it is good to know that the Dutch market for books is a bit difficult.
Books are protected by law here, we have something like best translated as "bottomprice".
It is not legal to sell
paper books under that "bottom price".
Also to reward writers and bookshops, books are charged with a low tax of 6%
But there are tricks, if you sell the same book as secondhand, you may get lower then this "Bottom price".
So Bol.com sells new books at the high price, but also sell the same books second hand.
They can do tricks with that,5 minutes after new books came on the market, they are there also for a secondhand price.
On the other hand,they also sell second hand books for an idiot high price, claiming that there are no new versions anymore.
They say this secondhand books are sold by normal buyers,but Bol charges them a rather high fee in order to sell the books on their site.
But sometimes second hand books are there within an hour after the release..
Ebooks are not seen as books,but "software" or devices.
The "bottom price" by law for normal paper books,don't apply here.
But, the tax on this books are 21%
You can imagine that not all writers like this form,because the paper books provide them with a steady flow of income while ebooks don't.
Most of the time when a new paper book comes out,the ebook version is cancelled and will come later with some stupid excuse.. so people that do want to read it badly,will buy the paper book.. which provide writers and publishers with a higher income.
Also a judge said (they are still fighting) that with an ebook,you get a "licence to read" and in former cases with software,when you sell the software secondhand with the licence and destroy every copy on your computer, the secondhand selled software is legal with the selled licence as long as it is the original package.
Bookstores say,an ebook isn't software..judge say it is.
So it is legal to say, I have read my books, I sell the ebook secondhand with the licence,and remove it from my devices..
But who can check that you really delete it ?? (also because you can't delete it from Kobo or Bol.com without retrieving it later.)
One of those sellers is Tom Kabinet, calling itself a reader club..you can buy "secondhand" ebooks for 1,75 when you are a member.
If you reselled your readed ebook back to them,you extend your membership with one week for free and can buy other books again for 1,75 (euro)
(
http://www.tomkabinet.nl/ )
You can keep them to, but then you have to pay 3,99 a month membership fee a month.
For that 3,99 you can buy every book again for 1,75 and extend it if you return it as long as you promise to delete your copy.
So I can send the book of Stephen King from this morning to them and promise that I have deleted it from my reader,and all others can buy that book (4,99) now for 1,75
In return I can buy any other book, no matter what the price in a bookshop is,for 1,75
When I return the book, they remove all watermarks and social DRM, when I buy it back it will have a total different social watermark.
So all kind of constructions are used in our country in order to get and hold the market,so maybe that is also the reason of the marry between kobo.nl and Bol.com.
Just an example book:
"New" Ebook € 6,40
Same "Second hand" Ebook € 1,75