The struggle for influence between Amazon and booksellers, concerning the regulation of the book market, is more intense than ever, after a year when the American was imposed shipping costs which it is vigorously fighting.
Since October 7, 2023, all home deliveries of books in France, up to 35 euros, must be accompanied by shipping costs of at least 3 euros.
To escape it, it’s very simple: you just have to buy from a physical point of sale, whether it’s a bookstore, a hypermarket or a press house. Possibly after ordering.
The measure is intended to protect bookstores. Emmanuel Macron, when defending it in May 2021, wanted delivery costs that booksellers could align with and which would not be those of Amazon. “This unique book prize is a strength of the French model,” said the President of the Republic.
After a year, it is difficult to know to what extent the habits of the French have changed. Have booksellers gained customers who would have turned away from the online sales platform?
– No figures from Amazon –
The simplest way to answer would be to compare the evolution of book sales of the giant born in 1994 as a bookstore and that of the overall market.
Problem: Amazon doesn’t disclose any numbers. The group’s policy is never to detail its turnover by country (divided only between North America and the rest of the world), and even less by sector.
“Since October 7, 2023, the book market in France has done better than resist, it has progressed slightly. The Amazon market is undoubtedly declining but it is up to them to say so. If their figures show it, let them publish,” the general delegate of the French Bookstore Union, Guillaume Husson, told AFP.
And added: “The figures from bookstores tell us that shipments are falling, among those who practiced them. But that there is a fairly significant increase in click-and-collect”, the collection of orders in store, free of charge of port.
Amazon is vocal about defending “access to books” for French people without a local bookstore. He cites an Ifop study from September 2023 that he paid for: 75% of rural people who buy books online say they do so “because of the distance from points of sale”.
On Monday, he published a new Ifop study to support his arguments.
– “Read less” –
In this survey of 12,005 people in France, carried out online from July 30 to August 27, 62% responded that the implementation of these shipping costs “affects” their “purchasing power”, compared to 38% for whom it had no effect.
64% of those who buy books say that they do so “more frequently” in physical points of sale, namely the stated objective of the government measure. 56% have “reduced” their purchases overall by preferring to borrow “books from relatives”, and 51% have also “reduced” their purchases in favor of borrowing from the library.
“In a country where more than 90% of municipalities do not have a bookstore, introducing compulsory shipping costs on books amounts to taxing reading, forcing many French people to choose between paying more or reading less,” laments the general director of Amazon.fr, Frédéric Duval, quoted in a press release.
Seized by the company, administrative justice must still rule on the legality of these compulsory shipping costs. The opinion of the Court of Justice of the European Union, requested by the Council of State, is expected in the coming months.
According to figures published by the Ministry of Culture, large cultural stores (Fnac, Cultura, Espace Culturel Leclerc, etc.) were in 2023 the leading sellers of new books, with 28.4% of the market, ahead of bookstores. (23.3%) and websites (22.2%).
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