRS-505	Hi everyone, as promised here is the mail i sent to Waterstones and their reply. I give them credit for answering promptly, and without resorting to templates, but i am still disappointed with their views on pricing. Apologies that it is a long one. I have replied to the lady from head office again so will see if i get a further response. My original mail - Dear Sir/ Madam, I would like to raise some specific points in relation to the provision of eBooks to the UK market place, particularly with regards to the fact that Waterstones have an exclusive agreement with Sony and all UK purchased PRS-505 owners are directed to your website. 1. I regularly receive discount offers from Waterstones via email but the purchase of eBooks are excluded from this offer. Can you please explain why this is? 2. I believe the eBook market in the UK is significantly greater than you perceive it to be. It is apparent from the forums on MobileRead, an online group for those who have specific interest in e-reader technology, that many thousands of pounds worth of books are being purchased through alternative companies. This competition to your sales is not just from overseas retailers; WH Smith for example, are competing competitively in the UK. I would respectfully suggest that this leads you to believe that sales are low and therefore there is no need to be competitive but, i can assure you, the sales are buoyant but your pricing policy is preventing customers from buying from you. 3. It is also the increasing perception of UK users that your Customer Service Team are not willing to address specific issues raised with them. There are examples being posted on MobileRead of standard responses being sent, rather than answers to questions raised, being provided. I can assure you, as a manager in the Customer Service industry for the past 25 years, that this is one of the most frustrating situations a customer can encounter; please revisit this policy as your reputation is being severely impacted and people are not afraid of sharing their negative opinions with others. 4. Given that i take the trouble to buy GiftCards for Sony's USA bookstore, via PayPal, and have a separate laptop to load their software on, i trust this proves the commitment i have to buy eBooks and i wish to assure you that i am far from unique in this regard. I would like to make a suggestion that you revisit the eBook pricing, even for a limited period of say two months, and see what difference is made to the volumes you sell. I would be very happy to make this known on MobileRead so that visitors to the site are aware of the promotion. There are in excess of 34,000 members worldwide and many more guests who view the site. At this moment in time, i can see there are 277 guests online. 5. Please feel free to have a look at the website yourselves to gauge opinion. Here is a link to the forums - https://www.mobileread.com/forums/ I would be happy to set up a poll to ask people why they do not buy from Waterstones and to determine who would if the pricing was to be improved upon. One of the latest threads, entitled "More disappointment with Waterstones" has been read by 1153 people at present. 6. Finally, there is also continued criticism of how difficult it is to search for eBooks on the Waterstones website. Can you please advise of what is being planned to address this? 7. Please accept this email in the spirit it is intended. I simply want to buy UK books at a competitive price and to support a UK business. Can i please ask that your reply answers the specific points i have raised and advise you that i would be happy to discuss further by telephone if required. I believe strongly that every business deserves the opportunity to make changes to address the concerns of its existing and potential customer base and this is why i am contacting yourselves rather than Sony at this time. I would appreciate an acknowledgement of the receipt of this email and an indication of when i can expect to receive a detailed reply please. Their reply - My name is ****** and I work at Waterstone's Head Office. Your email was forwarded to me by our customer service team. Thank you for your feedback; it is always helpful to us to read comments/ suggestions from customers as it helps us to improve our service. In response to your questions: As with traditional books, the RRP of each eBook title is dictated by the publisher of the eBook. Waterstone's is working with all publishers to agree what is the appropriate price for an eBook. In the meantime, Waterstone's will discount all eBook titles to try and offer the best possible value to our customers. This continuing discount means that when Waterstone's offer extra savings for a particular period, we are not in the position to reduce the price of eBooks any further. It is also up to publishers which books are converted into the epub format for sale on Waterstones.com, and we expect that as the popularity of eBooks grows, the number of available titles will continue to increase. With regards to the standard responses used by our customer service centre, the agents are given templates to work by however I realise that they can cause frustration to customers such as yourself who have asked specific questions and get standard answers. The use of templates is something that I am personally working to abolish at the moment but would like to apologise in the meantime for the frustration. All prices of eBooks are set by the publishers, but as a general guideline they should be around the same price as a hardback or cheaper. At Waterstones.com we are making every effort to offer our customers good value on this new format, therefore you will often find reductions from the RRP on our site. eBook pricing is something that is likely to change as time goes by, as the format becomes more popular and more publishers choose to provide books in this format. Inline with this we are constantly talking to publishers about making sure we offer our customers the best value possible. I am sorry you have struggled with the search engine on our website, we are currently working on improving the way you can search for e-books and place orders online. We do have an advanced search tool at the top left of the Waterstones.com homepage, if you click on Advanced search, then select format and then eBooks, you can enter either title, author or keywords to help find one of the 6,000 eBooks. We are currently making the availability for eBooks up to 25,000 downloads which will benefit Sony Reader owners immensely. Please be assured that improving the search functionality on the site is a priority for our business both in the immediate future and going forward into 2009, when we hope you will be pleased with the upgrades which we implement. I hope that this answers your questions and if there is anything else I can assist you with please do not hesitate to ask.

04-16-2009, 12:58 PM	#45
Tracey Connoisseur Posts: 67 Karma: 68 Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Wilburton, Ely Device: Sony PRS-505	Sorry to be monopolising this topic but i have had a further reply from the lady at Waterstones Head Office. She advises me that she has passed my latest mail to the Product Team in order for them to investigate further. I feel it is important to acknowledge that i am getting prompt and personalised responses after the experiences of other members.