Slashdot Mirror
eBay Urges Rethink On EU Plan's "Brick and Mortar" Vendor Requirement
mernil writes with this snippet from Reuters: "According to a draft regulation drawn up by the European Commission and seen by Reuters, suppliers may be allowed to require that distributors have a 'brick-and-mortar' shop before they can sell online. The proposed rules would replace existing guidelines exempting companies from strict EU competition rules under certain circumstances. Those rules expire at the end of May."
Living in a EU country and while lately I've been happy with EU's decisions, this is just bullshit. Not just because of eBay, but because there are several online stores in my country too that only have a website and warehouse. This includes the online stores that sell at lower price than you can find in stores and specialized stores like funny items and hot spices, hot sauces and specialized stores that import oversears and sell here.
Some of the items you can't just on normal stores. This is bullshit.
This is one of the dumbest ideas I've heard out of a politico in a long, long time.
There is a war going on for your mind.
From the article
Brand owners - often in the high-end or luxury segment - say the provision is necessary to stop so-called free riders, competitors who benefit from promotions carried out by brand name companies, shifting stock online on the back of advertising of a brand's products and services.
Because "free riders" do not have to pay for the costs of a shop and related overheads, they can frequently offer brand-name products over the Internet at discounted prices.
"The purpose of a brick-and-mortar shop provision is to help retailers invest in luxury shops," said Antoine Winkler, a partner at law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton who represents several brand name companies.
I'm slightly confused. Are they doing this to help the brick-and-mortar stores? Are they doing this to help the brands? I'm confused. It sounds like they are trying to take down low-overhead companies because they are too efficient. Does anyone know why this would be a good idea?
of course its anticompetitive bullshit, i guess department stores are adapting music industry tactics, complete with buying off legislators
but it would be pretty neat to have an "eBay" showroom
ebay could pick the wackiest shit: jesus on toast, my 7 year old's baby teeth, this obscene and bizarre plastic thing i bought in bangkok 3 years ago, etc., and put it on prominent display, like million dollar art work. purposefully play off a contrived vibe of reverence and awe, for really crappy mundane shit. it could be funny
then you can only buy certain stuff at say, 11 am sharp
and during checkout, if the guy behind you gives the clerk 10 cents more than your price while you are still reaching for your cash, he gets it instead
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Going to the Newegg store, where it's a warehouse with a couple of cashiers in the front. The employees aren't there to help you they are there to get stuff to shipping. I'd wander around there for hours.
People have been ducking sales tax in the US by buying online because you generally have to have a physical presence in a state to be required to remit sales tax. I say people, and not businesses/web vendors, since most states have a "use tax" which applies to anything purchased out of state and used within the state, and very few people ever pay the use tax since there is no reporting.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I am living in the EU, and I think the EU should maybe start by having a real government before to be so quick on judging on other matters, it feels much like the EU is a group of country trying to chase their lost empire in the 19th century or so ...
The EU government seems to think that they are the most important in the world while neither China or the US care about them as Obama showed recently.
Don't you know it is now both immoral and criminal to think beyond the next quarterly report?
This'll be great for webspace providers and discussion boards like Slashdot. I'd love to go to a brick and mortar store for these things. They could have them hanging like gift cards. "Yes, two websites please, a first post, three replies, and two +1 Funny moderations please. How much?"... "Yeah, paper is fine."
You just ran a significant percentage of the people this law is already aimed at straight out of business. Many people that sell online do it in their spare time often because they just enjoy it. Not a whole lot of money is made. Certainly not enough to pay rent even in the dinkiest hole in the wall and actually pay somebody to stand around in it all day.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
security guards would not allow you to leave the eBay showroom until you shout "A++++ WOULD BUY FROM AGAIN!!!"
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I work in eCommerce, in particular the high end AV and home electricals' market. "Premium" brands have been penalising eCommerce only ventures for a number of years now. It can be as simple as giving traditional retailers better retro (% of turn over paid back once a year) and has harsh as limited stock. The same goes on in online photography. To be clear, we're not an online only brand, we have a number of high street stores with decent turnover. Now, the manufacturers are getting even tougher. The amount of premium brands we've had to take off our website in the past 6 months to keep our decent terms for the traditional is shocking. These weren't small accounts either, they run into 7 figures of the UKs finest GBP. Why? The brands think by selling online you're selling on price (which is largely true thanks to sites like pricegrabber, pricerunner, kelkoo etc) and this devalues their brand. How they control the market is nothing short of cartel like, but it's not going to change, only get worse if this law comes into effect. FWIW, even as someone who is struggling to do online business thanks to these they do have a point. Pure, price comparison based online shopping will eventually leave us with very few trained product experts or the ability to see products in the "flesh" before buying online. A balance needs to be found.
1) Clever Sig 2) ????? 3) Profit!
I like this requirement. I think they should also require that all brick-and-mortar stores have an online store that sells everything they have in the brick-and-mortar store, and always be up to date.
I guess you've never worked in retail, nor understand quite how retail works.
/. (they do exist)) generally want advice, the unwashed masses aren't supergeeks like we are. Bricks and Mortar stores allow customers to compare ranges of products in the flesh and speak to a real person who has likely had years of training and experience.
Do you not sell on price alone. If this were the case the world would be full of geeks running e-stores out of bedrooms which allow for the lowest overheads thus the smallest margin.
Customers (outside of
We've got to a situation now where these stores are browsed at the weekends, the customer uses the shops expertise, nice warm displays etc then the first thing they do when they get to work on a monday is buy it online. This is obviously not a sustainable model for retail, which a large percentage of our economy is based on.
Further to counter you point, even the online PRICE COMPARISON engines have been moving away from purely PRICE listings. They all have an element of customer service reviews, and now most of them recommend a "smart choice" which is the cheapest of the retailers with x% positive feedback. As you might have guessed, the retailers operating on the smallest margins are often those who don't provide the service, so this recommended retailer isn't always the cheapest.
1) Clever Sig 2) ????? 3) Profit!