Last time I went to a bookstore it was in England a few years back and they had put it disclaimer in front of HP Lovecrafts books.
Uh uh uh, I want to move like Jagger.
This law is a disgrace. They want to make readers spend more than 5 euros extra on the price of each book purchased online for the sole benefit of small book sellers who are not competitive with Amazon’s economy of scale. Fuck that noise.
or how to make books unavailable to poor.
How french
[removed]
I support this, amazon has been systematically destroying smaller competitors for years and book stores are too important culturally to disappear.
French guy here, I buy my books in English on amazon UK. Better choice of books.
I am not sure how they are going to stop French people from shopping elsewhere.
Imagine if Amazon starts selling other things besides books.
Good. Don’t think it will work in the long run, but might as well make the attempt.
Amazon undercutting the price by waiving the shipping costs specifically for books is obviously done in bad faith. In the same way they can absorb undercutting the book price, if they were legally allowed to, they are absorbing the shipping fees.
A minimum delivery fee is one way to level the playing field. That’s respectable and it can be a stop-gap solution, but maybe there are better solutions. For example, pursuing Amazon under anti-monpoly laws.
I’m going to ask a stupid question, but don’t you have local internet sites selling books? And I guess there are other sites from which you can order books besides Amazon. If this continues, Bezon will also monopolize the market for local drug dealers.
Very skeptical of this. On one hand it’s good to protect smaller businesses from big monopolies, on the other, businesses need to evolve with consumer demand
It’s obvious that most of those who comment from abroad don’t have booksellers or quality bookstores like in France. They are mostly owned by passionate, do a great job at helping the consummer and should be helped by the state. They are a national asset toward national cultures and against US dependence.
This law really shows how decadent the French are. Do you really need to have a law to “save bookstores”?
Are there used books shops with delivery in France that sell English books? I know of World of books, it’s great and so far I understand still not bought out by Amazon, like Book Depository was. And it’s UK based.
There are bookstore chains in France too like the FNAC. I bought books from them online from NZ a few years ago.
Overall independent bookstores are useful if you are looking for a more diverse range of subjects, not just the mass published books. For example, if you want popular history books, in New Zealand chains like Paper Plus or Whitcoulls won’t have them and you need to go to independent places. But if the book titles are common enough they are cheaper to get at the chains.
Shame that even in major cities in NZ there is usually only one or two left each.
You must really be living in a big city to think this is a good idea. This will just recreate a cultural divide with people living in smaller towns without decent bookstores, or I guess you expect them to drive 1hr to the closest fnac like in the 90s.
Reading these kind of news makes me glad Amazon never took off in Poland.
How is amazon so popular, it’s shite. Half the stuff on it is Chinese knockoffs. Whenever I search for something half the things have no price, the search is bad, the layout etc.
I don’t understand.
Some people value having a physical book some don’t, why not let those who don’t benefit from the lower production costs of digital?
Personally in usually happy to pay a bit extra for a physical book if it’s non fiction but get digital with fiction.
Ordered a book at bookstore city center Nijmegen. Got it 15 minutes later. Thought it was a prank, but employee lived in neighbourhood and delivered it on his way home.
22 comments
Last time I went to a bookstore it was in England a few years back and they had put it disclaimer in front of HP Lovecrafts books.
Uh uh uh, I want to move like Jagger.
This law is a disgrace. They want to make readers spend more than 5 euros extra on the price of each book purchased online for the sole benefit of small book sellers who are not competitive with Amazon’s economy of scale. Fuck that noise.
or how to make books unavailable to poor.
How french
[removed]
I support this, amazon has been systematically destroying smaller competitors for years and book stores are too important culturally to disappear.
French guy here, I buy my books in English on amazon UK. Better choice of books.
I am not sure how they are going to stop French people from shopping elsewhere.
Imagine if Amazon starts selling other things besides books.
Good. Don’t think it will work in the long run, but might as well make the attempt.
[Fixed book price](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_book_price) is an excellent law that allows bookshops to stay in the market and publishers to be able to give a chance to more than just big-name guaranteed bestsellers, and it also makes some innovations like [independent e-commerce](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/nov/02/this-is-revolutionary-new-online-bookshop-unites-indies-to-rival-amazon) more likely.
Amazon undercutting the price by waiving the shipping costs specifically for books is obviously done in bad faith. In the same way they can absorb undercutting the book price, if they were legally allowed to, they are absorbing the shipping fees.
A minimum delivery fee is one way to level the playing field. That’s respectable and it can be a stop-gap solution, but maybe there are better solutions. For example, pursuing Amazon under anti-monpoly laws.
I’m going to ask a stupid question, but don’t you have local internet sites selling books? And I guess there are other sites from which you can order books besides Amazon. If this continues, Bezon will also monopolize the market for local drug dealers.
Very skeptical of this. On one hand it’s good to protect smaller businesses from big monopolies, on the other, businesses need to evolve with consumer demand
It’s obvious that most of those who comment from abroad don’t have booksellers or quality bookstores like in France. They are mostly owned by passionate, do a great job at helping the consummer and should be helped by the state. They are a national asset toward national cultures and against US dependence.
This law really shows how decadent the French are. Do you really need to have a law to “save bookstores”?
Are there used books shops with delivery in France that sell English books? I know of World of books, it’s great and so far I understand still not bought out by Amazon, like Book Depository was. And it’s UK based.
There are bookstore chains in France too like the FNAC. I bought books from them online from NZ a few years ago.
Overall independent bookstores are useful if you are looking for a more diverse range of subjects, not just the mass published books. For example, if you want popular history books, in New Zealand chains like Paper Plus or Whitcoulls won’t have them and you need to go to independent places. But if the book titles are common enough they are cheaper to get at the chains.
Shame that even in major cities in NZ there is usually only one or two left each.
You must really be living in a big city to think this is a good idea. This will just recreate a cultural divide with people living in smaller towns without decent bookstores, or I guess you expect them to drive 1hr to the closest fnac like in the 90s.
Reading these kind of news makes me glad Amazon never took off in Poland.
How is amazon so popular, it’s shite. Half the stuff on it is Chinese knockoffs. Whenever I search for something half the things have no price, the search is bad, the layout etc.
I don’t understand.
Some people value having a physical book some don’t, why not let those who don’t benefit from the lower production costs of digital?
Personally in usually happy to pay a bit extra for a physical book if it’s non fiction but get digital with fiction.
Ordered a book at bookstore city center Nijmegen. Got it 15 minutes later. Thought it was a prank, but employee lived in neighbourhood and delivered it on his way home.