To protect offline traditional bookstores, France is studying the rule of "3 euros" delivery fee for online book orders.
CTOnews.com, September 25 (Xinhua)-- France is developing a new fee that will affect online book orders to help traditional bookstores remain competitive. Amazon and other companies, which started as online booksellers, have made it very cheap to buy books online, hurting independent bookstores. Under the new plan, France will charge 3 euros (20.79 yuan) for online book orders under 35 euros (about 242.55 yuan), and orders exceeding this threshold will be charged at the existing 1 euro cents.
The French government was quoted as saying:
"this will adapt the book industry to the digital age and restore the balance between large e-commerce platforms that offer almost free book delivery services, regardless of order size, while offline bookstores cannot match these delivery prices. a delivery fee of 3 euros. For book buyers, the threshold of 35 euros will be beneficial in terms of the environment, which will facilitate grouping orders."
CTOnews.com learned that the French government said the new 3 euro delivery fee, including taxes and evasion, would be banned, even through loyalty programs or joint purchases of books and other items. France will inform the European Commission of its plan, and the fee will take effect six months after EU approval.
Amazon has previously said these plans will exacerbate inflation in the country and hurt book buyers in rural areas who have no choice but to order books online. The association, which represents the country's independent bookstores, said the measures were not enough and demanded a reduction in post office fees for transporting books from bookstores.
France has 3300 independent bookstores, but that number is slowly declining because of online retailers such as Amazon and Fnac, Reuters reported. While fees will make bookstores more meaningful, these changes have not reduced the convenience experience of ordering books online and delivering them directly to customers' homes.
