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France Sets Minimum Delivery Fee For Online Book Sales To Help Independent Stores Compete (reuters.com) 117

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
France plans to impose a minimum delivery fee of 3 euros ($2.93) for online book orders of less than 35 euros to level the playing field for independent bookstores struggling to compete against e-commerce giants, the government said on Friday. From a report: A 2014 French law already prohibits free book deliveries, but Amazon and other vendors such as Fnac have circumvented this by charging a token 1 cent per delivery. Local book stores typically charge up to 7 euros for shipping a book.

Legislation was passed in December 2021 to close the one-cent loophole through a minimum shipping fee, but the law could not take effect until the government had decided on the size of that fee. "This will adapt the book industry to the digital era by restoring an equilibrium between large e-commerce platforms, which offer virtually free delivery for books whatever the order size, and bookstores that cannot match these delivery prices," the culture and finance ministries said in a joint statement. They added that France will notify the European Commission of its plan and the minimum delivery fee will take effect six months after the EU grants approval.
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France Sets Minimum Delivery Fee For Online Book Sales To Help Independent Stores Compete More

France Sets Minimum Delivery Fee For Online Book Sales To Help Independent Stores Compete

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  • The law of unintended consequences raises his hand...
    • I think the important part is "store," and having multiple different warehouses from which to mail order books is not particularly the goal.

    • Re:What about online sales by independent stores? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Guybrush_T ( 980074 ) on Friday September 23, 2022 @09:15AM (#62907473)

      Not sure what you meant here. Online sales by independent stores will also require a minimum of 3 euros shipping fees for orders below 35 euros. Which should not be a problem given anyone who really reflects shipping fees would pay more than 3 euros to ship books.

      I'm the first to watch out for unintended consequences, and there could be some hidden here, but your comment seems way too short to be useful.

      • So stores tgat lost 7 euros per sale will now only lose 4 euros?

        The answer is free postal delivery for local bookshops, take the shipping cost off the table. Forcing consumers to pay a "sin tax" for buying from Amazon only enriches Amazon.

        • Agreed it depends on how amazon reacts. They could reflect the real cost of shipping (we can dream) or they could figure out a way to reduce the price of some other article you buy with the books. Amazon making more money on individual sales is ok; the goal is to reduce the attractiveness of amazon vs local book shops so that they sell less (even though they make more money per sale). And yes if that makes any difference in the long term I'll be surprised. We'll see.

    • Re:What about online sales by independent stores? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by splutty ( 43475 ) on Friday September 23, 2022 @09:23AM (#62907513)

      It's a minimum fee, and almost all independent stores that have an online presence will pay more than that for delivery to begin with.

      Sending shit through the mail is expensive, if you're not a giant company like Amazon who can either cut deals with large delivery companies, or just eat the cost.

      • Amazon runs their own, profitable, package delivery system.

        It's amazing the French government (which theoretically) sets postal rates chose to enrich Amazon and not lower postal rates for small bookstores. Remember, it's the French government that sets the postal rates.

        • Re: What about online sales by independent stores? (Score:4, Informative)

          by splutty ( 43475 ) on Friday September 23, 2022 @10:33AM (#62907765)

          Only in the US. They don't run their own delivery in the EU.

          • Amazon does have their own delivery operations outside the US. I've had quite a few things delivered by Amazon Logistics here in the UK (though it seems a bit random whether they use them or an outside courier). I don't know about France, but it's certainly not "only in the US".

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by splutty ( 43475 )

              The UK is no longer part of the EU :) But that's pedantry.

              I would wonder how that Amazon Logistics is set up in the UK, though. I'm going to guess it's just local small delivery companies partially carrying that name.

