Forum - View topicAmazon Disabling Preorders on Disney Titles
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Sailor S
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Unlike with Hachette, Disney doesn't need Amazon. Disc sales are a relatively small part of the Disney money making machine, so if their titles don't sell on Amazon, they're not likely to care much. They still have their own channels to show their movies on, and while I have no concrete evidence to back this claim up I suspect that Wal-Mart moves more Disney titles than Amazon. In short, this will be resolved only if Disney decides to let Amazon save face and tosses them a bone, not because Amazon has Disney by the short and curlies.
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Ali07
Posts: 3333 Location: Victoria, Australia |
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If you're right about the treatment of workers...do you actually believe any additional money Amazon brings in will see its way to them? As for this new Disney deal, it will be interesting to see what exactly the hold up is. To me, it seems like the companies that have had their contracts come close to ending have had their products put on hold by Amazon. |
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Collectonian
Posts: 104 Location: Texas |
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It's actually pretty common - it just started being a huge news thing because of the Hachette thing.
Barnes and Noble did the same thing to Simon and Schuster last year |
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Ortensia1980
Posts: 803 Location: some town near Amsterdam |
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I can't believe that they're still doing this. It's starting to get ridiculous.
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Just Passing Through
Posts: 277 |
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Of course Amazon don't make profits... They'd have to pay tax on profits. If Amazon didn't make money, they'd be out of business. |
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Pokenatic
Posts: 570 Location: Neo Venezia |
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As shocking as it may be, Amazon.com isn't a company that rakes in insane profits like companies that are as large as Amazon. They made 1.3% profit margin in 2012. That's almost 1/3 of the 3.5% Walmart has. (and Amazon's revenue is much smaller than Walmart's) They're constantly going back and forth between making money and losing money because their profit margins are so thin.
This isn't Amazon being greedy pigs demanding more money on top of the gajillions they make, this is Amazon trying to increase their profit margins just a bit so that they might not have to see losses every couple of quarters or so. (granted, this isn't the smartest way to do this, but I wasn't arguing about whether Amazon was doing a bonehead move or not) (plus, I'm not editing my previous post like I said now since I made this one instead) |
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streexanime
Posts: 78 |
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Not sure why the Apple Price-Fixing hasn't been brought up. Hachette Books was among the publishers they were working with.
The issue is much larger than what it seems. The point of Amazon was to provide competition to Suggested Retail Price sellers. |
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JonLa
Posts: 55 |
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I always assumed that their low profits were due to some tax dodge whereby they shifted the money into other areas (so it wasn't a taxable profit) of investment. The recent news about their investors and shareholders getting antsy does suggest I was wrong about that!
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Polycell
Posts: 4623 |
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All that means is that their stockholders aren't being treated right - they could be dodging taxes left and right and secretly making money hand over fist, but it's meaningless if the shares don't go up or at least pay decent dividends.
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TsunaReborn!
Posts: 4713 Location: Cheltenham UK |
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Again I don't know all the fact but my first thoughts were "Amazon do you actually want to sell anything anymore?"; they seem to be getting into disputes with larger and larger companies. Soon enough they are going to bite off more than they can chew.
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unready
Posts: 401 Location: Illinois, USA |
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Amazon disables preorders for the same reason any retailer would disable preorders during a contract dispute.
They have no assurance that the supplier will honor the preorders. Rather than accept preorders and have to refund customers when the supplier fails to supply, they'll wait until they have stock and sell that. Hachette was found guilty of price-fixing in the Apple case and was ordered by the court to re-negotiate all their deals not to be price-fixing. They attempted and are attempting to enter another price-fixing deal, this time with Amazon, and Amazon isn't having it. There hasn't been any info I've seen about what the dispute is with Disney. I wouldn't expect there to be much info until the deal is done, but the Warner dispute was resolved. If Disney isn't trying anything shady like Hachette is, there's every reason to believe that the Disney dispute will be resolved, too. |
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Ali07
Posts: 3333 Location: Victoria, Australia |
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Wow, massive accusation there. Where's the proof? |
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stonehand
Posts: 48 |
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If, and I emphasize the if, Amazon is doing what they have done in the past during negotiations, then there might not be a quick solution. What Amazon has done in the past has been to lowball, i.e. offer an extremely low price, to the publisher for books. For example , on a 7.99 paperback, average discount to a bookstore was 30-40% from the publisher. Average discount to a distributor was 40-49%. This would let everone make some profit. What Amazon has done in the past is to offer to pay minimum amounts for books. If they do that, even with the discount they used to offer on pre-orders, which was anywhere from 20-35%, they still made a profit. BUT, the publisher wouldn't. What I think has happened is Amazon did this to both Hachette and Disney, and they both said "No way, Jose". Since the publishers want to make money, they will not go below a certain price/percentage. Amazon probably went below the price/percentage. Disney and Hachette have other avenues for sales. Amazon basically has to go to them for product. and still generate a profit. Who will win? Flip a coin. |
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Polycell
Posts: 4623 |
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No matter how I think about it, I don't see the Disney Empire giving in very much; far more likely is that Amazon walks away form the peace table with its tail between its legs.
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Mohawk52
Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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If Amazon don't sell what I want, someone else will. I've already stopped buying manga from them for stupid bollox excuses of "supplier not releasing," or "supplier not making it available", only to find it readily released and available from other distributors and at the same or cheaper price. Amazon can fall just as fast as they rose if they are not careful.
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