Quote:
Originally Posted by ProfCrash
I have a sneaking suspision that Amazon will match all offers by other bookstores. We know that they have an alogrithm that searches the web for prices and lowers books from Independent Authors to match the lowest price that was available. Do you really think Amazon is going to let Kobo sell a book for less than Amazon?
I don't think so.
|
Amazon will match prices from the major stores; they won't be able to match prices at all the smaller, more independent stores--especially indie publisher stores. (Not that they won't be able to afford them, but that they won't be able to *find* all of them. Although it's already had problems with
pricematching the wrong book, having a wholesale model for sales would fix that.)
Indie publishers could set their own prices lower, if they were working on the wholesale model: Amazon pays them $X per book, and marks the book up to a standard of $X*1.425, and then discounts to whatever they like--as long as they pay the publisher $X per copy sold. Publisher has the option of selling at $X at their own site.
Right now, only the publishers who've been dropped from agency pricing will have this ability; KDP and other contracts are still set at "agency pricing, and Amazon drops the price to match whatever else it finds." But plenty of small publishers will be clamoring for the right to set a minimum price received for their books, and will bring up the argument that only allowing wholesale pricing for BPHs is stifling competition.