Amazon, again

Posted by trav in Book Talk, Bookstores, News, Publishers      No comments

Apr
10

Wow, if there is any truth to this tid-bit Amazon is getting good at throwing their weight around. On the heels, of the P.O.D. smack-down, publishers in the U.K. now fear an Amazonian backlash over pricing structures.

Basically, the gist is Amazon prices all they offer at a big discount. Some publishers, in order to lure a few customers are offering deeper discounts on their own websites, undercutting Amazon. Evidently, this has upset the Amazon gods and they are sniffing around looking for a fix. Due to some legal-ese in the U.K. contracts, some fear

Amazon may retaliate by regarding a publisher’s online price as the recommended retail price and applying its trading terms to that.

So, if you publish a book and mark it $10, Amazon’s price is $8 at 20% off. Then, you, as the publisher and owner of the book, offer it at $7, on your own site. Amazon says “your offer of $7 is the ‘real market’ value since that’s what you, as the publisher, are offering” so we’ll now sell your book for $5.60 per our 20% off agreement”.

You know, I can appreciate the chance of lower book prices as much as the next starving book hoarder… but there is just something about a retailer having the clout to tell publishers and content developers what they can and cannot do with their products, that gets my all kinds of ticked off. I hope it never happens.
{via Bookninja}