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Message: <blockquote data-quote="barsoomcore" data-source="post: 2017269" data-attributes="member: 812">Well, you and maddman75 will have to fight it out, I guess:My understanding is that publishers sell to distributors at a discount, so that the distributors can make a profit while the retailers sell at cover price (or whatever sort of discount they can make off the distributor's price). The first problem for publishers wanting to get into direct sales is that they cannot offer retail or consumer buyers the same price they offer distributors, otherwise there's no upside for the distributors. So if the publisher does offer that price directly, distributors are going to be disinclined to put that publisher's books on their order forms.Obviously undercutting retailers is also a problem, but my logic tells me that you start undercutting distributors BEFORE you start undercutting retailers, since it is the price set by the distributor that has the most impact on the price the retailer can afford. And anyways, just because a company is dumping distributors doesn't mean they won't offer discounts to retailers. Retailers can still make out even if the distributors are getting cut out of the supply chain.The big problem with dumping distributors is then getting your products into stores. As BelenUmeria points out, most store managers are not going to take the time to look into the industry and select books from individual publishers. I'm not sure that it's crazy talk to think a store manager might do exactly that, but that seems to be BU's point.</blockquote>

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