6 ms·

French goverment was trying to apply rules which had a lot of grey area. Amazon decided it was too risky so shut down.

josefx 6y ago
The court provided a list of Amazon(TM) categories from the Amazon (TM) website and told Amazon to restrict its operations to those. You wont find any of the "essential products" nonsense outside of Amazons own court documents and press releases.
- UK-Al05 6y ago
  I don't understand. The goverment created an a product list of items to sell, which amazon then tried to create an essential product list which contained these items? I don't understand whats the problem with that? According to Amazon they found it difficult to workout what was and wasn't an essential item according to the rules. I would imagine with a catalog as big amazon that's probably true. They decided to shutdown instead which is perfectly rational given the amount fines placed upon them if they did accidentally ship an item. The goverment got what they requested, no non essential items shipped. I would imagine amazon would have preferred to keep operating, so I believe them.
  - josefx 6y ago
    That the "essential products list" does not exist, which is the key complaint in any discussion about this. Amazon invented a requirement that does not exist to claim that the requirements are to vague to implement. The list the court provided is explicit in the court documents, meanwhile the "essential products" is subject to the imagination of every armchair free market capitalist. You wont find it googling, you wont find it going through court documents, you will only find an unending sea of discussion how stupid it is for a court to require something as vague as selling only "essential products" and how Amazon shutting down its french warehouses was the only sane response to this requirement. > I would imagine amazon would have preferred to keep operating, so I believe them. This was an union driven lawsuit. Shutting down operations to stamp out union activity is rather common with companies large enough to cover the short term costs of it.
    - UK-Al05 6y ago
      What requirements did they place on amazon then?
      - ldng 6y ago
        The French government placed on Amazon, AND every other online sellers, restrictions on what type of product could be sold: only first necessity items. The only one refusing to comply, and loudly at that, was Amazon. Put itself above the law to gain a competitive advantage is unacceptable to me. And now they are making a lot of publicity on tv to remend the damage. A little too late, I'm boycotting them personally.
        UK-Al05 6y ago
        It didn't put itself above the law, because it closed down instead. That's complying with the law. Considering the amount fines they we're threatned with, I agree it was too risky operate. They would have only had to made a few mistakes and they would risk a massive fine. Amazon has a huge catalog compared to other retailers, and trying to categorise that without mistakes would be difficult and prone to errors.
        ldng 6y ago
        And why do you think they were threaten ? Because they were found not operating within the bound of pandemic related decrees. They willing did not respect them. Maybe in the USA they would have automatically been fined, but the French negotiated with them and gave them delays. The French Amazon CEO willfully claimed they would never comply. They knew what they were doing and in practice quite literally put themselves above the law. And no, Amazon has the same catalog as other French retailer, at least in France. Amazon just chose to play dumb with both catalog filtering demands AND physical distances in warehouses.
        temp667 6y ago
        The fines were enormous for every violation, and EU courts have been doing billion dollar fines of these companies - why in the world would you operate one warehouse doing 10% volume (90% shutdown already) facing huge fines? They complied with the law and shut down. This further limited covid risks for their workers.

The court provided a list of Amazon(TM) categories from the Amazon (TM) website and told Amazon to restrict its operations to those. You wont find any of the "essential products" nonsense outside of Amazons own court documents and press releases.

UK-Al05 6y ago
I don't understand. The goverment created an a product list of items to sell, which amazon then tried to create an essential product list which contained these items? I don't understand whats the problem with that? According to Amazon they found it difficult to workout what was and wasn't an essential item according to the rules. I would imagine with a catalog as big amazon that's probably true. They decided to shutdown instead which is perfectly rational given the amount fines placed upon them if they did accidentally ship an item. The goverment got what they requested, no non essential items shipped. I would imagine amazon would have preferred to keep operating, so I believe them.
- josefx 6y ago
  That the "essential products list" does not exist, which is the key complaint in any discussion about this. Amazon invented a requirement that does not exist to claim that the requirements are to vague to implement. The list the court provided is explicit in the court documents, meanwhile the "essential products" is subject to the imagination of every armchair free market capitalist. You wont find it googling, you wont find it going through court documents, you will only find an unending sea of discussion how stupid it is for a court to require something as vague as selling only "essential products" and how Amazon shutting down its french warehouses was the only sane response to this requirement. > I would imagine amazon would have preferred to keep operating, so I believe them. This was an union driven lawsuit. Shutting down operations to stamp out union activity is rather common with companies large enough to cover the short term costs of it.
  - UK-Al05 6y ago
    What requirements did they place on amazon then?
    - ldng 6y ago
      The French government placed on Amazon, AND every other online sellers, restrictions on what type of product could be sold: only first necessity items. The only one refusing to comply, and loudly at that, was Amazon. Put itself above the law to gain a competitive advantage is unacceptable to me. And now they are making a lot of publicity on tv to remend the damage. A little too late, I'm boycotting them personally.
      - UK-Al05 6y ago
        It didn't put itself above the law, because it closed down instead. That's complying with the law. Considering the amount fines they we're threatned with, I agree it was too risky operate. They would have only had to made a few mistakes and they would risk a massive fine. Amazon has a huge catalog compared to other retailers, and trying to categorise that without mistakes would be difficult and prone to errors.
        ldng 6y ago
        And why do you think they were threaten ? Because they were found not operating within the bound of pandemic related decrees. They willing did not respect them. Maybe in the USA they would have automatically been fined, but the French negotiated with them and gave them delays. The French Amazon CEO willfully claimed they would never comply. They knew what they were doing and in practice quite literally put themselves above the law. And no, Amazon has the same catalog as other French retailer, at least in France. Amazon just chose to play dumb with both catalog filtering demands AND physical distances in warehouses.
      - temp667 6y ago
        The fines were enormous for every violation, and EU courts have been doing billion dollar fines of these companies - why in the world would you operate one warehouse doing 10% volume (90% shutdown already) facing huge fines? They complied with the law and shut down. This further limited covid risks for their workers.