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David vs Goliath: Children’s book publisher pulls its titles from Amazon

9 points by MRonney 15y ago

sosuke 15y ago
Is it David vs Goliath in the eyes of the consumer though? All they see is they can't buy a book they want through Amazon anymore. They may just think it doesn't make any sense and question why the publisher doesn't want to offer their books on Kindle anymore. Amazon doesn't make books, why would they want to "squeeze everyone out of business" that makes the books they sell.
- ctdonath 15y ago
  Major question is how the consumer knows the book even exists? It takes significant in-person sales efforts to promote some products, effort which goes unrewarded if the customer can make the ultimate purchase online, causing the sales staff to evaporate along with consumer awareness of the product.
ctdonath 15y ago
EDC (http://www.edcpub.com/ http://www.edcpub.com/), better known as Usborne Books, is an enormous publisher of children's books ("Everyone Poops" being a runaway hit, enough to buy another publisher). Its primary - and successful - sales format is thru multilevel marketing, providing customer contacts where big-brand distributors can't/won't reach. Problem was that its marketers would do the legwork to arrange sales large and small, only to see the customer then turn to Amazon and make the purchase (sometimes quite substantial) at a steep discount, and the marketer lose the sale and receive no return on effort. Faced with the choice of wiping out its sales force and submitting to the Amazon model (and being lost in the warehouse), or defend the loyal sales force (and make its brand stand out) and risk the consequences of leaving Amazon, the company chose the latter. A gutsy move. We'll find out what the value of a loyal sales force is. One key point here is Usborne's books are geared toward physical-contact-oriented children, not abstract-concept-oriented adults. Many of the books produced have a significant physical component, such as textured textiles, moving parts, thick cardboard pages, fold-out inserts, or rich coloring - aspects which do not translate to digital formats, and do not stand out in online-only advertising. It's one thing to see a webpage offering "That's Not My Lion" with a .JPG, it's another to have a salesperson hand a potential customer a copy to feel the fuzzy manes, velvety fur, and cold stiff claws featured on its various pages and go "my lion-obsessed son would love this". This kind of product is more expensive to produce than straight glossy pages, but if the customer does not experience the difference they won't pay the difference. Much has been said about the brick-and-mortar (or variants) model vs. ultra-warehouse just-in-time online model of sales. Some products just don't fare well in the latter, and pushing back in favor of the former may be the only way for some reasonable/desirable products to survive.

9 points by MRonney 15y ago

Is it David vs Goliath in the eyes of the consumer though? All they see is they can't buy a book they want through Amazon anymore. They may just think it doesn't make any sense and question why the publisher doesn't want to offer their books on Kindle anymore. Amazon doesn't make books, why would they want to "squeeze everyone out of business" that makes the books they sell.

ctdonath 15y ago
Major question is how the consumer knows the book even exists? It takes significant in-person sales efforts to promote some products, effort which goes unrewarded if the customer can make the ultimate purchase online, causing the sales staff to evaporate along with consumer awareness of the product.

ctdonath 15y ago

EDC (http://www.edcpub.com/ http://www.edcpub.com/), better known as Usborne Books, is an enormous publisher of children's books ("Everyone Poops" being a runaway hit, enough to buy another publisher). Its primary - and successful - sales format is thru multilevel marketing, providing customer contacts where big-brand distributors can't/won't reach. Problem was that its marketers would do the legwork to arrange sales large and small, only to see the customer then turn to Amazon and make the purchase (sometimes quite substantial) at a steep discount, and the marketer lose the sale and receive no return on effort. Faced with the choice of wiping out its sales force and submitting to the Amazon model (and being lost in the warehouse), or defend the loyal sales force (and make its brand stand out) and risk the consequences of leaving Amazon, the company chose the latter. A gutsy move. We'll find out what the value of a loyal sales force is. One key point here is Usborne's books are geared toward physical-contact-oriented children, not abstract-concept-oriented adults. Many of the books produced have a significant physical component, such as textured textiles, moving parts, thick cardboard pages, fold-out inserts, or rich coloring - aspects which do not translate to digital formats, and do not stand out in online-only advertising. It's one thing to see a webpage offering "That's Not My Lion" with a .JPG, it's another to have a salesperson hand a potential customer a copy to feel the fuzzy manes, velvety fur, and cold stiff claws featured on its various pages and go "my lion-obsessed son would love this". This kind of product is more expensive to produce than straight glossy pages, but if the customer does not experience the difference they won't pay the difference. Much has been said about the brick-and-mortar (or variants) model vs. ultra-warehouse just-in-time online model of sales. Some products just don't fare well in the latter, and pushing back in favor of the former may be the only way for some reasonable/desirable products to survive.