Bookselling Ireland are urging the government to introduce a culture voucher scheme to mitigate the impact of the retail giant
Hard on the heels of the changes to school books provision, which has already resulted in nine bookshops closing, comes the entry of Amazon into the Irish market with a fully-fledged .ie site and fulfilment centre.
There are fears of a hollowing out of the bookselling market in Ireland, with bookshops closing in towns and villages across the country as they struggle to compete with the multinational giant.
This comes at a time when bookshops are thriving in their communities, and showing support for each other like never before—as evidenced by the new crowd-funded Salmon Bookshop, and the words of one of their many champions, Kenny’s Bookshop “we’ll always have your back.”
“We live in a free market economy, and competition is a fact of life for any bookshop, or any other SME,” said Dawn Behan, Chair of Bookselling Ireland, “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.”
“Bookshops are so much more than places you can buy the latest bestseller. They’re community hubs and cultural venues, supporting Ireland’s writers and publishers and contributing massively to the Irish literary tradition.“—Dawn Behan, Chair of Bookselling Ireland
“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.
“Books were, famously, the first product carried by Amazon, and the bookselling markets in the UK and the US bear the scars of their impact over a quarter of a century. Bookshops are so much more than places you can buy the latest bestseller. They’re community hubs and cultural venues, supporting Ireland’s writers and publishers and contributing massively to the Irish literary tradition.”
“To mitigate the impact of the arrival of Amazon—and changes to school book supply—we are calling on the government to introduce a culture voucher scheme for young people, similar to those already in place in other European countries.”
These cultural vouchers are physical or digital cards—as well as mobile phone apps—that are granted to 15-18-year-olds with a fixed amount of money to be spent exclusively on cultural goods and activities for a limited amount of time.
“The cultural vouchers would have the twin benefits of not only broadening young people’s horizons by exposing them to in-person events and institutions they wouldn’t otherwise experience, but would also provide vital economic support to the bookshops that nurture the cultural output of Ireland.”
