Getting sued for anti-trust violations

[notthatamanda]

In the lawsuit, California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office said Seattle-based Amazon used contract provisions to effectively bar third-party sellers and wholesale suppliers from offering lower prices for products on non-Amazon sites, including on their own websites.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/technology-lawsuits-san-francisco-amazoncom-inc-a53b695cd5c8cf0e4352fb2f5de85cfc

Personally I'd like to be able to run Kobo promos without the hassle of Amazon price matching. I stick to the Kobo promos that don't change the price of the book and only have my compilations on Kobo to take advantage of their promos on those without the headaches.

[writeway]

The other retailers do this as well. Barnes and Noble, Apple, Kobo, Google Play, they all make you price the same price universally. Meaning you can't price low on one and have a higher price on the other. It's not just Amazon so even if this succeeds (which I doubt because Amazon seems to beat everything) you still have the issue of the other retailers. Some don't realize it but no, you can't price differently on any site. They all say your price has to be the same on all stores.

[TimothyEllis]

The other retailers do this as well. Barnes and Noble, Apple, Kobo, Google Play, they all make you price the same price universally. Meaning you can't price low on one and have a higher price on the other. It's not just Amazon so even if this succeeds (which I doubt because Amazon seems to beat everything) you still have the issue of the other retailers. Some don't realize it but no, you can't price differently on any site. They all say your price has to be the same on all stores.

Are you sure?

There are plenty of people saying they price higher on Google Play.

It also doesn't work that way for Paperbacks.

[notthatamanda]

Just to clarify, the lawsuit isn't about eBooks. They aren't mentioned at all in the article.

[sliderule]

There are plenty of people saying they price higher on Google Play.

Is that recently or in the past?

I know that we used to have to price higher on googleplay because of how they discounted. Then they appeared to have stopped that practice.

[TimothyEllis]

There are plenty of people saying they price higher on Google Play.

Is that recently or in the past?

I know that we used to have to price higher on googleplay because of how they discounted. Then they appeared to have stopped that practice.

I've not heard any different since Google's policy changed.

Like no-one has been saying Google made them change their prices down, or price matched them.

If anyone has somewhere else, point it out to me.

[Maggie Ann]

There are plenty of people saying they price higher on Google Play.

Is that recently or in the past?

I know that we used to have to price higher on googleplay because of how they discounted. Then they appeared to have stopped that practice.

I've not heard any different since Google's policy changed.

Like no-one has been saying Google made them change their prices down, or price matched them.

If anyone has somewhere else, point it out to me.

A few months ago, I started to put my books on Google. I was reluctant at first because of the way Google priced their books and I didn't want to go through the hassle. In the end, I just priced them the same as Zon and D2D and the prices on Google stayed the same. I assumed they had dropped their ridiculous higher prices.

[TimothyEllis]

A few months ago, I started to put my books on Google. I was reluctant at first because of the way Google priced their books and I didn't want to go through the hassle. In the end, I just priced them the same as Zon and D2D and the prices on Google stayed the same. I assumed they had dropped their ridiculous higher prices.

That's not the way I understood it.

People priced higher there to overcome the hassle of Amazon price matching the discounted price. So the pricing was author done.

But people also say the higher prices still sell on Google Play, because it's a different market of readers.

[Maggie Ann]

A few months ago, I started to put my books on Google. I was reluctant at first because of the way Google priced their books and I didn't want to go through the hassle. In the end, I just priced them the same as Zon and D2D and the prices on Google stayed the same. I assumed they had dropped their ridiculous higher prices.

That's not the way I understood it.

People priced higher there to overcome the hassle of Amazon price matching the discounted price. So the pricing was author done.

But people also say the higher prices still sell on Google Play, because it's a different market of readers.

Yes that was once true, but my experience is they don't discount the price that I set. That indicates to me that Google has abandoned that practice.

[TimothyEllis]

Yes that was once true, but my experience is they don't discount the price that I set. That indicates to me that Google has abandoned that practice.

What Google is doing is not the issue.

What are authors still doing?

I seriously doubt all those with higher prices went through them and lowered them, especially if they were selling at the higher prices.

[LilyBLily]

Half of mine on Google Play are priced exactly the same as everywhere else, and half are not. No one has been bothering me about them.

[She-la-te-da]

I don't think anyone cares if you price higher, you just can't be cheaper anywhere else.

Google stopped the price reductions a couple of years ago now, I think. The reason we priced higher there was to take into account their discounting so prices wouldn't be lower than on Amazon, thus triggering price matching.

[Hopscotch]

But people also say the higher prices still sell on Google Play, because it's a different market of readers.

Curious to know how the GP market may be different from the Amazon market

[TimothyEllis]

But people also say the higher prices still sell on Google Play, because it's a different market of readers.

Curious to know how the GP market may be different from the Amazon market

I've seen it said a number of times that Google Play readers are a higher demographic and expect to pay more, and judge a book by its price more on that basis.