B&N What Went Wrong & When ?

[shalym]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

There is, of course, no about face, no matter how you try to spin it. They don't have the ability to notify me when an author that I'm interested in comes out with a new book in the kindle store. They have follow, but it doesn't work. They had something similar way back when they first started. I signed up for notification for a number of authors. It also didn't work and eventually disappeared without comment. There is nothing inscrutable/obtuse about wanting something that works.

It's very very strange that it seems to work for some people but not for you. I wonder why that is?

Shari

[dickloraine]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Oh, in the US it would be trivial for an order to be fulfilled overnight: most online retailers do it. UPS and USPS are very fast and efficient. The publishers are...less so.

The issue is that the publishers eliminated their ability to process small orders decades ago.
On purpose.
In decades past, before the foreign multinationals took over, most big US publishers had significant direct to consumer order fullfilment capabilities that were dismantled to improve ROI.

Their order fulfillment processes are now geared towards shipping big orders to distributors and bookstore chains, not consumers or independent bookstores. That is why, when Amazon switched to just-in-time ordering for Hachette books during last year's catfight delivery times ballooned.

The only reason online retailers can deliver arbitrary books overnight is they pre-order large numbers and warehouse them indefinitely at *their* expense which is something the B&M operations can't afford to do.

The system in germany is not that publishers send the books to the retailer. There is an intermediate party involved, that stores most books and then get them to the stores. The reatiler doesn't order at the publisher, but at his supplier. The supplier of course gets a cut on the profit. If you order a book not available at the supplier, you need to wait long here too, until the publisher himself fullfills the order.

[murg]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

They aren't in a position to force me to buy anything, but they can certainly push all sorts of book at me saying "don't you want to buy this". It was useful back when the suggestions weren't a bunch of Kindle Unlimited authors that I hadn't heard of. It's a bit like going to a grocery store and asking for an lime and the grocer saying "Wouldn't you like a nice lemon instead?"

Actually, it's more like going to a grocery store and asking for an lime and the grocer saying "Wouldn't you also like a nice lemon, in addition?"

[murg]

Originally Posted by Rizla

Comparing to USA, US publishers and retailers could have banded together under a common hardware platform to compete against Amazon. Like Tolino in Germany. Wonder why they didn't. Lack of will? Saw B&N failure and figured it was hopeless?

As we've seen, the publishers can't agree to anything unless someone else is driving the cart.

And, even if they could get together to build such a website, it would really, really suck. The publishers can't even get their own websites to not really, really suck, how do you think a committee of them would manage?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by dickloraine

The system in germany is not that publishers send the books to the retailer. There is an intermediate party involved, that stores most books and then get them to the stores. The reatiler doesn't order at the publisher, but at his supplier. The supplier of course gets a cut on the profit. If you order a book not available at the supplier, you need to wait long here too, until the publisher himself fullfills the order.

Well, that applies in the US, too.
Except that some retailers *are* their own distributor and get way better terms than the smaller chains.

And one particular retailer has more different books in stock than any distributor and all the publishers combined. (Used books)

Question: do German retailers get to return unsold books for full credit?