I'm not sure I agree with that; I paid €120 for my PocketBook e-reader, which wasn't the cheapest one, and I bought it in-store (could have gotten a better price online probably, but comparing devices in-store was useful).

Now, while €120 isn't nothing, it's also not a whole lot, and it's cheap enough that with a few books a year you're saving money.

Amazon's 6" Kindle sells for €110 by the way, but is missing some features my Pocketbook has, and the 6.8" Kindle Paperwhite with comparable features sells for €170. Doesn't seem that much cheaper to me.