Amazon fines publishers for late deliveries

25 May 2015 Books+Publishing

In the UK, Amazon has started fining publishers for late deliveries of books to its warehouses, reports the Bookseller. The retailer has sent a letter to suppliers warning that if they do not hit delivery targets they will be charged between 3-10% of the cost of undelivered books. According to the Bookseller, Amazon will charge publishers 3% of the cost of undelivered books if fewer than 90% of titles arrive at the warehouse or are ready for pick-up by the allotted time. Amazon will also charge publishers 10% of the cost of undelivered books if fewer than 95% of ‘confirmed or back-ordered’ titles per month are not delivered before Amazon’s system automatically cancels the items. Publishers have described the new penalties as ‘very rough’ and ‘draconian’, with one distributor commenting that ‘these targets will be hard to meet when a publisher has to import books from America, for example’. In response, Amazon told the Bookseller that it was ‘working hard every day to improve our operational efficiency so that we can continue to offer a better level of service to customers’.

Category: International news