That's a vulgar way of demonstrating Amazon's muscle power.
Amazon Flexes Its Muscles in Fight Against Publishers
11–20 of 125 posts
Re: Amazon Flexes Its Muscles in Fight Against Publishers
#12The main reason this is getting publicity is that the authors are getting punished but they have no power. Otherwise it's just a standard retailer/supplier conflict.
Also, note that Hachette is one of the publishers involved in the e-book suit who settled, so not exactly a great history with Amazon.
Re: Amazon Flexes Its Muscles in Fight Against Publishers
#13The article is short on details, but I'm not clear why Amazon is obligated to sell a publisher's books, much less at the publisher's desired prices. Wal-mart is famous for using its size to lean on suppliers ensuring "everyday low prices." Why is publishing different? I sympathize with authors that are hurt by this battle, but it just shows that Amazon's marketplace is becoming more important to their sales than thei…
I think this reveals Amazon's key weakness -- they don't make any money. Amazon's big cachet was always "Earth's biggest selection". If they are going to behave like cable companies and refuse to sell books from major customers, they are really failing their customers. If I want to buy a book, I shouldn't need to know or care about who publishes it, and whether or not they are in a pissing match with Amazon. The firs…
They make plenty of money, but that is then invested back into expanding the business, so it's more accurate to say that they don't make much profit at this time.
Re: Amazon Flexes Its Muscles in Fight Against Publishers
#14> “I have supported Amazon for as long as Amazon has existed. I’ve been published for 20 years now and you have sold so many of my books,” she wrote in a Facebook posting she also sent to the retailer.
Why does she not blame her publisher for setting the price of her books to be too high[0]? This seems to be a regular merchant/vendor price dispute - nothing new about it.
The publisher is just a middleman here[1] - if she were trying to sell directly to Amazon at the same price, Amazon's reaction (presumably) would be to refuse to sell the book based on the prices she set. At that point, she'd have two options: (1) Lower the price of the book, or (2) Accept that the book won't be available on Amazon.
> “Your actions to raise the prices of our books, place banners touting books that ‘are similar but lower in price’ and saying that our books will ship in 3-5 weeks when they are in stock is not only a disgusting negotiation practice, but it has made me tell my readers to shop elsewhere — and they are and will,” she wrote.
This is a minor point, but for what it's worth, it appears that Amazon is saying that the books are "unavailable", not "out of stock", from the screenshot. Amazon does sometimes say that items are "out of stock" instead of "unavailable", so it's not that they're trying to imply any reason for the lack of availability - they're just saying that they are not available and not specifying the reason.
[0] This is mostly rhetorical - I can understand why she may not want to lower her price - but that's the way supply and demand works in a supply chain (ie, when you're not selling direct-to-consumer).
[1] As is Amazon, for that matter! She always has the option of selling the e-books herself, if she decides that that's a worthwhile endeavor.
Re: Amazon Flexes Its Muscles in Fight Against Publishers
#15What practice of Hachette is amazon objecting to? The article doesn't specify the cause of the conflict.
Probably e-book pricing. Hachette doesn't really have any reason to come out publicly and says they are trying to keep e-book prices high, since while that is good for authors and Hachette, it's bad for the consumer pocketbook.
Can we stop with the mindless idea that the point of capitalism is only to drive down the price for consumers. The point is to provide an equilibrium between suppliers and customers. The difference between 12.99 and 9.99 doesn't hurt consumers and provides significant difference in paying authors. Amazon is unfairly trying to kill the suppliers for short term gains at the expense of the industry.
Re: Amazon Flexes Its Muscles in Fight Against Publishers
#16The article is short on details, but I'm not clear why Amazon is obligated to sell a publisher's books, much less at the publisher's desired prices. Wal-mart is famous for using its size to lean on suppliers ensuring "everyday low prices." Why is publishing different? I sympathize with authors that are hurt by this battle, but it just shows that Amazon's marketplace is becoming more important to their sales than thei…
If Amazon can significantly hurt a publisher in this manner, it is suggestive that they may have a monopoly power that they are abusing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly#Law (General note: Please at least somewhat carefully read over that before arguing. First, I'm only saying that it's suggestive, not proof, and secondly, there's a lot of misconceptions about what exactly is forbidden w.r.t. monopolies.)
