What's the root cause? Publishers are making it out to seem like Amazon is deliberately cutting their sales. Actually looks like their predictive algorithms have determined demand this year won't be as much as before for certain titles, therefore it's not necessary to order as many copies.
It's a problem if Amazon's algorithm screws up and orders 500 units and sells all copies. But what if Amazon orders 1,000 units and sells only 300? Then both Amazon and the publisher have a big, costly problem on their hands.
I am a small publisher who supplies Amazon through Amazon Advantage, and I've seen the algorithm make mistakes that go both ways. The worst thing about Amazon over-ordering is the publisher has to invest a lot in printing and shipping costs to get the inventory to Amazon FCs, then watch the inventory sit there for many months, unsold, while long-term storage fees build up. It's a huge cost to me.
Frankly, after dealing with both situations over the past several years, I'd rather they underestimate than overestimate -- at least if they underestimate I can sell copies on Amazon Seller (fulfilled directly by my company, instead of by Amazon) or through my website.
Getting back to the root causes: There's a glut of books in the market, and the number of people reading books is declining thanks to other media options and a lack of time. There might be other things going on that weren't noted in the article. What publishers should be doing, instead of complaining about Amazon not ordering as many copies as they hoped, is working on building demand on Amazon or even better getting more readers to order direct from their websites.
My two cents.