              (And anything coming from other depots like NL/BE/DE would most likely be DHL)

              • Yes, which is why I was objecting to the "only in the US" part - I don't know if they have operations in EU countries, but I do know that they have an operation in a non-US company.
                The Amazon vans are separate to any other companies. They're generally owner-operated vans under contract to Amazon (but then so are many of the "traditional" parcel companies) rather than Amazon employees. And Amazon don't always use Amazon Logistics, even for things being sold by Amazon.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by idji ( 984038 )
            you bet they do. Amazon runs it's own delivery in Germany and Austria. the drivers are "independent contractors" but hundreds of those drivers every day line up and pick up their 100-150 packets at the dicate of Amazon. Amazon at this scale can deliver very cheaply.

        • Amazon runs their own, profitable, package delivery system.

          In France?

          enrich Amazon
          Does it?

          and not lower postal rates for small bookstores.
          How should that work? You give special conditions to a special branch in the industry? Why? How many laws would that contradict?

    • From the summary, "Local book stores typically charge up to 7 euros for shipping a book." So 3 eu is still less than the local store would charge to "ship" the book in most cases. I'm thinking they are trying to keep the small shops open to foot traffic. There is something about the smell of paper in a small shop that brings books to mind.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 )

        I'm thinking they are trying to keep the small shops open to foot traffic.

        Yes, that is correct. The French government has decided that people who buy books from small shops are "good" and should be subsidized, while people who buy books online are "bad" and should be taxed.

        The stores make 95% of their sales from a few bestsellers, while nerds and bibliophiles find the "long tail" of obscure and technical books online. So this is an anti-nerd policy.

        It also harms independent authors. Amazon will carry a book from an unknown author with low sales. A physical shop doesn't have the s

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by q_e_t ( 5104099 )

          Yes, that is correct. The French government has decided that people who buy books from small shops are "good" and should be subsidized, while people who buy books online are "bad" and should be taxed.

          No, it has decided that having small shops is good and has applied a 'nudge' to promote what it sees as something good, which is common for governments to do. You can argue whether it is good, but there's no moral judgement on customers here.

          • Really this. Government picks winners and losers all the time. The post office for example gives below cost rates for media mail. So Amazon was a winner as was netflix in the US.

        • A physical shop doesn't have the shelf space for that.
          Perhaps you once should go into such a shop ...

    • What about delivery to the stores? I mean, they have to get stocked somehow?

  • I don't understand why lawmakers always set a specific amount. The value of the a specific amount will fluctuate based on inflation and currency exchange values. In the U.S. we have fees that remain 1.00USD from 80 years ago.

    Instead, why not index it to the prime rate? CPI?

    As to the law itself, seems unlikely to produce any real good for any but a few particular shops, and not for long. For better or worse, online shopping of all kinds is here to stay, and is probably the right choice for things that are mo

    • Instead, why not index it to the prime rate? CPI?

      That would require complex math that the politician cant handle.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
        Hmm PI adjusted, is that headline/Agrigate or core, those two numbers are usually differing by a rather significant margin

    • Because math is hard, a defined number is easier to discuss.

      It's not like politicians can't revisit the regulation and increase the fee at a later date.

    • This is super common in Japan. It's not like you want to carry a set of speakers, or a new microwave onto the train. So the big stores like Yodobashi or whatever will deliver almost anything in the store. It's not instant, might be a few days, but shopping in-store then having it delivered is definitely a thing in Japan at least.

  • This seems like a win for the consumer. Who doesn't want to pay more to Amazon for the same goods and service helping to increase their profits?

    I feel even with the prices being levelled between the big retailers and independents most people will still go with the big retailers just becuase they have a wider range, faster processing and next day delivery.

    Also less people than ever are purchasing physical books so any real impact is limited.

    • My wife and I buy books in physical format, to the point where we're not sure where to put them anymore. I know, anecdotal evidence...

      • I would like to buy more physical books ...but then I'd run out of room pretty fast. Also, if I had to donate some I'm not sure I would even want to get rid of many. I tend to only buy things I'm pretty sure I'm gonna like.

      • I have over 1000 books, probably 150 computer science related, a few rare scientific books, the rest novels.

