
The Price of Amazon - iProject
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/05/the-price-of-amazon/?ref=technology
======
mseebach
It's hard to see this piece as more than a disrupted industry, frankly,
whining over their diminished power in the new reality. I'm to believe that
it's bad for anyone but publishers that books are cheap? Because people might
buy books for the wrong reasons? Oh, humanity. ("it sends a confusing message
that good books are worth less, and because it encourages buying based on
something other than the quality of the book")

This bit is particularly disingenuous: "The hippie, black and women’s
movements of the 1960s would not have been so successful in challenging
authority without the bookstores, which made their ideas widely available and
sympathetic in a way that television, for instance, did not."

Seriously? I mean, really, seriously, you just wrote that on a _technology_
(wait for it) BLOG? The analogous movements of today has unprecedented access
to spreading their ideas through blogs and websites and social media and
petition sites and collaboration services and who knows what else - most of it
available instantly and almost or entirely free. I don't think that if the
occupy/tea party/anonymous/truther/conspiracy/pick-your-revolution-of-week
movements have struggled for five minutes to make their ideas available, it
was because of the _lack of bookstores_.

~~~
ericras
>> This bit is particularly disingenuous...

Yes and no.

His statement is correct in a historical perspective that Walter Cronkite and
the local newspaper had little interest in covering these movements (or at
least not in a sympathetic or fair light).

His statement is humorous, as you point out, when used as a leg of his
argument that bookstores are still needed for these social reasons.

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jmduke
I feel like this entire argument is less against Amazon and more against
modern economics. The author attacks two trademarks of the Amazonian
publishing spectrum: algorithmic pricing and a diminished sense of
competition.

The first, I think, is difficult to make because you're saying "hey, this
pricing scheme is arbitrary and capricious" when the current model of
publishers setting prices for goods seems equally arbitrary. Books are art
with little intrinsic value -- if you were to ask me to value a book in my
collection, the answer would range from less than a dollar to thousands of
dollars, with little in between. I'm not saying demand is a perfect proxy for
value, but I think its better than the other options. (I feel the same way
about clothes. Any pricing scheme where there's a systematic understanding
that everyone is going to discount the hell out of the base price is, I think,
a flawed scheme.)

The second, I think is much more valid overall but the same points could be
made about Barnes & Noble or Borders, back in the day. (Remember _You 've Got
Mail_?)

A much bigger and interesting topic of discussion, I think, is what happens
ten years from now when eBooks become the du jour method of literary
consumption. Personally, I'm looking forward to the Bandcamp of poetry.

~~~
zanny
There is already an absurd amount of literary content freely created online by
millions of people. And most of the sites offer some ranking system to filter
the crap out. I think I bought my last book ever in college, considering I
have an infinite supply of 15 - 25 year old Tolkein's works available that
they put out for free because they just want people to enjoy their writings if
I look hard enough.

~~~
HelloMcFly
I've acquired about five self-published books at a very low cost (including
free) and they've all been shit. I have a hard time buying something these
days that I don't think had an editor work through it, but I am concerned that
editors will play a smaller and smaller role in the book business going
forward.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Perhaps a site where editors can freelance and be rated by writers and readers
alike?

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jrochkind1
_“So do you raise the price, knowing they’re going to lower it, so that the
price will then appear closer to what you need it to be? "_

So, Amazon is paying the publisher the wholesale price regardless. Amazon's
discounts cut into Amazon's profits, not the publishers -- or even result in
Amazon taking a loss.

I think this publisher quoted has to tell us why he "needs" the price on
Amazon to be a certain amount, when it does not effect how much he gets paid
per copy -- the initial naive interpretation would be that if Amazon wants to
cut their profits, so presumably more copies sell, while the publisher is
still making the same amount per copy -- this would be good for the publisher,
no?

It _is_ a weird market (with Amazon appearing to routinely sell books at a
loss), and is dominated by Amazon, which indeed isn't great for a healthy
diverse bookselling market.

But publishers are saying some weird stuff, without explaining themselves.

~~~
ciclista
It's been a couple of years, but I used to work at a place that published a
number of books.

Usualy wholesale price was %40 off retail. Amazon demanded 55% at the time or
they wouldn't sell the books. I can imagine some publishers would raise their
prices accordingly so that they would still reach the minimum wholesale price
they wanted/needed.

~~~
UntitledNo4
Why do books carry a printed retail price anyway? Is there a reason why they
can't be like CDs and other goods?

~~~
ciclista
Apparently to (try to) guarantee the survival of books shops:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_book_price_agreement](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_book_price_agreement)

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hkmurakami
If you're interested about the kind of harm Amazon can potentially do to the
publishing ecosystem (or good, depending on your position), than definitely
check out the Melville House Publisher's blog. They've famously fought Amazon
numerous times over their terms and write frequently about Amazon issues.

[http://www.mhpbooks.com/archive/](http://www.mhpbooks.com/archive/)

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pcl
I'm really interested to see how the Google Shopping Express [1] thing will
play out. I really like the idea of challenging Amazon's control by enabling
local stores rather than just trying to create another behemoth.

It seems like it's right up Google's alley, given their experience with long-
tail markets in the advertising business. I hope it's a success.

