The move is both timely and necessary.
And not because about the griping about how low tbeir prices are or aren't:
https://teleread.org/2016/09/21/amaz...-to-customers/
Rather, it's a good move because so much on US online shopping runs through the Amazon.com portal, even if the final sale doesn't go to Amazon.LLC. Amazon.com directs sales to a lot of affiliated merchants that don't count as Amazon sales because they aren't the actual seller, just the facilitator. So, as USATODAY reported last fall, Amazon "touches" in one way or another nearly a third of all online commerce in the US, which is double their direct sales rate.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/...rger/92419572/
More, even in cases where Amazon.com doesn't close the sale, they have a role in over half of all online retail activity as they are the first stop for 55% of online shoppers. (And a few B&M shoppers, too.) They are very useful for product research.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/27/amazo...ers-visit.html
That is a honking lot of market power at Amazon.com so demoting Amazon.LLC to the role of "just another retailer" or "first among (nominal) equals" is a good idea. For one thing, it lets them attract even more affiliated retailers. For another, it boosts their reputation with shoppers. And it doesn't hurt that it preempts any unfair competitive practice charges from their enemies. Nobody has yet raised those charges but now they can't.
They remain as pro-active as ever.
Big as they are, they stand to get even bigger.
They really need a better breed of challenger.
Maybe Google ought to buy WalMart.
(Oh, and of course, the publishing establishment thinks the whole move is all about them.)
Edit: the usual suspects are hand-wringing. And being challenged:
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/b...s-authors.html
Quote:
Those objecting to this policy say it is allowing Amazon to deprive publishers of sales and authors of royalties. (Because re-sellers are not buying their copies from publishers, these sales will not be counted as sales, and money derived from them will not go to publishers or authors.)
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From the horse's mouth:
Quote:
When asked about the program, Amazon issued the following statement to PW: "We have listed and sold books, both new and used, from third party sellers for many years. The recent changes allow sellers of new books to be the ‘featured offer’ on a book’s detail page, which means that our bookstore now works like the rest of Amazon, where third party sellers compete with Amazon for the sale of new items. Only offers for new books are eligible to be featured.”
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https://scrivenerserror.blogspot.com/2017/05/H509x.html