Eddie Cue would violate antitrust laws again...

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

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

Yeah, difficult for him because mine was simple and straightforward.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by crich70

I think that smacks of something nasty myself. Basically if they can't get what they want they won't provide what the customer wants to buy. Or at least that's how that sounds to me. It's like someone is selling lemonade at .50 a cup and expects their neighbor (who is also selling lemonade) to not sell it at .10 a cup

OR....

It was the same windowing that publishers have used "forever". Hardback comes out at highest price. Then, later, an expensive soft cover (but less than the hardback) comes out. Then, lastly, the cheap paperback book is released. That was how the business worked.

And it's not two people selling lemonade. It's two retailers selling the producer's product. Same actual product.

At stake was one of the publisher's customers devaluing the product for all of the publisher's customers...which comes to devalue the product for the publisher.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

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

I answered your question three times in this thread. I gave several examples of loyalty programs that would not have an issue with basic agency pricing.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

Yeah, difficult for him because mine was simple and straightforward.

It wasn't all that difficult to answer, since I did it three times. Apparently though it's not the answer you wanted to hear, so you just ignored the fact that your question had been answered.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

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

I said:


To which you said:


To which I replied:


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.

No you are playing the classic "Do you still beat your wife, yes or no" game. Agency pricing does not preclude loyalty programs. That is what I am saying. That was the original question, and that was my answer. Too bad it doesn't fit your little narrative, but that's life sometimes.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I answered your question three times in this thread. I gave several examples of loyalty programs that would not have an issue with basic agency pricing.

I asked what program worked with agency, not what could work.

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

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

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by leebase

OR....

It was the same windowing that publishers have used "forever". Hardback comes out at highest price. Then, later, an expensive soft cover (but less than the hardback) comes out. Then, lastly, the cheap paperback book is released. That was how the business worked.

And it's not two people selling lemonade. It's two retailers selling the producer's product. Same actual product.

At stake was one of the publisher's customers devaluing the product for all of the publisher's customers...which comes to devalue the product for the publisher.

I was perfectly happy with the original wholesale model, where the publishers were charging the same wholesale price for either paper edition or ebook, and the retailers choosing to pick their own profit margins (or loss leaders) for both paper and ebook editions. If the ebook price was too high for me, I just waited for the price drop when the cheaper paper editions were released. There were a few cases where that didn't happen, when the HC publisher owned the ebook rights but not the mass market paperback rights, and they left the ebook price at parity with the HC.

It shouldn't even have mattered to the publisher whether the consumer bought paper or ebook, because the wholesale price was the same. With agency pricing the publishers have publicly acknowledged they are receiving lower payments on ebooks than they are for the paper edition (at least during the HC window). If the costs of producing the ebook and the paper edition are comparable, and the publishers want to recoup the upfront costs (like advances, editing and preproduction costs) quickly, then with agency pricing they need to steer more early book purchases to paper. As an ebook consumer, that worries me.

And realistically even though Amazon was discounting most NYT bestsellers to $9.99 in ebook, they weren't discounting all ebooks in the HC window to $9.99, and all the ebook retailers were doing some discounting. They had to, because Wal-Mart, Target, Sam's Club and Costco, among others, were doing discounting of the same titles in paper. Sure, the unnamed retailer (aka Amazon) was putting pressure to keep (e)book prices down, but it had a lot of competition exerting the same pressure.

Finally, because paper books are priced by the retailer and only indirectly by the publisher, I ran into a lot of cases where the paper book was cheaper than the ebook, often by several dollars, because the retailer was discounting and the publisher wasn't. When that happens, I just don't buy their product at all.

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

No you are playing the classic "Do you still beat your wife, yes or no" game. Agency pricing does not preclude loyalty programs. That is what I am saying. That was the original question, and that was my answer. Too bad it doesn't fit your little narrative, but that's life sometimes.

You keep saying that, but empirically, that is not what is happened in real life. In real life, the retailers kept their loyalty programs but excluded the agency priced works from being eligible for the loyalty program rewards. Unless you have access to the actual contracts and can show us that the contracts did not preclude loyalty programs on their products, the evidence is against you.

Quite frankly, your example of a loyalty program like REI's where there is an end of year rebate fails the publisher's minimum price requirement. If the retailer gives a 5% rebate on all books, it doesn't matter whether the rebate is given immediately or if it's accumulated and awarded at the end of the year, it still causes the book price to drop below the publisher's minimum price, it's just a timing issue as to when.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

No you are playing the classic "Do you still beat your wife, yes or no" game.

No, I'm really not. I'm wanting to know which, if any, or both, of my two claims (the ones you got snitty about me saying weren't up for debate) you feel are not irrefutable facts. I'm still wanting to know. Let me try again:

1) Agency pricing limited retailers' loyalty program's ability to discount Big5 etitles. Fact or no?

2) Limiting retailers' ability to discount was a goal of Agency pricing. Fact or no?

Agency pricing does not preclude loyalty programs. That is what I am saying.

Great. Except that no one claimed it did/does. They only claimed that agency precluded certain discounting perks that existing loyalty programs offered on Big5 etitles before agency. They claim it because it's true.

That was the original question, and that was my answer. Too bad it doesn't fit your little narrative, but that's life sometimes.

No. That was never the question. It certainly wasn't my question. Whose question are you claiming you're answering? No one asked "did agency preclude loyalty programs?" They claimed that agency KILLED THE SAVINGS they were enjoying from loyalty programs and retailer-controlled discounts. Because it did.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

Yeah, difficult for him because mine was simple and straightforward.

Simple questions can have a lot of philosophical weight behind them.

You cannot expect people to simply overturn their entire conceptual model at a moment's notice... give it time...

[Shades]

Is it just me or does it seem like pwalker8 is advocating Agency as if he was being paid to do so?

I mean no consumer should ever advocate tyrannical price fixing...

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Shades

Is it just me or does it seem like pwalker8 is advocating Agency as if he was being paid to do so?

I mean no consumer should ever advocate tyrannical price fixing...

He is not advocating agency, he is advocating Apple.

Practically speaking, it is the same.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Simple questions can have a lot of philosophical weight behind them.

You cannot expect people to simply overturn their entire conceptual model at a moment's notice... give it time...

Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.

* Thanks to Andrew Marvell's ode to his coy mistress.

[murg]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

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.

REI is not a loyalty program, it is a cooperative. A very different kettle of fish.

[murg]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I answered your question three times in this thread. I gave several examples of loyalty programs that would not have an issue with basic agency pricing.

Actually, you only gave one concrete example of an actual loyalty program, and that wasn't even a loyalty program.

REI is a cooperative. This is a legal entity, and the profits of the entity are returned to the members (which paid for the privilege) in the form of dividends.