Amazon thumbs its nose at French ban on free shipping of books.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by TCSimpson

They obviously DID NOT think it through ...

Are you basing this on a study of the legislative history, or just on the general principle that if we don't understand the reasoning, there must be none?

The first thing I'd want to do is read the text of the law, which I have not yet found. Does anyone have it? Is there a way to interpret it as forbidding shipping discounting just as it limits book discounting?

I just read a history of A&P, which was once the world's largest retailer. A&P faced not only these sorts of minimum pricing laws, but also had to pay some state and local taxes on a formula where the tax-per-store increased depending on how many stores you had in jurisdiction!

Up until a bill, with a reasonable chance of passage, was introduced in Congress that would have shut them down (by setting the tax at about half of sales), A&P's policy was to -- get this -- quietly comply with the minimum price laws and pay their taxes without complaint or hiring of lobbyists. And even where they legally could have used loss-leader pricing to harm competitors, and when marketeers in their own organization advocated it, the strict policy of top management, during the period when A&P was on top, was to charge consistent everyday prices.

Acting the ugly American to the French legislature could turn out to a bigger mistake than any loophole in the French law.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by TCSimpson

So the French banned Amazon from doing free shipping of book orders. They passed a law for it. What has Amazon responded with? Charging one cent across the board for shipping that includes book orders.
http://time.com/2976723/amazon-france-free-shipping/

Sounds like Amazon is just countering an obviously anti-Amazon law. They no longer offer free shipping. What's the problem?

[Billi]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Acting the ugly American to the French legislature could turn out to a bigger mistake than any loophole in the French law.

This.

And it would be interesting, if some of our French members here could share their opinion or the general opinion in France.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Sounds like Amazon is just countering an obviously anti-Amazon law. They no longer offer free shipping. What's the problem?

Exactly!

[fjtorres]

Actually, the politicians knew exactly what Amazon was going to do because they told them well in advance:

http://www.actualitte.com/librairies...vres-51268.htm

...and they went ahead anyway.

As for further anti-amazon action...well all the rhetoric leading to the passage of the bill made it clear the law was passed to target one specific foreign company which has already brought up the matter of a WTO complaint and possible retaliatory measures from DC. So it is entirely possible the politicians gave their publishing "constituency" a bill with limited impact on purpose to get them to shut up and go away without starting a trade war.

This may be the rare case where it is simpler to attribute to malice what sheet stupidity can't justify.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

This may be the rare case where it is simpler to attribute to malice what sheet stupidity can't justify.

[frahse]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Seems like a rather obvious response, no?

If you tell someone who WANTS to ship books for $0 that they can no longer—by law—do so (but didn't included any minimum book-shipping charges in the new law) what do you think they're going to start charging?

Did they think they were going to suddenly start charging whole-dollar/euro amounts or something?

What's next? Amend the amendment to the 1981 law to mandate a minimum percentage of the book-portion of the total order amount to be charged as a shipping fee?

I understand the desire to preserve the physical book-store culture--I really do. But what idiot thought new, easily-thwarted legislation like this was going to help them in that regard?

Obvious to most perhaps.

[Ninjalawyer]

In Common Law jurisdictions, there's a "plain meaning" rule of interpretation that effectively says you read a contract or piece of legislation in its everyday, plain meaning, and don't go beyond that, as long as the words are unambiguous and that interpretation doesn't lead to an absurd result. It's essentially the idea that if the legislature had meant something else, they would have said it.

So in a Common Law jurisdiction, there would be a strong argument that Amazon is complying with the law as written (assuming it unambiguously only restricts no-cost shipping). That said, case law in the UK and Canada is full of situations where courts have gone outside of the plain meaning of the text, even where the text seems unambiguous. There's also the fact that France uses weirdo civil law, which probably has its own particular kinks.

I can't help but smile at this a little though; I'm not a fan of laws that do nothing but try and protect incumbent industries from innovators. Another example of laws like this are the laws that some U.S. states have that require that cars be sold from a dealership (barring direct, online sales), or that only gas attendants be permitted to pump gas.

[BenG]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Acting the ugly American to the French legislature could turn out to a bigger mistake than any loophole in the French law.

To the legislature perhaps, but I doubt the French citizens who receive practically free shipping will complain.

[EowynCarter]

Stupidity calling some more stupidity IMHO.

Originally Posted by TCSimpson

So the French banned Amazon from doing free shipping of book orders. They passed a law for it. What has Amazon responded with? Charging one cent across the board for shipping that includes book orders.
http://time.com/2976723/amazon-france-free-shipping/

Bwahahahahahaha!!!! I hate it when governments try to level the playing field. That usually means they are trying to show favoritism to certain companies while preventing other companies from creating lower priced goods. I don't like it when their so-called fair marketplace means consumers get screwed by having to pay more. I'm truly sorry to see the likes of Walmart and Amazon drive Mom and Pop shops out of business, but I never bought from Mom and Pop shops because they wanted twice as much as Walmart and Amazon. Mom and Pops simply cannot compete against big chain stores, so they become extinct. It is bad for Mom and Pops but good for consumers. So in this case, way to go Amazon for giving a huge middle finger to a French law that makes French consumers pay more for books. I have no doubt that this was anything more than France trying to show favoritism to French stores.

[voracious71]

Am I the only one who pictured something like this? http://youtu.be/Fyg3BcsgofQ

[crich70]

I wonder how they could be found to be 'operating at a loss' what with how many books Amazon probably sells each month. I mean if you only sell a few books in a month then the 1 cent shipping would be at a loss but if you sell thousands of books plus have a good ebook market as well (which I'm guessing Amazon does) then what would be a loss may not be one. Plus if they did state months ago that they were going to ship books at 1 cent shipping and the French Government didn't change the language of the law to make it illegal then that's the French Government's fault not Amazon's.

[bevdeforges]

I have lived in France for almost 20 years now - and been a citizen here for 8 years or so. This is so freaking typically French as to be almost kind of funny.

Amazon plays the game and doesn't discount books by more than the 5% maximum discount allowed by law. So they throw in the shipping. The current legislature doesn't like this, so they pass an anti-Amazon law saying that they can't ship books for free. So now Amazon charges 0,01€ for shipping a book. (They still ship for free any order for merchandise that is over 15€ - and sometimes if you're "close" to 15€ they'll ship for free anyhow.)

France works like this sometimes. The legislators made their point. And Amazon, theirs. C'est la vie!

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by bevdeforges

France works like this sometimes. The legislators made their point. And Amazon, theirs. C'est la vie!

I just went to www.fnac.com, put a paper book costing €12.35 after the 5 percent discount in my shopping cart, and was told:

FRAIS DE LIVRAISON GRATUIT

So what do you make of that?

I want to be open to what you may write back. And maybe fnac is in the process of reprogramming their free shipping code. But if they are indeed in honest defiance of the shipping law, I think that a better way to do business than Amazon's juvenile one cent dodge.

Originally Posted by jswinden

So in this case, way to go Amazon for giving a huge middle finger to a French law that makes French consumers pay more for books.

We can argue over whether Amazon should have done it, but I agree with you about this being a middle finger. I don't think that's a smart place for a foreign company to be, but we'll see how it works.