French culture minister: "Allowing publishers to fix prices is best"

[stonetools]

All this talk of "corner grocery stores" etc. miss the main point: that the B&M stores are providing a superior shopping & browsing experience that's been mis-appropriated by online retailers. That has ZERO to do with buggy whips, milkmen, or anything else. You bring up these examples because its suits you but those are examples of obsolescence, not misappropriation of value. I know this is kind of going against your ideology and isn't immediately obvious, but please stop mis-characterizing the argument .
The point of Amazon not paying sales tax and (allegedly) not complying with fair labor practices shows that the playing field is tilted against B&M booksellers who can't avoid sales tax and who have comply with more stringent labor regulations.
Again, if you are an Amazon lover, you tend to gloss over these Amazon advantages and pontificate about the march of the history and the awesome wonderfulness of THE INTERNET!!! The point is maybe Amazon shouldn't be gifted these somewhat unsavory advantages. I say that as an Amazon customer who is at least trying to be objective.

[plib]

Originally Posted by stonetools

I say that as an Amazon customer who is at least trying on be objective.

Ahem, ahem, ahem. (Sorry, I have to truncate this post. I just got hit with the most awful fit of coughing.)

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by stonetools

All this talk of "corner grocery stores" etc. miss the main point: that the B&M stores are providing a superior shopping & browsing experience that's been mis-appropriated by online retailers. That has ZERO to do with buggy whips, milkmen, or anything else. You bring up these examples because its suits you but those are examples of obsolescence, not misappropriation of value. I know this is kind of going against your ideology and isn't immediately obvious, but please stop mis-characterizing the argument .
The point of Amazon not paying sales tax and (allegedly) not complying with fair labor practices shows that the playing field is tilted against B&M booksellers who can't avoid sales tax and who have comply with more stringent labor regulations.
Again, if you are an Amazon lover, you tend to gloss over these Amazon advantages and pontificate about the march of the history and the awesome wonderfulness of THE INTERNET!!! The point is maybe Amazon shouldn't be gifted these somewhat unsavory advantages. I say that as an Amazon customer who is at least trying on be objective.

So, we don't see you arguing for an introduction of sales taxes on internet transactions and a return to the wholesale model? That would be the logical conclusion.

By the way, A lot of people already get charged sales taxes when shopping at Amazon, depending on where you live.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by plib

Ahem, ahem, ahem. (Sorry, I have to truncate this post. I just got hit with the most awful fit of coughing.)

I hear you.

Anyway...

The beauty of a competitive marketplace is consumers, one by one, get to decide what to buy and where. And what they buy is what *they* think is best for them, where *they* choose, not what some politician tells them to buy, and that is not usually from the politically-connected entrenched player trying to keep the tide of change at bay. Sisyphus 2012.

The divide here is that protectionists (and their apologists) don't care beans about consumers and consumers happily return the favor; they don't care if the supplier makes money or not, they don't care if they survive or not--as long as they continue to get what they need at a price they like.

Disdain repaid with disdain.

Try this, guys:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/201...shtml#comments

Don't miss the comments. There's a few fun ones.

[K. Molen]

Originally Posted by stonetools

All this talk of "corner grocery stores" etc. miss the main point: that the B&M stores are providing a superior shopping & browsing experience that's been mis-appropriated by online retailers.

And as has been pointed out, the online retailers provide a superior comparison shopping experience with extensive product information and consumer reviews, which has been misappropriated by B&M stores.

It goes both ways.

[plib]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Don't miss the comments. There's a few fun ones.

Can we vote for favourites?

I agree that publishers are *acting* as though they don't understand basic economics.

I've noticed on Techdirt that you seem to ignore the "meta-game". Book publishers, the MPAA, the RIAA, etc act as if they don't understand econ 101, and you take them at face value and assume they don't get it. Of course they get it, but it is not in their best interest to acknowledge that their spin is nonsense, so they reframe the debate in a way that they hope will appeal to voters, the media, etc. The poor set painters, the starving writers, an industry on a verge of collapse and the imminent damage to local economies, that kind of bullshit.

So why not start playing the meta-game? Publishers are *pretending* that they don't understand what sunk costs are and that the price tends toward the marginal cost over time. (that would be about $0.01 for an eBook). These guys went to college, they're not stupid. So stop calling them stupid and start calling them what they are: lying assholes.

(Although that one is actually in the related article.)

