Amazon changes BUY BUTTON policy, publishers go bonkers

[fjtorres]

From the Digital Reader blog:

https://the-digital-reader.com/2017/...lowest-seller/

Publishers are furious (and The Authors Guild is livid) that the copies of books that publishers had sold off cheap are now getting preferential treatment on Amazon.com.


Starting about two months ago, Amazon changed their policy on buy button on book listings. The old policy was that Amazon controlled the button and when you clicked it you bought the book Amazon sourced from the publisher.

Under the new policy, Amazon is giving the buy button to whichever seller can offer the best combination of price, customer service, shipping, etc. (The policy was announced last November and took effect in March.)

As a result, consumers may be seeing something like in the following listing where the buy button gets you a book from a low-price third-party seller, and the copy Amazon bought from the publisher is pushed down to the "other sellers" section.

More at the source.

It helps to understand the difference between AMAZON.COM and AMAZON.LLC. because what we have here is Amazon.com (the online mall operator) demoting their Anchor store (AMAZON.LLC) to the same status as other *new* book vendors on the site. So if another book source can undercut AMAZON.LLC (by offering up a remaindered copy, for example) they are happy to give them top listing.

Publishers, of course, are upset to see their deep discounted inventory (for which authors don't get paid) getting added visibility.

Expend lots on whining about readers getting easier access to cheap pbooks.

[frahse]

Breaks my heart.

[FizzyWater]

So they changed books to act like everything other physical thing on Amazon's website? Oh, wait, books are special snowflakes, aren't they?

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

Oh, wait, books are special snowflakes, aren't they?

Only if put out by traditional publishers and authors guild members.

[fjtorres]

The move is both timely and necessary.
And not because about the griping about how low tbeir prices are or aren't:

https://teleread.org/2016/09/21/amaz...-to-customers/

Rather, it's a good move because so much on US online shopping runs through the Amazon.com portal, even if the final sale doesn't go to Amazon.LLC. Amazon.com directs sales to a lot of affiliated merchants that don't count as Amazon sales because they aren't the actual seller, just the facilitator. So, as USATODAY reported last fall, Amazon "touches" in one way or another nearly a third of all online commerce in the US, which is double their direct sales rate.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/...rger/92419572/

More, even in cases where Amazon.com doesn't close the sale, they have a role in over half of all online retail activity as they are the first stop for 55% of online shoppers. (And a few B&M shoppers, too.) They are very useful for product research.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/27/amazo...ers-visit.html

That is a honking lot of market power at Amazon.com so demoting Amazon.LLC to the role of "just another retailer" or "first among (nominal) equals" is a good idea. For one thing, it lets them attract even more affiliated retailers. For another, it boosts their reputation with shoppers. And it doesn't hurt that it preempts any unfair competitive practice charges from their enemies. Nobody has yet raised those charges but now they can't.
They remain as pro-active as ever.

Big as they are, they stand to get even bigger.

They really need a better breed of challenger.
Maybe Google ought to buy WalMart.

(Oh, and of course, the publishing establishment thinks the whole move is all about them.)

Edit: the usual suspects are hand-wringing. And being challenged:

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/b...s-authors.html

Those objecting to this policy say it is allowing Amazon to deprive publishers of sales and authors of royalties. (Because re-sellers are not buying their copies from publishers, these sales will not be counted as sales, and money derived from them will not go to publishers or authors.)

From the horse's mouth:

When asked about the program, Amazon issued the following statement to PW: "We have listed and sold books, both new and used, from third party sellers for many years. The recent changes allow sellers of new books to be the ‘featured offer’ on a book’s detail page, which means that our bookstore now works like the rest of Amazon, where third party sellers compete with Amazon for the sale of new items. Only offers for new books are eligible to be featured.”

https://scrivenerserror.blogspot.com/2017/05/H509x.html

[darryl]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

They really need a better breed of challenger.
Maybe Google ought to buy WalMart.

(Oh, and of course, the publishing establishment thinks the whole move is about them.)

Very true. At the moment it is Amazon first and daylight second. If I was put in charge of some of Amazon's competitors both in publishing and in other industries and told to wreck their businesses as quickly as I could without being too obvious I could not have done as well as the incumbents. In publishing B&N is a classic illustration.

And of course publishing is now only a tiny proportion of Amazon's business. Amazon has made an eminently rational and appropriate decision which the publishers were incapable of foreseeing because they never seem to contemplate that sometimes innovation requires that one arm of a business acts in a way that potentially does some damage to another arm. At least if long term survival is important.

[jhowell]

I still do not see how publishers were ever able to sell cheap copies of books and not have them compete with the same book being sold at a higher price. It seems to me that some sort of market inefficiency that previously existed has now been corrected.

