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Amazon offer delivery for 0.01 Euro to bypass French law

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pawelk1986
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12 Jul 2014, 3:28 pm

Amazon offer delivery for 0.001 Euro to bypass French law banning free delivery :D
http://www.france24.com/en/20140711-ama ... 2014-07-11

I Studying library science and so I'm interested in the book market in Poland and Europe.

I wonder what all the fuss is why the French favoring owners of bookshops at the expense of customers?

I would love to Amazon finally entered the Polish market, maybe this would result in a decrease in book prices :D



mr_bigmouth_502
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12 Jul 2014, 3:31 pm

Actually, that would be 0.01 Euro. ;)



TallyMan
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12 Jul 2014, 3:38 pm

pawelk1986 wrote:
I wonder what all the fuss is why the French favoring owners of bookshops at the expense of customers?


The concern is that Amazon is selling books at a loss to put all the bookshops out of business. Then they will have a monopoly and will increase their prices. How real this threat is I've no idea, it is just what I've read in the local (French) press.


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The_Walrus
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12 Jul 2014, 5:31 pm

TallyMan wrote:
pawelk1986 wrote:
I wonder what all the fuss is why the French favoring owners of bookshops at the expense of customers?


The concern is that Amazon is selling books at a loss to put all the bookshops out of business. Then they will have a monopoly and will increase their prices. How real this threat is I've no idea, it is just what I've read in the local (French) press.
I work in a bookshop. It's mostly a real concern, but Amazon will struggle to put prices up. Once bookshops are gone (probably just a matter of time in most towns), people will accelerate their conversion towards ebooks, and by extension, piracy...

For what it is worth, though, there are many people who object to Amazon on ethical grounds (particularly their tax bill), and both chain and independent bookshops are getting better at customer service (particularly click+collect services).



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12 Jul 2014, 11:29 pm

I mostly buy clothes in Amazon. I buy about half of my books from brick n' mortar establishments.

Here in Ireland we have a very good bookshop company called Easons. They are similar to WH Smith in Great Britain but they have even better range as they also sell novelty goods and professional standard art supplies.


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zer0netgain
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13 Jul 2014, 7:40 am

TallyMan wrote:
pawelk1986 wrote:
I wonder what all the fuss is why the French favoring owners of bookshops at the expense of customers?


The concern is that Amazon is selling books at a loss to put all the bookshops out of business. Then they will have a monopoly and will increase their prices. How real this threat is I've no idea, it is just what I've read in the local (French) press.


The problem is that bookstores are outdated.

There are how many thousands of titles out there. How many can a bookstore carry? How much of a markup do they have to impose to turn a profit? Once online marketing meant you could show a picture on a website and have the book in any number of warehouses and "drop ship" it to the buyer, the brick-and-mortar store became obsolete.

Just like main street shops being hurt by WalMart, the ones surviving are finding ways to offer what WalMart isn't able to offer. Brick and mortar book shops must do likewise or go under.



chris5000
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13 Jul 2014, 1:18 pm

bookstores are going the way of the dinosaur
Ebooks are so much better you can have a 100,000 books right in your pocket
bookstores can survive but not in their current state people will still want to own leather bound 100 year old books



thomas81
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13 Jul 2014, 2:56 pm

chris5000 wrote:
bookstores are going the way of the dinosaur
Ebooks are so much better you can have a 100,000 books right in your pocket
bookstores can survive but not in their current state people will still want to own leather bound 100 year old books


it will be interesting to see what city centre main streets look like in another fifty years.


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14 Jul 2014, 10:40 am

thomas81 wrote:
chris5000 wrote:
bookstores are going the way of the dinosaur
Ebooks are so much better you can have a 100,000 books right in your pocket
bookstores can survive but not in their current state people will still want to own leather bound 100 year old books


it will be interesting to see what city centre main streets look like in another fifty years.


More or less what they look now: the majority of stores seem to be clothing stores. Since I only buy new clothing when the old clothes fall apart, I have no reason to be in the city center at all. They used to have nice bookstores (with books I actually wanted instead of the crap they carry the last 10 years), comic book stores, game stores etc... now it's all one clothes store after the other. Even the computer store went bust.
The only reasons to go to the inner city is if you want to go a clothing store, a restaurant, a bar or a pot store.



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14 Jul 2014, 12:05 pm

This reminds me of the time San Fransisco tried to ban happy meals; since the couldn't legally single out McDonalds, they had to craft the law to instead ban toys given out with food that didn't meet a certain nutritional requirement, so McDonalds simply made it so customers had the option of purchasing the toy with the meal for $.05. I remember thinking it was well played by McDondalds at the time, they'd been silent the whole time the council had been debating the issue, which was fairly extended and overwrought, and then easily undercut the whole thing by by conforming to the letter of the law in a way that didn't harm their business.


