Speaking Out

Recently, the AbeBooks site, which sells used and antiquarian (AKA expensive used) books as a subsidiary of Amazon, said it was going to cut off sales to five countries entirely: the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, South Korea and Russia. Although little information ever came out, the company said it had to do with payment processing.

That didn't sit well with about 600 booksellers in 27 countries, who pulled their inventories from the website for a couple of days to get their point across. They did, and it seems that AbeBooks will not drop those countries from their roles at the end of the month as previously planned.

Stories on the matter say that the real problem was a lack of transparency in the decision. Without a clear reason why those nations presented a problem for the company, other sellers felt that they had no protection against being suddenly and mysteriously dropped themselves.

We'll have to see what happens eventually, but this has been an interesting exercise in watching some purveyors of a more old-fashioned product guide the behavior of one of the most modern sectors of today's economy.