Quote:
Originally Posted by GreenMonkey
Amazon is still a retailer. As far as their part...they are still providing:
Advertising
Payment processing
Server bandwidth to run their site, and bandwidth to provide the downloads
Customer service for orders
Tech support assistance (for Kindles or Kindle apps)
etc. Rather than physical storage of books.
They're just providing different services than a physical book seller would be providing.
I don't have any compunctions if publishers decided they would only sell their ebooks on a site they own at full MSRP. I do take issue with their ability to tell an independent retailer what they must sell it for.
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For anyone who regularly shops at Amazon, you cannot but be aware that Amazon sells products from lots of sources. A given product (not an ebook, but virtually anything else) might have a dozen purchase links at different prices, one of which
might be "sold by Amazon" or "fulfilled by Amazon" and the rest of which are fulfilled by another store, storefront, or individual selling stuff.
For such products, Amazon provides payment processing, server bandwidth, a certain amount of customer service (they do keep tabs and make sure third parties ship your order; I've been impressed). You could view the service as akin to "advertising" because it takes advantage of Amazon's heavy traffic.
Who do you think sets the price when Amazon is selling products from "other sellers"? Hint: not Amazon, although Amazon does have policies regarding shipping/handling. Amazon in these cases is truly acting as an agent, not a retailer. It gets a cut from processing the transaction and offering the types of services GreenMonkey mentions. Does anyone really think it's "price-fixing" when Amazon sells a widget from Buy.com at a price set by Buy.com?
This is why the "agency" model should not be dismissed so lightly. We like Amazon acting as an agent in certain circumstances. It's saved me money more than once. Yes, I will concede that the ebook situation is a bit different, but perhaps it is not quite as different as you think.
Oh, and lest anyone think otherwise, even true "agency" is not necessarily enough to shield the "agency 5" arrangements from various state "unfair competition" laws. Many of these laws are not framed in terms of "agreement." Actually, the state laws can be a bit of a wilderness for a company to comply with, because they are so broad and vague.