France Trying To Ban Amazon Discounts, Free Delivery

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Anyone that has ever used our NewZon browser extension knows we are all in favor of finding you lower prices and free shipping through Amazon. Leave it to France to want to ban both. :(

"I'm in favor of ending the possibility of offering both free delivery and a five percent discount," she told BFM news television on Friday. "We need a law, so we're going to find a legislative window to introduce one."
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Grow some balls, France. "Le Pew, we cannot compete with their baguette delivery service due to being lazy socialists, we must make a law against offering good deals!".
 
LOL, wtf? So it's not that there's an actual problem they want to solve with a law... they just want to ban the possibility of free delivery AND a discount? So there's no privacy issues, no problems with tax evasion, but they have to put an end to free delivery and discounts?
 
JoeUser said:
I'm not understanding the point of this...
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It's protectionism. Some powerful French companies have obviously complained that they are unable to effectively compete ( see make as much money and/or need to work harder ) with Amazon who offers discounted items and free shipping in many cases. As a result, they are trying to stifle foreign competition. They might as well be banning "good customer service" or "good return policy" for what it's worth. It's typical Euro silliness.
 
SilverSliver said:
It's protectionism. Some powerful French companies have obviously complained that they are unable to effectively compete ( see make as much money and/or need to work harder ) with Amazon who offers discounted items and free shipping in many cases. As a result, they are trying to stifle foreign competition. They might as well be banning "good customer service" or "good return policy" for what it's worth. It's typical Euro silliness.
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European governments (especially the French) are heavily socialized and very dependent on tax revenues to survive. There local businesses pay lots and the multinationals pay little ... that will always make them favor the local businesses over the multinationals. Also, the French are even more nationalistic than a lot of other EU countries. This is about par for the course for them. Still stupid but something both their business and consumers will support ;)
 
SilverSliver said:
It's protectionism. Some powerful French companies have obviously complained that they are unable to effectively compete ( see make as much money and/or need to work harder ) with Amazon who offers discounted items and free shipping in many cases. As a result, they are trying to stifle foreign competition. They might as well be banning "good customer service" or "good return policy" for what it's worth. It's typical Euro silliness.
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I wouldn't really call it Euro silliness. The USA makes silly laws on the behest of corporation lobbyists all the time.

It's kinda a global thing.
 
You don't have all the facts - it's even worse than that.

All books in France have their prices fixed - the price is the same in every store. Actually even French online stores, and many book stores, do the 5% reduction (which is the maximum allowed by the law) and free shipping.

The thing is, even if the price are guaranteed to be the same, people shop at Amazon. Why? Because it has much more books available, and not only the shitty books hyped by the media.
 
And on this day, its shall be illegal to discount an item more than 5% below the manufactured suggested price. HOWEVER! You may mark up an item as high as you like, as long as you do not offer free delivery!

- Yep, that makes perfect sense doesnt it? I still have no desire to visit France, especially after the horror stories people have told me about the Paris airport.
 
Well, this seems easy enough to get around.. Drop all your prices 5% across the board and charge one franc for shipping.
 
SilverSliver said:
It's protectionism. Some powerful French companies have obviously complained that they are unable to effectively compete ( see make as much money and/or need to work harder ) with Amazon who offers discounted items and free shipping in many cases. As a result, they are trying to stifle foreign competition. They might as well be banning "good customer service" or "good return policy" for what it's worth. It's typical Euro silliness.
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I believe their law are actually protecting the mom and pop store from big corps invasion. They fix many of the prices as well as zoning/restricting big corps.
 
Protectionism makes me lol. Yeah, heaven forbid your citizens get to purchase goods cheaper so they have more money to spend over all.
 
k1pp3r said:
And on this day, its shall be illegal to discount an item more than 5% below the manufactured suggested price. HOWEVER! You may mark up an item as high as you like, as long as you do not offer free delivery!

- Yep, that makes perfect sense doesnt it? I still have no desire to visit France, especially after the horror stories people have told me about the Paris airport.
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Wouldn't suggest going either. It's dirtier than people say it is to be honest.
 
they want to protect their culture and way of doing things. IOW, France is going to be France.
 
Well, if I were in charge of Amazon, I'd just prohibit sales to the country. Fuck em.
 
Qinsp said:
Top Amazon Items in France:

White flags.

Running shoes.

German-French translation book.
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Reminds me of my favorite French joke,

The French government announced that it had raised its terror alert level from Run to Hide.
The only two higher levels in France are Surrender and Collaborate. The rise in the alert level was precipitated by a recent fire which destroyed France's white flag factory, effectively disabling its military.