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thomas81
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14 Jul 2014, 12:30 pm

trollcatman wrote:
thomas81 wrote:
chris5000 wrote:
bookstores are going the way of the dinosaur
Ebooks are so much better you can have a 100,000 books right in your pocket
bookstores can survive but not in their current state people will still want to own leather bound 100 year old books


it will be interesting to see what city centre main streets look like in another fifty years.


More or less what they look now: the majority of stores seem to be clothing stores. Since I only buy new clothing when the old clothes fall apart, I have no reason to be in the city center at all. They used to have nice bookstores (with books I actually wanted instead of the crap they carry the last 10 years), comic book stores, game stores etc... now it's all one clothes store after the other. Even the computer store went bust.
The only reasons to go to the inner city is if you want to go a clothing store, a restaurant, a bar or a pot store.


I am not sure. I think the only businesses that will exist in a brick and mortar format will be ones whose services cannot be provided online.


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14 Jul 2014, 1:23 pm

I can't speak for France but book stores in the US are in no danger of being put out of business by Amazon. People still want to go to book stores and read some of what they are considering buying AND to be able to have the book instantly and not have to wait for the delivery. This is the same for any brick & mortar business vs. Amazon or other online shopping. It's just the times we live in and no effective change can be made to it without having to combat all the countermeasures that the online busines communities will throw in. What are we going to do, ban the internet? :roll:
Overcome, improvise, adapt; it's the only thing that's ever worked against what can't be immediately changed.


Dox47 wrote:
This reminds me of the time San Fransisco tried to ban happy meals

Not to change the subject but I went and looked that up just out of curiosity.

"On Thursday, San Francisco's controversial Healthy Food Incentive Ordinance takes effect, banning toy giveaways with children's meals at fast-food restaurants unless the meal meets San Francisco's strict nutritional standards. And McDonald's has already figured out a way to sidestep the ban almost entirely."

Call me naive but it just blows me away that a city (or whatever govt entity) would come up with something as intrusive as that. Talk about health nazis...... :roll:


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chris5000
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14 Jul 2014, 3:50 pm

Raptor wrote:
I can't speak for France but book stores in the US are in no danger of being put out of business by Amazon. People still want to go to book stores and read some of what they are considering buying AND to be able to have the book instantly and not have to wait for the delivery. This is the same for any brick & mortar business vs. Amazon or other online shopping. It's just the times we live in and no effective change can be made to it without having to combat all the countermeasures that the online busines communities will throw in. What are we going to do, ban the internet? :roll:
Overcome, improvise, adapt; it's the only thing that's ever worked against what can't be immediately changed.


Dox47 wrote:
This reminds me of the time San Fransisco tried to ban happy meals

Not to change the subject but I went and looked that up just out of curiosity.

"On Thursday, San Francisco's controversial Healthy Food Incentive Ordinance takes effect, banning toy giveaways with children's meals at fast-food restaurants unless the meal meets San Francisco's strict nutritional standards. And McDonald's has already figured out a way to sidestep the ban almost entirely."

Call me naive but it just blows me away that a city (or whatever govt entity) would come up with something as intrusive as that. Talk about health nazis...... :roll:

Ebooks are on their way to ending that too
right now you can preview 20 or so pages in an ebook and have it in seconds without even leaving your seat
you can have more books than the biggest library in the palm of your hand. in my opinion the government should scan every book it can get its hands on and put it online for free access kind of like the library of Alexandria did. freedom of information always leads to a free society thats why the founding fathers made freedom of speech the first amendment



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14 Jul 2014, 5:15 pm

Raptor wrote:
I can't speak for France but book stores in the US are in no danger of being put out of business by Amazon. People still want to go to book stores and read some of what they are considering buying AND to be able to have the book instantly and not have to wait for the delivery. This is the same for any brick & mortar business vs. Amazon or other online shopping. It's just the times we live in and no effective change can be made to it without having to combat all the countermeasures that the online busines communities will throw in. What are we going to do, ban the internet? :roll:
Overcome, improvise, adapt; it's the only thing that's ever worked against what can't be immediately changed.


Dox47 wrote:
This reminds me of the time San Fransisco tried to ban happy meals

Not to change the subject but I went and looked that up just out of curiosity.

"On Thursday, San Francisco's controversial Healthy Food Incentive Ordinance takes effect, banning toy giveaways with children's meals at fast-food restaurants unless the meal meets San Francisco's strict nutritional standards. And McDonald's has already figured out a way to sidestep the ban almost entirely."

Call me naive but it just blows me away that a city (or whatever govt entity) would come up with something as intrusive as that. Talk about health nazis...... :roll:

chris5000 wrote:
Ebooks are on their way to ending that too
right now you can preview 20 or so pages in an ebook and have it in seconds without even leaving your seat
you can have more books than the biggest library in the palm of your hand.