[Barcey]

Originally Posted by stonetools

All this talk of "corner grocery stores" etc. miss the main point: that the B&M stores are providing a superior shopping & browsing experience that's been mis-appropriated by online retailers. That has ZERO to do with buggy whips, milkmen, or anything else. You bring up these examples because its suits you but those are examples of obsolescence, not misappropriation of value. I know this is kind of going against your ideology and isn't immediately obvious, but please stop mis-characterizing the argument .
The point of Amazon not paying sales tax and (allegedly) not complying with fair labor practices shows that the playing field is tilted against B&M booksellers who can't avoid sales tax and who have comply with more stringent labor regulations.
Again, if you are an Amazon lover, you tend to gloss over these Amazon advantages and pontificate about the march of the history and the awesome wonderfulness of THE INTERNET!!! The point is maybe Amazon shouldn't be gifted these somewhat unsavory advantages. I say that as an Amazon customer who is at least trying to be objective.

If the B&M stores provide value then they'll stay in business. If not they won't. They don't provide superior browsing and shopping experience to anyone living further then a couple of miles away. Sorry if you want everyone else to pay for what you want.

[SeaKing]

Originally Posted by stonetools

All this talk of "corner grocery stores" etc. miss the main point: that the B&M stores are providing a superior shopping & browsing experience that's been mis-appropriated by online retailers. That has ZERO to do with buggy whips, milkmen, or anything else. You bring up these examples because its suits you but those are examples of obsolescence, not misappropriation of value. I know this is kind of going against your ideology and isn't immediately obvious, but please stop mis-characterizing the argument .
The point of Amazon not paying sales tax and (allegedly) not complying with fair labor practices shows that the playing field is tilted against B&M booksellers who can't avoid sales tax and who have comply with more stringent labor regulations.
Again, if you are an Amazon lover, you tend to gloss over these Amazon advantages and pontificate about the march of the history and the awesome wonderfulness of THE INTERNET!!! The point is maybe Amazon shouldn't be gifted these somewhat unsavory advantages. I say that as an Amazon customer who is at least trying to be objective.

A lot of retorts and statements that I might make about this post come to mind, but I fear I would be treading along the razors edge of a moderation slap-down so I will leave most of them unsaid.

I will only say that the your points for the most part are laughable. Just plain laughable.

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Again, if you are an Amazon lover, you tend to gloss over these Amazon advantages and pontificate about the march of the history and the awesome wonderfulness of THE INTERNET!!! The point is maybe Amazon shouldn't be gifted these somewhat unsavory advantages. I say that as an Amazon customer who is at least trying to be objective.

A quick jab at those disagreeing with you with a straw man, followed by a line (in bold) that is so thick with cognitive dissonance you could spread it on toast. Absolutely delicious, I wish I could 5-star posts like this one that give me a face-splitting grin even after several rereads. I honestly believe that Stonetools's entire shtick to this point has been carefully crafted to lead to this point of absolute hilarity.

[wyndslash]

actually, I do appreciate some of his posts. It certainly offers some different perspectives. I wonder if just most people hate him o.O

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by wyndslash

actually, I do appreciate some of his posts. It certainly offers some different perspectives. I wonder if just most people hate him o.O

Don't confuse disagreement with hate; I suspect most of the people arguing in this thread would find the forums a whole lot less interesting if everyone agreed with their opinions. No, I think what most people hate is specious arguments, not any poster in particular.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by plib

Can we vote for favourites?



(Although that one is actually in the related article.)

Be my guest.

On the quoted one, I would point out that politicians are generally understood to both lying a------s *and* illiterate as to real world economics so it is hardly impossible for the subjects of the comment to be both, too.

It's not an either/or proposition.

The same applies to the retail debate.
Price competition is *not* price matching, rather it is recognizing that *price* is a major, often dominant, element of the consumer's value equation and acting accordingly; adjusting your cost structure to meet consumers' aggregate values.
Note the distinction between the individual consumer's value assessment and the emergent competitiveness valuation that comes from the aggregate of all consumers applying their individual values. Because not all consumers apply the same weight factors to the elements of the value equation, this allows vendors/distributors/producers to be competitive without matching the low-price leader: they merely have to be better enough (for enough consumers) at other elements of the value equation.

Harping blindly and shrilly about Amazon (or Walmart or any other low cost retailer) is to willfully ignore the rest of the ways those retailers satisfy consumer needs. Amazon (to focus on the industry whipping-boy) isn't just a low price leader, they are also a customer service leader, they are a delivery speed/cost leader, they are a catalog size leader, they are an accessibility leader... Alll those things matter to consumers to one extent or another.

The core problem that B&M retailing faces isn't so much pricing as the fact that they can *not* be everywhere and online retailers can and are. For book retailers in the particular, they long ago committed to an essentially passive business model: "Stock it and they will come". The warehouse vendors refined that to "stock more and more will come" and in the process saddled themselves with massive overhead costs that they tried to mitigate with long-term leases, which effectively tied their hands when people stopped coming in droves.

