Guardian: EU anger over ebook deal suggests hard times ahead for publishers

[elcreative]

Even worse than the big chains, supermarkets started stocking a small range of books - the bestsellers and selling them as loss leaders at a lower price than the indies' discount prices direct from the publishers... example: SF&F specialist should have sold a bundle of HP3 but didn't order any from publisher, cheaper to walk round the corner and buy from Tescos supermarket... sold 4 of 6 before closing (and they were to US customers wanting UK edition)...

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The collapse of the Net Book Agreement has certainly lowered book prices, but it has also beeen directly responsible for the almost complete disappearance of small independent bookshops from the British highstreet.

I think that's always the trade-off. If you reduce competition (by not allowing discounting), you help smaller businesses - but at the expense of consumers, who have to pay higher prices. German-style shop closing laws are similar - if you're not allowed to keep your store open past 6:30, and have to close on the weekend, larger stores aren't allowed to compete on hours, which benefits smaller stores, but at the expense of customer convenience.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

I think that's always the trade-off. If you reduce competition (by not allowing discounting), you help smaller businesses - but at the expense of consumers, who have to pay higher prices. German-style shop closing laws are similar - if you're not allowed to keep your store open past 6:30, and have to close on the weekend, larger stores aren't allowed to compete on hours, which benefits smaller stores, but at the expense of customer convenience.

Government should never interfere in this. If smaller businesses can't compete on pricing and hours, they deserve to go out of business. Such is life.

[wyndslash]

But why does there have to be casualties? I daresay I'm losing faith in the current systems. I guess I'm idealistic, perhaps overly so, but I think that we'd all want everyone to win.

[JeremyR]

Color me skeptical that this was the only reason - 1997 was also pretty much the start of the whole internet thing (in terms of public using it).

And was it really better in the old days, when a small bookstore was sold out for it, to have to place an order through them, pay full price, then wait 2-3 weeks for the book to arrive?

[HarryT]

I don't know if it's better or worse, but the whole face of bookselling in the UK has radically changed since the demise of the NBA. It might be argued that cheaper books benefit the consumer, but a strong counter-argument is that the disappearance of thousands of independent bookshops, and their replacement by one or two dominant chains, is certainly not to the benefit of the book-buying public.

[Dark123]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I don't know if it's better or worse, but the whole face of bookselling in the UK has radically changed since the demise of the NBA. It might be argued that cheaper books benefit the consumer, but a strong counter-argument is that the disappearance of thousands of independent bookshops, and their replacement by one or two dominant chains, is certainly not to the benefit of the book-buying public.

The chains are starting to disappear as well due to Amazon.

[seagull]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Government should never interfere in this. If smaller businesses can't compete on pricing and hours, they deserve to go out of business. Such is life.

I have to agree with this. In some way it mirrors the natural world - those stores that can adapt to their environment survive and those that don't are relegated to the history books.

[fjtorres]

May I play devil's advocate here?
Before we start all the tearful handwringing over the "old days", neither big chains, nor the supermarkets, or evil Amazon forces anybody to do anything.
If a retailer fails it is because *consumers* choose to shop elsewhere.
That simple.

If some retailer or another gets better pricing on (in this case) books from their supplier (in this case, publishers) they can either pocket the difference or pass the savings to consumers. The first, benefits the retailer short-term; the latter, long-term.

Now, if some retailer doesn't get as good a deal as another, whose fault is it?
The second retailer or the supplier?
If you must rail against book discounting because you pine for the "good old days" of full list-price retailing, please direct the ire at the *enablers*, the pubishers. Neither the chains nor the supermarkets nor the online retailers could undercut a well-run retailer if it weren't for the publishers volume-discount practices.

After twenty-plus years of fostering high-volume outlets at the expense of smaller volume outlets, *now* the publishers plead innocent to the world they created?

Cry me a river; there are no innocents here.

At the top, producers went for cheap volume-pushing; strip-mining the channel, in effect, without regard to what the long-term effect would be.
At the bottom, consumers bought by price, not loyalty or nostalgia. Cold deal-hunting ruled and still rules. People (usually) work hard for their money and want the biggest return for it at the time of their purchase. The future can take care of itself.
In the middle, some retailers saw the changes and tried to adapt, some successful--some not; others blithely kept on doing what they always did, oblivious to the world around them, some successful--some not.

Now, whose fault is it?
Times change; some adapt, some don't.
Some live, some die.
The world moves on.

[Horemheb]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

...

Sound and convincing assessment of the situation, thanks.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I don't know if it's better or worse, but the whole face of bookselling in the UK has radically changed since the demise of the NBA. It might be argued that cheaper books benefit the consumer, but a strong counter-argument is that the disappearance of thousands of independent bookshops, and their replacement by one or two dominant chains, is certainly not to the benefit of the book-buying public.

That may be true, of course - although if you asked the book-buying public, do you think that they would really choose to go back to the NBA days? The idea behind the NBA (and shop closing laws) is that they benefit society as a whole...although as a practical matter the benefits do tend to fall more on the side of the business than on the side of the consumer. Which still may be worthwhile, even if the benefits are longer term. But when given an actual choice, consumers tend to always choose convenience and price over intangibles.

[GA Russell]

I am delighted that so many members here had good experience with small independent bookshops. I've lived in a number of US cities, and I never did. The selection was usually poor. Some larger stores had good selection, but they were poorly organized, and it was difficult to find anything.

My one good experience with a bookshop was a small shop in Atlanta 25 years ago called The Science Fiction & Mystery Book Store. There were two proprietors. One had read all the SF books, and the other had read all the mysteries. Excellent selection. Excellent service. But one shop does not an industry make.

[FF2]

The move of one of Seattle's premier book sellers from one neighborhood to another has got the old neighborhood looking for a similar draw. Activity followed the move with a noticeable decline in customers for other shops in the old area.