Here is one of many *Canadian* reports of the hoops Amazon had to go through to sell print books in Canada. Part of the reason it took them seven years to open shop.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/repo...ticle22626479/
The rest of the story is that when the distributors failed to fill orders as promised, Amazon was forced to buy the books at retail from Chapters to meet their customer orders. Otherwise they would have been forced out of the market.
Yes, it happened. Really. Even if you weren't paying attention.
Small retailers get jerked around by entrenched players all the time and yes, once upon a time Amazon was a small player trying to establish itself and getting jerked around by distributors afraid of offending the big gorilla. Now Amazon is the Gorilla and nobody jerks them around.
It is hardly rare for small bookstores to get short shrift from publishers and distributors obsessed with volume sales. And these days it is actually common for them to order from Amazon when a popular book is selling faster than the distributor can deliver. Amazon does next day delivery after all, and their retail prices are comparable (if not lower) than what the distributors charge the Indie stores. (That is where the Indie store complaints come from: Amazon sells books profitably at prices lower than what the Distributors charge them. Volume discounts at work.)
And those foreign ownership restrictions? Look'em up. Do your own research, guys.
You don't need to be an expert to find out what world you live in.
"The truth is out there."
