Amazon snubs French free delivery ban with one-cent charge

http://www.france24.com/en/20140711-amazon-snubs-french-free-delivery-ban-with-1-cent-charge/

by SchizoDuckie • 12 years ago

86 87 12 years ago

rfrey2• 12 years ago

Seems like the protection laws were enacted with the goal of ensuring access to books in small towns. Big stores are prevented from discounting books (more than 5%) with the idea that small stores will go out of business from price pressure, then selection will be limited to what the big stores have, which is less than the aggregate of the small stores.

Seems reasonable, but does that still apply to Amazon? Even if critics of Amazon are correct, and Amazon raises prices after small businesses are gone, consumers are no worse off than they are now, when discounts are prohibited.

I can't see how anybody other than the booksellers are being advantaged here, with the cost being paid by consumers.

Malarkey732• 12 years ago

Essentially any profit made by Amazon in Europe is faux booked to a Luxembourg office where it is then off-shored to another tax-haven. It then just sits there till Amazon can buy Congress to let them bring it back to US shareholders. That money is effectively removed from the economy.

Any profit made in a local bookstore meanwhile will support the jobs of more people and will be taxed and will recirculate when those employees spend that money. Its because they are part of society and pay their way that Amazon can undercut them.

hk__2• 12 years ago

What about money spent by Amazon employees?

saosebastiao• 12 years ago

Amazon can't evade taxes for money earned in France. If you operate in France, and your business earns revenue in France, you pay French taxes. You can't magically offshore it without paying taxes and then expect to still operate there.

What actually happens is that Amazon makes no profit, and thus does not get taxed on profits. But it still pays VAT, Property, B&O, etc.

rfrey2• 12 years ago

The problem you raise is actually three problems. First is tax-avoidance by Amazon. Second is a massive online seller replacing many employees at the local level with fewer employees at a central location. Third is that the retailer is foreign.

The first problem seems better addressed by tax reform, since it impacts many industries other than book selling, and this measure won't stop it with Amazon anyhow.

The second problem is one of increased efficiency (to use an economist's definition) causing disruption. The French seem to have been resistant to that since the industrial revolution, so it might be helpful to understand this law in that context. It's hard to see how they're going to win that one in the long run, although prolonged skepticism to the benefits of efficiency might have helped create some of the social benefits in France. From the outside though it looks like this social bias has hurt France more than helped it (other countries have maintained robust social programmes without rejecting technological disruption) so I wouldn't welcome laws promoting it.

The third problem is not just a case of nationalism, but because it makes it harder to soften the blow of disruption by pointing to other local jobs in technology. It's comes down to an argument on globalization. The jury is still out on whether globalization will be a net positive or negative. To me it seems unstoppable, though, and I don't think it's wise to be on the wrong side of the trend.

syntern• 12 years ago

Your remark sounds as if it is the company's fault to act like this.

1) The first part is exactly how the EU was designed: operate from one country, reduce your overhead. Maybe it is not Amazon's fault that they comply with the rules?

2) The second part is exactly how the Congress wanted its tax laws: if you bring money home, pay your taxes, if you don't, we are not involved. Maybe it is not Amazon's fault that they comply with the rules?

briandh6• 12 years ago

That money is effectively removed from the economy.

Not really. If that money is stored in a bank, most of it will be loaned out. If it is used to buy bonds (including but not limited to government bonds) then it goes to the issuer. And so on.

ekidd• 12 years ago

Seems like the protection laws were enacted with the goal of ensuring access to books in small towns.

I've lived much of my life in small towns in the US, and honestly, the single best thing about Amazon is that it massively increased my access to books. Small-town bookstores never carried more than a handful of programming books, a couple of short shelves of science fiction, and none of the strange specialist material I buy today (books on purely functional data structures, bilingual French/hieroglyphic texts, and so on—everybody wants something out on the long tail, but the details obviously vary).

Right now, my least favorite thing about the French book market is the near-impossibility of buying French-language ebooks from overseas, assuming I want more than Le Petit Prince or a bunch of public domain classics. The only French publishing niche that has this figured out is long-form comics (aka bandes dessinées). There, the publishers banded together to create the massively awesome online distributor Izneo, which sucks up more of my book budget than I'd care to admit, and which allows me to buy from anywhere in the world: http://www.izneo.com/

On the other hand, the French tradition of aggressive law-making means that they can actually decide to create a 4-year startup visa, then go ahead and actually do it.

maxerickson• 12 years ago

I think most of those small town stores would have been happy to order you whatever (of course only if they could find it in a catalog). That's still less convenient than internet shopping though.

