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France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

reuters.com

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Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#131

Post by makeitdouble »

ineedasername wrote: post #112

So, basically Amazon is in a win-win situation. If the status quo prevails, they're happy. If they have to start charging for shipping, maybe some customers go to a local bookstore but Amazon also has a legal mandate to make more profit in their book sales by not subsidizing shipping out of the wholesale margin. And while some people will buy local a bit more, Amazon sells so many things and the local store may still…

There are laws preventing price dropping on new books.

If Amazon has to start charging for shipping, they will be charging the same as every other bookstore in total, making them just another option among the others. Some will still prefer Amazon, but there is no downside anymore to chose another online shop (and there’s plenty big and reputable ones).

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#132

Post by mtalantikite »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #105
throwaway789257 wrote: post #50

France has a long history of attempting to protect its cultural industries, including film and publishing. It's not wrong. There are other things that are important aside from customer purchasing power. Amazon is using its economies of scale to drive out smaller businesses. It is not unique in that. But the industries that Amazon affects may be unique to the nations that wish to preserve them. Most centralization inc…

I'd also note that, at least in my experience, the "book culture" in France is much more than we think of even small booksellers in the US. That is, in the US the vision is generally something along the lines of Amazon vs. small independent stores a la "You've Got Mail". In France, there are big, multi-day book fairs that take up large swaths of major cities. I visited Lyon during the Quais du Polar festival years ag…

Yeah, we have some decent sized book festivals here in NYC, but they’re still relatively small. Brooklyn Book fest is one of the larger ones in NYC and the attendance number I found is about 35k people. The one in Lyon you mentioned seems to be at around 65k, in a city less than 1/10 the size of NYC.

It’s too bad, book festivals can be a lot of fun. I went to the Jaipur Literature Festival in 2019 and the estimate was 400k people over the 5 days. High school kids were even taking class field trips to hear author talks. It was really nice to see so many people excited for books.

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#133

Post by tdeck »

xcambar wrote: post #127
ineedasername wrote: post #112

So, basically Amazon is in a win-win situation. If the status quo prevails, they're happy. If they have to start charging for shipping, maybe some customers go to a local bookstore but Amazon also has a legal mandate to make more profit in their book sales by not subsidizing shipping out of the wholesale margin. And while some people will buy local a bit more, Amazon sells so many things and the local store may still…

That struck me as well. Another option would have been to support local bookstores by subsidizing transportation, which would have allowed them to lower the price to the point of being competitive with Amazon. But I guess that using public money to help local businesses is not as good as getting the customers to pay and help Amazon at the same time, in the eyes of Macron.

> Another option would have been to support local bookstores by subsidizing transportation

Doesn't media mail already do this (in the US)? If you're just sending books, the USPS will deliver them well below cost.

I'm not sure what effect it has on local shops.

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#134

Post by panzagl »

amluto wrote: post #125
pier25 wrote: post #62

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but this is actually protecting the small book stores, right? Big stores like the Fnac could offer the same shipping prices as Amazon (and maybe they're already doing it). Publishers don't care much who is selling the book as long as it's selling. Obviously this only applies to physical books. Ebooks only account for about 15% of books sold in France unlike the US where it's close to 5…

I’m suspicious that Amazon sells fewer books than a good physical bookstore. In a bookstore, people find books they didn’t know they want, and I’ve never found anything interesting on Amazon. Similarly, Amazon does not produce the “whole I’m already here, I might as well buy something else” effect. I’ve long thought that the publishers have has their whole business model wrong in quite a few ways.

Ugh, this is going to sound pretentious, but here goes:

When you follow a subject beyond a surface/casual level of understanding there is very little you just 'discover' at a bookstore, unless it's one of a few specialty shops. You follow journals, publishers' catalogs, and forums which not only keep you current with new releases, but also expose you to back-catalog and out of print material. And nobody beats Amazon for carrying all of that material.

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#135

Post by GekkePrutser »

phtrivier wrote: post #7

It's funny that we still pin Amazon against bookstores - I was under the impression that Amazon is shipping _everything_ those days, and that books are not what most people go to Amazon for any more.

On the other hand, typical French chains like FNAC have also expanded into electronics and even the kind of 'marketplace' with third party sellers.

If anything the online market in France has more competition than most countries.

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#136

Post by makeitdouble »

rafaelturk wrote: post #8

My experience tells me that the practical outcome of this new regulation is that shipping will become more expensive for books. It will not prevent customers to stop shopping online, so no effect for legacy bookstore.s Like most goverment proposed solutions: This will actually create a new problem not fix the origintal intented cause.

There at least one big online book selling store in France that will benefit from this law if it passes.

The point is not on online vs brick and mortar, it’s to prevent Amazon from providing a lower price by eating shipping costs. Keep in mind they can’t reduce the book cost when it’s new (it’s a French law), so shipping price was their only lever.

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#137

Post by silentsea90 »

I think resisting change only takes you so far. Let systems become efficient. Centralized systems like Amazon will find an antidote in decentralized ones like Shopify. We don't miss horse carriages but I am sure they were part of daily life a 100+ years ago. Disruption and change is part of life.

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#138

Post by animal_spirits »

panzagl wrote: post #134
amluto wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m suspicious that Amazon sells fewer books than a good physical bookstore. In a bookstore, people find books they didn’t know they want, and I’ve never found anything interesting on Amazon. Similarly, Amazon does not produce the “whole I’m already here, I might as well buy something else” effect. I’ve long thought that the publishers have has their whole business model wrong in quite a few ways.

Ugh, this is going to sound pretentious, but here goes: When you follow a subject beyond a surface/casual level of understanding there is very little you just 'discover' at a bookstore, unless it's one of a few specialty shops. You follow journals, publishers' catalogs, and forums which not only keep you current with new releases, but also expose you to back-catalog and out of print material. And nobody beats Amazon…

Writing tip, if you think something is going to sound pretentious, then replace all instances of 'you' with 'I'. Usually that will help with the tone. I find I sometimes tend to assume my own personal experiences will match everyone else's experience, which usually is not the case in the end. So, instead of trying to convince people what the "right way" to bookshop is, just give your perspective as another point to the conversation.

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#139

Post by tshaddox »

WalterBright wrote: post #122
tshaddox wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All names of professional sports stadiums are arbitrary and vacuous. It's not like there was some "real name" the building had that got surreptitiously erased or covered up by "virtue signalers."

> arbitrary and vacuous Not really. It was called Key Arena before because Key Bank funded it. It was good advertising for them. The buildings on college campuses are also named after their donors. It acknowledges who paid for it. Names can also just be for fun, like the Seattle Space Needle. The Emerald City is also the official nickname for Seattle. Climate Pledge Arena is about as fun as "eat your broccoli, it's g…

Key Bank bought the naming rights and named it "Key Arena." Amazon bought the naming rights and called it "Climate Pledge Arena." The only sense in which one of those arbitrary names is "virtue signaling" and the other isn't it that some people just don't like it when anyone mentions climate change in public.

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#140

Post by kaashif »

coffeefirst wrote: post #126
baby wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think technology is going to sunset paper books, so this is just delaying the inevitable.

I’ve changed my mind about this. ebooks should make more sense, but people just like paper. And why not? We spend so much time in screens it’s nice to have things that are physical.

I had a Kindle for a few years, but I like paper books. After a long day at work, it's nice to relax with something that would survive a coronal mass ejection or nuclear EMP.
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