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Thread: Fixed book price

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    Default Fixed book price

    What is your opinion regarding the principle of the fixed book price?

    In the countries where book prices are free, economic competition plays a major role in book prices, but in countries where the fixed book price is implemented, a unique book price is imposed, and it is aligned with the price of the small bookshops, in agreement with the publishing houses.

    The fixed book price is really contrary to any logics of capitalist market economy. It is sometimes considered as “communist” or “anti-modern”.
    Nevertheless, if it’s implemented in several countries, it’s because books are not considered there as “goods like others”, but as very special and the fixed book price is then there to protect culture and creativity, to protect independent quality bookshops and publishing houses, against the downward slides of market economy. The fixed book price is seen then as a factor of equilibrium and of justice. It was a thing to say that printing companies and bookshops are free, but it’s another to say that they actually have the means to be free.

    In the countries with a free book price, a decrease of the number of titles and of the bookshops is noticeable. In the USA or the UK, for example, big bookshop chains have proliferated before online selling started to dismantle the network. What is even more serious is that the bookshops in these countries finally keep mainly the novelties on their shelves, to the detriment of the classics. On the contrary, the book market has developed in a more harmonious way in countries with a fixed book price, such as Germany or France.


    Countries with implementation of a fixed book price

    Germany (it first appeared in Germany, in the XIXth century).
    France
    Argentina
    Austria
    South Korea
    Denmark
    Spain
    Greece
    Hungary
    Italy
    Japan
    Luxembourg
    Mexico
    Norway
    Netherlands
    Portugal
    Croatia
    Belgium

    Countries with free book price

    United Kingdom
    United States of America
    Slovenia
    Brazil
    Australia
    Canada
    Estonia
    Finland
    Ireland
    Poland
    Czech Republic
    Sweden
    Switzerland
    Venezuela

    These lists of countries should be more or less accurate.

  2. #2
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    In this case a fixed book price allows a better distribution of the sales/income, not such a higher concentration on the big chains who obviously have bigger margins since they buy huge quantities, small bookshops should offer differentiated services or specialize on literary niches or else they won't survive. Anyway nowadays the online market far surpasses the physical sales and will only increase.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sebastianus Rex View Post
    In this case a fixed book price allows a better distribution of the sales/income, not such a higher concentration on the big chains who obviously have bigger margins since they buy huge quantities, small bookshops should offer differentiated services or specialize on literary niches or else they won't survive. Anyway nowadays the online market far surpasses the physical sales and will only increase.
    This is the situation in France now:

    - 22,5% of the books are sold in independent bookshops.
    - 27% in big commercial cultural chains (like Fnac)
    - 18,5% in supermarkets
    - 21% are sold online.

    The situation in Germany:

    - 30% in independent bookshops
    - 20% of the books are sold online
    - 20% in chain stores.

    So, there is an equilibrium in these countries, where the independent bookshops network is still very dense. The bookshops were not “eaten” by the chain stores and then the latter by the Internet, like in the UK for ex., where Amazon alone has about 50% of the market and independent bookshops between about 5% of the market.

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