Brakenshire2• 12 years ago

I've lived much of my life in small towns in the US, and honestly, the single best thing about Amazon is that it massively increased my access to books.

Certainly, but having small local bookshops doesn't preclude also having Amazon.

bsder4• 12 years ago

Small-town bookstores never carried more than a handful of programming books, a couple of short shelves of science fiction, and none of the strange specialist material I buy today

When did you start buying? I lived in a small town (roughly 40,000 people) and in 1981 I could buy Lance A. Leventhal's "6809 Assembly Language Programming" on order in less than a week. The 6502 version was in stock.

The problem is that chain bookstores emerged right around this point in the local malls (Waldenbooks, for my local area) and killed the local bookstores.

So, in my town, the local bookstore, right off the downtown park, went under in favor of the chain store in the local mall--neither of which now exist. So, now the damage can't be undone without a significant investment by somebody, but the upside profit is limited by whether Amazon is willing to undercut you.

Don't get me wrong. I loathe most local businesses in small towns. It used to be that they were slow, but they were reliable. If they said it would be done on date X two weeks out, it would be done on date X or they would start moving heaven and earth. Now, they tend to be slow and unreliable. The last car repair I had to deal with was: "Well, it didn't come in the shipment. It will be another week." "Um, no. Get the part tomorrow." "Not gonna happen." "Actually, yes, the part will be here tomorrow because I'm having it FedEx'd in. And me, my lawyer, your manager, the dealership owner, and GM are going to have a conference call while you are fixing the car you've already had for a week." Those kinds of businesses should go under post haste.

Nevertheless, there are some local businesses that get it and do a great job serving the local area. They don't deserve to get wiped out because WalMart, Amazon, etc. can force things that the smaller businesses cannot.

driverdan• 12 years ago

Seems reasonable

No it doesn't.

mandalar12• 12 years ago

The article misses the working part of the law. Book prices in France are not a free market since we have a fixed book price law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_book_price_agreement) meaning that the publisher decides the retail price of the books it publishes. There is an exception authorizing retailers a maximum of 5% discount. In practice all majors players (book store chains, Amazon, supermarkets...) systematically apply the 5% discount.

The new law forbids retailers to apply the discount if the book is delivered but allows them to apply the discount on the delivery fees (which is useless to Amazon who offers the delivery).

The final effect is that books on Amazon are 5% + 1 cent more expensive than in physical stores.

moioci• 12 years ago

Would the law permit Amazon to discount the delivery fee more than 100%? ("We'll pay you 5% to allow us to deliver to you.")

nolok• 12 years ago

No, in view of the law both (book and delivery) are considered as two different "products" and they are only allowed 5% on the delivery. They can set the delivery price to anything they want, but it was 0 before so it doesn't matter.

ww520• 12 years ago

Couldn't Amazon provide a frequent use reward card that provides buy 20 with 1 book free to have a similar discount? It has the added benefit of enticing repeated buying.

gambiting• 12 years ago

"Free collectible 5 Euro note with this purchase!"

sgdesign• 12 years ago

I'm always amazed at how we have laws for every little thing (or more accurately, against every little thing).

Maybe it's the coder in me but it just seems so inefficient, like an if…else if… with dozens of conditions…

TillE• 12 years ago

I think this is basically why so many nerds become Libertarians. Unfortunately, reality is messy and complicated and not a computer program.

nova• 12 years ago

So let's keep making it more complicated, then.

briandh6• 12 years ago

Unfortunately, reality is messy and complicated and not a computer program.
Nah, probably easier to keep pretending that it's super-simple to manage humans at scale just because it's easier to reason about.

This canard about libertarians [1] not understanding the complexity of the real world is oft-repeated, but it is misguided, and comes off as condescending to boot.[2]

The likes of Hayek and Friedman did not contend that reality is simple; they contended that it was complex -- too complex for economic systems based on expansive government intervention (socialism, mercantilism, etc) to grapple with and produce satisfactory outcomes.

They advocated a free market system on the premise that it was the best way to handle this complexity, not on the basis that it doesn't exist.

Now, you are free to question whether empirical evidence bears out either point. But it is ignorant to suggest libertarianism is based on eschewing complexity.

1. Here I am referring mostly to libertarians of a consequentialist lean. Libertarians of a mostly deontological lean are orthogonal to this discussion because whether or not they understand the world's complexity is mostly immaterial to their policy prescriptions, as they are concerned mostly with morality, not outcomes.

