Online giant Amazon has removed Pay Now and Pre-Order buttons from selected titles published by Hachette Livre, in an attempt to force the publisher to sell stock to Amazon at even lower rates than they already do. They’ve also removed HL stock from Recommended Reads lists and various other (obviously not as impartial as you might think) sections of the site.
Hachette Livre is a large umbrella organisation, which encompasses the following publishers:
- Little, Brown Book Group (includes Abacus, Virago, Sphere, Piatkus, Orbit, Atom)
- Orion Publishing Group (Orion, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Gollancz)
- Headline Publishing Group
- Hodder & Stoughton (includes Sceptre)
- Hachette Children’s Books (includes Franklin Watts, Orchard, Hodder, Wayland)
- Hodder Education Group
- John Murray
- Octopus Publishing Group (includes Bounty, Cassel, Conran Octopus, Hamly, Gaia, Mitchell Beazley, Miller, Philips)
They also have subsidiaries in India, Aus, NZ…
This isn’t the first time Amazon has used this tactic. Earlier this year Amazon.com removed Buy buttons from selected books of publishers who refused to switch their Print-on-demand publishing to Amazon’s newly bought POD company (see Bookseller story here).
I don’t know about you, but this seems pretty close to bullying and dubious commercial practice to me. Of course you can argue they can sell (or not sell) what they want – but when you have such a big share of the online market, it sounds like the sort of thing that the competition commission should be sticking their nose in. (I gather their email address is info@cc.gsi.gov.uk)
Thanks to Clare Sudbury for bringing this up and providing info.
This story does indeed leave a bad taste in the mouth. The recommended retail price is not chosen with the intention of ripping us off and it is understandable that the degree of price-reduction at Amazon must affect someone.
On reading your post, I realised that my use of Amazon has ground to a halt. My current pattern of buying is mainly to browse charity shops (or similar) for storybooks or to pay the full price at a “real shop”. Even for reviews: I am starting to look elsewhere for this information. I just don’t enjoy Amazon anymore and, for the most part, I have the luxury of choice.
I suspect that people who buy online are likely to be those purchasers who tend to shop around for a good deal. This market isn’t going to be kind to any retailer whom such shoppers suspect might be hoodwinking them. Online people are also gossipy, intelligent and inclined to paranoia, especially about Big Business. Really, Amazon should know better.