56 publishers issued a joint statement: refusing to participate in the JD 618 book promotion

CBN

2024-05-21 14:27Published on the official account of Shanghai Yicai

Recently, two "joint statement notification letters" from the publishing industry have been circulating on the Internet, which has aroused public attention.

The two statements were issued by 10 publishing houses in Beijing and 46 publishing units in Shanghai represented by the Shanghai Publishing Management Association. The notification letter mentioned that in response to the 618 promotional activity plan proposed by Jiangsu Yuanzhou E-commerce Co., Ltd., that is, "all kinds of books are guaranteed to receive 20-30% off (20% to 30% discount) to participate in the promotional activities for a total of 8 days from May 19 to June 20", the publishing house does not participate in and does not bear any rebate costs incurred during the activity.

Tianyancha shows that the legal representative of "Jiangsu Yuanzhou E-commerce Co., Ltd." is Yao Yanzhong, who is currently the senior vice president of Jingdong Group and the president of Jingdong's retail supermarket division. In addition, 45% of the company's shares are held by Miao Qin, who is currently a vice president of JD.com.

As of press time, JD.com did not respond to the above news.

In the "Joint Statement Notification Letter" issued by 10 publishing institutions in Beijing, it was mentioned that "for the 618 promotional activity plan proposed by your company (Jiangsu Yuanzhou E-commerce Co., Ltd.), after careful consideration, our ten publishing houses have decided not to participate in this interaction, and will not bear any rebate costs incurred during the event." At the same time, the statement said, "In order to maintain the long-term healthy development of the market, we believe that this is a necessary measure." ”

The customer service of the official flagship store of Jingdong Tsinghua University Press told Yicai that after verification with the back-end responsible teacher, the joint statement notification letter to Jiangsu Yuanzhou E-commerce Co., Ltd. was true, and said that the official flagship store of Tsinghua University Press had not participated in JD.com's 618 activities before.

In addition, on the evening of May 20, Century Wenjing Company, a subsidiary of Shanghai People's Publishing House, also released a joint statement of 46 publishing houses on the official account of Xiaohongshu, saying, "From the perspective of maintaining the stability and prosperity of the book market, opposing disorderly competition, and the strong appeal of various publishing houses in Shanghai, I will solemnly declare on behalf of the 46 publishing units in Shanghai that I will not participate in the 618 promotional activities unilaterally proposed by your unit." ”

Jiangsu Yuanzhou E-commerce Co., Ltd., mentioned in the notification letter, was established in 2010. Tianyancha shows that the company's registered capital is 22 million yuan. The Company's business scope includes wholesale and retail of books, newspapers and periodicals, electronic publications, network distribution business, wholesale of audio and video products, etc. Shareholder information shows that the company is held by Miao Qin, Li Yayun and Zhang Yan 45%, 30% and 25% respectively. According to the WeChat official account of Jingdong Books, the authentication subject of the account is Jiangsu Yuanzhou E-commerce Co., Ltd.

On May 21, Yicai called the company's contact number, and the prompt was empty.

In response to the joint statement, the marketing editor of Shanghai Translation Publishing House told Yicai that if the discounts mentioned in the statement were used for promotion, the publishing house would have little profit left or even lose money. In recent years, there have been many discounts in the industry, and many new books have been discounted by 5%, and there is almost no profit when it comes to big promotions such as 618 and Double 11. From the production side, the cost of books includes copyright introduction, translation, editing, proofreading, printing paper, distribution costs, logistics, etc., which is difficult to reduce costs, and promotion without profit is equivalent to taking a salary from the bottom of the kettle.

From the perspective of sales channels, the above-mentioned editors said that book sales are more dependent on online channels, and in the past, traditional e-commerce such as Dangdang.com and Jingdong were the mainstay, and almost all kinds of publishing houses were sold on e-commerce platforms. From the perspective of the cooperation model, the choice of bloggers to bring goods is relatively controllable for the publishing house, generally with the agreed several (or more) varieties, stock quantity, commission sharing, etc. Traditional e-commerce platforms have been relatively stronger over the years, because all varieties are on sale, and there may be a risk of being removed from the shelves or there is no e-commerce traffic during the big promotion, resulting in a relatively small voice of the publishing house. However, with the rise of short video platforms and the transfer of traffic in recent years, publishers and bloggers may also face similar problems with traditional e-commerce.

From the perspective of e-commerce promotions, it is not uncommon to sell books at low prices. At the end of 2023, the publishing industry bombarded Dongfang Selection for launching the "1 yuan book sale" activity, which caused a shock in the publishing industry, and some practitioners issued an article saying, "Don't let the capital dealers mess with us, okay?" ”

Another publisher told Yicai that the main reason for the boycott was that the promotional activities required too low discounts. The campaign mentions the promotion of 2-3 discounts, which is a loss for the publishing house, because the publishing house's shipping discount is basically not less than 5.5 percent. Some private publishers are willing to sacrifice profits in pursuit of traffic, but for state-owned publishers, they will still refuse to compete at low prices.

The above-mentioned person also said that because the current book sales platform, live streaming and other channels are taking commissions on books, and the pricing of books is determined before printing, so promotional activities can only start with discounts. While publishers can maintain their margins by inflating pricing, exorbitant pricing is not reader-friendly and disrupts the overall discount system and sales channels for brick-and-mortar bookstores.

According to the data released by Beijing Open Book, in the first quarter of 2024, the book retail market will have a negative growth of 5.85% year-on-year. From the perspective of the retail book market of different channels, short video e-commerce showed a growth trend, with a year-on-year increase of 31.15% in the first quarter of this year; The physical store channel still showed negative growth, down 17.78% year-on-year; Platform e-commerce and vertical and other e-commerce decreased by 10.31% and 10.59%, respectively.

Century Wenjing said, "Big platforms have more responsibilities and obligations to maintain a good market order of fair competition. It is hoped that there will be a broader resistance to discounting, or more effective control. ”

Some consumers believe that discounting books after high prices is a vicious circle, and some consumers say, "If the Internet can not suppress the price, the publisher can change the price back to normal, then it is okay." But if the network stops pushing down the price, and the pricing continues to rise, it is not appropriate. ”

(This article is from Yicai)

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