[1]
[https://www.google.com/shopping/express/about/](https://www.google.com/shopping/express/about/)

~~~
ngoel36
I've been using Google Shopping Express (beta invite from a former coworker)
for the past month now, and I love it. I ordered a toothbrush going into work
yesterday, and the courier was at my desk by noon. I especially like that it
includes a variety of local stores (including budget places like Walgreens and
Target) so I almost always get the best price. A couple of potential flaws I
see with the service are:

* The price point. Right now the beta gives me free delivery on everything. So I can order from numerous stores with tiny orders, which is great. But normally it looks like it will cost $4.99 for a one-store delivery, which may not be worth it for me unless I really need something urgent. Amazon Prime will almost always be worth it for me in that case, unless it's something I can't go two days without. Now, maybe if Google came out with a Prime-like one time annual fee for unlimited deliveries...

* The type of products available. Right now, you can't get a lot of the things you would normally go to the store for: perishable food items, alcohol, etc. That takes away a lot of the value of Same Day delivery. Amazon Fresh really has a big edge here, but I guess that's only available in Seattle.

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wutbrodo
I'm in the beta as well and the account section explicitly mentions an annual
membership and the date that the trial ends and the membership starts. It
would make absolutely no sense for them not to offer this as a subscription.

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robryan
Publishers probably weren't complaining when Amazon would buy their book at
wholesale and take a loss with massive retail discounting.

What publishers want is for Amazon to sell at low margin so they get volume
and the publishers get each at a decent wholesale price.

As a seller on Amazon I have noticed that often people will pay more than the
cheapest available, either they don't bother looking elsewhere or Amazon as a
brand has grown to the point where people just find it easiest to use them all
the time. If this effect holds for books then they no longer have the be the
cheapest to drive decent volume.

~~~
HelloMcFly
| Publishers probably weren't complaining when Amazon would buy their book at
wholesale and take a loss with massive retail discounting.

Ha, I bet a few were more than concerned.

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linohh
In Germany we have a law that prohibits rebates on books. The prices are
usually printed on the back. Selling books discounted is prohibited and may
lead to huge penalties. (Of course there are loopholes, damaged books can be
sold for any price and books can be damaged by stamping "DAMAGED" on them.)
This eliminates pricing competition and will probably give the local
booksellers a few more years to live. However: Amazons margin on books is
probably the largest ever realized countrywide. Book wholesalers have the
contractual right to get the largest discount granted to any customer. This is
why basically no-one gets more than 50%. Except Amazon. They'll buy from
wholesale, but the book will need 1-2 additional days to ship. To get 24h
shipping, the publishers have to sell directly to Amazon at 50% rebate plus
around 15% for handling and advertising. This way they realize lower sourcing
costs than anyone else. It's ridiculous, but many agree to it.

~~~
kephra
There is also one main difference between US and German book market.

Ordering a book in US took two weeks or even month, to ship the book to
Boston, before Amazon disrupted the broken US book market. While ordering a
book in Germany takes a maximum of two days to any bookstore.

One thing the article does not mention is the real price of ordering a book at
amazon: Privacy. There had been lots of cases where CIA or FBI visited people
because of the books the bought.

~~~
fpgeek
Unless you're paying cash for books and not using any sort of
membership/discount card when you do, your privacy is just as gone at a
physical bookstore as it is at Amazon.

~~~
UVB-76
Not necessarily; in most cases I would imagine only the book store themselves
retain data about your purchase (details of the SKU(s) you purchased, images
of you making the purchase on CCTV, etc.)

If you use an electronic payment method, only 'metadata' — to use an
expression in vogue — about the transaction will be transmitted to third
parties, not the details of the particular item(s) you purchased.

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dirkgently
This confirms my theory that NYT would write anything as long as Apple pays
them enough.

The picture painted here ignores the point of view of the customer completely.
Whatever Amazon does is okay with me as long as they successfully exposes
Apple + Big Four cartel.

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cm2012
Most books sold by Amazon are sold by 3rd party sellers, which are small
businesses generally. They use SaaS apps to do repricing. Pricing is not, for
the most part, done by a special Amazon algorithm.

~~~
_delirium
> Most books sold by Amazon are sold by 3rd party sellers

Are there any solid figures on that?

~~~
cm2012
No, in fact it looks like I was wrong. I based it off my buying of books which
are mostly long tail. 3rd party sales appear to be 50% of Amazon sales right
now, according to Google (on phone right now, hard to link) buy most of that
is not media, so Amazon must be doing 50%+ of sales.

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notdrunkatall
Destroy the looms, they're stealing our jobs!

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kmfrk

        Steve [Jobs] is in the I win/you win school.
        Jeff Bezos is in the I win/you lose school.
    

[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/04/26/100426fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/04/26/100426fa_fact_auletta).

~~~
Shivetya
I am more to believe that those two quotes should have been reversed. I am all
for the idea of publisher's being pushed out in favor of authors getting
direct to customers, the same idea that would be so nice in music.

There really is no difference in the end, both can easily be delivered
electronically and both have adherents to the old means of enjoying them;
physical copies.

~~~
rustynails77
It's unfair to say the reverse when Amazon were only making a loss to
monopolize the market. However, Apple didn't care that book industry were
gouging the consumer - no printing costs, no shipping costs, no packaging
costs .. why should eBooks be the same price? Greed! I don't buy eBooks on
principle. If the price was reduced accordingly, so that the book industry
maintained its profits - that would have been fair and equitable. From my
perspective, neither Apple nor Amazon had this goal in mind.

