Setting aside the fact that we've had two years of covid with months of curfew and lockdown that has absolutely murdered bookstores (but not Amazon), the real reason is simple: Amazon has a massive delivery network and allows for browsing online. Why do they? Because they have the money and the time to keep their stocks updated, and the scale to send out full trucks of packages to subsidise the delivery. Why don't small bookstores do ? Because they're single/dual employee places that do not have the time to keep a website updated, and cannot afford to send out a bike for delivery of a 10€ book.
This is not Amazon being "better". This is Amazon being naturally advantaged by being massive. There's no being rewarded by the market, simply being crushed by the billions of dollars of your competitor.
And if we're going to speak of laziness, Amazon is certainly a lazier company than any of the book stores I've been to.
Did any of those advantages exist before Amazon was massive? Or did Amazon become massive because it was providing better service?
Online ordering is complicated for Amazon because Amazon is massive. It is not that complicated for small bookstores, who absolutely are using computerized inventory (at least every small bookstore I’ve ever been to has). Even if online ordering isn’t an option, “call your friendly bookstore employee to order” is an option. That’s what I mean by not being lazy - you can jump to excuses and asking the government to help, or you can come up with creative solutions to serve your customers.
Speaking of COVID, there actually are strong parallels. At the start of the pandemic, a bunch of restaurants just gave up and closed - they didn’t even attempt to find creative solutions. Other restaurants - presumably the ones with less lazy and/or stuck-in-their-ways owners - came up with creative solutions. They did takeout. They made stay-at-home craft projects to foster community over social media. They offered cooking classes with local meal kit delivery. They adapted their restaurants to facilitate delivery and takeout. Several restaurants actually ended up with larger, more prosperous businesses.
Also: it may strain your imagination, but Amazon was large and successful _before_ they had a delivery network. And they continued to grow because they provided better service, even when they were dependent on UPS and USPS. French booksellers (and all booksellers) could have chosen to improve their service in the face of competition for the years it took Amazon to create a delivery network.
At least in the US (maybe the French could copy if it doesn’t work like this) local shipping via post is actually very fast; very likely within two days if it doesn’t need to go to a distribution center. Amazon has to build thousands of warehouses to take advantage of that; grandpa’s local bookseller can naturally take advantage of that geographic locality to customers. Or they could team up with other booksellers and form a shipping alliance/partnership (this also exists among US local bookstores). Shoprunner exists. There are creative solutions beyond just giving up and asking the government to make books more expensive for everyone.
Local booksellers (the good ones, anyway) are doing fine in the US, even post-COVID. So I don’t really know why you’re making excuses for them. The French people deserve to get great service from their local booksellers.
Physical bookstores have their own charm and it would be a shame to lose them just because it's cheaper and more convenient to order online.
Running a large online store is hard! Harder than running a small local business. Amazon.com has a giant fraud target painted on its back. Local stores can make a strong case for being more ethical and for shopping local. I would think, given the position of labor in French society, that it would be easy to get people to choose local if it is even somewhat close in terms of price and service.
The fake stuff on Amazon is a great case for skipping them entirely. The fact that (apparently) the government thinks that local booksellers cannot compete with a fraud/scam-riddled, employee-abusing marketplace is a giant red flag. Being a victim of fraud, and having to worry about fraud, is actually very inconvenient IMO.
I shop local when local means better service, better quality, locally-sourced ingredients, a better browsing experience (especially applicable to books), or really any other advantage. The bar for not buying online is on the floor; the only people to blame for small business not clearing that bar are small business owners.
It seems obvious but nobody ever calls that behavior what it is, along with "cultural protection" which is really an attempt to treat the choices of others like your own property in what would be called overwhelming arrogance in most other contexts.
Some level of protectionism is very beneficial for a country.
Another way of phrasing that: France’s local book sellers are so bad at serving their customers that an American company that’s existed less than 30 years can totally undercut them, despite the local sellers’ massive advantage in understanding their local communities and culture.
I don’t know why folks are so willing to jump to protect small businesses that don’t do a good job. Local is fundamentally a good place to be. Local is an advantage. (Amazon knows this; see how they’re using Whole Foods to create a local presence and _improve_ their service). Large businesses got to be large because they were better at serving their customers than the small businesses.
My personal experience is that the small businesses are just worse at providing consistent, friendly, high quality service. They are rewarded by the market accordingly.
Government protection for heritage is maybe ok, but protecting lazy, self-entitled business owners from competitive market forces is not. If there’s really a problem with shipping costs that they desperately need to fix, they can just make postage cheaper for books, similar to the USPS media mail program.