Before the beginning of 618 this year, two "joint statement notification letters" issued by the publishing industry were circulated on the Internet. Two notification letters were issued by 8 publishing houses in Beijing and the Shanghai Publishing Management Association on behalf of 46 publishing units in Shanghai, declaring that they will not participate in the 618 promotion plan proposed by Jiangsu Yuanzhou E-commerce Co., Ltd.
Jiangsu Yuanzhou E-commerce Co., Ltd. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of JD.com, responsible for operating the book business. The promotion plan proposes to offer a 20% -30% discount on the price of all types of books for a total of 8 days during the 618 period.
"We do not support JD's unreasonable demands, which are unilateral actions that disrupt the market. The unprecedented e-commerce monopoly is very harmful to the healthy development of the book market," an industry insider told The Paper.
Beijing Eight Society Joint Statement
Joint Statement of Shanghai Publishing House Management Association
The reason why JD's promotion has sparked a rebound from the publishing house is because it unilaterally set extremely low sales discounts. The industry insiders mentioned above stated that the pricing of books in general publishing houses has a fixed calculation formula, with a 30% discount being the bottom line of cost. Some books with fewer prints have even higher costs. A 20% -30% discount on all types of books means that publishers have to sell books at cost or even at a loss. In addition to the cost of books, publishing houses also have labor costs and operating costs, all of which need to be borne by the publishing house. "The platform's unilateral request for publishers to participate in such promotions under the pretext of channel optimization is a disruptive behavior towards the book market."
A staff member from a publishing house also stated that generally speaking, publishing houses have a certain degree of autonomy in participating in e-commerce activities, and can choose to participate in promotional activities for some books, which can to some extent ensure that the overall sales discount is reasonable. However, this time the platform forced all types of books to participate in a 20% -30% discount promotion, which the publishing house found difficult to accept. "This is treating books as a traffic entry point, sacrificing the profits of the entire book industry."
The rise of e-commerce has normalized book discounts. During important events such as "Double Eleven", "618", and "423", after adding various consumption vouchers, consumers can often buy books at a 40% discount or even lower than the original price. The extremely low discount greatly compressed the profit space, but also brought huge exposure to books, making the publishing house "love hate intertwined" for Internet promotion.
The reporter from Pengpai News noticed that as early as 2013, the eight major publishing houses in Beijing issued a joint statement to boycott "reverse price sales" on e-commerce platforms. Reverse selling refers to the act of a platform dumping books at a price lower than the purchase price. At that time, after the full discount on JD.com, the price of books purchased by consumers was even lower than the supply price from publishers to distributors.
After the rise of live book sales, publishing houses are facing new challenges of low prices. "1 yuan book" and "blind box book" frequently appear. In 2021, Big V Liu Yuanyuan achieved nearly 80 million yuan in sales through a 16 hour book live broadcast, causing industry shock. In the live broadcast, "500000 copies of books are priced below 10 yuan", and there are also "100000 copies of books priced at 1 yuan", with prices that are "cheaper than piracy and pulp". This approach of breaking through the industry's price bottom line is highly controversial.
The price war between e-commerce platforms and anchors for books has put enormous pressure on the traditional publishing industry. Industry insiders believe that books are not simple commodities, but carry knowledge, culture, and emotions. Blindly "rolling" prices, the creative enthusiasm of the book industry, and the pursuit of high-quality content output will all suffer serious damage. How to maintain a healthy ecosystem in the book publishing industry is a challenge faced by the entire industry.