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Amazon Not Allowed To Discount Harry Potter Book In Germany
from the silly-laws... dept
I know many countries (including the US) use "anti-dumping" laws that forbid (usually foreign) companies from selling products below cost to take away business from domestic companies, but sometimes those laws go way too far. The latest is that Amazon.com has been told they're not allowed to sell the new Harry Potter book in Germany at their usual discount. It's being deemed "unfair". Unfair how? Can't businesses make their own pricing decisions? If they're losing money on every book sold, then that's their problem.
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I don't think the discount on books is really that big of a deal but they are probably trying to protect their domestic booksellers.
In general though, anti-dumping laws are a good thing. Some big company can give it's products away, drive all the competitors out of business and then raise prices once they have an entrenched position. Sure other competitors can enter the business but if there are high borders to entry it may be impossible. That's not good for consumers.
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Book Holocaust
Germany's retail sector is notorious for its poor customer service. Workers are both highly unionized and protected by lots of laws. In addition to 36-hour work weeks and mandated store closing times, clerks will not usually answer customer questions. Customers may have to wait a few minutes for cashiers to stop talking on the phone before getting rung up. "Sales" and "discounts" are mostly an alien concept.
However, this should also be considered in light of Germany's chronically high unemployment rates (around 20% in former East German provinces). Germany already has a serious skinhead problem because of millions of unemployed young people. If free-market deregulation threw a lot of retail employees out of work, the unemployment problem (and therefore social problems) will worsen. In light of the current world political situation, that's not a good idea.
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It's not just about foreign companies
Books are a special kind of merchandise in germany. Book prices are generally fixed and every retailer (not only the foreign ones) has to sell those books for the same price. This system is called 'Buchpreisbindung' and is, if I recall i correctly, somehow connected to the way authors get money from the VG Wort (that's something like the RIAA for writers) based on the amount of books sold.
This is just the way books are sold in germany and surely doesn't have anything to do with the fact that Amazon.com is a foreign company. The germand Bertelsmann stores wouldn't be allowed to ignore the bookprice fixing, either.
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