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Bookselling Ireland has criticised plans to launch a dedicated Amazon store in Ireland, and is calling on the government to “think intelligently about what this is likely to mean for booksellers and other small businesses”.
Amazon.ie is scheduled to launch in 2025, it was announced last week (May 9th). Featuring over 100 million products, this follows the launch of Amazon’s first fulfilment centre in Dublin in 2022.
John Boumphrey, Ireland & UK country manager at Amazon, said the opening "will bring a wide selection of great value products with fast delivery to Irish customers, as well as provide great opportunities for small and medium-sized Irish businesses to reach a bigger audience at home and abroad”.
In a statement released today (15th May), Bookselling Ireland has expressed concerns about the store’s potential impact on Irish bookshops. Dawn Behan, chair of Bookselling Ireland, commented: “We live in a free market economy, and competition is a fact of life for any bookshop, or any other SME – but Amazon is something of an unstoppable juggernaut, and we are again asking government to think intelligently about what this is likely to mean for booksellers and other small businesses – and to consolidate and increase the supports for SMEs across government. Amazon’s arrival in markets has been shown to distort those markets, and Ireland is unlikely to be any different.
“We are very sceptical of the notion that somehow Amazon benefits SMEs — market investigations in the US, the UK and across Europe have comprehensively demonstrated that the opposite is true. Amazon has been forced to change its practices on its Marketplace platform by regulators in the US and in other EU countries due to the inconsistent and unfair ways it treats sellers. The US Federal Trade Commission is currently suing Amazon for illegal competition conduct. It seems unlikely that Amazon won’t carry out that same behaviour in Ireland.”
Meryl Halls, managing director of the Booksellers Association, added: “For over 25 years the Booksellers Association has fought to highlight the many benefits of local bricks and mortar bookshops in the UK in the face of Amazon’s dominance in that market. We will fight equally hard for our members in Ireland to ensure that Irish consumers don’t lose access to the fantastic cultural and community spaces bookshops provide. From experience, Amazon’s dubious track record on many issues, including the treatment of SMEs using its Marketplace platform, leads us to urge ministers to be cautious in celebrating the arrival of its .ie domain.”
Bookselling Ireland, which represents booksellers throughout the country, is calling on the government to mitigate the impact of Amazon.ie by introducing a “culture voucher” scheme for young people. Behan said: “This will have the twin benefit of not only broadening young people’s horizons by exposing them to in-person events and institutions they wouldn’t otherwise experience, but also provides vital economic support to the bookshops that nurture the cultural output of Ireland.”
An Amazon spokesperson said: “The launch of a dedicated Amazon.ie store in Ireland will provide great opportunities for small and medium sized Irish businesses, including booksellers, to reach customers both at home and abroad.
“Small and medium-sized businesses that sell everything from books to groceries account for more than half of all physical product sales on Amazon, and many sell their products in shops, as well as online.
“Over 1,000 small and medium sized Irish businesses already sell on Amazon, generated over €150 million in export sales in 2022 alone, and we look forward to welcoming more local businesses of all sizes, including booksellers, when we launch.”