I think this is backwards: it was the book publishers (and Apple) that were sued for colluding to raise e-Book prices and had to settle -- which is what anti-trust laws are meant to protect consumers against. Amazon using its size and some questionable tactics just doesn't fall into that category.
The book publishers have done a great job painting this as a David vs. Goliath story, but it's really two Goliaths battling over a shift in publishing and distribution.
Re: Amazon Flexes Its Muscles in Fight Against Publishers
#17The article is short on details, but I'm not clear why Amazon is obligated to sell a publisher's books, much less at the publisher's desired prices. Wal-mart is famous for using its size to lean on suppliers ensuring "everyday low prices." Why is publishing different? I sympathize with authors that are hurt by this battle, but it just shows that Amazon's marketplace is becoming more important to their sales than thei…
> but I'm not clear why Amazon is obligated to sell a publisher's books, much less at the publisher's desired prices. No one has said that they are. Likewise, the affected publisher, and the news media, are not obligated to fail to inform the public of Amazon's tactics so that they are aware that Amazon having smaller-than-usual discounts, "not available" notices, and long shipping times may well be a sign not of any…
Amazon lying to customers - there's a winning strategy.
Re: Amazon Flexes Its Muscles in Fight Against Publishers
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this reveals Amazon's key weakness -- they don't make any money. Amazon's big cachet was always "Earth's biggest selection". If they are going to behave like cable companies and refuse to sell books from major customers, they are really failing their customers. If I want to buy a book, I shouldn't need to know or care about who publishes it, and whether or not they are in a pissing match with Amazon. The firs…
They make plenty of money, but that is then invested back into expanding the business, so it's more accurate to say that they don't make much profit at this time.
If that were true they would not be slowly making the service worse to try to eek out some money. "Add On Items" Removing items from being next day eligible with Prime etc.. As someone who orders from Amazon all the time (daily) I have seen a drastic downgrade in the service from what it used to be. Feels more like Walmart then Amazon these days.
Re: Amazon Flexes Its Muscles in Fight Against Publishers
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably e-book pricing. Hachette doesn't really have any reason to come out publicly and says they are trying to keep e-book prices high, since while that is good for authors and Hachette, it's bad for the consumer pocketbook.
Can we stop with the mindless idea that the point of capitalism is only to drive down the price for consumers. The point is to provide an equilibrium between suppliers and customers. The difference between 12.99 and 9.99 doesn't hurt consumers and provides significant difference in paying authors. Amazon is unfairly trying to kill the suppliers for short term gains at the expense of the industry.
In a similar vain, one could say that selling ebooks at $9.99 and sharing profits between authors and retailers[1] is a better result all around.
[1]Of an amazon monopoly on retail is a bad result, but in principal that has nothing to do with publishers
Re: Amazon Flexes Its Muscles in Fight Against Publishers
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably e-book pricing. Hachette doesn't really have any reason to come out publicly and says they are trying to keep e-book prices high, since while that is good for authors and Hachette, it's bad for the consumer pocketbook.
Can we stop with the mindless idea that the point of capitalism is only to drive down the price for consumers. The point is to provide an equilibrium between suppliers and customers. The difference between 12.99 and 9.99 doesn't hurt consumers and provides significant difference in paying authors. Amazon is unfairly trying to kill the suppliers for short term gains at the expense of the industry.
I'm sorry, but the difference between $12.99 and $9.99 is precisely a cost (hurt) to the consumer of $3. It's certainly a reduction in consumer surplus and, when multiplied by the millions of books sold every year, is a meaningful impact.