As a survey reveals that almost 60 per cent of shoppers are less likely to buy from Amazon, following revelations about its tax affairs, Jon Stock salutes the vocational bookseller.
Boxing clever: The Bookseller's
Assocation is taking the fight to Amazon Photo:
Alamy
There are few things that get the nation’s goat more than big companies
avoiding tax. The schemes may be perfectly legal, but we hate it when the likes
of Starbuck’s, Google and Amazon have small tax bills.
Starbuck’s appears to have taken note of public opinion. Grilled by the
Public Accounts Committee in May, the coffee company has just paid £5m in
corporation tax, after it was revealed that it had only paid £8.5m since its
launch in 1998 (despite UK sales of £3bn). It was rightly concerned that people
were buying their lattes elsewhere.
But what of Amazon? To date, it has resisted calls to pay any more tax,
arguing that it is operating entirely within the law. Amazon’s UK operation
generated £4.2bn of sales in 2012, but it used a subsidiary in Luxembourg to
help it reduce its corporation tax bill in this country to just £2.4m.
And the reason Amazon is holding firm is that the British public continue to
buy books from its UK website. We may like to grouch about Amazon’s tax
arrangements, but we like even more the price of its books. Personal promises to
buy from the high street rather than online tend to be broken the moment a
ridiculously good deal – £3.85 for Hilary Mantel’s Bring up the Bodies (rrp
£9.99), for example – drops into our inbox. In other words, we only have
ourselves to blame.
That, though, might all be about to change.
In a survey to mark Independent Booksellers’ Week, which began on Saturday,
almost 60 per cent of shoppers said that they were less likely to buy books
online, following the recent revelations about Amazon’s tax affairs.
The survey was commissioned by The Booksellers Association, which has decided to carry the fight to Amazon. “It’s a critical moment,” according to Patrick Neale, the Association’s President, who senses that the public just needs a little more encouragement to engage in a proper and effective boycott of the retailer.
Neale, who co-owns the Jaffé & Neale Bookshop & Café in Chipping Norton, is well aware that a visit to a physical bookshop is something that Amazon can never offer. But we’ve always known that and still we buy online. Now, though, he has gone one step further, making it a battle about booksellers themselves, not just their shops. This has become a fight between David and Goliath, humble shopkeeper versus capitalist behemoth. And we British love nothing better than supporting the underdog.
“Booksellers are not greedy people,” Neale says. “They don’t need a lot of money. It’s a vocation, a calling to help people find great books. I don’t need a Porsche. I just need enough money to feed my wife and children.”
His words are a timely reminder that selling books is indeed vocational, a laudable calling that can’t be entirely governed by bottom lines and spreadsheets. And it’s a career that's in real danger of being lost to the nation for ever. No one is saying that we can't buy some of our books from Amazon, we just need to buy a few more from our local bookshop. It's a strategy that has worked well in America.
For this new approach to work, booksellers must make sure they are more welcoming and helpful than ever (some can still be a little grumpy or supercilious).They are not selling us cars but precious, sacred books, the best of which can be life-changing. Maybe if we all remember this, we might be less tempted by the next online deal and Amazon might be encouraged to pay more tax.
The survey was commissioned by The Booksellers Association, which has decided to carry the fight to Amazon. “It’s a critical moment,” according to Patrick Neale, the Association’s President, who senses that the public just needs a little more encouragement to engage in a proper and effective boycott of the retailer.
Neale, who co-owns the Jaffé & Neale Bookshop & Café in Chipping Norton, is well aware that a visit to a physical bookshop is something that Amazon can never offer. But we’ve always known that and still we buy online. Now, though, he has gone one step further, making it a battle about booksellers themselves, not just their shops. This has become a fight between David and Goliath, humble shopkeeper versus capitalist behemoth. And we British love nothing better than supporting the underdog.
“Booksellers are not greedy people,” Neale says. “They don’t need a lot of money. It’s a vocation, a calling to help people find great books. I don’t need a Porsche. I just need enough money to feed my wife and children.”
His words are a timely reminder that selling books is indeed vocational, a laudable calling that can’t be entirely governed by bottom lines and spreadsheets. And it’s a career that's in real danger of being lost to the nation for ever. No one is saying that we can't buy some of our books from Amazon, we just need to buy a few more from our local bookshop. It's a strategy that has worked well in America.
For this new approach to work, booksellers must make sure they are more welcoming and helpful than ever (some can still be a little grumpy or supercilious).They are not selling us cars but precious, sacred books, the best of which can be life-changing. Maybe if we all remember this, we might be less tempted by the next online deal and Amazon might be encouraged to pay more tax.
