Hi All,
First, I realise this probably isn't the best place for this topic as this is the Kobo Reader forum, not the Kobo bookstore but it has people who probably use/buy from the Kobo website. Therefore, I have posted this here. If it isn't correct or you are offended by me posting this here, I humbly beg for your forgiveness :o
Okay, I moved to Australia about a year ago and at the time, I noticed that prices on the Kobo site appeared higher but never confirmed it. However, recently, someone made comment in one of the threads about Kobo being reasonably priced in Canada and was surprised there was a difference. So, I thought I'd do a bit of investigation. I set up a Kobo account based in Canada and another based in Australia and then I took the first 50 books (so far) from the "Books that Blew Me Away and that I Still Think About (of all types)" list from Goodreads.com list and priced them via both accounts. I then converted the results into USD and looked at the difference between the converted prices. When I found that a book was available in 1 country but not the other, I didn't count it. I also didn't count any of the Harry Potter books since they aren't sold by Kobo anyway. This left 32 books counted. I also took the first listing of a title rather than looking for the cheapest but it did seem that in most cases, the cheapest was at the top of the list anyway. I didn't consider coupons as that is not always available on every book nor is it always available to everyone. Taxes were considered. In Canada (Ontario anyway), the GST and HST is added at checkout but in Australia, the price shown already includes GST.
What I found was that in some cases Kobo's Australian prices were less than their Canadian prices and sometime more. Based on the first 50 books (32 books counted) from the list I was looking at, if you were to buy all the books in the top 50 that were available from Kobo in both countries, you would pay a total of US$15.53 more from Canada!!! :eek: I found this surprising. The only thing I can think of is that Kobo adds the GST to the price shown in Australia but when viewed from Canada, taxes arent showed and only added when you pay for the book. This would leave the impression that buying from Australia was more expensive but in reality, buying from Kobo in Canada is more expensive.:chinscratch:
The list I chose was possibly not the best choice since a number of books on the list were Classics and therefore were priced around $0.99 which meant that the difference between the prices in the 2 countries was perhaps understated if you don't read classics (many of the titles were ones that I am not really interested in reading). I might try looking at a different list and see what that results. I'd also be interested to see how the prices compare to other countries as well.
First, I realise this probably isn't the best place for this topic as this is the Kobo Reader forum, not the Kobo bookstore but it has people who probably use/buy from the Kobo website. Therefore, I have posted this here. If it isn't correct or you are offended by me posting this here, I humbly beg for your forgiveness :o
Okay, I moved to Australia about a year ago and at the time, I noticed that prices on the Kobo site appeared higher but never confirmed it. However, recently, someone made comment in one of the threads about Kobo being reasonably priced in Canada and was surprised there was a difference. So, I thought I'd do a bit of investigation. I set up a Kobo account based in Canada and another based in Australia and then I took the first 50 books (so far) from the "Books that Blew Me Away and that I Still Think About (of all types)" list from Goodreads.com list and priced them via both accounts. I then converted the results into USD and looked at the difference between the converted prices. When I found that a book was available in 1 country but not the other, I didn't count it. I also didn't count any of the Harry Potter books since they aren't sold by Kobo anyway. This left 32 books counted. I also took the first listing of a title rather than looking for the cheapest but it did seem that in most cases, the cheapest was at the top of the list anyway. I didn't consider coupons as that is not always available on every book nor is it always available to everyone. Taxes were considered. In Canada (Ontario anyway), the GST and HST is added at checkout but in Australia, the price shown already includes GST.
What I found was that in some cases Kobo's Australian prices were less than their Canadian prices and sometime more. Based on the first 50 books (32 books counted) from the list I was looking at, if you were to buy all the books in the top 50 that were available from Kobo in both countries, you would pay a total of US$15.53 more from Canada!!! :eek: I found this surprising. The only thing I can think of is that Kobo adds the GST to the price shown in Australia but when viewed from Canada, taxes arent showed and only added when you pay for the book. This would leave the impression that buying from Australia was more expensive but in reality, buying from Kobo in Canada is more expensive.:chinscratch:
The list I chose was possibly not the best choice since a number of books on the list were Classics and therefore were priced around $0.99 which meant that the difference between the prices in the 2 countries was perhaps understated if you don't read classics (many of the titles were ones that I am not really interested in reading). I might try looking at a different list and see what that results. I'd also be interested to see how the prices compare to other countries as well.