Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

How does it differ from previous IndieBound efforts?



The indiebound site now directs people to bookshop.org for purchases. Previously, it would direct you to an individual bookseller's website which may or may not have had online ordering available.

Update: The changeover to bookstore.org has been postponed to June 1st to direct as much traffic to individual bookstores' websites as possible.


I can see why they went this way, but this change does seem to be in one sense admitting defeat vs. the Amazon model. The new Bookshop model is basically the Amazon model as far as sales and fulfillment goes: centralized online ordering, with centralized fulfillment from warehouses directly to consumers, bypassing retail. The main difference from Amazon is that they hope to sell at higher prices, producing a surplus from the online sales business that can be distributed to indie bookstores, which they can use to cross-subsidize their brick-and-mortar business. But unlike the previous Indiebound model, the indie bookstores involved in Bookshop no longer actually touch the books at any point in the sales/fulfillment process.


Sounds like it is a lot more like what AbeBooks used to be then. (Before Amazon bought and gutted AbeBooks.)




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: