Eddie Cue would violate antitrust laws again...

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

You are comparing apples and oranges. Third party loyalty programs aren't particularly germane when trying to figure out if the agency model raised or lowered consumer prices.

The point is that the agency model prevented retailers from implementing loyalty programs. When I saved $100s of dollars a year by joining a $15 loyalty program and it was discontinued (or unavailable for agency publishers), or bought at a retailer with a rebate program, it had the effect of raising consumer prices.

There's list price, regular price, and sales prices. Sure, sometimes regular price is the same as list price, but when agency pricing forbids any price other than list price, it's effectively going to raise prices unless they drop the list price. In my experience, before the agency pricing time period, when there were only a hardcover or trade paperback and ebook, the ebook had a list price matching the paper edition, and an regular price around 20%-40% off list price, but there were some ebooks sold with even larger discounts. With sales, some books would even be priced cheaper than a mass market paperback. After agency pricing, the ebook list price generally dropped to some standard percentage off the cheapest paper edition, and of course, was never priced less than the price of a new MMPB. In general, if there was just a hardcover and ebook, the ebook got priced slightly higher than a trade paperback, just a TPB and ebook, the ebook got priced slightly higher than a MMPB, and MMPB and ebook were priced the same.

My memories could be off, but it's my impression that the big 5 publishers have done a lot more promotional discounting of ebooks (for example $2.99 everywhere for a day, week or month) since the DOJ anti-trust lawsuit than they did during the agency pricing era.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

They're very germane when people who availed themselves of those loyalty discount programs couldn't do so anymore because agency shut discounting down.

What would you have us compare? The list price we never paid pre-agency, to the imposed minimum we all paid during agency?

Agency hardly shutdown loyalty programs. Unless it's written specifically in the contract (which I do not believe was the case), there is nothing that prohibits a reseller from implementing a host of tried and true loyalty programs, such as store credits or discounts. Agency simply says that the publisher sets the price and the reseller gets a percentage. Amazon could do a buy 2 get 1 free, get 10% off all purchases and that sort of thing.

What Amazon couldn't do is targeted discounts, i.e. 10% off a specific author or publisher. Amazon likes to micromanage it's discounts, trying to push customers to specific purchases. Agency doesn't support that model of discounts.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by bgalbrecht

The point is that the agency model prevented retailers from implementing loyalty programs. When I saved $100s of dollars a year by joining a $15 loyalty program and it was discontinued (or unavailable for agency publishers), or bought at a retailer with a rebate program, it had the effect of raising consumer prices.

There's list price, regular price, and sales prices. Sure, sometimes regular price is the same as list price, but when agency pricing forbids any price other than list price, it's effectively going to raise prices unless they drop the list price. In my experience, before the agency pricing time period, when there were only a hardcover or trade paperback and ebook, the ebook had a list price matching the paper edition, and an regular price around 20%-40% off list price, but there were some ebooks sold with even larger discounts. With sales, some books would even be priced cheaper than a mass market paperback. After agency pricing, the ebook list price generally dropped to some standard percentage off the cheapest paper edition, and of course, was never priced less than the price of a new MMPB. In general, if there was just a hardcover and ebook, the ebook got priced slightly higher than a trade paperback, just a TPB and ebook, the ebook got priced slightly higher than a MMPB, and MMPB and ebook were priced the same.

My memories could be off, but it's my impression that the big 5 publishers have done a lot more promotional discounting of ebooks (for example $2.99 everywhere for a day, week or month) since the DOJ anti-trust lawsuit than they did during the agency pricing era.

Once again, agency pricing doesn't prevent loyalty programs. It may make some loyalty programs less economically attractive, but it doesn't prevent loyalty programs

[library addict]

The publishers have the option of opting out of a store's loyalty programs. It's up to the publisher if they want to participate or not and the big 6 (now 5) chose not to. At least that was the case with Fictionwise and their Buywise Club as well as the Buy-10-Get-One-Free program at OmniLit/ARe. The loyalty programs are written into the contracts, so if the publishers says no there's nothing the store can do.

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by library addict

The publishers have the option of opting out of a store's loyalty programs. It's up to the publisher if they want to participate or not and the big 6 (now 5) chose not to. At least that was the case with Fictionwise and their Buywise Club as well as the Buy-10-Get-One-Free program at OmniLit/ARe. The loyalty programs are written into the contracts, so if the publishers says no there's nothing the store can do.

Exactly. All of which was discussed here extensively before.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Agency hardly shutdown loyalty programs. Unless it's written specifically in the contract (which I do not believe was the case), there is nothing that prohibits a reseller from implementing a host of tried and true loyalty programs, such as store credits or discounts. Agency simply says that the publisher sets the price and the reseller gets a percentage. Amazon could do a buy 2 get 1 free, get 10% off all purchases and that sort of thing.

What Amazon couldn't do is targeted discounts, i.e. 10% off a specific author or publisher. Amazon likes to micromanage it's discounts, trying to push customers to specific purchases. Agency doesn't support that model of discounts.

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Once again, agency pricing doesn't prevent loyalty programs. It may make some loyalty programs less economically attractive, but it doesn't prevent loyalty programs

As soon as agency started, coupons on the big publishers stopped working and loyalty programs stopped working for the big publishers.

Loyalty programs and coupons in general didn't stop, they just stopped for the big publishers. No discounting of any type was allowed for big publishers.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Agency hardly shutdown loyalty programs. Unless it's written specifically in the contract (which I do not believe was the case), there is nothing that prohibits a reseller from implementing a host of tried and true loyalty programs, such as store credits or discounts. Agency simply says that the publisher sets the price and the reseller gets a percentage. Amazon could do a buy 2 get 1 free, get 10% off all purchases and that sort of thing.