:D
 
pankkake said:
You don't have all the facts - it's even worse than that.

All books in France have their prices fixed - the price is the same in every store. Actually even French online stores, and many book stores, do the 5% reduction (which is the maximum allowed by the law) and free shipping.

The thing is, even if the price are guaranteed to be the same, people shop at Amazon. Why? Because it has much more books available, and not only the shitty books hyped by the media.
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Pretty much, how dare you try to innovate and make stuff cheaper. Its all about fucking everyone to keep the status quo.

bigpimpatl said:
they want to protect their culture and way of doing things. IOW, France is going to be France.
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Yep.
 
Merc1138 said:
LOL, wtf? So it's not that there's an actual problem they want to solve with a law... they just want to ban the possibility of free delivery AND a discount? So there's no privacy issues, no problems with tax evasion, but they have to put an end to free delivery and discounts?
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I like how no one reads the articles.

France, like other European countries, bans retailers from discounting books more than 5 percent from a sale price set by the publisher. This is to prevent small sellers from being crushed by giant retailers that can absorb bigger discounts.
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British colonial officer is speaking with a French officer ...

Lt. Baguette: "Why do you Brits wear red coats into battle? How stupid!!"

Lt. Wales: "Because if we get shot, the blood will not show, and helps with the men's moral. Sort of like why you French officers wear brown pants."
 
I still can't get this fucking plugin to work for shit. Man, I hate my life...
 
kbrickley said:
Reminds me of my favorite French joke,

The French government announced that it had raised its terror alert level from Run to Hide.
The only two higher levels in France are Surrender and Collaborate. The rise in the alert level was precipitated by a recent fire which destroyed France's white flag factory, effectively disabling its military.

:D
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That is a good one that I never heard before.
 
This is the same country that found Google anti-competitive by releasing Google-Maps .. for free.

They only changed their labour laws in 1998 so companies can ask their employees to work more than 35hours in a week.
 
kbrickley said:
Reminds me of my favorite French joke,

The French government announced that it had raised its terror alert level from Run to Hide.
The only two higher levels in France are Surrender and Collaborate. The rise in the alert level was precipitated by a recent fire which destroyed France's white flag factory, effectively disabling its military.

:D
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That is fucking hilarious
 
chrispix said:
Well, this seems easy enough to get around.. Drop all your prices 5% across the board and charge one franc for shipping.
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the amount of stupid in this carbon based life form is incredible. there is no franc anymore in france...
 
to anyone living in France, if they hate amazon for acting like a big corp, do they hate steam/ebay too?
 
infojunkie said:
to anyone living in France, if they hate amazon for acting like a big corp, do they hate steam/ebay too?
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I think you are mistaking the people for the government there. If anyone here thinks the French consumers are not happy with Amazon's services and often interesting prices, then they are wrong.
 
Enrage said:
They only changed their labour laws in 1998 so companies can ask their employees to work more than 35hours in a week.
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I fail to see how that's a good thing. It's obviously the way it has to be in a global market, but it amazes me that anyone would celebrate longer work days for the same pay. People in the US are overworked. And people in 3rd world countries are overworked and vastly underpaid.
 
Qinsp said:
You'd be surprised how many people work 7 days.
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I'm not sure if you're directing that at me, but nobody should have to work 7 days a week unless they want to. I've been working 85 hour weeks recently and it simply isn't sustainable. If I didn't see light at the end of the tunnel, I'd probably have some sort of mental breakdown eventually.
 
Spidey329 said:
I wouldn't really call it Euro silliness. The USA makes silly laws on the behest of corporation lobbyists all the time.

It's kinda a global thing.
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Yeah but when the USA bends over backwards for the lobbyists it usually screws locals out of jobs.
 
Rizen said:
Protectionism makes me lol. Yeah, heaven forbid your citizens get to purchase goods cheaper so they have more money to spend over all.
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It goes both ways. Discount books aren't the end of the world, but if you export all of your production to other countries suddenly you find that people don't have much money to spend because they all work for McDonalds and WalMart.
 
chrispix said:
Well, this seems easy enough to get around.. Drop all your prices 5% across the board and charge one franc for shipping.
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Almost everyone is already applying the 5% discount.

infojunkie said:
to anyone living in France, if they hate amazon for acting like a big corp, do they hate steam/ebay too?
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The French love Amazon. Only traditional media and politicians hate it.
 
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