

David vs Goliath: Children’s book publisher pulls its titles from Amazon  - MRonney
http://www.digitaltrends.com/lifestyle/david-versus-goliath-childrens-book-publisher-pulls-its-titles-from-amazon-and-what-it-means-for-you/

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ctdonath
EDC (<http://www.edcpub.com/>), better known as Usborne Books, is an enormous
publisher of children's books ("Everyone Poops" being a runaway hit, enough to
buy another publisher). Its primary - and successful - sales format is thru
multilevel marketing, providing customer contacts where big-brand distributors
can't/won't reach. Problem was that its marketers would do the legwork to
arrange sales large and small, only to see the customer then turn to Amazon
and make the purchase (sometimes quite substantial) at a steep discount, and
the marketer lose the sale and receive no return on effort. Faced with the
choice of wiping out its sales force and submitting to the Amazon model (and
being lost in the warehouse), or defend the loyal sales force (and make its
brand stand out) and risk the consequences of leaving Amazon, the company
chose the latter.

A gutsy move. We'll find out what the value of a loyal sales force is.

One key point here is Usborne's books are geared toward physical-contact-
oriented _children_ , not abstract-concept-oriented adults. Many of the books
produced have a significant physical component, such as textured textiles,
moving parts, thick cardboard pages, fold-out inserts, or rich coloring -
aspects which do not translate to digital formats, and do not stand out in
online-only advertising. It's one thing to see a webpage offering "That's Not
My Lion" with a .JPG, it's another to have a salesperson hand a potential
customer a copy to feel the fuzzy manes, velvety fur, and cold stiff claws
featured on its various pages and go "my lion-obsessed son would love this".
This kind of product is more expensive to produce than straight glossy pages,
but if the customer does not experience the difference they won't pay the
difference.

Much has been said about the brick-and-mortar (or variants) model vs. ultra-
warehouse just-in-time online model of sales. Some products just don't fare
well in the latter, and pushing back in favor of the former may be the only
way for some reasonable/desirable products to survive.

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sosuke
Is it David vs Goliath in the eyes of the consumer though? All they see is
they can't buy a book they want through Amazon anymore. They may just think it
doesn't make any sense and question why the publisher doesn't want to offer
their books on Kindle anymore. Amazon doesn't make books, why would they want
to "squeeze everyone out of business" that makes the books they sell.

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ctdonath
Major question is how the consumer knows the book even exists? It takes
significant in-person sales efforts to promote some products, effort which
goes unrewarded if the customer can make the ultimate purchase online, causing
the sales staff to evaporate along with consumer awareness of the product.

