With Amazon, whatever you want to buy with one click is delivered to your door in no time. Shipping costs are minimal and even reduced to nothing for Prime subscribers, except for books, and this is a French specificity. Shipping costs of 3 euros were introduced just a year ago, to protect physical bookstores. A year later, we take stock with Frédéric Duval, dgeneral director ofAmazon France.
franceinfo: Have these fees harmed online book sales?
Frédéric Duval : What I can tell you is that this compulsory shipping cost measure is a bad idea. It penalizes readers, it penalizes reading and in particular compatriots who are in the countryside.
And it penalizes Amazon?
No, I assure you. And Amazon in this story is not the problem. The problem is: do we want to penalize reading in France?
But does that mean that book sales have declined on Amazon over the past year?
Very little. And again, Amazon is not the problem. But, let’s be factual: a paperback book worth 7.50 euros, in one of the 90% of municipalities where there is no bookstore, is now worth 10.50 euros. And an Ifop survey, which we have just commissioned among 12,000 French people, shows that around six out of ten people say that this measure has affected their purchasing power, and that around four out of ten people say that it will reduce his consumption of books accordingly. Because they can no longer, or at least no longer have the means, to buy books which have risen sharply in price.
It remains a survey that you ordered yourself. In the figures, have sales really declined on Amazon for books?
This problem is not the fundamental problem. The basic problem, once again, is reading in France.
“Our study shows that with these fixed shipping costs of 3 euros, four out of ten French people say they are turning away from reading as a result.”
Frédéric Duval, CEO of Amazon Franceat franceinfo
For others, they turn to physical brands.
Is this precisely why this measure was put in place by the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron, to defend physical and particularly independent bookstores?
When they turn to physical stores, where do they go? They go to major cultural brands, to supermarkets for 70% of them.
So this does not favor independent bookstores.
Very little in fact. It is a measure which is a false good idea, which ultimately affects reading, which affects readers and which does not meet the main objective which was to favor booksellers.
You are therefore denouncing this measure, one year after its implementation.
I say that today, this is not the choice I would have made to protect booksellers and protect readers. There are other means, which have been implemented in other countries, such as a special book shipping rate allowing booksellers to ship books domestically at reduced prices.
“If a bookseller ships a book abroad today, to London, to New York, it costs him four times less than to ship the same book to France.”
Frédéric Duval, general manager of Amazon Franceat franceinfo
But you know very well that it is only Amazon that ships books abroad, not independent booksellers.
But yes, admit that it’s funny, to be able to ship a normal book, a classic Gallimard, for 1.66 euros to London and not to be able to ship this same book at that price, but for a price rather around 7 euros when shipped to Clermont-Ferrand or another provincial town.
Besides, you took this matter to court. Administrative justice has yet to decide. Do you hope to win your case?
We actually filed an appeal before the Council of State, because in principle, we are against penalizing reading and readers in France. The Council of State requested its opinion from the Court of Justice of the European Union, which will deliver its opinion. In the meantime, today, reading is penalized in France.
Other news at Amazon: the return to 100% face-to-face and the end of teleworking. It will be from January 1st. Will this be the case for the 24,000 French employees?
Indeed, Andy Jassy, our CEO, announced on September 16 that we were going to return to the organization that was the one before the Covid pandemic. It’s important to say it today: of the 24,000 French employees, only around 10% of them are affected by this measure, since the others come to the workplace every day. So, regarding this small category, we think it’s important to be together to innovate, to collaborate, to be sufficiently connected and really adhere to our corporate culture, to serve customers. I would just draw a small parallel. What would we think of a music group that could only be heard from a distance? This is not possible.
But can there be a happy medium?
Andy Jassy explained that there would be flexibility, but we want to return to the situation we knew before Covid.
Except you hired. Besides, you continue to hire in 2024. There are people who live far away and who will not be able to come to headquarters every day. There is also a company agreement that was signed in France. How are you going to cope with this?
Like any French company, we are going to put all of this in line with the regulations in force in France, and by discussing with the various partners to ensure that we actually apply this measure.
From January 1, people affected by teleworking today will therefore be forced to return to work. An internal investigation, obtained by the magazine Fortune in the United States, says that this measure is appreciated differently within Amazon. What do you say to Amazon employees who are listening to us?
I say that it is important that we are together, to invent, to collaborate. It’s important that we are sufficiently connected to each other to ensure that our corporate culture endures and continues to serve our customers.
Even if working methods and lifestyles have evolved since then. We can’t go back to life before.
We can still have the intention of collaborating together much more than we do today. We have 24,000 employees today in France, and 400 different professions. And we must continue to live together. Moreover, this is what we are going to do during the Trades and Careers Forum, on October 21 at station F, which we are doing in collaboration with France Travail. With all our employees and all those who want, we will see how we can integrate our employees into a process of progress and development. And we will also offer more than 100 job offers.
Last question, while the budget presentation is expected this Thursday. There is talk of putting a surcharge on large companies from one billion euros of turnover. You will therefore be concerned, knowing that your turnover rose to 10 billion in 2022. What do you think?
What I think about it isn’t very important. What I can say is that, obviously, as a French company, we will apply the decisions that will be taken by the government, when we know what they will be. On the other hand, we are very attentive to the attractiveness of territories and taxation is part of this.
Could this call into question the attractiveness of territories?
I think that we have demonstrated over the last ten years, through 20 billion euros of investments, through being the leading creator of net jobs in France, through our investment of 1.2 billion that we announced to Choose-France and 3,000 additional jobs, that we were resilient and that we were a well-established French company and that we would continue to be so.