        The amount of eBooks I can not really count, as they are cluttered over a few devices.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

      This seems like a win for the consumer. Who doesn't want to pay more to Amazon for the same goods and service helping to increase their profits?

      Those who think beyond the timescale of their two day Prime delivery, and recognize that as Amazon eats the business of bookstores that cannot cross-subsidize their shipping costs with revenue other lines of business such as durable goods, groceries, cloud services, security systems, and so forth.

      Does it cost Amazon 0.01 Euro to ship a book? No? That cost differen

      • Re:Forcing the online retailers to charge more (Score:5, Insightful)

        by DarkOx ( 621550 ) on Friday September 23, 2022 @09:56AM (#62907647) Journal

        Ok - you got me thinking about. Now I am asking why should I care. What 'value' does the existence of traditional book stores offer again? They served a purpose - they provide a place where one could find a wider array of print media for purchase than more general retails could offer.

        Amazon does that - in fact Amazon does that a lot better than book stores ever did.. I get that YOU might enjoy the experience offered by the bookstore but the market moves on and should. I mean there used to be a lot more tack shops; back everyone had horse and buggy, should we have required auto sales to include a set of ridding boots?

        Simple fact is the internet and efficent parcel delivery has obsoleted specialty retail in any category where urgency isnt a major component of sales. I am not sure why we need to treat that as a 'bad thing'

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Tablizer ( 95088 )

          > What 'value' does the existence of traditional book stores offer again?

          You answered it there: "tradition". A physical place to browse books and meet actual humans, or at least keep a "French flavor" to online book stores. (Insert escargot jokes here.)

          It's also a stealth form of anti-trust, making it harder for Amazon to swallow all bookstores completely.

        • Simple fact is the internet and efficent parcel delivery has obsoleted specialty retail in any category where urgency isnt a major component of sales.

          Close, but no.

          Internet purchasing has obsoleted retail sales in commodity items. If there is a materiel difference between 2 items with the same id/description, then in-person shopping is still relevant. e.g. If you care about the difference between item A and item B, but the vendor does not -then you want to shop for yourself.

        • Simple fact is the internet and efficent parcel delivery has obsoleted specialty retail in any category where urgency isnt a major component of sales. I am not sure why we need to treat that as a 'bad thing'

          This got me thinking.

          You never know what you need urgently. If most products / retailers are online only, and you have very small selections available at physcial stores, you will have a problem getting things urgently. Can be as simple as a AA/AAA for a remote, a replacement LED light, paper towels, anything at all. There is classification which states only items in this list are urgent.

          No doubt most of the things will not be life or death urgent, but it will start to be an incovenience over time if you ca

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Mitreya ( 579078 )

            You never know what you need urgently. If most products / retailers are online only, and you have very small selections available at physcial stores

            You are absolutely right. The problem is that it's already the case that almost nothing is available in a local physical store. I once spent an evening going from store to store (including Staples and Target) trying to buy a regular printer cable because I need it that day. Ended up buying on Amazon and waiting for delivery.

        • Amazon does that - in fact Amazon does that a lot better than book stores ever did..

          snip

          Simple fact is the internet and efficent parcel delivery has obsoleted specialty retail in any category where urgency isnt a major component of sales. I am not sure why we need to treat that as a 'bad thing'

          You're attributing to online experience what is solely offered only by Amazon. Amazon's practices in undercutting shipping is not only killing brick and mortar stores, it also is a direct attack on competitors on the internet.

          I agree with you. I have no interest in going into a book store and buy what I need online. But I definitely do NOT want to live in a dystopian hellhole where Amazon is a monopoly and the only source of books or other things online, which is absolutely their endgame here.

          Offering free

        • It is about shipping fees.
          Not about block and mortar book stores.

          You should at least have read the summary.

          And MODERATORS: shame on you. He is an idiot and not insightful at all. You probably did not read the summery either, but have the audacity to mod - how retarded.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by idji ( 984038 )
          because it's an effective monopoly and removes citizen choice. The role of a government is to provide services to citizens, not profits to corporations.