And the reason they stopped coming was that the online vendors effectively go to the consumer instead of expecting the consumer to go to them. They are the ultimate door-to-door salesmen, really. B&M retailers need to find ways to offset that onliners ubiquity with advantages of their own instead of whining about their "unfair" advantages and running crying to seek bureaucratic protection from politicians.

Retailers that dream of government-forced price-fixing are deluding themselves.

They think that enlisting the state's power to force compliance they can save themselves from having to adapt when all they are doing is shifting their vulnerability to another area. The online vendor can always use the "excess" margin from the mandated price-fix to improving other aspects of the value equation: increasing their catalog by acquiring exclusive house-brand products, by pre-positioning inventory closer to consumers, by developing new approaches to appeal to consumers, etc...

The only thing that resorting to government "protection" achieves is to delay and *magnify* the inevitable reckoning. Instead of a slow steady attrition, the "protected" players will face instead a quick, catastrophic collapse when their shield is overwhelmed by their competitors' advantages.

Sooner or later, one way or another, the burgmeisters of Hamelin will pay the music bill. Deferring the debt merely increases the default penalty.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

No, I think what most people hate is specious arguments, not any poster in particular.

Debating tactics matter.
Shrill smokescreens annoy more than they advance a position.
Staying on topic and not dragging in fossilized horses helps, too.

[JD Gumby]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

The beauty of a competitive marketplace is consumers, one by one, get to decide what to buy and where. And what they buy is what *they* think is best for them, where *they* choose, not what some politician tells them to buy, and that is not usually from the politically-connected entrenched player trying to keep the tide of change at bay. Sisyphus 2012.

You're thinking of Canute.

[stonetools]

I would prefer that people respond to my arguments, not with ponderous attempts at ridicule, but with reasoned counter argument.
You may think my points laughable but you know who else isn't laughing? TARGET.

Target, signaling its growing irritation with its rival Amazon, announced on Wednesday that it would stop selling the online retailer’s Kindle e-readers.

Target, with almost 1,800 stores, is one of the bigger carriers of Kindles in the offline world, though most of the devices are sold at Amazon’s Web site.

Like other big retailers, Target has been trying to figure out how to stop Amazon shoppers from visiting Target stores to check out products, and then buy them online from Amazon. It is a practice encouraged by Amazon; over the Christmas holiday, for example, the company offered a promotion on its Price Check app that gave shoppers 5 percent off any item scanned at a store.

Now that retailers like Target are aware of this so-called showrooming, carrying Amazon’s Kindle is a little “like Starbucks selling Dunkin’ Donuts gift certificates,” said Michael Norris, a senior analyst for Simba Information.

Target warned in January that it wouldn’t sit back.

“What we aren’t willing to do is let online-only retailers use our brick-and-mortar stores as a showroom for their products and undercut our prices,” Target executives wrote in a letter to vendors, asking them to think of new pricing and inventory strategies, according to a note that Deborah Weinswig, a Citi analyst, sent to clients.

LINK

Now it should be obvious to all upright walkers that Target can't be put in the buggy whip manufacturer's box. Unlike the Enlightened Ones here, Target thinks of this as a serious problem and has asked its vendors to think hard about how to deal with the problem. Apparently, ignoring the problem or thinking that Father Internet will fix things aren't options for Target.
Who else thinks this is a serious problem?, Why, those morons at the Wall Street Journal:

The WSJ notes that it looks like Amazon will almost always be able to beat the likes of Target on price for most merchandise because Amazon pays less for overhead and allows cloud data storage and other profitable parts of its business to subsidize the retail side:

“The traditional retailers are still doing business the old way while Amazon has reinvented the model,” says Sucharita Mulpuru, retail analyst at Forrester Research. “Wal-Mart and Target are willing to sell a few things at a loss. Amazon’s whole business is a loss leader.”


Read more: http://moneyland.time.com/2012/01/24...#ixzz1vJpFDrWj

What else is Target-and Best Buy and Walmart-doing to fight back?

Retailers have long complained of Amazon's unfair competitive advantage because the online retailer is exempt from charging state and local sales taxes . Last spring, Target, along with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT ), Best Buy Co. Inc . (NYSE: BBY ), The Home Depot Inc. (NYSE: HD ), and other retailers threw their collective weight behind the Alliance for Main Street Fairness, a coalition that is leading efforts to change sales-tax laws in more than a dozen states, including Texas and California.

LINK

In other words, some of the greatest retailers in the world seem to agree with me that fighting for sales tax fairness is one way of combatting the problem. BUt what the hell? Those guys don't know their businesses as well as the geniuses here at Mobile Read , I'm sure.