Let’s face it, Amazon has not been great up until now about making sure that customers outside of US markets get access to their products and services in a timely manner. The Kindle Fire will be a long time coming to other countries due to its strong ties to an infrastructure that hasn’t been built up anywhere else yet, Amazon Prime has yet to carry quite the same incentives for everybody, and many of the promotions that Amazon runs don’t quite make it to any of their sites besides Amazon.com. It’s always good news when this changes, though, even if only slightly.
Amazon has recently announced that their ongoing Kindle Daily Deal promotion will be extended to the UK’s Kindle Store. Amazon.co.uk customers will be able to enjoy specially discounted Kindle Edition eBooks on a daily basis. Each book will be available at this price for 24 hours before reverting to its normal number. In the US Kindle Store, it has not been unusual to see heavily discounted titles in a variety of genres and it is hopes that this trend will continue now that the offer is being expanded.
Sadly, while as I mentioned this is definitely a step in the right direction, it does little to address the ongoing problem. The newest Kindles have not yet been given much of a presence outside of US markets. While, for example, you can buy the new Kindle 4 in the UK you cannot order a Kindle Touch, or even a Kindle Keyboard without 3G. Prices are still noticeably higher due to a number of factors including the lack of Special Offers integration, and this has not been changing at the rate we might expect.
Clearly Amazon is responding to a number of pressures. I could reasonably see it being difficult to justify having a Kindle Keyboard WiFi if consumer demand in a particular country leaves them sitting on a shelf while orders come in for the 3G model. The Kindle Touch, due in particular to its much-touted X-Ray feature, requires access to Amazon technology still in its early stages. As such it might be worth working the bugs out before implementing it elsewhere. The Kindle Fire relies on all sorts of media streaming avenues that will require years of time and more money than anybody likes to think about to make happen in new markets. Each new market, in fact, will be the same headache all over again since global media rights are not exactly simple to secure. There is a lot that goes into getting something ready for international release on any large scale.
That said, all of this is insufficient to really justify the continuance of the problem or Amazon’s lack of comment on user demands. It is nice when they come up with something like the Kindle Daily Deal, but in the end it seems like audiences outside the US are almost an afterthought. If Amazon hopes to secure any significant presence beyond what it already has in hand, the only option is to start pushing for more equal treatment of these customer bases. Or so it would seem to me.
Hi, the comments about Amazon not giving enough attention to it’s international customer base are most appreciated, and with Amazon being so customer “friendly” and giving excellent service, it is quite surprising! If only they communicated their intentions about international releases of products, this would go a long way to making the customers happy.I am sure that many of us international customers(I am in South Africa),would be happy to buy the Kindle fire even without Prime, Netflix and Hulu and the otherstreaming benefits, as long as the Amazon App Store were available for use to buy from.Amazon recently(in error?) made the app store available in SA and other countries, but then shut it down again within a day or two, so such a rrquest does not seem impossible.The price of the Fire makes it worthwhile,so hopefully they will make it available to us soon. Any pressure you can put on Amazon would be great!
Thanks for your article.Waldo