Retailers in book price war try to prevent a run on popular titles |
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Retailers in book price war try to prevent a run on popular titles
Credit: Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Wal-Mart and Target have engaged in a price war over popular books. Now they're telling customers: Don't buy too many. The retailers are limiting online orders of the books to between two and five copies, trying to prevent other booksellers from buying truckloads of the heavily discounted titles and reselling them.
Wal-Mart caps the books at two per order, Amazon has a three-copy limit, and Target draws the line at five, the Wall Street Journal reports. The retailers are selling the books — including Stephen King's "Under the Dome" and Sarah Palin's memoir "Going Rogue" — for $9 (or slightly less), far below list price and cheaper than what many smaller booksellers would pay for them at wholesale.
The book price war has ruffled feathers in the publishing industry and foreshadowed larger ecommerce battles to come between the three big retailers. A group representing independent booksellers has also called on the Justice Department to investigate Amazon, Wal-Mart and Target for "predatory" book pricing.
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