51–60 of 64 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
or Amazon just keeps it at the same price, making more money.
It was hinted at in the article, but the publisher sells the book to Amazon for less than the cover price. Of course, I have no idea if Amazon's purchase price is a percentage of the cover. But if it's not (and that's what I would have negotiated) then changing the cover price won't affect the revenue to the publisher.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I agree with your overall premise, but anti-trust law is far broader in scope than monopolization. Indeed, there's nothing about anti-trust law that forbids a monopoly, and there's no specific market share requirement. Market share is but one market-power consideration when the government looks at whether a company has caused harm. There are several angles to anti-trust, such as collusion and predatory pricing, that…
> It is difficult to comprehensively track the movement of prices on Amazon, so the evidence is anecdotal and fragmentary. I guess this is the difference between award winning journalism and essentially an editorial. David Streitfeld of the NY Times should be inspired by the work of the Sally Kestin and John Maines of the Florida Sun Sentinel, who won the 2013 Pulitzer for Public Service for their "investigation of o…
Actually, a website already exists to track Amazon prices. They could have just searched for it: http://camelcamelcamel.com/
The tech books I looked at might do, certainly a larger sample size would be interesting:
http://camelcamelcamel.com/Joel-Software-Occasionally-Develo...
http://camelcamelcamel.com/The-Innovators-Solution-Sustainin...
http://camelcamelcamel.com/Hackers-Painters-Big-Ideas-Comput...
I'd like to see the results of deeper analysis. A report following an investigation. I suppose that would be investigative reporting?
BTW where is a good place to buy books online that isn't Amazon?
I was recommended to use alibris once, but never did so can't say one way or the other http://www.alibris.com/
This is poor journalism. From the article: "Now, with Borders dead, Barnes & Noble struggling and independent booksellers greatly diminished, for many consumers there is simply no other way to get many books than through Amazon. And for some books, Amazon is, in effect, beginning to raise prices." Now what they are really saying is that Amazon is pricing books closer and closer to "list price" which is the price that…
To be honest, Borders was like a library with built in coffee shop in the UK. People just went in there, checked out the book and bought it on amazon whilst sitting in the shop eating blueberry cheesecake and drinking a nice cappuccino...
BTW where is a good place to buy books online that isn't Amazon?
> When Mr. Striphas’s book, “The Late Age of Print: Everyday Book Culture from Consumerism to Control,” first appeared in paperback in 2011, Amazon sold it for $17.50, the author said. Now it is $19.
Well, given that the 2011 $17.50 price would be ~$18.12 today (due strictly to inflation) then it is not as big an increase as suggested.
> When the University of Nebraska Press brought out a bibliography of the novelist Jim Harrison four years ago, Amazon charged $43.87. The price this week: $59.87.
2009: $43.87 Today: $59.87 Correcting only for inflation the price would be: $47.63
Inflation doesn't even account for the majority of the price increase in this case but still this article appears to draw rather strong conclusions from rather flimsy analysis.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was hinted at in the article, but the publisher sells the book to Amazon for less than the cover price. Of course, I have no idea if Amazon's purchase price is a percentage of the cover. But if it's not (and that's what I would have negotiated) then changing the cover price won't affect the revenue to the publisher.
Retailer's purchase price is almost always a percentage of the cover price.
This is poor journalism. From the article: "Now, with Borders dead, Barnes & Noble struggling and independent booksellers greatly diminished, for many consumers there is simply no other way to get many books than through Amazon. And for some books, Amazon is, in effect, beginning to raise prices." Now what they are really saying is that Amazon is pricing books closer and closer to "list price" which is the price that…
Yeah, all the booksellers would need to buy all new inventory and lease a new building and hire new staff. Brick and Mortar isn't like firing up a Linode. Amazon is basically the Walmart of the Internet.
In the US at least there is a quite a bit of excess 'store' space that is not leased. Further it hasn't been leased for a while so there are motivated property owners who will provide customization of the space as part of their 'tenant improvements' or TI. Setting up an LLC had been made more simple by the pre-created legal documents available on the web, Banks are eager to sign up a new business if they are going to process the sales, and there are a number of small business loans currently being pushed by the the US government in order to encourage the economy.
For someone willing to drive around town a bit it is possible to get the business created in a week, and with some work probably have a physical store ready to open in a two months, (less if you either start with one that was a book store before or your new landlord was really excited to get the space ready). Setting up a cash register, an accounting and filing system, all of those things have 'cook book' examples that you can just lift and implement like you might your favorite distribution. And initially the only 'staff' you need is you.
The only question is whether or not you can get enough customers to buy your books to stay afloat long term. And that depends on other places people can go to get books. As you say Amazon is the "Wallmart of the Internet" because they sell product with lower margins than someone who is paying rent on a store can afford.
If Amazon increases their margins (by selling closer to list price) they risk someone like you or I who can sell at that same margin in an actual store. And something the store offers that Amazon cannot is the ability to browse, and discuss various books. (look inside the cover doesn't cut it).
The important thing to realize for this crowd, is that setting up a single person shop is as straight forward as setting up a Linode. Yes, it takes more paperwork, and yes it helps to create an LLC, but people have been setting up shops a lot longer than they have been creating businesses on the Internet, what we do here is considered "mysterious gobbledy gook" by a lot of people, opening up a store is much more comprehensible to them. Further there is a lot of infrastructure out there that supports it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be honest, Borders was like a library with built in coffee shop in the UK. People just went in there, checked out the book and bought it on amazon whilst sitting in the shop eating blueberry cheesecake and drinking a nice cappuccino...
I used to be an avid Borders customer; I could physically go to the store and check out their computer section and through serendipity I would find things I liked and buy them. They were enormously overpriced, like most computing related books outside the U.S. ($100 NZD +), but I would wear that because I liked the experience. This was in about 2003. By 2008, the section which held the long tail I liked had shrunk to…
That said, every time I go to Portland I spend a couple of hours and at least a couple hundred dollars in Powell's books.