      • This will blow-up in the bookseller's faces, if implemented.

        Amazon buys in volume, get best price for items, offers them at lower prices.

        Amazon largely relies on their own delivery service, almost guaranteed to be cheaper than anything a local bookseller can use.

        The â3 'shipping charge' is only a portion of the actual (average) shipping cost of â7, local bookseller's will STILL lose money per sale.

        EVEN IF a local bookseller can price match Amazon, even if they can match Amazon's delivery time, it

        • But this law makes the politicians look good (they're doing something) but doesn't cost any money to implement. The one you propose, while it would be better for independent bookstores, would cost lots of money (obviously by subsidizing the "free" shipping)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Amazon doesn't have to pay rent on physical stores, and has their own distribution network that handles a lot of deliveries directly. They have Amazon lockers too. Either you pay for the shipping with Prime, or you wait until Amazon can bundle your item together with lots of others going to an area to keep the cost down.

        Independents can't compete with any of that.

      • Those who think beyond the timescale of their two day Prime delivery, and recognize that as Amazon eats the business of bookstores that cannot cross-subsidize their shipping costs with revenue other lines of business such as durable goods, groceries, cloud services, security systems, and so forth.

        Does it cost Amazon 0.01 Euro to ship a book? No? That cost difference is not a gift to the consumer, it's a trap.

        There were the same cries 30 years ago about Walmart making mom&pop stores extinct. "Just wait," the doomers said, "once the last mom&pop is closed, Walmart will jack up the prices."

        Hasn't happened.

        Amazon found a way to more efficiently distribute books. The consumer wins by paying less, having more money available to spend elsewhere. For the same price as the local shop, you can buy the book on Amazon plus a coffee. The customer wins, Amazon wins, the local coffee shop wins.

        But with the government

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

          There were the same cries 30 years ago about Walmart making mom&pop stores extinct. "Just wait," the doomers said, "once the last mom&pop is closed, Walmart will jack up the prices."

          Hasn't happened.

          Oh, it has, [ilsr.org], you're just secure in your ignorance [justia.com].

        • Hasn't happened.

          But not because "doomers" were wrong, but rather because of an unforeseen circumstance: Amazon and internet commerce. The only reason Wallmart hasn't driven out competitors and jacked up prices is because they never got monopoly status.

          The same cannot be said for Amazon. You want a direct example of the power of a monopoly: Look at the cost of e-books, and the very real price fixing that goes on when you have power over an industry. They *have* gone up in price, far higher than printed counterparts.

          But with the government putting their thumb on the scale, the customer loses.

          Consumer

    • This seems like a win to Amazon - they'll collect additional revenue off every book sale/transaction and STILL be cheaper than the local book store that pays more for shipping.

      Amazon will still be cheaper, because a) based on volume discounts, Amazon will be cheaper, and b) local booksellers can't "eat" â4/shipment if they only collect â3 toward a â7 avg shipping cost.

      Amazon will still get the bulk of book sales AND will now collect â3 in 'extra revenue' per book sale - boy, France reall

    • Given a choice between doing business with A, which makes it on its own, and B, which requires a govt support, at the same price, a lot of people will go with A because "fuck the govt!"

    • If the online giants want to continue at that price point I'm sure they'll find a way to knock the delivery price off of the book price, charge the delivery and it will come out the same

      What the local bookstores need is for people to come in and generate foot traffic, impulse buys etc. I don't see this measure improving that much. The other local stores have the same needs. Maybe they should get together and have a grant from the French government to somehow make coming into town to shop the various stores

  • So only for books? What about other small industries like cd, cheese and cracker or dildo shops that also have small scale orders and cant compete with amazons free shipping on everything, ever, all the time (as long as you pay in advance for that shipping).

    • small industries like cd, cheese and cracker or dildo shops

      This made me laugh, I immediately thought "Doing it wrong!"

  • ...we do the opposite. [usps.com] Pound for pound, Media Mail makes it much cheaper to ship a book than a bag of hammers.

