Quote:
Originally Posted by Katsunami
Oh yes you can.
In the past, a retailer only had local competition. If a product was €50 (which would have been 110 Dutch Guilders in 1995) cheaper 200 miles away, nobody would know. Now, people get stuff at the other side of the world if the price difference is €2, especially if the products are digital.
On the one hand, the internet is giving us more and more choices regarding shopping, and is lowering prices due to world-wide competition. I have bought stuff over the internet that I wouldn't have even known that existed, without it.
On the other hand the internet is destroying all but the very cheapest and/or well-stocked sellers.
Now, combine the two. I don't buy a lot in The Netherlands anymore. In fact, I'm awaiting two deliveries from the USA, one from the UK, and two from Hong Kong. Most of the stuff I buy in a brick & mortar store are bought in Germany (I'm just across the border). This is jbecause I would either be unable to get the products over here in the Netherlands, or the price difference compared to other countries would be enormous. In fact, I'm helping to destroy the Dutch economy.
(Example: I've bought hundreds of ebooks in the last 2,5 years, at prices around €1.50 to €3. In the Netherlands, those books would have cost me upward of €7.95 a piece.)
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All true. But it wasn't international competition or globalization that put those folks out of business. It was good old-fashioned, *local*, pre-internet collusion to fix prices. Not every economic sob-story is due to globalization: some are just due to local greed.
Diesel, BoB--maybe other indie ebookstores--they'll have their day in court soon enough. And then we'll see what killed them.