It was announced, it is now official.
Shipping costs on books, whether purchased on Amazon, on the Fnac website, Carrefour or from a bookstore, will increase to 3 euros for all orders under 35 euros, from 7 next October.
Announced by the government in September, this new tariff was ratified by a decree, signed by the Minister of Culture Rima Abdul-Malak and his colleague from the Economy Bruno Le Maire, and published in the Official Journal on
Friday
.
The executive still needed the approval of the European Commission for this unique device in the world, which it obtained in February.
For orders greater than or equal to 35 euros, the rate of shipping costs remains unchanged.
Or 0.01 euro, that in force since a previous law of 2014. The measure will take effect on October 7, the government decree specifying that the device “will
come into force six months after its publication
” on April 7.
This increase in the floor price is intended to encourage customers to go to bookstores rather than order online.
It thus attacks the distortion of competition which exists between the giants of e-commerce - which set the shipping costs at 1 euro cent - and the independent booksellers, to whom it costs an average of 6 euros in postage for the same shipment.
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A middle choice
After months of consultation with the various protagonists, the executive and Arcep (Regulatory Authority for Electronic Communications, Posts and Press Distribution) have made a choice of balance, between the 2 euros advocated by Fnac and the big brands and the 4.50 euros claimed by booksellers.
For its part, Amazon pleaded for a postal rate
“as low as possible
”, in order to “
limit (the) inflationary effects
” of this measure.
This median choice was justified by the executive, according to
Les Échos
, "
by taking into account inflation that is already high in France and by the fear that a higher rate will be rejected by the Council of
".
Last September, after the disclosure of the minimum amount of shipping costs chosen, booksellers expressed their disappointment.
“
Once again, the law will not achieve its objectives, since the level of loss of margins for bookstores which deliver, or would like to convert to delivery, remains too high
”, had lamented with Le
Figaro
Guillaume Husson, general delegate. of the Syndicat de la Librairie Française (SLF), which represents 600 bookstores of all sizes in the country.
France has a total of 3,500 independent bookstores, one of the densest networks in the world, which sell “
nearly one
in two
books
”.
