Local Bookstores Have A New Weapon In The Fight With Amazon | Editors' Picks - Forbes

In the book industry, Amazon is Goliath, the giant who overshadows everyone else. But there’s a new David on the scene, Bookshop.org.

Andy Hunter founded Bookshop.org, to give "socially conscious" online shoppers a way to support local bookstores, and to create an alternative to those Amazon "buy now" affiliate links.
Photo: Idris Solomon

It doesn’t expect to topple the giant, but it has launched a weapon that could make Amazon’s shadow a little smaller, and help local bookstores fight back.

Bookshop.org, a website that went live at the end of January and is still in beta mode, is designed to be an alternative to Amazon, and to generate income for independent bookstores. And, perhaps more importantly, it seeks to give book reviewers, bloggers and publications who rely on affiliate income from “Buy now” links to Amazon a different option.

Profit from books sold through Bookshop will be split three ways, with 10% of the sale price going into a pool that will be divided among participating bookstores, 10% going to the publication that triggered the sale by linking to Bookshop.org, and 10% going to Bookshop.org to support its operations...

Consumers often don’t realize that Amazon’s affiliate program is a key factor driving sales to the e-commerce giant, Hunter said. Newspaper websites and online publications that write about books embed Amazon “buy now” links to the books mentioned in their stories and get money when the link leads to a sale.

The Amazon affiliate links have become an important revenue source for those publications, but “it has the effect of creating a giant funnel that’s shoving every book buyer into the Amazon channel,” Hunter said.

He believes publications and writers will welcome the opportunity to link to an online site that supports independent bookstores. “Even if they like Amazon, they don’t necessarily want Amazon to put all of the bookstores out of business,” he said.
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Source: Forbes