[ZenPro]

Among Amazon’s tactics against Hachette, some of which it has been employing for months, are charging more for its books and suggesting that readers might enjoy instead a book from another author. If customers for some reason persist and buy a Hachette book anyway, Amazon is saying it will take weeks to deliver it.

^^ How is that a hit piece?

If the allegations are true it is disgraceful.

[pervycreeper]

>charging more for its books

Still less than the list price (set by the publisher).

>suggesting that readers might enjoy instead a book from another author

Don't they do this for every item?

[matwood]

Actually, the biggest item is changing availability. It is a book that is likely print on demand. Availability should always be 1-2 days tops. By moving the availability out weeks Amazon kills any purchase but the most determined buyer.

EDIT Also, if you read "The Everything Store", tactics like the above are common knowledge.

[cafard]

"Still less than the list price (set by the publisher)."

Amazon gets large discounts from publishers, in a case I know of larger than wholesalers or distributors get or got. It does not negotiate discounts so much as it enforces them.

[ZenPro]

Those points are irrelevant. You claimed the article is a hit piece.

>> In a statement provided to the Guardian, Hachette US said that while it is the publisher's "normal policy not to comment on negotiations under way with any retailer", it had been asked "legitimate questions about why many of our books are at present marked out of stock with relatively long estimated shipping times on the Amazon website, in contrast to immediate availability on other websites and in stores".

Hachette said that while it is "satisfying all Amazon's orders promptly, and notifying them constantly of forthcoming publicity events and of out-of-stock situations on their website", the retailer is nevertheless "holding minimal stock and restocking some of HBG's books slowly, causing 'available 2-4 weeks' messages, for reasons of their own".

Clearly it is not.

The online shopping site has a history of adopting tough tactics during negotiations with the books industry. In 2010, Amazon removed the "buy new" buttons from Macmillan titles as the duo wrangled over terms for the price of ebooks. In 2012, it clashed with independent publishers over terms and removed thousands of independently published ebooks from sale.