Quote:
Originally Posted by bgalbrecht
Back to the pricing argument, it's usually just a temporary pricing artifact because the retailer may have sales on the print material for several reasons, including clearance sales, that causes the ebooks to be more expensive than the print editions but eventually the price of ebook ends up at or below the price of the cheapest print edition.
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That is not how it is playing out in the US since Agency Part Deux took effect.
BPH Ebook retail prices went up and are fixed, with no discounting.
Pbooks remain wholesale and Amazon is discounting them regularly and not just for promotional or clearance purposes. Rather, it is a strategic move they are making to take advantage of the enforced higher margin on BPH ebooks to increase their share of the BPHs' business, thereby making them even more dependent on them.
(Yeah, the opposite of what the BPHs claim they intended.)
Since Amazon is less dependent on BPH ebook sales than their competitors they now have three ways to win:
1- if the high BPH price drives the buyer to cheaper, non BPH ebook, it reduces BPH sales but not Amazon's; they keep the sale.
2- if the high BPH price drives the buyer to print they will find the cheapest price at Amazon. This lets them retain the sale when the buyer switches from ebook to pbook, unlike Apple, Google, and Kobo, who only sell ebooks. The net result is Kindle owners stay with Amazon regardless of which edition they get but epub buyers have to either pay the higher price or go elsewhere for the print edition. It weakens their ebook competition without Amazon having to do a thing.
3- if the buyer is willing to swallow the higher price... Cha-Ching! More money for Amazon.
All the reports on the matter indicate that virtually all the increased pbook unit sales for BPHs in 2015 came through Amazon. So the increased pbook discounting will continue indefinitely. They are sitting pretty.