    • Do what I do: tell the Post Office that box of hammers is actually a box of books!
    • That was the netflix model. Without that rate netflix dvd biz never could have survived. I remember sending some cd's to a friend once and was astounded how little it cost to send.

    • Exactly.

      If implemented, Amazon will still be the cheapest option, and will likely sell the same number of books, only now the French Govt is forcing customers to give Amazon 3 euros extra, making Amazon's book sales in France profoundly more profitable!

      The US media mail model is what's needed, not this fee.

      The end result is local bookstores will stop shipping books (too expensive), and Amazon, who was already profitable without the 3 euro fee, will sell just as many (or more) books as before, AND collect a

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Ichijo ( 607641 )

        only now the French Govt is forcing customers to give Amazon 3 euros extra, making Amazon's book sales in France profoundly more profitable!

        If Amazon were smart they would raise it to 10 euros, even 100! Think of the profits!

  • A fee to all new cars should be introduced.

    • This isn't about buggy whips. It's about one large mega car manufacturer using their size and power to undercut others by absorbing a large variable business cost in ways smaller car manufacturers can't compete with.

      It's simply a more direct way than waiting for competitors to go out of business and then filing an anti-trust suit after the fact.

  • We all know the delivery fee will just be deducted from the normal price with free delivery! Kind of like Domino's claim of "free delivery!" Yeah, all their pizzas are half the free delivery price if you come down the the store and pick them up yourself! Sure sounds like they are charging for delivery to me!

    • We all know the delivery fee will just be deducted from the normal price with free delivery!

      Nope. It is already illegal in France to sell a new book for less than 95% of the MSRP.

      It is also illegal in France to sell a new book as "used".

    • No. Amazon will keep prices the same and pocket the extra 3 euros.

      Amazon book sales are profitable now, and their prices are lower than local stores, adding the 3 euro "fee" adds 3 euros of pure profit to Amazon while appearing to help local book sellers slightly cut their losses on book shipments. The local bookseller's price will always be equal to or more tgan Amazon's price, their delivery will always be slower, and the 3 euros will only lower the losses per shipped book order for the local stores - it

  • France seems to have an odd fixation on fighting industry innovation.
    If the free market has found a cheaper (and therefore more efficient) way to meet a consumer demand- why work to fight it?

    Seems odd for a government to race to protect horse buggy business when people are buying cars...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nagora ( 177841 )

      If the free market has found a cheaper

      You think Amazon operates in a free market? Oooh, boy.

    • I don't think true. France tries to protect its culture, from language to the arts. I'd consider the small sellers a part of french culture. I visited Paris in the early 90's, "pre-internet". I don't remember what they called it but they had something I think connect to the phone system that was sort of like the internet for getting tickets and such. It was clever and ahead of its time. But I never would have visited Paris if they did not have architecture that had been preserved for centuries.

      • It was called Minitel [wikipedia.org].

        The French government's efforts to protect it from competition resulted in crippling barriers to innovation and is one reason France has so few tech companies today.

        Governments aren't very good at "picking winners," but the French seem to be impervious to that economics lesson.

    • France seems to have an odd fixation on fighting industry innovation.

      There's nothing innovative about using your large size to eat cost of smaller orders by offering a normal fixed business cost for free and thus squeeze out competitors. This practice is as old as the free market.

      If the free market has found a cheaper (and therefore more efficient) way to meet a consumer demand- why work to fight it?

      You don't actually want a free market. A free market is never good for consumers. By definition the only stable state for a free market is a total monopoly, and once that is achieved the market is solely decided by the last survivor leaving consumers with high expenses and no choice.

      The term you're

  • I'm reminded of the protests when France raised the retirement age [cbsnews.com] back in 2010. Right at the time, I was on vacation in Paris, which made for a lot of memorable experiences.

    The one thing I recall being told by a Parisienne is that "France is France, you don't try to figure it out."