In short: no they couldn't (the part I bolded). Not if that free ebook was an agency priced title. Free is less than the dictated discount floor. Were you living under a rock during Agency, or what?

But you're twisting the issue regardless. Of course agency didn't shut down loyalty programs themselves, it just limited (severely) how much of a discount those loyalty programs could offer on agency-published titles. The fact is, those loyalty programs regularly offered discounts that would have been below (and often waaay below) the new agency-dictated prices.

That agency hampered a loyalty program's (or any retailer's) ability to discount Big5 ebooks is not up for debate. It did. Because that was the goal of agency after all.

There is no question that consumers who availed themselves of loyalty programs that offered big discounts, paid more for their Big5 ebooks after agency enacted the discounting floor. Just as there is no question that the most popular, highest-volume sellers were sold by etailers at a higher price than they would have pre-agency.

The prices went up on the etitles that the publishers sold the most of... period. The titles they build their catalogs around and hang their financial hats upon; and with which they subsidize all their other pet (less profitable) projects.

[pwalker8]

No, I was buying books during the agency time period, heck I'm buying books now when a modified agency model is in place.

Gee, funny how some people assert that "such and such is not open to debate" when they don't want to debate something. It's like they are afraid that the facts won't support their position or something.

How workable loyalty programs are under the agency model depends on how the loyalty program is structured and how it's paid for. Amazon was trying to force the publishers to eat the cost of Amazon's discounting. Obviously that model isn't going to work so well. A simplified agency model says that the reseller gets 30 % of what the item is priced at. So, a buy 10 get 1 free might work. Lots of local restaurants have some sort of buy 10 lunches and your next one is free type programs. A loyalty program like the credit card loyalty programs where you get 1 percent back in store credits for each purchase might work as well. It all depends on what the contract says.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Gee, funny how some people assert that "such and such is not open to debate" when they don't want to debate something. It's like they are afraid that the facts won't support their position or something..

And sometimes, people assert it because it is, in fact, simply not debatable. No fear whatsoever. Just like in this case.

Originally Posted by Me

That agency hampered a loyalty program's (or any retailer's) ability to discount Big5 ebooks is not up for debate. It did. Because that was the goal of agency after all.

Are you claiming agency, did not restrict a seller's ability to discount Big5 ebooks as they saw fit? Or that controlling how much ebooks can be discounted was not a goal of agency?

Which one of those are not undebatable facts?

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

No, I was buying books during the agency time period, heck I'm buying books now when a modified agency model is in place.

Gee, funny how some people assert that "such and such is not open to debate" when they don't want to debate something. It's like they are afraid that the facts won't support their position or something.

How workable loyalty programs are under the agency model depends on how the loyalty program is structured and how it's paid for. Amazon was trying to force the publishers to eat the cost of Amazon's discounting. Obviously that model isn't going to work so well. A simplified agency model says that the reseller gets 30 % of what the item is priced at. So, a buy 10 get 1 free might work. Lots of local restaurants have some sort of buy 10 lunches and your next one is free type programs. A loyalty program like the credit card loyalty programs where you get 1 percent back in store credits for each purchase might work as well. It all depends on what the contract says.

What loyalty programs worked with agency books? As far as I know they all stopped working with agency books.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

And sometimes, people assert it because it is, in fact, simply not debatable. No fear whatsoever. Just like in this case.



Are you claiming agency, did not restrict a seller's ability to discount Big5 ebooks as they saw fit? Or that controlling how much ebooks can be discounted was not a goal of agency?

Which one of those are not undebatable facts?

Loyalty programs and discounting specific books are not one and the same things. There are a lot of different ways to do a loyalty program. REI has a loyalty program which provides a dividend at the end of the year based on how much you spent during the year. That dividend is just a store credit that can be spent on anything in the store. Such a loyalty program would be perfectly valid in a standard agency model. What specifically is allowed and not allowed depends completely on the contract in place. So I am claiming _neither_ of the statements you are trying to put in my mouth. I am simply stating that loyalty programs in general are not prohibited by the agency pricing model.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Loyalty programs and discounting specific books are not one and the same things.

They sure aren't.
Now answer the question.

Originally Posted by Me

Are you claiming agency, did not restrict a seller's ability to discount Big5 ebooks as they saw fit? Or that controlling how much ebooks can be discounted was not a goal of agency?

Which one of those are not undebatable facts?

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

What loyalty programs worked with agency books? As far as I know they all stopped working with agency books.

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

They sure aren't.
Now answer the question.

He didn't answer my question, and he won't answer yours.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

So I am claiming _neither_ of the statements you are trying to put in my mouth. I am simply stating that loyalty programs in general are not prohibited by the agency pricing model.

I'm putting no words in your mouth. None whatsoever. Let's recap:

I said:

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

That agency hampered a loyalty program's (or any retailer's) ability to discount Big5 ebooks is not up for debate. It did. Because that was the goal of agency after all.

To which you said:

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Gee, funny how some people assert that "such and such is not open to debate" when they don't want to debate something. It's like they are afraid that the facts won't support their position or something.

To which I replied:

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

And sometimes, people assert it because it is, in fact, simply not debatable. No fear whatsoever. Just like in this case.

And asked you which of the two things that I claimed were "not up for debate" could actually be debated.

At which point you punted and started talking about what retailers could/should have done with their loyalty programs under agency instead of answering a fairly simple question.

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

He didn't answer my question, and he won't answer yours.

They're difficult questions. Give him a couple of years and I'm sure he'll find and answer.