The French government has announced that it will introduce a minimum charge for book delivery orders under €35. This minimum charge of €3 will help small independent booksellers.
ADVERTISEMENTAhead of today's presentation of the French 2023 Budget to the Council of Ministers - the first for the Macron government’s since the loss of its overall parliamentary majority - the French government has announced that it will introduce a minimum charge for book delivery orders under €35.
This minimum charge of €3 will help small independent booksellers struggling to compete with Amazon and other giant online retailers.
“This will adapt the book industry to the digital era by restoring an equilibrium between large e-commerce platforms, which offer virtually free delivery for books, whatever the order size. Bookstores cannot match these delivery prices,” said France’s Culture and Finance ministries in a joint statement.
“The €3 delivery fee is not dissuasive for book buyers and the €35 threshold will favour grouped orders, which is virtuous in environmental terms.”
On its website, France’s culture ministry describes the book market as “the first of the cultural industries” and says small, local shops are particularly important to the industry.
A report delivered to the French Senate last year notes that both Amazon and Fanc account for 80 percent of online book sales in France, and that the dominant position of these companies allows them to offer free deliveries, thereby undercutting rivals.
The country is estimated to have some 3,500 independent bookshops.
Another chapter…
This isn’t the first time that measures have been adopted by the French government to level the playing field.
Since 1981, France has mandated fixed prices for books, with a maximum discount of 5 percent, and in 2010 expanded this law to cover ebooks.
In 2014, the French government introduced a law which prohibits free book deliveries, but Amazon and other vendors such as Fnac responded by charging a token 1 cent per delivery. Local book stores typically charge up to €7 for shipping a book.
Legislation was passed in December 2021 to close the one-cent loophole through a minimum delivery fee, but the law could not take effect until the government had decided on the size of that fee.
Pandemic aid
During the pandemic, the French government introduced cover for independent bookstore shipping costs to encourage distance selling.
Then ministers of the Economy and Culture, Bruno Le Maire and Roselyne Bachelot, announced in November 2020 a mechanism to help booksellers to continue their activity through online sales. The State bore the costs of sending books during the confinement period, allowing booksellers to charge their customers only the shipping costs at the legal minimum rate of €0.01.
Bruno Le Maire said that the government was “fully mobilized to support local businesses affected by the crisis” and that the new device allows “independent booksellers to develop their remote sales activity without any difference in delivery cost with major digital platforms.”
Bachelot stated at the time that by covering shipping costs, “the State is once again standing by the bookstores, restoring fair competition and promoting their distance sales.”
What next?
According to Reuters, France now needs to notify the EU of its plans and can introduce the minimum fee six months after the European Commission approves them.
French bookstores association SLF (Syndicat de la librairie française) released a statement on Friday 23 September saying that the €3 fee was insufficient, as it means bookstores will still sell at a loss when expediting books to customers. SLF called on the government to lower French post office fees for shipping books.
The French government presents its budget today, Monday 26 September.