[Fbone]

Off topic, my apologies.

I don't like how Amazon displays the subscribe & save price after a search. When you click on the item the price increases.

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by jhowell

I still do not see how publishers were ever able to sell cheap copies of books and not have them compete with the same book being sold at a higher price. It seems to me that some sort of market inefficiency that previously existed has now been corrected.

In my understanding it is generally the not quite new books that have the issue, not brand new books. Books that are no longer on the NYT "best sellers" list but had large first or second print runs in hardback or paperback that didn't sell out get sold (auctioned?) to discount sellers who then sell them for very cheap. Basically, the publisher doesn't want to store them until they get sold so they sell them cheap.

And then whine when they get resold for cheap.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

In my understanding it is generally the not quite new books that have the issue, not brand new books. Books that are no longer on the NYT "best sellers" list but had large first or second print runs in hardback or paperback that didn't sell out get sold (auctioned?) to discount sellers who then sell them for very cheap. Basically, the publisher doesn't want to store them until they get sold so they sell them cheap.

And then whine when they get resold for cheap.

Yup.
More precisely: the books are rarely new releases but they *are* new copies. Never sold at retail.

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Yup.
More precisely: the books are rarely new releases but they *are* new copies. Never sold at retail.

Right. I should re-word that to clarify that by "not quite new" I meant not a new release. That physical copy of the book will be new, not used.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

That physical copy of the book will be new, not used.

I don't know about paper books, because I either borrow from the library -- mostly eBooks -- or buy the cheapest used paper copy available, regardless of condition.

But as for general merchandise, it appears to me that over the past two years or so, Amazon has changed its definition of new vs. Amazon Warehouse Deal like-new. Perhaps the same is true with paper books.

It used to be that when you bought like-new, it was never-opened, with just the slightest wear on the carton giving the impression of having been returned. But the last like-new item I bought (a modular phone system) was a jumble of parts (albeit all in good condition) that were previously registered to multiple prior customers. Before 2016, that would have been an Used-Very Good, or, more likely, Used-Acceptable. My purchase sample size may not be statistically significant, but this is my experience.

If I cared about stuff I buy being truly new -- and I generally don't care -- I would find the typical remaindered book as not having the freshness of one that is really new, and would thus dislike remaindered books being sold as if purely new.

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

Oh, wait, books are special snowflakes, aren't they?

I would have thought that this site is dedicated to the idea that books are special snowflakes. Of course, it depends on the book. And again and again I find the major publisher product tremendously superior. This title I just finished is, among other things, a tremendous page turner despite being based on the kind of research that typical university press editors would have made (or allowed to remain) boring:

Janesville: An American Story

I realize this is non-fiction, and that many of those here are mostly interested in fiction. Given the vast number of fiction titles, and that I mostly don't read them, I venture no opinion as to whether major publisher novels are or are not deserved special snowflakes.

[fjtorres]

In the world of ebooks and publishing "Special Snowflake" is a term with history.
It dates to the price fixing conspiracy trial where the judge was flooded with self-serving and legally dubious briefs ( one even in comic book form) arguing that antitrust did not apply to publisher collusion because their business was unique.
The judge, relying on extensive legal precedent...

(Good summary here, as a refresher: http://www.courtneymilan.com/ramblin...ust-snowflake/)

...dismissed the briefs and their argument by using the term "special snowflake".
Since then, the term has ( in ebook circles) become shorthand for "misguided belief that the laws of economics/nature/the state do not apply to you".
In the broader world, "special snowflake" has taken on a deeper, more pejorative, decidely political, meaning referring to a very specific kind of self-centered cluelessness that devalues those around you.
In this year of 2017 you do not want to label anything you value as a special snowflake.
In fact, "special" by itself is becoming an ironic putdown akin to the southern "bless your heart".

Times change.
Language evolves.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

If I cared about stuff I buy being truly new -- and I generally don't care -- I would find the typical remaindered book as not having the freshness of one that is really new, and would thus dislike remaindered books being sold as if purely new.

That's what I was thinking. What's going to happen when someone buys a 'new' book and it has a black marker across the pages/through the ISBN/what-have-you?

I predict reviews along the lines of "I bought this 'new' book as a gift!"

[gweeks]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

That's what I was thinking. What's going to happen when someone buys a 'new' book and it has a black marker across the pages/through the ISBN/what-have-you?

I predict reviews along the lines of "I bought this 'new' book as a gift!"

If it's marked, it doesn't meet the requirements for new. It will get the vendor kicked out of the Amazon marketplace.

https://teleread.org/2017/05/10/amaz...cheaper-books/

The update includes a response from Amazon about marked books.

Greg