Cover Story: Amazon: The Elephant in the Room
There’s no way around it: The Seattle-based e-tailer has become the
dominant force of change in book publishing today. Whether that’s good
or bad for the industry is no easy question to answer.
Shatzkin says pricing has irreversibly been affected by Amazon's strategy of pricing books to acquire customers, rather than to make a profit on book sales. Amazon, he says, sees e‑commerce book-buyers as potential buyers of the consumer electronics and other goods Amazon sells much more profitably. While loss-leaders have been around since retailing began, and discounters like Wal-Mart and Costco have long been thorns in bookstores' sides, the scope and depth of Amazon's influence and discounting make this a different game, he says.
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