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As Competition Wanes, Amazon Cuts Back Discounts

nytimes.com

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Re: As Competition Wanes, Amazon Cuts Back Discounts

#11

Post by dangrossman »

n00b101 wrote: post #4

> Amazon, which became the biggest force in bookselling by discounting so heavily it often lost money IANAL, but this sounds like a potential anti-trust case to me. "Predatory pricing practices may result in antitrust claims of monopolization or attempts to monopolize. Businesses with dominant or substantial market shares are more vulnerable to antitrust claims. However, because the antitrust laws are ultimately inte…

Amazon's sales are just 29% of the book selling market (2012 share, even after Borders was out of the picture for over a year). B&N's are 20%. If their discount pricing hasn't even gotten them 1/3rd of the market after all these years, it'd be hard to prove that they're soon going to monopolize it.

Re: As Competition Wanes, Amazon Cuts Back Discounts

#12

Post by lettergram »

n00b101 wrote: post #4

> Amazon, which became the biggest force in bookselling by discounting so heavily it often lost money IANAL, but this sounds like a potential anti-trust case to me. "Predatory pricing practices may result in antitrust claims of monopolization or attempts to monopolize. Businesses with dominant or substantial market shares are more vulnerable to antitrust claims. However, because the antitrust laws are ultimately inte…

There is no direct evidence to support Amazon did so because it always made "pocket change" as the article pointed out. So as long as Amazon broke even/made a slight profit it would be hard to push an anti-trust case.

Re: As Competition Wanes, Amazon Cuts Back Discounts

#14

Post by rogerbinns »

The publishers/authors who think Amazon are making too much profit can open their own stores/sites and sell that way. It is a free transparent market.

They can also go to competitors like Walmart and give them whatever deal works for the goals. Or they can use rebates which keep the profit the same for the store (Amazon) but lowers the price the consumer pays.

I don't see any reason why they are making demands on Amazon's pricing and profits, but don't see fit to adjust their own.

Re: As Competition Wanes, Amazon Cuts Back Discounts

#15

Post by nness »

javajosh wrote: post #13

BTW where is a good place to buy books online that isn't Amazon?

bookdepository.com is the one I often hear about. Particularly because Amazon isn't available in all countries, and The Book Depository's prices are sometimes pretty comparable. Shipping is still 1-2 weeks though.

Re: As Competition Wanes, Amazon Cuts Back Discounts

#17

Post by fauigerzigerk »

What keeps publishers and authors from starting a non-profit that sells books at exactly the price they determine?

I realise that selling books from their own websites is difficult, especially for individual authors, and it gives them less visibility than Amazon provides. Banding together would solve that problem.

Re: As Competition Wanes, Amazon Cuts Back Discounts

#18

Post by lettergram »

ajtaylor wrote: post #5

Maybe I'm hopelessly naive, but why don't the publishers drop their prices by 5-10%? Since Amazon is selling books at a percentage of the cover price, dropping the cover price should theoretically offset the decreasing Amazon discount. I know that books have the price printed on them, but what a great marketing project it could be: "Look, we're dropping our prices across the board by 5%. Go buy a book!"

or Amazon just keeps it at the same price, making more money.

Re: As Competition Wanes, Amazon Cuts Back Discounts

#19

Post by cm2012 »

salmonellaeater wrote: post #8

Amazon is intensely interested in finding the right price for everything. If you pay attention you can see small adjustments in the prices of a lot of products; they're most likely doing the equivalent of A/B testing to discover their most profitable point for every product. A product without competition will be less price sensitive, so they'll end up pricing it higher. An interesting question is whether Amazon could…

Keep in mind that Amazon is not the seller of most of these books, it's 3rd parties using Amazon as a platform. There are a host of SaaS products for these people to help optimize prices.
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