Quote:
Originally Posted by bgalbrecht
I was perfectly happy with the original wholesale model
|
Customers love being the recipient's of loss leader largess.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bgalbrecht
It shouldn't even have mattered to the publisher whether the consumer bought paper or ebook, because the wholesale price was the same.
|
Think about that. How much must it have mattered for the publishers to go to war with their best customer? Have you ever asked yourself WHY it would matter to publishers? Beyond saying "why should they care, they are getting their wholesale money either way" and concluding "publishers are just stupid, if not outright evil".
Ok...I'll do the thinking for you. Your job is to try to have an open mind to UNDERSTAND from their pov (not agree, but understand).
Amazon is the most powerful book seller and they set the ENTIRE NYT Bestseller's list on sale at $9.99, which was a below wholesale price.
Whither the REST of the publisher's customers? How are they to sell those hardback books at $25 when Amazon is selling the same book as an ebook for $9.99. Why, that deal is so good that customers paid $400 for the original Kindle ereader just based on the savings they could get for the books.
Is it in the publisher's best interest for Amazon to run the rest of their customers (to a publisher, the retailer is the customer) out of business? No.
But wait. There's more. Amazon was training the market that $9.99 was the proper price for a new release book. What happens after Amazon runs the rest of the publisher's customers out of business? Will Amazon just continue to sell every NYT bestseller at a loss when there is no competition left? NO.
Amazon will turn around and tell the publisher...the proper wholesale price for new bestseller books is now $7, not $12. What could the publisher's do then? The rest of their customers are out of business and they are beholden to Amazon.
That scenario is exactly what the publishers were concerned with. Now you are free to not care about the publishers and their profit motives. You might think publishers aren't even bringing value to books and etc. etc. But at least you can credit them for having a reason for their actions.