France Moves To Protect Independent Booksellers From Amazon 264
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Tourists often marvel at the number of rich and varied bookstores along Paris streets. Right across from Notre Dame Cathedral is one of the city's most famous independent bookstores, Shakespeare and Company. Inside, every inch of space is crammed with books and readers. The city buys buildings in high-rent districts and tries to keep a core of 300 independent bookstore by offering booksellers leases at an affordable price. 'We have to keep our identity,' says Lynn Cohen-Solal, 'because if we don't, all the shops are exactly the same in Paris, in London, in New York, in New Delhi, everywhere.' Now Eleanor Beardsley reports at NPR that the French government has accused Amazon of trying to push the price of physical books too low and is limiting discounts on books to ensure the survival of its independent booksellers. France's lower house of parliament has unanimously voted to add an amendment to a law from 1981, known in France as the Lang Law which sets the value of new books at fixed prices and only allows retailers to lower books' set price by 5%, in an effort to regulate competition between booksellers and to promote reading. Guillaume Husson, spokesman for the SLF book retailers' union, says Amazon's practice of bundling a 5 percent discount with free delivery amounted to selling books at a loss, which was impossible for traditional book sellers of any size. 'Today, the competition is unfair,' says Husson. 'No other book retailer, whether a small or large book or even a chain, can allow itself to lose that much money,' referring to Amazon's alleged losses on free delivery. Amazon spent $2.8 billion on free shipping worldwide last year to gain a competitive advantage. The bill limiting Amazon's price reductions in France still has to pass the Senate to become law. In a statement, Amazon said any effort to raise the price of books diminishes the cultural choices of French consumers and penalizes both Internet users and small publishers who rely on Internet sales."
Good for the French ! (Score:2, Informative)
Amazon will abuse its power once it has attained monopoly status as
a supplier.
I have never once bought anything via Amazon and I never will.
Actually, I'd like to see Jeff Bezos get terminal cancer. He is a despicable
little parasite and the world would be better off without him.
Re:Not Fair (Score:4, Informative)
In what way is Amazon's "service" better? Mostly, they have a huge inventory and cheap prices. That's about it.
Well there's that, the fact that items get delivered fast (often the stuff they promise to me in two days comes overnight, and I don't even live near a distribution center) and the fact that returning items is dead simple and they even pay for the return shipping. Also a book I bought from them had a mangled cover, I called to complain about it and they just refunded me $35 (the book cost $80,) and they didn't even want the book back.
That's not a good analogy. Whole Foods is a giant corporate structure whose goals are only marginally better than Walmart. Whole Foods isn't terrible, but its version of "organic" and "wholesome" foods is more about making customers feel better about what they're eating, rather than necessarily providing a consistently better product.
You've got that way off. Organic itself is more about making customers feel better about what they're eating, it has even been scientifically proven to be so. Unscientifically as well: Look at how the girl comments on how good the organic banana is compared to the non-organic one in this video (it's short)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Zqe4ZV9LDs [youtube.com]
Only it's the same fucking banana. A few of the shoppers admit they just want organic just because of how it makes them feel, nothing to do with the actual food itself. It's like paying extra for holy water just because it is blessed, even though nothing about the water has changed. Organic is just the new age holy water.
If GMO were being used to breed better, tastier, more diverse types of tomatoes, I might actually be interested in eating them.
That's not what people actually want. You yourself might claim as such, but chances are you won't actually follow that line of thinking when it comes to your palate. Most people like a specific flavor and tend to want to stick to its distinct taste, only changing when in their head they specifically seek change, or are otherwise forced to. Most people don't consciously realize this. Coca-Cola found this out the hard way back in the 80's. Look at high fructose corn syrup. Most Americans say they want real sugar, but when they taste foods they're already used to only with real sugar instead of HFCS, they tend to prefer the HFCS taste because it's what they're used to. Pepsi actually sells their soda brands with real sugar in the US under the throwback moniker, but most people don't buy them - instead mostly foreigners and immigrants buy them because that is the taste that they are used to, which makes it profitable enough to keep on the shelves.
The banana industry went through hell when they had to switch from the gross michel to the cavendish banana. There are all kinds of different varieties of banana out there, but people just wanted the gross michel because it was the flavor they were used to. When the gross michel was killed by a fungal plague, the industry had to switch to the cavendish. Well good because as you say, people want variety right? Wrong. It sold like shit for a while until people finally got used to the new flavor.