I don't have a problem with a brick and mortar indie sharing a bookshop link to their own shop, because they get a cut from that transaction. I don't like it when a bookish SaaS app uses the bookshop affiliate thing and tries to market itself as a win for the independent stores, it seems a bit misleading to me.
And when I was a bookseller, bookshop didn't exist except for an idea. I stopped working for the store right before it launched. I actually learned to code from doing a frontend redesign of my store's online store, which was offered by indie commerce. If done right, indie commerce can be a better deal for a bookstore because the store gets the full cut and just pays indie commerce a monthly subscription (at least when I was there, i think i've seen news of them changing their model or at least raising their subscription price). With indiecommerce, the store acts as a distributor (mostly, when the book is in stock at the store). Whereas bookshop doesn't use the bookstore's physical inventory, and instead ships directly from ingram (the monopolistic book distributor) and gives the bookstore a cut like an affiliate.
Bookshop is not a bad deal for a smaller store without a lot of resources or staff, but it doesn't always let an indie do what an indie does best: sell some of their unique physical inventory, like signed or rare or small press books that aren't distributed by ingram.
And when I was a bookseller, bookshop didn't exist except for an idea. I stopped working for the store right before it launched. I actually learned to code from doing a frontend redesign of my store's online store, which was offered by indie commerce. If done right, indie commerce can be a better deal for a bookstore because the store gets the full cut and just pays indie commerce a monthly subscription (at least when I was there, i think i've seen news of them changing their model or at least raising their subscription price). With indiecommerce, the store acts as a distributor (mostly, when the book is in stock at the store). Whereas bookshop doesn't use the bookstore's physical inventory, and instead ships directly from ingram (the monopolistic book distributor) and gives the bookstore a cut like an affiliate.
Bookshop is not a bad deal for a smaller store without a lot of resources or staff, but it doesn't always let an indie do what an indie does best: sell some of their unique physical inventory, like signed or rare or small press books that aren't distributed by ingram.