Pages Unbound asked the question recently ‘How can Barnes & Noble save themselves?‘ and offers a variety of solutions to the problem.
Of course the issue isn’t one faced just by Barnes & Noble, it applies to all vendors of quality products containing pages.
The real root of the problem is unfair competition by Amazon. And one of the reasons that this competition is unfair is that Amazon, in common with so many multinational organisations, cheats us all by not paying its fair share of taxes.
So another way of dealing with the problem would be for consumers to ‘vote with their feet’ and patronise other vendors.
I’ve been boycotting Amazon myself since 2015. Of course one person makes little difference, it takes a whole lot of drips to make a puddle…
Love the Cloud Atlas reference :)
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I do not understand. When I shop Amazon I have to pay my state’s taxes so are you referring to other taxes? Some large corporations pay no taxes at all so maybe it’s the same? Thank you.
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That’s exactly the point. “Some large corporations pay no taxes at all” — yet they all make use of the infrastructure that the rest of us pay for through our taxes. Freeloaders!
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Thank you. I have found your blog and the responses most helpful.
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I do a lot of my purchasing from Amazon. Often it is less expensive for me, but sometimes it is simply more convenient. I’ll investigate, but they have always treated me fairly, so I haven’t had cause to question using them.
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Good for you for keeping an open mind about it… would be interested in knowing what your investigations turn up!
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Unfortunately Amazon has the monopoly and many mom and pop stores have bitten the dust as a result – forget the mom and pop stores, look at the fate of Toys R Us. Very sad.
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If I ruled the world then as soon as an organisation got into a monopoly situation it would be nationalised, then run for the public good!
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I’ve been boycotting Amazon too, but mostly because the last time I bought something from them they also charged me $150 for their Amazon Prime service which I never asked for. I managed to reclaim most of the money, but I was incredulous they had done that.
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I’m willing to bet it may have been no accident. They only need compare those who complain with those who don’t: and if the comparison makes them money, ‘fair market rules’ would suggest that they’d be fools not to take advantage of the fools who don’t complain….
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I’m right there with you on the Amazon boycott.
Actually, I think you might be making a difference, since Amazon is buying brick and mortar stores (Whole Foods) and investing in other stuff. So maybe they aren’t doing as good as they think they should.
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We can but hope that they’re paying attention to the few people around who are upset with the way they do business….
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The only thing they pay attention to is $$$. If we make a dent in their pocket, they will pay attention.
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Better by far to convince them that they can still make their $$$ by doing the right thing, I feel.
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