Bookseller group wants [US government] to investigate retailers' price war | Hacker News Reader

Bookseller group wants [US government] to investigate retailers' price war

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11 pointscwan9 comments

Can't win I guess, the booksellers group is making the same money on more volume with the retailers taking the loss.

More worrying is there opposition to the digital book price, if this was to close to a physical book price piracy would reign and they wouldn't get anything.

The book industry is lucky in a way because while a illegal download of music is mostly as good as the legal cd, people have a strong affinity with a physical book and getting away from electronic screens to read.

the booksellers group is making the same money on more volume

No, the booksellers group represents competitors to these big retailers, who are losing business or profits due to the price competition.

Maybe this is the American dream?

Don't innovate. Get legal after your business starts going downhill due to lack of said innovation. Claim it's to benefit the consumers.

Another Possibility: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_pricing

> Authors and publishers, and ultimately consumers, stand to lose a great deal if this practice continues and/or grows.

How? The authors and publishers get their list price. The consumer gets a good deal.

The only one who looses out is amazon/target/walmart, who loose money on each sale.

So what's the problem?

> as a loss leader to attract customers to buy other, more profitable merchandise. The entire book industry is in danger of becoming collateral damage in this war.

Again, exactly the opposite will happen. Books are cheap, so customers will buy lots of them. Publishers and authors will make lots of money. Retailers will subsidize books using other merchandise.

How is that bad? It's great for book sales.

The American Booksellers Association's obvious (if unstated) concern is that pure-play bookstores like Borders and B&N will be driven out of business since they don't have many other goods to subsidize losses with. If the price war spills over from the Web to brick and mortar stores, I would be concerned about the diversity of books available in real bookstores compared to Target and Wal-Mart. In other markets, publishers have all but stopped producing products that Wal-Mart won't carry since it is assumed that such products won't make money; it might be a shame if the same thing happened in books.

We wouldn't competition that benefits consumers..

Sounds like the association is complaining that the big three are failing to collude to keep prices higher.

Bookseller group should do its homework:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/28/business/worldbusiness/28i...

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