Yeah, but the desire to have a real book is still what drives people to buy them and that may never change. Ebooks make a dent in it but real bound books are here to stay for the foreseeable future.
Quote:
in my opinion the government should scan every book it can get its hands on and put it online for free access kind of like the library of Alexandria did.
freedom of information always leads to a free society thats why the founding fathers made freedom of speech the first amendment

The government could f**k even that task up. Just let the libraries do it if they have the resources. I have no issue with easy and free online access to books that are out of print but for ones currently in print and on the market people are getting paid to write them. When the money stops coming in the writing (or most of it) is going to stop coming out.


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chris5000
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14 Jul 2014, 5:37 pm

Raptor wrote:
Raptor wrote:
I can't speak for France but book stores in the US are in no danger of being put out of business by Amazon. People still want to go to book stores and read some of what they are considering buying AND to be able to have the book instantly and not have to wait for the delivery. This is the same for any brick & mortar business vs. Amazon or other online shopping. It's just the times we live in and no effective change can be made to it without having to combat all the countermeasures that the online busines communities will throw in. What are we going to do, ban the internet? :roll:
Overcome, improvise, adapt; it's the only thing that's ever worked against what can't be immediately changed.


Dox47 wrote:
This reminds me of the time San Fransisco tried to ban happy meals

Not to change the subject but I went and looked that up just out of curiosity.

"On Thursday, San Francisco's controversial Healthy Food Incentive Ordinance takes effect, banning toy giveaways with children's meals at fast-food restaurants unless the meal meets San Francisco's strict nutritional standards. And McDonald's has already figured out a way to sidestep the ban almost entirely."

Call me naive but it just blows me away that a city (or whatever govt entity) would come up with something as intrusive as that. Talk about health nazis...... :roll:

chris5000 wrote:
Ebooks are on their way to ending that too
right now you can preview 20 or so pages in an ebook and have it in seconds without even leaving your seat
you can have more books than the biggest library in the palm of your hand.

Yeah, but the desire to have a real book is still what drives people to buy them and that may never change. Ebooks make a dent in it but real bound books are here to stay for the foreseeable future.
Quote:
in my opinion the government should scan every book it can get its hands on and put it online for free access kind of like the library of Alexandria did.
freedom of information always leads to a free society thats why the founding fathers made freedom of speech the first amendment

The government could f**k even that task up. Just let the libraries do it if they have the resources. I have no issue with easy and free online access to books that are out of print but for ones currently in print and on the market people are getting paid to write them. When the money stops coming in the writing (or most of it) is going to stop coming out.

it will only stop the people who are just in it for the money and typically those people produce crap anyway. people will write because they enjoy writing



Raptor
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14 Jul 2014, 5:43 pm

chris5000 wrote:
Raptor wrote:
Raptor wrote:
I can't speak for France but book stores in the US are in no danger of being put out of business by Amazon. People still want to go to book stores and read some of what they are considering buying AND to be able to have the book instantly and not have to wait for the delivery. This is the same for any brick & mortar business vs. Amazon or other online shopping. It's just the times we live in and no effective change can be made to it without having to combat all the countermeasures that the online busines communities will throw in. What are we going to do, ban the internet? :roll:
Overcome, improvise, adapt; it's the only thing that's ever worked against what can't be immediately changed.


Dox47 wrote:
This reminds me of the time San Fransisco tried to ban happy meals

Not to change the subject but I went and looked that up just out of curiosity.

"On Thursday, San Francisco's controversial Healthy Food Incentive Ordinance takes effect, banning toy giveaways with children's meals at fast-food restaurants unless the meal meets San Francisco's strict nutritional standards. And McDonald's has already figured out a way to sidestep the ban almost entirely."

Call me naive but it just blows me away that a city (or whatever govt entity) would come up with something as intrusive as that. Talk about health nazis...... :roll:

chris5000 wrote:
Ebooks are on their way to ending that too
right now you can preview 20 or so pages in an ebook and have it in seconds without even leaving your seat
you can have more books than the biggest library in the palm of your hand.

Yeah, but the desire to have a real book is still what drives people to buy them and that may never change. Ebooks make a dent in it but real bound books are here to stay for the foreseeable future.
Quote:
in my opinion the government should scan every book it can get its hands on and put it online for free access kind of like the library of Alexandria did.
freedom of information always leads to a free society thats why the founding fathers made freedom of speech the first amendment

The government could f**k even that task up. Just let the libraries do it if they have the resources. I have no issue with easy and free online access to books that are out of print but for ones currently in print and on the market people are getting paid to write them. When the money stops coming in the writing (or most of it) is going to stop coming out.

it will only stop the people who are just in it for the money and typically those people produce crap anyway. people will write because they enjoy writing

I'm not gonna deep dive into it but I think it's safe to say that the better authors are well compensated for their work. Gotta pay the bills and writing is what some people do for a living.....


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