From the American Booksellers Association:
“This week Amazon.com announced that customers who go into bricks-and-mortar stores on Saturday, December 10, use the company’s smartphone price check app on select products, and then purchase that product from Amazon will receive a discount of up to $5.
While books were not included in the promotion, indie bookstores, like other Main Street retailers, were outraged by the online giant’s latest move.
ABA CEO Oren Teicher has written an open letter (below and here in PDF format) to Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos that highlights the glaring discrepancy between the company’s recent statements in support of sales tax fairness and this latest exploitation of an inequitable strategic advantage.”
From the Letter:
“We could call your $5 bounty to app-users a cheesy marketing move and leave it at that. In fact, it is the latest in a series of steps to expand your market at the expense of cities and towns nationwide, stripping them of their unique character and the financial wherewithal to pay for essential needs like schools, fire and police departments, and libraries.”
Direct to Complete Letter
A PDF version of the letter is also available.
MobyLives Has a Roundup of Reports About Bookstores and Other Groups Not Happy with the Promo
In ABA News from Last Week:
New Mobile Reading App Launches for E-Books Sold at Independent Bookstore Websites
Now avail for Android, coming soon for iOS.
About Gary Price