  • I'm old I guess, but the weight of physical books has gotten burdensome over the years. My wrists just get tired too fast especially with large hardbound books. So I've switched to digital books and a light reader. The fine article didn't make clear what the impact would be when there is no real shipping cost at all as with a digital book. This is the real problem that is faced by local book shops - the digital book. Shipping costs simply don't matter.

    Amazon also offers thousands of digital kindle books co

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by khchung ( 462899 )

      Any that I buy I quickly read anyway, so if the kindle eco-system blows up, I've still gotten the good out of any book I've purchased. If the free ones disappear, I won't be happy, but I won't be out anything either. And my kids will have far fewer books to dispose of when I die.

      Spot on.

      When I owned around 50 books, and some quite expensive, I imagine one day giving them my children.
      Then when I had over around 200 books, I started having trouble finding room to put them, most when into obscure corners where they became forgotten.
      I have no idea how many paper books I had when I started buying ebook from Amazon, but by that time I already had no illusion about my children wanting any of my books. Maybe there is a few they might want to read, but even if I remember I owned one, the e

      • Kids can surprise you. They didn't pay much attention to my collection of books all the time they lived at home. Now that they are on their own, they've started reading a few I thought might be of interest to them and found they actually liked them and went ahead and read the whole series. You just never now. And you can always make a kid's profile if they have a reader and move your digital books to that profile for a bit if they want to read one.

        I have six bookcases that are closed and a couple of open o

  • ...instead of wiping out copyright and limiting to 10 years after first publication and lowing prices and supporting print-on-demand (for school texts, out-of-print books, etc.) they have decided to make the already expensive books (remember that the author does NOT receive money at all in comparison) even more expensive, limiting even more the people to access knowledge.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by q_e_t ( 5104099 )

      ...instead of wiping out copyright and limiting to 10 years after first publication and lowing prices and supporting print-on-demand (for school texts, out-of-print books, etc.)

      Those things are set internationally, by-and-large and France is in no position to go it alone on that.

      • Those things are NOT *set* internationally, they are *agreed on*.

        Just the same you can say *NO*, but no one has enough balls to do it.

  • Amazon will simply stop claiming that the shipping is "free." After all, members pay an annual membership fee to cover shipping costs.

    At the very least, they would be able to "allocate" $3 of the Prime Membership fee to each order up until the total is used up.

    However, Amazon knows that $3/order is a windfall for them if they don't fight it. However, the terms of the Prime Membership likely don't have provisions to increase the shipping charge so they will have to compensate members for their breach of co

  • Imagine that, "Hey sir, your car is putting horse stables out of business, you're going to need to pay up to take that ride!"

  • Inflating the price and letting online stores keep a larger profit margin isn't the same as protecting independent book stores.

  • The natural state of man is Hobbesian. Or, in Europe, it is Communism. Those are the only two attractors in that dynamical system. The best you can hope for is chaos.

  • But why couldn't the local shop just buy the book on Amazon for the customer (behind the scenes) and have Amazon ship it for free? Amazon's book price is probably lower anyway and the local shop can keep the difference and make some profit.

    The local shop could also probably reduce their duplicates inventory as well and save costs there. They could still be there for the walk in traffic who enjoy being in a bookstore.

  • As far as I can see, there's really no need (only nostalgia) to physically print novels or anything that people typically read linearly from cover to cover, start to finish. Those are easy enough to read on any suitable phone, tablet, or ereader.

    What's left are reference books, e.g. course/textbooks in education & training, & reference books, which benefit from being keyword searchable & sometimes multimedia. However, ebooks are typically unwieldy & difficult to use as references. We need

  • The big online shops are still paying for shipping, it's just now bundled into the sale price. If they must itemize the fee, they can certainly lower the sale price by the amount of the shipping fee. Then, their list price looks lower than the small shops, and what exactly was gained?

  • Most bookstores in Australia seem to survive by turning into cafes. It's a pleasant environment to have a coffee. No need for government subsidies.

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