Book Publishers Selling Direct - Pissing Off Book Retailers
from the disintermediation... dept
One of the struggles that companies have as distribution and sales mechanisms change is handling legacy channel conflict issues. Dell became huge by selling direct to customers, but when rival Compaq started to move in that direction, their retail partners freaked out - and Compaq had to scale back their plans. It appears that book publishers are now going through the same process. They've realized that if someone is looking for info about certain books on their site, it makes sense to also offer them a chance to buy it. However, it's pissing off retailers, who don't want to hear that their suppliers are competing with them. Retailers say a reasonable compromise would be having the publishers point to the retailers, which was my first response as well. However, then it becomes a political situation of who do you link to and why? There's also the fact that this makes for a less enjoyable consumer experience. I know that, more than once, I've been annoyed at online sites where I go for info on buying a product, but when I try to buy am given a big list of retailers instead of a way to buy right away.
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Killing your channel...
If you're willing to risk alienating some of your other retailers, you could go with one or two online retailers and simply route your customers direct to them. Or maybe just whip up a small app that redirects users to a random retailer when they click "buy" on the publisher's site...
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Re: Killing your channel...
It doesn't have to be random. The user could be offered a choice of being directed to the book store with the lowest price for that book, or the store closest to the user, based on zip code (at least in the U.S.).
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No Subject Given
I don't like big companies forcing out small guys either...but I can't stand companies who just want to be middlemen...I like small bookstores because I get service and personal attention and such...but to me, buying a book at Amazon or buying it from the publisher direct makes no difference and if its cheaper, I'll get it from the publisher.
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The prices are usually non-competitive
For older books Amazon Marketplace has been great buying used. Publishers are just looking for additional way to push their stuff, that's all. Building a Web site with book database in it is easy and cheap, hence why not.
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Baen Direct
sells e-books direct, but paperbacks and hardbacks through traditional channels.
In speaking with brick-and-mortar booksellers about this at home and when travelling, I find no animosity towards Baen, because Baen carefully documents how their program to *give* away full and complete e-books in multiple formats without DRM actually builds sales of current titles and backstock. See details at
http://baen.com/library in the Prime Palaver editorials.
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