There’s something fishy going on with the Kobo Aura One.
It’s gotten to the point where there has to be a good reason for it to be constantly out of stock from Kobo’s website, as least from the US Kobo site.
Whenever they get more in stock they last for less than one day before they’re sold out again.
Yet they’ve been selling “limited stock” from the Canadian Kobo website for the past few weeks.
Why are they selling them in Canada but not the US? It makes no sense, especially considering they ship from the same location regardless.
Not only that but Kobo makes considerably more money per sale from US customers than from Canadian customers because of the strong US dollar. Kobo literally makes about $40 USD more for each unit sold to the US than Canada.
The fact that they are seemingly prioritizing Canadian orders over US orders goes to show how clueless Kobo is when it comes to making money in regards to hardware sales.
A little bit of a stock shortage is understandable, especially after a new product gets released with a unique screen size.
But that time has come and gone. We’re going on six months now since the Kobo Aura One was first released. A full half year is more than enough time to get a stock shortage worked out.
There’s no possible way they are selling so many that they can’t keep up with demand. Either E Ink is having a problem making the 7.8-inch screens or some other issue exists for the Kobo Aura One to constantly be out of stock from Kobo US.
Last week I was in Turkey. In Istanbul you can buy it at any retail location of http://www.dr.com.tr (being at 5 of them, normally they have at stock 3-5e.a. with proper mini stand of Kobo set at the store) Kobo e-readers including Aura One and Covers available no problem. Seems like Kobo gives priority to other markets than USA where Amazon is dominating obviously. Idea is simple, Kobo is working the market around the globe thorough the brick&mortal stores where Amazon is no competition and is not presented even online at some markets. In Brazil is the same story. Witnessed this myself last year before release of Aura One. They are affiliated with local Livraria Culture chain of book stores. When physically in Brazil you can even log in with account of Livraria Cultura at Kobo. Summarising – it will take a while before USA will be a priority or interest for Kobo.
I suspect the fact that Kindle dominates the US market does have a lot to do with it and Kobo is concentrating on servicing its best customers. In Canada, at least, reasons for choosing a Kobo include: it’s a “home-grown” company (although now owned by Japan’s Rakuten); it’s the only brand sold at Best Buy, Walmart, and Chapters-Indigo (Canada’s dominant brick-and-mortar bookstore chain); and Canadian libraries do not support e-book loans for Kindle. Seeing as how the Kobo is only available online or at independent bookstores in the States, I wonder how many they actually sell.
Of course, perhaps it is the fact that you cannot buy a Kobo in America that’s the reason Amazon is dominating the market.
It’s amazing that Barnes & Noble has a great brick and mortar distribution system in America with (basically) no e-reader worth selling and Kobo has a great e-reader with no distribution system in America.
It seems like they should do something about that, doesn’t it?
I ordered my Kobo Aura One on August 25th, 2016 from French fnac.com and received it a week later in Sweden. It is my 9th ereader and it is awesome! Over the years I have had several Sonys, Kobos and Kindles but this one surpasses them all (I would expect no less 🙂 ).
The US market has become very corportist nowdays. You cannot find Kobo e-Readers or Sony Smartphones and the stupid carries force the customers like sheeps to buy only from Apple and Kindle.
Here in Europe we don’t have such problems but still the japanese electronic products find some difficulties to reach the stores, but at least with online shopping you can acquire them somehow.
No stocks in UK. Kobo web site had it for 4 days in September. never been in stock since. Argos had it for 6 weeks last year but non this year. W H Smiths never had it. I wonder if for UK they were £189 and the pound as dropping in value they are not making anything on them.
I’ll be in USA next week and since the EUR is currently in a strong position against USD I would like to buy a Kobo Aura One. Where can I find it?
I cannot buy it online because the expedition time from kobo.com is very long and I might miss the delivery.
There is no where to go and buy them in the US. Kobo just signed a deal with Walmart to start selling them but that won’t happen until later in the year.