Posted on 2013-Jul-12
Amazon the Evil Influence
Apart from the fact that a series of comments and articles today have focused on Apple’s ruling aftermath, it seems Amazon gets dragged into the entire ordeal as if the company had been conspirators. Regardless of what Judge Denise Tate’s ruling is, the term ‘Amazon Bashing’ resurfaces and sparks another debatable topic to follow suit how morally ethical a company should be. Keeping an eye on the argument, more suspicion and questions are raised in general about what readers and the publishing industry can learn or benefit.
Courtroom Saga
The Digital Reader covers the antitrust saga along with other insightful information providers. After all, the site gets credit for the amount of traffic it has generated with the writer’s analysis of what kept Amazon out of the courtroom and how it has contributed to the growth of the eBook market. Digital Reader comes up with an upfront explanation about ‘loss leaders’ and ‘predatory pricing’ to clarify what Amazon is accused to do and there is no necessity to repeat Nate’s definition. Somehow, I find the part how Amazon has opened up new eBook market to new potential competitors is thought-provoking.
Blaming it all on the Monopoly
Of course, for the sake of Amazon being the greedy monopoly that took over the majority of market share, their competitors might seem less meaningful and relevant. If the monopoly hinders future candidates from succeeding, then why are so many vendors still going in the direction of selling eBooks? Not only that, instead of setting up themselves as a vendor or publisher, several book discovery websites transformed to be book promoters to give readers the kind of convenient access that they hardly knew of.
Loss and Profits
Price-wise discussion, Chris Meadows of TeleRead steps in to point out the effectiveness of Amazon’s profitable strategy to refute the “loss-leading strategy.” Chris discusses their pricing strategy that earns them profitability yet scrutiny over lowering the price as deemed inappropriate for the content owner. According to the sworn statements, David Naggar, VP of Kindle Content, clarified how $9.99 can affect some titles yet overall encouraged readers to browse through backlists. The writer of the article concretizes the ideology behind loss leading. In daily situation, discounts are given strategically to promote the sales of their featured products and beneficially drive the sales of the stock’s availability. In the worst-case scenario, a business could lose a small amount of profit selling featured products but the significant use of discounts for your customers results in them exploring deeper into your catalogue to find the best deals for their budget.
Discounts are Backlist Boosters
Back to Amazon’s eBook pricing model, Chris deciphers the astonishing discount of a New York Times bestselling hardcover. The price tag that appears on Amazon storefront is unmatchable with the publisher’s book page. When we take the author’s backlist titles into consideration, some titles carry lower prices, which include eBook formats. These are the kinds of deals that readers can expect their seller to offer based on their financial and format-specific preference. In essence, they end up paying less for their favorite book and browsing for other titles of equal quality from the author they trust.
Freedom vs. Collusion
Being famous as the place for deals and an extensive catalogue, Amazon provides readers with flexibility to explore what they want either for their pastime or study. Readers can choose the price range that they are comfortable with. On the contrary, the price-fixing collusion takes away the reader’s freedom to choose the best deals and force-feeds the price that seems right for the publishers and vendors.
The Long and Revolutionary Road
In the end, people can choose what they like as they are capable of distinguishing between their best interest and someone else’s if the vendors give them the proper choice and authority. Apart from numbers and figures, it is equally important that customer service excellence should echo what Amazon’s best practice is. As long as they keep offering what readers want and know how much they are willing to pay, the answer herein lies within the not-so-mysterious participation in the case. Instead of throwing accusation all over the place, smart competitors should move on to offer the same level of quality if not better to outperform the said monopoly who has revolutionized the publishing industry and the way you and I read.
Label: eBook Industry News
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