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Simon & Schuster, Amazon Settle Dispute




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PurpleWarrior13



Joined: 05 Sep 2009
Posts: 2025
PostPosted: Sat Nov 01, 2014 11:44 pm Reply with quote
Hachette, Warner Bros, Disney, AND Simon & Schustler? What is it with Amazon getting into all these annoying disputes?
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mdo7



Joined: 23 May 2007
Posts: 6253
Location: Katy, Texas, USA
PostPosted: Sun Nov 02, 2014 12:03 am Reply with quote
PurpleWarrior13 wrote:
Hachette, Warner Bros, Disney, AND Simon & Schustler? What is it with Amazon getting into all these annoying disputes?


Yeah I would like to know what's going on at Amazon and their beef with Warner, Disney, and Simon & Schustler.
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Cutiebunny



Joined: 18 Apr 2010
Posts: 1747
PostPosted: Sun Nov 02, 2014 1:04 am Reply with quote
Knowing Amazon and their desire to eliminate competition by offering items at the lowest price, it likely has to do with the pricing that these publishers are offering to Amazon. Because of the volume that Amazon deals with, it can easily tell companies that it refuses to pay what they're offering and instead will pay a lower amount. This upsets their distributors, and they'll go back and forth for mere cents on an item. That seems relatively trivial until multiplied by tens of thousands of units sold.

Most companies have to cave in to Amazon's demands because the amount of business they could possibly lose would greatly affect them.
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enurtsol



Joined: 01 May 2007
Posts: 14761
PostPosted: Sun Nov 02, 2014 1:51 am Reply with quote
It's because of this:

"Investors punish Amazon after hefty losses"

  • NEW YORK: After posting widening losses, Amazon took a pounding on Wall Street on Friday (Oct 24), raising doubts on whether investors will support chief executive Jeff Bezos' strategy of putting investment ahead of profit.

    The shares tumbled 8.3 per cent to close the week at US$287.06, having slid some 28 per cent from highs earlier this year. Amazon said on Thursday its loss in the last quarter widened to US$437 million after a series of product launches including new phones, tablets and television programmes.

    The news from the online retail giant, which is known keeping profit margins low as it grabs market share nonetheless stunned many investors and analysts. "Frustration with Amazon is reaching peak levels," said Deutsche Bank analyst Ross Sandler. "We are struggling to identify a catalyst to break the negative momentum."

    The loss in the third quarter was worse than anticipated, and far worse than the US$41 million deficit in the same period a year earlier. The loss came even as net sales increased 20 per cent from a year ago to US$20.58 billion in the quarter.


Amazon has always put gaining market share and investments thru tight margins before profits, but investors can only be so patient supporting a business that doesn't make money - sooner or later they'd want their money back. So Amazon has 2 main choices: keep the prices but demand more cut of the profit from the publishers, or raise the prices (which as the biggest player in the field, means everybody else would also be raising prices since they were only lowering their prices in order to be competitive with Amazon's prices). I'd expect prices of many things rising not too far in the future.
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machetecat



Joined: 06 Jan 2010
Posts: 396
PostPosted: Sun Nov 02, 2014 3:47 am Reply with quote
About the raising prices: I can already tell you that Amazon's charging full MSRP for Yen Press, which especially sucks since they're the most expensive manga publisher right now. I was several volumes behind on Black Butler, happened to have a gift card for AMAZON to use, went on and $13 a pop!
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configspace



Joined: 16 Aug 2008
Posts: 3717
PostPosted: Sun Nov 02, 2014 4:11 am Reply with quote
It's very cutthroat out there. Great for low prices but I can't imagine enduring months of haggling/negotiating while inventory just sits. There's an interesting comment in the Time of Eve kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/693293489/time-of-eve-the-movie-on-blu-ray/posts/1035678

Quote:
Pied Piper / DIRECTIONS / Studio Rikka 2 days ago

@Alex Clarke, Amazon takes a hefty cut; it is retailing partner of last resort...we much prefer to work with Rightstuf!
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mgosdin



Joined: 17 Jul 2011
Posts: 1302
Location: Kissimmee, Florida, USA
PostPosted: Sun Nov 02, 2014 6:20 am Reply with quote
I've replaced Amazon with other vendors - Books a Million, Barnes & Noble - for Yen Press titles and written to Amazon to complain as a Prime member - which that went up in cost this year too - and Hatchette. RighStuff orders, for me, have had inventory issues where online shows in stock but goes out of stock once the order is placed. So again I've been using other vendors.

Irritating your customers, either intentionally or accidentally, is the absolute last thing that any business wants to do. In my case the result is that I've spent fewer dollars on Anime & Manga this year and have gotten noticeably less of those for the dollars that I have spent.

Not a happy customer, nope.

Mark Gosdin
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midori kou



Joined: 22 Oct 2004
Posts: 469
PostPosted: Sun Nov 02, 2014 12:03 pm Reply with quote
I went back to RightStuf after Amazon dropped most Yen Press titles for purchase. The difference didn't matter to me, considering RightStuf always run a Yen Press sale from time to time while Amazon kept pricing at standard retail for the most part.
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mdo7



Joined: 23 May 2007
Posts: 6253
Location: Katy, Texas, USA
PostPosted: Wed Nov 12, 2014 5:46 pm Reply with quote
enurtsol wrote:
It's because of this:

"Investors punish Amazon after hefty losses"

  • NEW YORK: After posting widening losses, Amazon took a pounding on Wall Street on Friday (Oct 24), raising doubts on whether investors will support chief executive Jeff Bezos' strategy of putting investment ahead of profit.

    The shares tumbled 8.3 per cent to close the week at US$287.06, having slid some 28 per cent from highs earlier this year. Amazon said on Thursday its loss in the last quarter widened to US$437 million after a series of product launches including new phones, tablets and television programmes.

    The news from the online retail giant, which is known keeping profit margins low as it grabs market share nonetheless stunned many investors and analysts. "Frustration with Amazon is reaching peak levels," said Deutsche Bank analyst Ross Sandler. "We are struggling to identify a catalyst to break the negative momentum."

    The loss in the third quarter was worse than anticipated, and far worse than the US$41 million deficit in the same period a year earlier. The loss came even as net sales increased 20 per cent from a year ago to US$20.58 billion in the quarter.


Amazon has always put gaining market share and investments thru tight margins before profits, but investors can only be so patient supporting a business that doesn't make money - sooner or later they'd want their money back. So Amazon has 2 main choices: keep the prices but demand more cut of the profit from the publishers, or raise the prices (which as the biggest player in the field, means everybody else would also be raising prices since they were only lowering their prices in order to be competitive with Amazon's prices). I'd expect prices of many things rising not too far in the future.


Ah I see, thanks Enurtsol for that info. Surprised
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lem



Joined: 29 Sep 2007
Posts: 734
Location: Land of trying to figure sht out
PostPosted: Thu Nov 13, 2014 2:57 am Reply with quote
As a fan of VIZ, this is very good news. Now I hope they settle their other issues with Hachette/Yen Press asap.

I like having choices to a fault so I don't know if I'd want to just completely burn any bridge to Amazon US though. Yes their packing still sucks, and they can still have the occasional lame bootlegger hawking their wares, but overall they have a whole lot to choose from at reasonable prices. At least with the legitimate and hardworking resellers anyway. That said, I think their overall "good" outweighs their "bad" as a retailer.

And as previously mentioned, it's easy enough to just take a little time to look for and consider other e-tailers. Totally agree with that.
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