Clair Posted July 10, 2014 Share Posted July 10, 2014 A while back, there was a lengthy discussion on the forum about the French government's decision to legislate against online book retailers offering a (legal) 5% discount on books together with free P&P.The practice of combining both reductions together was seen as unfair competition because high street (brick and mortar) book shops seem to be unable to match the overall price offered online.I don't want to reignite the bonfire, so this is just a heads-up to advise that the law is official as of 9th July 2014.Source / translationETA - Previous discussions:French Government vote to stop Amazon selling discounted books"Anti-Amazon law" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chancer Posted July 10, 2014 Share Posted July 10, 2014 Its crazy, the only way to make money on books is to pile em high and sell em cheap with free delivery if thats what it takes, every UK bookseller be they a shop or on line do this after a new best-seller has sold its initial volume at retail price or a little less, there are those companies that specialise in leaving massively coffee table books at the reception desk of companies and taking orders.The French system is crazy, I was looking at some tourist books in Super U recently, a tiny cheaply bound folder which not even as professional as my college project 30+ years ago had a sales price of €30 [:-))] you can get bigger and more proffessional brochures from the tourist office, these things will never sell at 95% of list price.I have never seen French house with more than one or two books, when they see my 2 bookcases they think that I am a rich intellectual, what they dont know is that its the tip of the iceberg, the vast majority of my books are stored in boxes but then i only pay a maximum of 20p for them in the UK.Another thing that I have noticed is how the people round here covet my books, when I lend them tbe they road atlases or DIY books etc (lots of pictures) they never get returned and they either say they cannot find them and am I really sure that they didnt give it back to me? (yes I bloody well am!) or an outright lie with lots of detail (always a giveaway) about when and how they allegedly gave it back.The 2 latest casualties are a book on staircase design that I ordered specially from America and an Encyclopédie bi-langue with illustrations of every item tboth of which cost a lot of money and I will have to replace, the latter was stolen by the Young girl (or perhaps her mother) that I gave free English lessons to [:(] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lehaut Posted July 11, 2014 Share Posted July 11, 2014 Got an email from Amazon yesterday. Prime customers will continue to get free postage and discount. Non Prime will have to pay postage which Amazon have set at the lowest level allowed by the law ie one centime per order. So really the Government have gained nothing except needlessly spending money and time on another badly thought out law. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre ZFP Posted July 11, 2014 Share Posted July 11, 2014 Will postage be applied to Kindle books too? [;-)] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woolybanana Posted July 11, 2014 Share Posted July 11, 2014 Well done Pierre.But the price of Kindle books is fixed by law to that of the paper version. Which is why Kindles have not really exploded in France. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lehaut Posted July 11, 2014 Share Posted July 11, 2014 Wolly, don't think that is true. Look at FNAC, Le Trône de fer, actual book 15.11 (after 5% discount), same book "numeric" 11.99. Even they say its 21% cheaper than the paper version.TF1 news were claiming yesterday that the French were amongst the most connected in Europe!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
idun Posted July 11, 2014 Share Posted July 11, 2014 Well I agree to get anywhere in France one has to be 'connected'......... the 'piston' system is an integral part of everyday life![:-))] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clair Posted July 11, 2014 Author Share Posted July 11, 2014 [quote user="Chancer"]...I have never seen French house with more than one or two books... [/quote]Chancer, you're not visiting the right French houses!you should have come around some 40+ years ago, when I was a child living in a HLM... Our bookshelves were were propped up with dictionaries and encyclopaedia. We often played a game where someone would read a random word definition in the dictionary for the others to guess the word...I learnt a long time ago to only lend that which I don't mind losing... [;-)] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyh4 Posted July 11, 2014 Share Posted July 11, 2014 [quote user="Lehaut"]TF1 news were claiming yesterday that the French were amongst the most connected in Europe!![/quote]Are you sure that relates to IT and not to inbreeding?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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