"unable to distribute.... to your country" (Australia)

I know this has - inter alia - to do with publisher's rights, but I still find it frustrating that a product is marketed to users and when someone (like me, in Australia) orders the item, it gets put in the shopping cart with a message "unable to distribute... to your country"

The latest occurrence of this for me relates to John Stott's free book (2012) "The Radical Disciple: Some Neglected Aspects of Our Calling" (https://ebooks.faithlife.com/product/167186/the-radical-disciple-some-neglected-aspects-of-our-calling)

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Comments

Armin

I am also frustrated. Publishers don't seem to realize how global customers are.

JT (alabama24)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1063841#Comment_1063841

Publishers don't seem to realize how global customers are.

Actually... they do, and that is why there are restrictions.

GregW

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1063841#Comment_1063841

I am also frustrated. Publishers don't seem to realize how global customers are.

The same applies in the UK, which is ironic considering it's where John Stott wrote the book. I don't think the problem is that publishers don't realise customers are global, but Faithlife should probably think about this when setting up free book deals, as it does get annoying when you get this message.

Simon’s Brother

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1063850#Comment_1063850

I am also frustrated. Publishers don't seem to realize how global customers are.

The same applies in the UK, which is ironic considering it's where John Stott wrote the book. I don't think the problem is that publishers don't realise customers are global, but Faithlife should probably think about this when setting up free book deals, as it does get annoying when you get this message.

Agree Greg, it is FL who forgot their customers were global. They are the only eBook seller I have come across who have this issue.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1063861#Comment_1063861

They are the only eBook seller I have come across who have this issue.

Interesting because I have the problem with Amazon UK or Amazon India ...

NB.Mick

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1063861#Comment_1063861

They are the only eBook seller I have come across who have this issue.

Unfortunately, my experience as a European customer is different.

- Amazon will only sell ebooks (i.e. Kindle resources) through their Germans store Amazon.de to me, even though I may order physical goods through any I like (.com, .co.uk I have used, .ca ...). This means I will often miss out on sales that give ebooks for free or for $.99 on Amazon.com. And promotions may be set up globally or regionally at Amazon - just recently an author informed her readers in a mailing list about an upcoming promo for eBook editions and put in a disclaimer that unfortunately this won't be available to the international customers

- one of the other larger ones (don't remember very clearly, but I think it was the Kobo store), doesn't even allow me to sign up as a customer with an address / credit card from Germany

- Christianbooks.com rather often came up with a "this is not available to ship to your country" message after going through all of the purchasing process, this was so annoying I stopped doing business there completely.

Given this, my experience shows that this is all over the place. And why shouldn't it be? All those stores would like to sell to me - for them, my dollars are as good as yours. But the publishers use regional restrictions in order to segregate the world into different areas, allowing "monopolistic price differentiation" (they do with eBooks what movie makers do with region codes on DVDs - to a certain extent the same is also true for physical books between commercial players - there was a court case of someone not being allowed to import printed textbooks to the US from Asia.) FL as much as any other eBook seller is bound by contract to follow the publishers' rules.

Jan Krohn

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1063891#Comment_1063891

- Amazon will only sell ebooks (i.e. Kindle resources) through their Germans store Amazon.de to me, even though I may order physical goods through any I like (.com, .co.uk I have used, .ca ...). This means I will often miss out on sales that give ebooks for free or for $.99 on Amazon.com.

You can transfer your entire Kindle account from Amazon.de to Amazon.com. The books you've purchased on Amazon.de will remain accessible, but any further purchases can only be made on Amazon.com. As far as I know, you can transfer back and forth as often as you like. But staying on Amazon.com really only has advantages, as the selection is much greater, and there are many more free books.

(Really, what am I doing here, promoting my arch enemy Amazon... but in this case the benefit of the information might be greater than my dislike of Amazon.)

Simon’s Brother

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1063864#Comment_1063864

They are the only eBook seller I have come across who have this issue.

Interesting because I have the problem with Amazon UK or Amazon India ...

Not to take away from your issue with those sites in anyway but that company has a different model when it comes to the way it presents its offer to customer. It’s storefronts are region specific and so I have no expectation of being able to purchase from its storefronts that are not specific to the region in which I live.

FL on the other hand has one site for all of its customers regardless of their location so while your situation is genuine and an issue for you, it is not a valid comparison to this situation.

Fact remains this has been an issue for a long time for which FL was aware but has become a bigger problem in more recent times. Despite knowing about it and embarking on a project to update their ecommerce sites they failed to address this issue and failed to be open about it becoming a bigger problem in recent times until customers complained on these forums. They choose on two fronts not to tackle the problem head.

Thanks though MJ for trying to assist and for sharing your issues with other sites all the same. It just that it is a different problem in this instance.

Simon’s Brother

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1063891#Comment_1063891

They are the only eBook seller I have come across who have this issue.

Unfortunately, my experience as a European customer is different.

- Amazon will only sell ebooks (i.e. Kindle resources) through their Germans store Amazon.de to me, even though I may order physical goods through any I like (.com, .co.uk I have used, .ca ...). This means I will often miss out on sales that give ebooks for free or for $.99 on Amazon.com. And promotions may be set up globally or regionally at Amazon - just recently an author informed her readers in a mailing list about an upcoming promo for eBook editions and put in a disclaimer that unfortunately this won't be available to the international customers

- one of the other larger ones (don't remember very clearly, but I think it was the Kobo store), doesn't even allow me to sign up as a customer with an address / credit card from Germany

- Christianbooks.com rather often came up with a "this is not available to ship to your country" message after going through all of the purchasing process, this was so annoying I stopped doing business there completely.

Given this, my experience shows that this is all over the place. And why shouldn't it be? All those stores would like to sell to me - for them, my dollars are as good as yours. But the publishers use regional restrictions in order to segregate the world into different areas, allowing "monopolistic price differentiation" (they do with eBooks what movie makers do with region codes on DVDs - to a certain extent the same is also true for physical books between commercial players - there was a court case of someone not being allowed to import printed textbooks to the US from Asia.) FL as much as any other eBook seller is bound by contract to follow the publishers' rules.

Mick, please see my response to MJ, Amazon is not the same situation as FL. I don’t purchase from Christianbooks, not all that familiar with them so they are not in my experience but I’m not taking way from yours. And my point was about my experience rather than every vendor on the planet. And what other vendors does not take away from FL not being on top of this issue when plenty of others are and so it remains in my experience FL is the only vendor with which I have an issue.

Mick I am not suggesting and have not called for FL to break any publisher agreements, FL has sat on this issue a long time, it existed in the days of the Vyrso store. They should have had a solution in place by now but have failed to make servicing global customers a priority.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1063962#Comment_1063962

Not to take away from your issue with those sites in anyway but that company has a different model when it comes to the way it presents its offer to customer. It’s storefronts are region specific and so I have no expectation of being able to purchase from its storefronts that are not specific to the region in which I live.

Again an interesting difference in perspective. I go to Amazon foreign sites precisely because I expect to be able to purchase books that have no US publisher. Often, when I cannot purchase a book it is an indication that the book will be published in the US within a year or two. But there are a significant number of books that never become available in the US ... But then I live in the home of Microsoft, Amazon, Starbucks, and Faithlife.[;)] I suspect that the problem has grown for FL as their catalogue has expanded. It would be fascinating to know how to percentage of restricted resources has changed over time.

Gordon Jones

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1063850#Comment_1063850

Faithlife should probably think about this when setting up free book deals, as it does get annoying when you get this message.

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