Amazon Charges a Penny After France Bans Free Shipping
From Time:
‘Okay, we’ll charge one cent’
Amazon thumbed its nose at a French ban on free shipping of book orders, agreeing to raise the shipping price to exactly $0.01 Euros, or a single penny.
France24 reports that Amazon’s move comes one month after the ban sailed through France’s National Assembly. Lawmakers argued that the nation’s roughly 3,500 bookstores needed protection from online competitors, whom they accused of “dumping” books on the market at a loss.
“We are unfortunately no longer allowed to offer free deliveries for book orders,” Amazon explained in an FAQ to shoppers, who might reasonably wonder why the company would bother to charge one cent. “We have therefore fixed delivery costs at one centime per order containing books and dispatched by Amazon to systematically guarantee the lowest price for your book orders.”
Link to the rest at Time and thanks to Patricia for the tip.
, Amazon will pay Passive Guy a small affiliate commission on any of your purchases. 
How did ANYBODY NOT SEE THAT COMING?
I know! Anyone could see this coming!
Um, okay, those with a working brain about business could see it coming.
What a great way to make a statement though, right? Now the question has been changed from “is free shipping unfair” to “exactly how much should shipping cost?”
Politicians LOVE making cheap, easy arguments like “fatcat companies throwing away money on free shipping is unfair.” They HATE having to actually take a stand on real-world particulars.
Is it just me, or is Amazon being pretty bold in showing some attitude lately? And don’t you love it?
I am grinning and snickering at this. How did they not see this coming?
Don’t mess with free enterprise!
Love it
Booksellers don’t need protection, they need innovation. “Protecting” them is only going to keep them mired in the past and make them fail more quickly.
Anyone who understood Amazon could have seen this coming.
Laughing here. How stupid do they think Amazon is?
ROFLMAO!! Amazon for the win!
Mwahahahahahaha!
Oh, the politicians saw it coming.
They prefer it this way so they can tell their publisher contituency they did something for them without having to annoy consumers. And they get another round of handwringing over evil Amazon.
Politicians are a lot like djinn: you have to be very careful what you wish for. And in the end they always turn on you.
Exactly. They could have written the law to place a flat fee on shipping. Or a minimum charge of, say, 3 euros.
Or, they could have imposed an “actual charge” for shipping the package.
But they didn’t. And when you ask why they didn’t, you’d have to consider two answers:
a. they really are that stupid, or
b. they didn’t want to accept the responsibility for making voters pay more for their products.
It’s the same argument that goes around whenever Amazon is accused of not paying its “fair share” of tax, even though they are obeying to the letter the laws that the politicians pass.
Until these pressure groups place the blame where it belongs — on the politicians — and campaign actively against politicians who enable corporations to get away with paying as little tax as possible, this state of affairs will continue.
A clever move, but I fully expect that the French legislature won’t take kindly to being made to look like a fool. Given that here in the states Aero just lost a case because they only “technically didn’t break the law” I can see France using that logic to go After Amazon over this, since it’s obvious they’re being pedantic snarks about it.
They could but the fact that the law clearly and *openly* is intended to target one company has already raised the specter of a WTO challenge and retaliatory measures from DC.
Ha.
Reminds me when I worked at a convenience store some years ago. Management would go bananas if we had too many no sales, so we would open the drawer by keying in one penny and tendering that same phantom penny.
If we were short money, that was okay by management. In their tiny little minds, no sales is bad. monetary shortages is good.
That is funny. What’s next? Maybe they can declare that Amazon has to use carrier pigeons.
Well, Amazon IS working on that with drones…
In fact, Amazon already warned in January 2013 they would charge only a penny if the law passed: http://www.actualitte.com/librairies/en-2013-amazon-etait-pret-a-facturer-1-centime-pour-l-envoi-de-livres-51268.htm
Another article from Nouvel Obs in France: Amazon spits on Aurelie Filipetti’s face. http://tinyurl.com/lgph2je
Aurelie Filipetti is French ministry of culture.
At the end of the article, you have the sum of all fears:
“When Amazon will manufacture all tablets, decide numeric formats, publish texts, impose its contracts and sell the books to the public, when it will be at the beginning and the end of the chain, when it will have the right of life and death on every book, on every author, we will remember with love this july 8 2014 law which thought it had it bring down.”
We should applaud the journalist who had the objectivity not to write that Amazon will end up stealing your babies and eating them. The journalists in France are playing the fear game louder and louder.
Does this mean the future of European literature is in danger because the French will be able to buy and cherish more books?
Americans should pay attention. The US publishers want to save literature by charging more so people have fewer books to value as a cultural legacy.
Amazon wins France too, apparently.
Yes, Amazon is the first online retailer in France.
Gonna take a centime-mental journey,
Gonna send a book to Paree.
Maybe Amazon should install a device in every kindle that sprays moldy glue and paper smell while you read, so you can have that authentic ‘book’ experience. That might help people understand that ebooks are really books too.
I’m anosmic, i.e. I have no sense of smell, and I still prefer print books. Which doesn’t mean that e-books aren’t “real books”, cause they absolutely are. However, for some people it’s simply not their preferred format.
I wonder , because I dont know. The point of one penny is to nah nah? or?
– to nah nah would seem short sighted, no? to think a multibillion dollar industry of any kind would be doing anything for petty “I’ll show you’ reasons, including likely negative reactions from its serious investors/shareholders points of view, of which Zon has many [uderstatement]…– or it is part of a larger business strategy that makes sense that I dont grasp yet? Why only one penny? Hopefully, not to try to shame an entire nation. After NSA issues we need not one whit more of ‘you!’ ‘no, you!’ back and forth drama between nations. But was thissome kind of wizard mba move? Or?
