Amazon: Amazon is the gigant in the e-book business ( with all the good and bad things that comes with it). For some countries they are the best source for e-books. Best prices, and the biggest sortiment. I’ll admit that I download free reads to Kindle for PC, and then transfer them to Calibre ( thanks to third party plugins, I am able to open up the encryption), and the convert them to epub. The thing that stops me from buying books is the fact that Amazon adds 3 dollar to the price, supposedly tax but honestly 2 dollars tax on an 0.99 e-book? Uh. No. I know that VATin most European Countries is 20%, and 20 of 0.99 isn’t 2 dollar. Also, Amazon are inconsistent, sometimes they add the fee, some times they don’t.
BN: BN, unfortunately, is US only. Which annoys me, but I accept it. Until recently, I used to be able to download free e-books from them, but that stopped. Interestingly, about the same time I read that Barnes and Noble is about to launch Nook internationally. Uh-uh. If so, it is good if the new Nook owners are available to buy from BN.
Kobo: Kobo is Canadian, and I used to shop there a lot. They frequently offers coupons, and discounts. What made me stop using them were several things. They started to add taxes to the prices. ( I understand the reasons behind them, but I don’t have to like it) There were also other things, like the fact that their search function is bad, they don’t have a cart or a wishlist. Minor, but it get annoying after awhile. It does happen that they have a book that I want, for a good price.
Booksonboard: I switched to Booksonboard from Kobo, and I must say that I am happy. Their prices includes tax, the sortiment is good and so are the prices. Oh, and they have a cart and wishlist function too. The only thing that annoys me is the fact that some of the older e-books only are available as pdfs and Ms Reader. Beyond that I am happy with them.