Anyone else having trouble with Kobo online store?

[kumaryu]

Originally Posted by taming

Kobo has to make a determination regarding what country you are in for purchasing purposes. This will be true as long as here is an issue with the books that are available in a particular country--and that is a Publisher/contract issue. ...
...
I do think we are seeing some transitional artifacts right now as they get ready to debut the Japanese site on the 19th.

As Taming suggested in her post (quoted above), the issues that have been reported in this thread and those that I've experienced are a likely to be the result of the need by Rakuten/Kobo to adhere to the terms of their agreements with the publishers.

In the past, I've been involved in the provisioning of online services between Japan, EU and the US. I've also had some exposure to sales of goods as well as services in the EU and the UK. In all the cases, one of my goals was to ensure that the goods and services were available in all the territories where the company had a business presence whilst adhering to the contractual, legislative, regulatory and tax issues unique to each territory. This has meant, on occasions, segregating payment mechanisms and setting different pricings depending on the region from which customers made their purchase.

With regard to the matter at hand, for those titles available in two different regions, through different publishing agreements or through different country divisions of a same group, I can appreciate that the publishers want to minimise sales losses in a particular region. I can also understand the fact that in these cases, prices may differ greatly for the same title between the regions. Lamentable and possibly objectionable to some, but understandable and unfortunately, the norm for digital and non-digital products alike.

The symptoms that we are seeing at the moment however appear to indicate something different. The situation with http://rakuten.kobobooks.com/ and http://www.kobo.com/ is that customers are now being prevented from making purchases of titles in a particular language depending on the region that they connect from.

Customers in Japan are unable to purchase titles distributed outside of Japan. Those living outside of Japan are likewise unable to purchase titles distributed in Japan. Unlike the case between the UK and the US, cross-border sales of Japanese titles abroad, or English language titles in Japan are unlikely to result in loss of potential sales to a particular publisher or division within a publishing group.

Its possible that the publishers in Japan were weary of facilitating copyright infringements for their graphic novel type publications, especially in other Far Eastern and Asian markets. This is indeed a widespread problem but not something that can be prevented or even alleviated by imposing GeoIP based restrictions. As with other cases of prohibitions, the result is more likely to be quite the opposite of what was intended. Whether in China with its government-imposed barriers and pricing beyond the means or between the US and Canada in the last century, prohibition stimulates trade in contrabands.

I understand from the transcripts of press conferences by Rakuten CEO, Hiroshi Mikitani that Kobo Inc. in Canada is handling sales to the Japanese market in order to offer pricing for Japanese titles without the mark-up from Japanese sales tax (Consumption Tax). This is an enterprising use of the loopholes presented by cross-border sales in the current tax regulations in Japan to the benefit of the consumers. Admittedly, it would inevitably have some impact on publishers' sales through other channels.

It is hoped that the publishers, Rakuten and Kobo will recognise the fact that cross-border sales in and out of Japan can only benefit their overall sales. Recognition of one such advantage is already evident in Rakuten's decision to handle their JP sales through Canada. As with other international business entities, sales achieved in this manner may be attributed to divisions that normally handle export sales to that region. No doubt the customers will choose to purchase from the cheapest source. This is exactly what happens in bookshops in Tokyo where the same English titles from both the UK and the US are sold side-by-side.

[GA Russell]

Originally Posted by GA Russell

Am I correct in concluding from this discussion that Canadians in Canada are not having problems buying Kobo books?

Originally Posted by taming

No problem for this Canadian

Originally Posted by Danger

No problems here. I just bought 5 over the past couple of days. I use paypal.

Thanks. I will therefore continue to consider Kobo as an outlet for the book I am writing.

[Canuck_in_Japan]

Wow I can't believe that I can't even log in to Kobo without getting a Rakuten ID. Talk about getting screwed over by Kobo. I can't help but notice that they stopped replying to my emails when I asked them if any of these problems had to do with my being in Japan.
Thank God I have a VPN.

[Canuck_in_Japan]

Stephen King's 11/22/63 costs $16.99 on the US store and and 1,748 ($22.26) yen on the new Japanese Kobo store. F#$k. I knew I was going to get screwed for living in Japan.

[camtosh]

Hi, another Canadian living in Japan here. Not likely to buy ebooks from Kobo if they block me from the ones I want at Cdn prices!
@kumaryu: Just noticed this story in the Japan Times from Friday, which quotes Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani: "We'd like to be successful globally as a Japanese company. Japan has wonderful content that we'd like to export."

Wonder why then they are blocking cross-border purchases? duh. It reeks of the usual shafting of the Japanese consumer that happens here in all areas of life.

"Publishers, other firms pin hopes on e-books"
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120720f1.html

One thing the article notes is the move to expand library lending of Japanese e-books, so maybe eventually you can get your brother to set up a library card for you and access it by VPN?

[camtosh]

I just set up a Rakuten account, and upon login, the Kobo site shows up only in Japanese. There is no English preference setting, afaik. Which sucks donkeys balls, to quote someone on the forum.... Not what I would call a company with an international outlook, eh?

Using Google Translate to help translate the site on the fly, I searched on "jane austen" and the list pops up both that author and other Janes and Austens in seemingly random order. The price of an ADE version of Pride and Prejudice is 80 yen for a book that is free to download elsewhere on the net. The 200th Anniversary edition lists Margaret Drabble as co-author?? and costs 347 yen. There is no explanation for the difference in price. I clicked on the goodreads link, and it pops up in English, but it is a list of reviews of the original book, not this particular version. At least there is a link for the Gutenberg epub!

Amusing to see the recommended carousel across the bottom of the Rakuten Kobo screen shows a string of Marion Zimmer Bradley books...

What is NOT amusing is discovering that sitting here in Tokyo, I can no longer even access the English site in Canada or wherever it is. Search always reverts to the d*mn Rakuten.kobo.com site in nihongo only. This means I can't even figure out how to use the KT (ie, update the firmware, etc) in English. NOT HAPPY.

[Canuck_in_Japan]

Well things seem to have improved slightly. I am logged in with the Japanese Kobo site (no new Rakuten account needed) and I was able to get my credit card working finally. I could be wrong but there seems to be no (not as much) agency pricing as there was before and I was just able to pick up a book with a 45% off coupon code. I also see that today Stephen King's 11/22/63 novel has changed from being 1680 yen to only 980 yen which means that if I can get a decent coupon I should be able to pick it up for only about 500 yen now which is pretty sweet. So I guess Kobo is getting a stay of execution from me for now.

[Canuck_in_Japan]

Well I can confirm that a few of the books which were previously agency pricing free and suddenly became agency pricing restricted have reverted back to being free of agency pricing so that's great news. I was able to use a 40% off coupon to pick up Stephen King's 11/22/63 for only 600 yen.
Also after buying a book, the Kobo page sort of half reverted to being in English. All of the front page is still Japanese which is fine with me because it's useless anyways (why do you keep recommending me shit I don't even like?) and the My Library, My Account and purchase checkout screen seem to be mainly in English for me.

[kumaryu]

It's good to hear that the customers in Japan are now able to purchase (English) books from outside of the country. I would be interested to hear where these books are being sold from (ie Canada, US or the UK the pricing (UK book prices are on average,more expensive than those from North America).

As for me, (without using a proxy or VPN) stuck on the southern most tip of Europe (Andalusia, Spain), I'm still getting no titles in Japanese for any price except for a select handful of "free" titles.