Gee shucks, thanks for the mention.
I wouldn't begrudge any potential purchaser taking advantage of a stonkingly good offer on what will be, I think, a brilliant book. I suggested to Howard Sprenger some months ago that he contact David about his parcels stock pictures as I knew that it would be a very strong and popular subject.
I'm glad he acted upon my suggestion.
For the record, this price variation situation is the result of Amazon effectively demanding maximum discount from Littlehampton Book Supplies, acting on behalf of Ian Allan who are for the moment a trade supplier of Kestrel books on terms agreed between those two parties (Ian Allan and Kestrel). This may effectively take place through the medium of a third party book wholesaler (Bertrams and/or Gardners) who are the two main suppliers to the UK book trade.
Amazon then choose to "promote" certain books based upon whatever criteria they use and will as a result in some instances (such as this one) sell a book at a thin margin, even upon the advantageous price they have negotiated. Over time the Amazon price for the book will vary (go up and back down again etc) depending upon other criteria that they have devised.
Kestrel books would not choose to give this maximum discount to Amazon and Kestrel Books find this situation exasperating, not just because it potentially diverts sales away from "proper" booksellers but because they actually receive a less money for each book sold in this way than they would for a book sold at its retail price through any other retailer or channel.
Talking to Ian Allan at Warley on this subject in relation to their own titles (which Amazon also heavily discount), I was informed that they have no control in the matter and that Amazon are free to sell their products at whatever price they choose.
In my neck of the woods it means that I stock as little of Ian Allan's range as possible, as to do otherwise would be commercially suicidal.
Ian Allan could of course change the terms they offer the third parties involved in the Amazon supply chain, ie reduce the discount and therefore reduce the scope for the above price anomalies, but they feel unable to do this, no doubt because by now Amazon are a major seller of their (Ian Allan's ) books and they would fear a "reprisal"
My argument would be (and was to Ian Allan in my conversation) that they are supplying specialist products and that unless they take some action then their control of their business will only weaken and their reputation suffer accordingly amongst specialist markets. I personally think Amazon would list the books without the low prices anyway, whatever they threatened or said in any discussion. It's called negotiation and you need balls to play the game properly, Amazon appear to have very big ones. (Balls)
The general book trade may well be a whole different kettle of fish and to be fair to Ian Allan their involvement in the more general book trade probably makes telling Amazon to "shape up" a whole lot more difficult than it ought to be.
Interestingly, in France Amazon have very much less scope for this sort of behaviour owing to governmental influence.
So, any of you guys out there work for Astra Zenica?
Sorry, that was a bit political
Simon
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