Amazon returns pre-order ‘buy’ buttons after 48-hour hiatus

Amazon’s “buy" pre-order buttons have been returned for upcoming titles, after being removed from not-yet-published books for two days last week to prioritise stocking other high-demand items during the coronavirus pandemic.

In what was a blow to authors and publishers, forthcoming books were from Thursday to Friday last week listed by the online retailer as "currently unavailable" in hardback, with an Amazon spokesperson saying it was "temporarily prioritising household staples, medical supplies and other high-demand products".

"We are seeing increased online shopping and as a result some products such as household staples and medical supplies are out of stock. With this in mind, we are temporarily prioritising household staples, medical supplies and other high-demand products coming into our fulfilment centres so we can more quickly receive, restock and ship these products to customers," the spokesperson told The Bookseller. “We understand this is a change for our selling partners and appreciate their understanding as we temporarily prioritise these products for customers."

Uncertain how long it would take to reinstate the "buy" button, with representatives from the online retailers unable to give a timeframe whether it would be hours or months, many publishers were left in the dark about what this could mean for some of their biggest books and their business at large. One publisher, who preferred to remain anonymous, said finding pre-order functionality had been removed from forthcoming titles had come as “a shock” and they had feared, as a result, that many pre-order campaigns would be rendered "pointless".

"When we contacted the Books team at Amazon [on Thursday] they were just as shocked and obviously hadn't been warned it was happening,” the publisher said.

Will Atkinson, m.d. of Atlantic, said that although he could see the situation was "really hard" for publishers ‚Äì some of whom had already lost out on supermarket pre-orders ‚Äì he appreciated Amazon's position. “Clearly they don't want to promise what they can't deliver so that's why they took the 'buy' buttons off ... if all of a sudden they have to move 250 billion toilet rolls they're going to do that before our lovely Atlantic books. I can understand why they've done it. They have extreme logistical expertise and extreme logical challenges. And clearly they're going to be pretty important to us for the next few weeks or few months."

The return of the "buy" buttons will be a relief to publishers; nevertheless the move has left some bad feeling. One publisher told The Bookseller: "There has been absolutely no communication from Amazon at all, even since the buy buttons have been put back. It's extremely unhelpful to not act as a partner in these extraordinary circumstances. We have no idea why the buttons were taken down, nor why they were reinstated. We have very little confidence in them going forward."