You know the old saying if it looks too good to be true, it probably is? It seems that could be the case with the Amazon Kindle for international customers.
I sent Amazon an email with all my questions regarding country-specific availability of ebooks and returns policy. In response, I received a crappy form letter with a load of links to information I had already found before sending them my questions in the first place. This doesn’t bode well for efficient customer service.
From what I could gather from said crappy links, the only way I can find out if a particular book is available for purchase from the country in which I live is if I already own a Kindle. By registering my Kindle, it will apparently show me automatically if I’m allowed to buy a certain book. As a potential purchaser of the Kindle device, there doesn’t seem to be any way for me to see how many of the books on, say, my December wish list, I could buy in Kindle edition. (If anyone has managed to discern something different, please let me know.)
If I’m expected to pay exorbitant import costs on the device, plus postage should it prove faulty, plus import costs on the replacement, I’d like the following:
- confidence in Amazon’s customer service
- transparent and easily accessible information
- assurance that Amazon are not using international customers to get rid of their current model of Kindle before launching an updated version on the US market
- to know exactly which books I would be allowed to purchase
- a guarantee that international customers are not going to be lured into buying the device only to have the price of ebooks soar a few months down the road
- a guarantee that I will not be charged extra on a wireless download in the future
- a plug which actually works in Switzerland
Seeing as full disclosure and piracy were the themes of the week, I should mention that I swiped the picture of the Kindle directly from Amazon’s website. I have received no money or any other incentive from Amazon to nick their picture and/or bitch about their customer service.
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I had a very similar reaction to yours – total glee followed by a “hmmm maybe not”.
On the third point you’ve mentioned above, I think the international model is actually new to US customers as well, the old model didn’t have 3G wireless – could be wrong though.
About book pricing, it looks as though intl customers are paying $2 more per book. And on book availability: When I go to Amazon.com and look at the Kindle store, I can tell when a book is available to me (country/region is set to the UK – upper left corner). I’ve just checked a random sample of new releases that I would want to read, and most are not available.
I’ll probably do a more coherent post when I’ve more time at the weekend, but for the moment, I’ll be sticking with my Sony Reader that doesn’t tie me into a particular retailer and supports epub.
@Li Thanks, Li. I still haven’t managed to set my country but will persevere.
If the ebooks are priced at $2 more than the price quoted for US customers, they are definitely more expensive than what I pay for a mass market paperback at Amazon.de. In other words, it makes no financial sense to pay for the device, import costs, plus more per book than I do now. And all that for a selection of books which probably won’t include many of the new releases I’d want to buy!
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