24 December 2021

FRANCE CONFIRMS MINIMUM HOME DELIVERY FEE FOR BOOKS

The French parliament has adopted a law to ban virtually free home deliveries of books in an attempt to boost the fortunes of independent book sellers curb the reach of Amazon and other online booksellers.

A 2014 law specified that online retailers could not offer free book delivery on top of the maximum 5% discount allowed on new book prices under the 1981 Lang Law, but Amazon got around that by charging one centime (less than 1p) for deliveries. Meanwhile it costs regular bookstores €7 on average to fulfill an order, according to the Syndicat de la Librairie Française (SLF) federation of bookshop owners.

Once the bill has passed into law, it will be up to the Culture and Economy ministries to set the minimum delivery price, along with the Autorité de Régulation des Communications Électroniques et des Postes regulator. The amount has not yet been decided, but the SLF has argued in favour of €3 to €5.