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That's neat! One thing that's not immediately obvious to me: why does the publisher make that deal with the bookseller? Since it's in the seller's best interest
by monktastic1 4y ago
That's neat! One thing that's not immediately obvious to me: why does the publisher make that deal with the bookseller? Since it's in the seller's best interest to sell as many copies as possible anyway, why not let them eat the cost of ordering too many? I suppose the answer is simply to help publishers entice sellers; to give sellers a guarantee that helps them avoid that worry. Still, I wouldn't have predicted it.
- jeshin 4y agoI guess otherwise book stores might order more conservatively, which might result in less sales
- yunohn 4y ago> why not let them eat the cost of ordering too many? This is the most common supply-demand and stocking problem across all industries. Surely you don’t think it’s as simple as that?
- munificent 4y ago> why does the publisher make that deal with the bookseller? Good question! My understanding is that that's how it used to work. Booksellers would buy as many as they wanted and sales were final as far as the publisher was concerned. It was on the bookseller to make sure they didn't buy too many. During the Great Depression, bookstores were hit very hard and they didn't buy much. That in turn hit publishers. In order to incentivize bookstores to buy more copies, a couple of the larger publishers began to offer this deal where they would allow returning unsold copies. Booksellers loved it, obviously, since it greatly reduced their risk. Once a couple of publishers did this, the rest were basically pressured to follow since the booksellers so strongly prefered publishers who did. Once booksellers got used to this deal, it became entrenched and now publishers are essentially stuck with it.
- ars 4y agoIt's because printing a book costs almost nothing. The publisher would rather sell one extra book and trash 10, than lose out of that sale.