This is a smart move from Amazon, because free shipping is one of the big things that gives Amazon an advantage over brick and mortar bookstores in France. Forcing them to charge for shipping was intended by the French government to force Amazon out of the market and protect their local bookstores. Amazon is now charging one cent for shipping as a way of technically complying with this protectionist law, while still preserving it’s competitive advantage in the marketplace.
Not true Richard. Amazon is prevented from “preserving its competitive advantage”. Check my earlier comment below.
Now the only (BIG) advantage of amazon over bookstores will be availability of millions of books; also PRIME members still have free delivery for now;
thank you Richard L and Marquejaune for answering.
I still dont get the ‘animus’ if there is one, behind the 1 penny, as it seems less a staple business choice and more a commentary somehow on France’s way of lawmaking. I could be wrong. [There's a long friendship between France and the US, including many many of our boys are buried in France, buried by French citizens in WWI and WWII, their graves to this day taken care of by French citizens] there are many reasons in my mind to never make this ‘France legislature vs USA megolith,’ some kind of global condemnation of nations. Just my .02
Thanks for these comments USAF.
My closest neighbour here is a US Army officer posted to Europe. He just brought me tonight three bottles of micro-brewery beer and I will drink them to eternal French-American friendship, despite… despite what ?
I think the one-cent-delivery is a t the same time a nah-nah from amazon AND the only business move they are allowed to stay as close as possible to the lowest prices possible.
Hello everybody.
News from France here…
In fact, despite the one-cent-delivery that everybody saw coming, there is still good news for the trad pubs + bricks and mortar booksellers. Because the way that the law has finally been amended, Amazon (and other online stores, like FNAC) are not allowed any longer to do the 5 % discount on the book price. So let’s say a 20 euros book (price fixed by the publisher): on Amazon it costs now 20,01 to buy it. In the corner bookstore, they could sell it for 19 euros.
Mmm… Judging by the price of my paper books on The FNAC website, it doesn’t comply to the law.
FNAC has said that because they also have bookstores, it will be longer and more difficult for them to implement the law. But they have also said that they will also do the one-cent delivrey (as well as DECITRE).
I thought the law said you could not discount *and* have free shipping at the same time, not that you couldn’t do either…?
Yes, that’s the way I understand that law, Felix. The books can still be discounted on Amazon, but they have to charge at least one penny for the delivery.
When I compare my paperbooks on La Fnac and Amazon, though, a €21 paperback is discounted to 19.95 on la Fnac and to 20.31 on Amazon. And the delivery of 1 penny is already effective on Amazon.
Wrong, Alan. That’s how the law initially was, but, surprise ! Senators understood that Amazon would render it meaningless with the 1 cent-delivery; So the final law says that discounts were forbidden when buying online (it needs a little probing to find it, most people have not caught on this).
The price of your books is different because FNAC sells your Lightning-Source books, 21 € minus 5% = 19,95, as I said above they have not adjusted yet to the new law. AMAZON sells your CREATESPACE books, I guess that the price you have put in Createspace “pricing” is about 19€, right? Amazon adds 7% (about) on all Createspace books sold in France, I have no idea why because it is neither the VTA for France or Luxembourg (where they are heaquartered for Europe). But Amazon does not do any discounting on physical books any more. Check your amazon sales pages, no discounting indicated.
See this page which explains it :
http://pro.clubic.com/entreprises/amazon/actualite-714741-loi-anti-amazon-commercant-fixe-frais-envoi-livres-1-centime.html
That definitely sounds like a WTO case in the making.
C.f., The banana war.
Good point. Rent-seekers in the US are just as clever. So it’s good to watch how the French do it so we are better able to stop it here.
Just the mouse holding the sign at the feet of the demonstrators. The sign says, Amazon shipping is not free. Only ‘prime members’ who pay around $79 to $99 dollars a year for the service get ‘free shipping.’ Free it seems, is seldom free at Amaz.
It would seem that $79-$99 annually x 3M+/- would add up … hugely. I wonder why that income/cost is not understood, rather than ‘free shipping’. Or was Amz cutting a different deal in France, as in no pre-pay annual prime membership fee, and shipping without any cost to buyer for reallies?
In France all book shipping was free before the new law, at whatever price (contrary to US where delivery is free only above 25$ of sales). PRIME members had only the advantage of being delivered more rapidly (and other non-book related advantages of course).
Thanks for the link Marquejaune, I understand better. And yes, you guessed right for the price I set on the Createspace book.
I replied too quickly (without checking my own prices) and in fact, Createspace and Amazon don’t discount any Createspace book (on the contrary, they price Createspace’s book around €1 higher than my own price, so I have to lower myself the price of Createspace’s book to match the price of the retailers of my Lightning Source’s books, like La Fnac).
In fact, so far as I know, US Amazon Prime members not only get two day shipping on books, they also get free shipping as well, with no minimum dollar limit.
In Germany, shipping is also free for all books, regardless of price. For non-book items (including blank notebooks for some reason) shipping is only free for orders above 20 EUR. Prime members get free “priority” shipping in general, though I don’t know anybody who bothers with Prime, cause it’s just not worth it.
Ah, I see better now. Thanks Marquejaune for the clarification about ‘free.’ That also along with Cora’s note, puts a different persepctive on the 1 penny trope.
I raise a mug [old habit] of micro from across the ocean to you!
Only politicians could see something bad in benefitting consumers.
M