Amazon given 'partial victory' against France's €3 book delivery charge law

The French Books Mediator has granted Amazon a partial victory in its bid to deliver books free of charge in France.

The Mediator, Jean-Philippe Mochon, said in an opinion that the law allowing free deliveries, aimed initially at click and collect from bookshops, can apply under strict conditions to all online retailers, but not to free deliveries to lockers.

These are self-service delivery points and should not be confused with the store in which they are located. Moreover, most are situated in shopping malls “under the same roof, but not inside the store selling books”.

But free deliveries to checkouts or customer reception counters in stores selling books “would seem to comply with the law”, as long as online retailers can show they respect these conditions, the opinion said. This appears to be the case with Amazon, it added.

The 2021 Darcos law imposed a minimum fee of €3 for all book deliveries of up to €35 euros and €0.01 from then on, but exempted orders retrieved in shops selling books.

When Amazon announced last November that it would start free deliveries to more than 2,500 pickup points in shops selling books across France, indies and cultural product chains immediately alleged that it was flouting the latest law.

The Mediator’s distinction between lockers and shop counters has no real basis in law, an Amazon spokesperson said in an email. Most pick-up points for free delivery are counters and reception desks, they added. The Mediator’s opinion appears premature and incomplete, particularly since the Darcos law is being contested before the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

The French Booksellers Association (Syndicat de la Librairie Française, SLF) welcomed the opinion. “We think there is a legal loophole,” SLF director Guillaume Husson told Agence France Presse. “With the government and parliament, we must return to the spirit of the law.”

Even so, the Darcos law has had its desired effect. Figures published on 5th February show that a year after the law took effect, bricks-and-mortar book retailers’ market share had risen more than 3 percentage points, the Mediator noted.The main beneficiaries were small indies, especially those in smaller towns and large villages. Their online sales have also risen, some 10% over the year.

Reacting to these claims, the Amazon spokesperson said it was surprising that the measure on mandatory shipping fees should be considered satisfactory, when data from the market research firm GfK shows that reading is declining sharply. Concerns over purchasing power also linger, which means that promoting books and reducing the cost of accessing them should be a shared priority by all concerned, the spokesperson added.