Amazon in France
Defiant, Jeff Bezos says that Amazon is not going to comply with a French law that limits book discounts to 5%. He’s bound and determined to ship books for free. (IHT story here.) Bezos is paying the daily $1500 fine imposed by the Court of Bankruptcy of Versailles, which (prompted by trade unions) decided that free delivery was the same thing as a discount in disguise. And Amazon is collecting signatures on a petition to change the law.
Bezos has been planning this for years. When Amazon went into France in 2000, Newsweek reported:
Back in 1981 Minister of Culture Jack Lang, a voluble critic of American cultural imperialism, pushed through a law designed to protect small booksellers and publishers. It prohibits book discounts of more than 5 percent, and to this day the French still take the time to buy their books from local brick-and-mortar stores. Lang’s law will also impede Amazon, which wields deep discounts as its competitive edge. Says Gartner Group analyst Alexander Drobik, ‘I have to assume that Amazon people are betting that Lang’s law won’t last.’
Bezos is styling the law as “une tentative cynique d’éliminer la concurrence d’Amazon.fr,” which Babelfish tells me is a “cynical attempt to eliminate competition from Amazon.fr,” and asserts that if the law stays in place “France would be the only country in the world where the free delivery practiced by Amazon would be declared illegal.” Apparently comments accompanying the Amazon petition are not unanimous in support of Amazon - there is cynicism on all sides.
But here’s a blog post praising Amazon’s service: “I find this decision to be very important and very courageous because the Lang Law is anti-competitive.”
Perhaps instead of discussing the “Yahoo! France” case again this term, we’ll turn to the “Amazon France” case - market pressuring law.
Comments
3 Responses to “Amazon in France”
Got something to say?
Susan
Tech and growth isn’t always progress. This one maybe wouldn’t be. Every time I go to Paris, I’m amazed at how many more bookstores they have than New York. Barnes and Nobles has killed almost every store I loved on the West Side, and most of New York’s independents have died.
Book stores are special places, contributing something very important to a community. Worth protecting. db
This is ridiculous. Shipping is not part of the cost of the book, it’s simply the means by which the customer receives the product - any product, book or not. If Amazon should choose not to charge the customer for the cost of sending the product, who is the CoBoV to tell them they can’t?
I’m glad Amazon is not letting this one slide.
To Dave - it seems that you have had some special experiences at bookstores - as have I, and I couldn’t agree more that they’re worth protecting. However, saying that free shipping on Amazon will directly lead to the closure of French independent bookstores is VERY presumptuous.
Additionally, French citizens will be the ones that dictate bookstore survival. If the local bookstore experience really is important to the French en masse, then Amazon’s shipping policy should not affect their retention of customers.
In the U.S., there are many websites where one can buy retail products at steep discounts (e.g. http://www.bizrate.com; http://www.shopzilla.com); yet, retail stores continue to thrive. Why? Because history has taught us that there is a certain segment of consumers (say, 10-15%) that prefer to buy things by catalogue (e.g. Sears Roebuck), and by computer. The preponderance of consumers prefer to see, feel, and smell(!) products before buying them. Shopping, for them, is a “social experience” more than a “best price” experience. The fear that the “B-to-C” internet channel would lead to the demise of retail stores, reminds me of the quote from Mark Twain: “News of my death has been greatly exaggerated.” Retail stores are many things other than points of distribution at the lowest possible price. They also often provide: convenience, familiarity, friendship, solace, choice, an “outing,” ideas, etc. Many people are visual, tactile beings, who prefer to see, in person, the choice of goods available. Some people are practical, technical beings, who just like the “coolness” of buying on the ‘net without having to leave their homes (like catalogue buying). For the former, retail stores will reign supreme irrespective of better pricing on the ‘net. For the latter, internet shopping is preferable, irrespective of the pricing component. Protectionism (the French Business Model) often spawns “capillary retail activity,” whereby consumers find alternate means and methods for obtaining retail goods at better (discount) pricing. But, small retail bookstores that fill a niche (cozy; specialized; friendly) will survive notwithstanding the free-shipping offering of Amazon. French regulators should step out of the way and let free market forces determine the marketplace. Otherwise, they should also ban the big-store operations of Carrefour, Promodes, Auchan, LeClerc, Casino, Pinault-Printemps, Systeme U, Cora, Galeries Lafayette, etc. because of the “potential negative impact” on small neighborhood stores!