2. Usually unintentionally, I would hope, though it seems that at least with mpyne it is not.

baddox10• 12 years ago

I don't think that the proposals of most libertarians are any more or less complex than the proposals of American liberals, or American conservatives, or democratic socialists, or fascists, etc. Certain aspects of plans obvious vary in complexity, but that's hardly the distinguishing factor.

logicallee2• 12 years ago

You're just encapsulating reality properly. Laws go with what they go with, they're like a part of specific things.

For example, if it were impossible to create laws regarding traffic signs, it would still be possible to achieve a similar 4-way intersection, with cars stopping for each other - it would have to physically prevent passage from one side to the other, alternative the open direction, like gates or whatever. Can you imagine if that were at every intersection?

Or you can just put up 3 lights on a timer, and a bit of law and add it to the list of stuff the system handles.

So complaining about "laws for every little thing" is a really poor way of looking at things. What maritime traffic laws apply to you? or hazardous waste laws? or commercial construction laws? or banking regulation laws? etvcetc.

One answer is "all of them" but the other is "none of them". They're really part of that aspect of activity, not really part of one long codebook of everything you have to obey all the time.

You can go weeks without even thinking about the law. But if you start do something regulated you haven't done before, it might be your first thought. This is as it should be - the law is like an API for a friendly reality.

Just look at places with total lawlessness and lack of rule of law. That is not a preferable starting point for any project or endeavor you might conceivably participate in.

baddox10• 12 years ago

For example, if it were impossible to create laws regarding traffic signs, it would still be possible to achieve a similar 4-way intersection, with cars stopping for each other - it would have to physically prevent passage from one side to the other, alternative the open direction, like gates or whatever.

In complex organized sports like football (association or American, take your pick), there are lots of rules about the movement of players, the flow of the game, etc. that are generally followed, and penalties are generally well enforced when the rules are not followed. And yet there are no laws behind these rules. It would appear that complex rules can be created and enforced by mechanisms other than law.

icebraining• 12 years ago

Just look at places with total lawlessness and lack of rule of law. That is not a preferable starting point for any project or endeavor you might conceivably participate in.

Yes, but the alternative to a huge number of laws is not necessarily total lawlessness and lack of rule of law.

And in fact, laws are not even the only way of regulating activities - the are plenty of other ways of setting and enforcing rules. See the work of Elinor Ostrom, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics†, on the the community-based governance of the commons.

† not a "real" Nobel prize, I know

dm22• 12 years ago

If you are programming something that doesn't want people to cross the street except at crosswalks (for safety and traffic efficiency reasons), then you would code in a wall along the roads with gaps for crosswalks.

Reality has many more variables, like cost, beauty, physics, etc.

There are many minor laws that are necessary (don't show your penis to children, don't poop on the ground) then there are some that are driven by other reasons such as greed, self-interest, and population control (drug laws, surveillance laws) then there are other laws that are a grey area such as congress being exempt from insider trading. Safety is important too, (seatbelts, shining lasers at airplanes). Then there are the religious laws that are probably unnecessary (can't buy alcohol on Sundays).

I think that laws should have mandatory expiration times or a review process to ensure they are still relevant. The great thing about the US is that each state can have different laws and each can be a test-bed to see what works out best, it's not necessarily used like that but it's a good idea in theory.

ende3• 12 years ago

Basically, all law should be open source and it's content managed via pull requests.

bsder4• 12 years ago

I agree. France should simply ban Amazon completely as an example to the next company that thinks about trying to take advantage of loopholes.

j4kp07• 12 years ago

They could go one step further and offer "rewards" at the end of the calendar year that would make up for the 1 cent.

transfire• 12 years ago

Instead of making yet more laws to patch the mess of old laws (ad nauseum) how about getting rid of a law, i.e the Land Tax. Then brick and mortars would have a natural improvement in their circumstance competing with online retailers.

praptak• 12 years ago

France furious: foreign firm formerly fined for free freight feigns fee!

workerdrone• 12 years ago

glorious!

hvs• 12 years ago

I have trouble reading an article from a news source that use value-laden statements like "snubs French free delivery ban" as if they are committing some sort of mortal sin against the state, but have no qualms about making the only visible part of the article be the headline:

http://postimg.org/image/ngztksi8j/

That crass, advertisement-filled page is certainly a bigger offense against the capitalism-averse French than a $0.01 delivery charge.

unclebucknasty• 12 years ago

capitalism-averse

Interesting phrase In this context, given that the intent (or at least likely effect) of the law is to protect the market from dominance by a single large player.

wdr1• 12 years ago

I've never seen such an open & deliberate case of regulatory capture.

Amazon snubs French free delivery ban with one-cent charge

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