French bookshops link to fight Amazon
A group of bookshops have joined together with a website to give an alternative to Amazon and offer buyers a local seller.
Libraires de l鈥橢st is based near Nancy, Meurthe-et-Moselle, and 17 shops have set up , which has all their stocks and offers home delivery or pick-up in store.
It is not a direct sales site, but shows all the shops鈥� stocks, with orders filled by the shop.
It is up to the bookseller to manage the orders and supply, even ordering from the national database
Libraires de l鈥橢st co-ordinator Marie-Pierre Rei颅bel said it was not trying to rival Amazon, but was more a way to challenge its way of working.
She said: 鈥淲e don鈥檛 have the means to rival them but we can challenge their aggressive marketing.
鈥淲e keep local shops with local jobs 鈥� about 150-200 in Lorraine alone 鈥� but we cannot take Amazon on directly.
鈥淢any large bookshops do significant business online, but there are other much smaller ones who see any online sales as a simple 鈥榩lus鈥�, although in reality they would rather deal with real people in front of them.鈥�
The law on the prix unique du livre means prices are the same online or in shops.
