The hypermarket is the kingdom of promotions. It’s impossible to take a step or almost without coming across a promotion, if by chance you haven’t already seen them at home via the leaflets. But as with Asterix, where a village resists the Roman invader, one section still resists promotions: the book section.
With few exceptions, you don’t see fluorescent yellow posters with prices crossed out or discounts written in big letters and in red. And obviously even fewer sales! This is explained by the fact that the book is a special product, with the famous Lang law on the single price of the book, dating from 1981.
Jack Lang was then Minister of Culture for François Mitterrand and wanted protect independent booksellers from competition from large stores. And in large stores, like hypermarkets of course, but also brands like Fnac which, by developing, threaten what we will call “neighborhood booksellers”.
The purpose of the Lang law
It sets what is called the single price of the book. Besides, if you look at the back of the book, you can clearly see a price that was printed on it by the publisher. Whereas when you buy a jar of Nutella or a President Camembert, the brand has not printed the price, it is the brand which freely sets it.
For its defenders, the Lang law therefore prevents supermarkets from undercutting the price of books, whereas they could do so by sacrificing their margin on a few products, notably bestsellers, to suffocate booksellers. And since a supermarket doesn’t just sell books, it could expand into other products. What the little bookseller cannot do. This is the spirit of the Lang law: the same price for everyone.
Low-cost books: the second-hand market
However, we can sometimes see discounts of 5% on certain books, at Fnac, as in supermarkets. This is in reality the only tolerance permitted by law. But admit that we don’t cross the city to earn 5% on an 8 euro paperback book. And then when you compare 5% with the level of promotion that you usually see in your hypermarket, there is no reason to look back!
So it’s impossible to pay less for your books? No. But difficult, yes, at least for new books. The only way is to regularly visit clearance stores. Either general brands like Noz for example, or specialized ones like MaxiLivres. There you will find books that the publisher has directly resold at very reduced prices to get rid of them.
Either because they didn’t work, or because the circulation was too great. Problem: you won’t necessarily find the book you’re looking for… The easiest way to do that is second hand. There, for now, prices are free. And often very low in fact.
Read more
