As the FT reports this morning:
France's parliament has passed a law preventing internet booksellers from offering free delivery to customers, in an attempt to protect the country's struggling bookshops from the growing dominance of US online retailer Amazon.
On Thursday, Aurélie Filippetti, the culture minister who originally proposed the move, denounced Amazon for its alleged “strategy of dumping”, claiming that the company used offers of free delivery to get around French laws controlling the price of books.
Speaking during a debate in the National Assembly, she said: “Once they are in a dominant position and have wiped out our network of bookshops, it is a strong bet that they will raise their delivery charges.”
She has this right, of course. Amazon is not acting in the interests of the market. Nor is it acting in the interests of the consumer. It is a monopolist using its capital to crush its competitors to then create the opportunity for exploitation.
I get intensely annoyed (you may have noticed) at those who support companies like Amazon because 'profit maximisation pays' and 'free markets must be allowed to operate'.
Such claims are deliberate distortions of the truth. They're part of the feudal myth. They're about ensuring exploitation can continue.
It's the French who are standing up for free markets here. And as I've argued, often, tax justice is in fact one of the strongest pro-market campaigns there is on this basis. It's the anti-marketeers on the neo-feudal right who deny this. It's a paradox that needs to be noted, often.
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Just the same thing’s going on with Ebay who as well as their standard fees are now charging sellers 10% of the postage costs. What comparable alternative online outlet is there to turn to? Sadly, none. Soon Ebay will be too expensive to sell through and Amazon will be too expensive to buy from. Alas.
It is not obvious to me how being forced to pay for postage helps the consumer.
I buy considerably more books (from many more publishers, particularly smaller publishers) now (via Amazon) than I used to from bookstores for the simple reason that Amazon gives a vastly superior choice in a far more convenient way than a physical store can. This goes equally for for fiction or non-fiction books (I can buy “The Courageous State” on Amazon, but not in any bookshop I have visited recently).
In France book prices are regulated
Free post circumvents that
So abolishing free post makes local shops cheaper
In that case free post doesn’t circumvent anything, it just allows on-line sellers to match the price of high street sellers.
But surely the book buying public would be better served by the abolition of the book price regulations?
Why?
Please explain why granting Amazon a monopoly would help?
Insurrection happens at grass root levels. We must start this as a movement amongst those who understand these myths. Refuse to comply – pay the delivery charge as an act of defiance.
I see you still have books on sale at Amazon, so you can’t be THAT annoyed with Amazon. Presumably every book sold on there is one that won’t be sold via a small bookseller.
My publisher makes that choice
There are too few bookshops left to stock the book
Of course, this is the paradox -one is forced to use the medium one opposes to express that opposition – the essence of corporate capture.
I am now trying to avoid Amazon but it is difficult.
I agree…
although Amazon don’t do free delivery – you pay an annual fee rather than a fee for each delivery.
Ever the apologist
Neo-feudalism is dependent upon them
“There are too few bookshops left to stock the book”.
Sorry Richard, but that doesn’t make sense. Even if there was only one bookshop in the world, it would still have the option of stocking your book or not.
But it’s a pretty obscure title – as even I have to agree
Which means the fewer bookshops there are the more space proportionately will go to mainstream titles
Or, you’re likely to be wrong
There are other online book sellers aren’t there?
In the UK – WH Smiths, Waterstones.
I remember I asked for a signed copy of your courageous state book by post, I would have paid a premium, but it wasn’t available due to the distribution model you chose (i.e. you didnt have any copies)
I would much rather buy books from a bookshop. I teach part time courses, and I have had great difficulty in getting local bookshops to stock the books I would recommend.
I am worried about we will lose high street bookshops
Why? Realistically we’re losing the book format itself so we won’t need physical outlets for PDFs and other electronic media. I like my books but I’d have a lot more of them if I could store them on a memory stick and they were a great deal cheaper too. I’m not suggesting authors get paid less, just that the medium for distribution itself is cheaper these days so the end product can be cheaper overall while the author still gets their whack. It may well be that soon there’s no real need for publishers and I doubt they’d be missed. I’d imagine proof-readers and editors would be missed though if they went too as a consequence.
Its the publishers who are at fault. If they don’t like amazon they could do something about it. Maybe setting up their own retailer online.
That is so trite it is absurd
Hands up those Londoners who remember Robert Maxwell’s attempt to revive the “Evening News” and how it was strangled by a temporary TOTAl price reduction of the Evening Standard!
Monopolists just don’t like competition, and Amazon would find a way of squashing any publisher’s attempt to set up a rival.
Only Government has the power to change the rules by changing the law. In the example I gave, it could have been the law that the existing Evening Standard could not be sold at less than 75% of the price of its rival, so engendering real competition between the papers, rather than the “Ministry of Truth” situation in the London free press that we have now.
Won’t the internet sellers simply get round this by lowering the price of books so that the total price is still lower? Afterall, the consumer doesn’t care about how the price is made up. The idea of price fixing books above the market rate seems a vote loser to me.
Book prices can only be cut by a max 5% in France