[Engaged] Supporting Local Bookshops

[Heiso]

In our ongoing attempts to wean ourselves off Amazon and do more to support local businesses especially at the moment, my wife found this site which enables you to order online via your local store. I just cancelled my Amazon order and re-ordered Jundo's book from here and there are US and UK versions from what I can see:

https://uk.bookshop.org/

Gassho,

heiso.

StLah

[Soka]

Oooh, good find. I've also been trying to rely less on Amazon, but also searching out alternatives to Apple, Google and Microsoft products too. (Although total avoidance of these companies seems impossible while using the internet)

Thank you for posting the link :)

Gassho,
Phill
sat

[David]

I found out about Bookshop when our local Indie book seller tweeted about it. I ordered Jundo’s book from the U.K. Bookshop site, it came a few days back. Bookshop costs more than Amazon, but I think it’s worth it.

[Meitou]

A couple of people I know, one of whom is a writer, have had problems with bookshop.org - some stories are emerging which suggest they may not be as ethical as they appear. Just a heads up if anyone is interested.
Gassho
Meitou
sattoday lah

[Jundo]

Yes, lovely. Thank you. Alas, Kindle and such seems to be a monopoly of Amazon.

Gassho, Jundo

STLah

[Tairin]

Yes, lovely. Thank you. Alas, Kindle and such seems to be a monopoly of Amazon.

Gassho, Jundo

STLah

If you want an alternative, Kobo is a very viable option instead of Kindle.

gassho2
Tairin
Sat today and lah

[Heiso]

A couple of people I know, one of whom is a writer, have had problems with bookshop.org - some stories are emerging which suggest they may not be as ethical as they appear. Just a heads up if anyone is interested.
Gassho
Meitou
sattoday lah

Oh no, that is frustrating. Maybe we should ask the bookshops to order them in for us direct. Thanks for the heads up.

Gassho,

heiso.

StLah

[Jishin]

In our ongoing attempts to wean ourselves off Amazon and do more to support local businesses especially at the moment, my wife found this site which enables you to order online via your local store. I just cancelled my Amazon order and re-ordered Jundo's book from here and there are US and UK versions from what I can see:

https://uk.bookshop.org/

Gassho,

heiso.

StLahPlease consider that most people who have 401Ks own Amazon stock and if you don't support Amazon you don't support a lot of investors. You also don't support all the employees of Amazon. You also don't support the supply chain.

Amazon achieves economy of scale and does their job efficient and inexpensively liberating limited resources in our planet for better uses. The precept of not killing/wasting is applicable.

Gassho, Jishin, __/stlah\__

[Kokuu]

Amazon achieves economy of scale and does their job efficient and inexpensively

Sadly it achieves that partly through the well documented exploitation of its workforce.

Definitely good to look at all sides and consequences but let us not be blinkered on either side.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday-

[Jishin]

Yes. People are never happy.

Gassho, Jishin, __/stlah\__

[Jundo]

Yes. People are never happy.

Gassho, Jishin, __/stlah\__

Labor conditions there are a concern, and there is very large market power that drives out small businesses such as book store owners. It is a concern, and I would not say it is only people complaining.

I usually don't make economic comments here.

Gassho, J

STLah

[Kokuu]

Yes. People are never happy.

That's samsara for you.

And capitalism.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday-

[Jishin]

Labor conditions there are a concern, and there is very large market power that drives out small businesses such as book store owners. It is a concern, and I would not say it is only people complaining.

I usually don't make economic comments here.

Gassho, J

STLahYes. There is suffering everywhere and entrepreneurship is a brutal game that some chose to play.

Gassho, Jishin, __/stlah\__

PS:. Lots of lives have been saved by shopping online and avoiding Covid exposure recently.

[Heiso]

There's also the £90 or so million in tax they've avoided here, but I take your point.

Gassho,

heiso.

StLah

[Jishin]

There's also the £90 or so million in tax they've avoided here, but I take your point.

Gassho,

heiso.

StLah

Yes. We are all interconnected. Sales taxes avoided there are paid elsewhere either as sales taxes, dividend taxes, individual income taxes, property taxes, etc. Death and taxes are guarantees in life. [morehappy]

Gassho, Jishin, ST

PS: Taxes=Goverment

[Naiko]

Please consider that most people who have 401Ks own Amazon stock and if you don't support Amazon you don't support a lot of investors. You also don't support all the employees of Amazon. You also don't support the supply chain.

Amazon achieves economy of scale and does their job efficient and inexpensively liberating limited resources in our planet for better uses. The precept of not killing/wasting is applicable.

Gassho, Jishin, __/stlah\__

I don’t think we need worry for Amazon. Just a small fraction of its revenue is books. I think Amazon will be just fine if we kick a few bucks over to independent bookstores. I am happy to do that if it helps keep bookstores open-one of life’s great pleasures is browsing through books in a brick and mortar store.
Gassho,
Krista
st

[Jishin]

I don’t think we need worry for Amazon. Just a small fraction of its revenue is books. I think Amazon will be just fine if we kick a few bucks over to independent bookstores. I am happy to do that if it helps keep bookstores open-one of life’s great pleasures is browsing through books in a brick and mortar store.
Gassho,
Krista
stI have high expectations and standards. Whoever meets my outrageous demands and expectations gets my bucks. :)

Gassho, Jishin, __/stlah\__

[Jishin]

Hi,

I tried to buy Jundo's book from a place other than Kindle and it did not go well. I paid for the item and then the download link did not work. I had allotted reading time and wanted to begin reading the book in digital format but could not. This was not what was promised. I had to fight with the merchant to get a refund back as the download link still did not work 24 hours later. It took several emails and phone calls. I had never had any problems with Kindle.

Gassho, Jishin, ST

[Jundo]

Hi,

I tried to buy Jundo's book from a place other than Kindle and it did not go well. I paid for the item and then the download link did not work. I had allotted reading time and wanted to begin reading the book in digital format but could not. This was not what was promised. I had to fight with the merchant to get a refund back as the download link still did not work 24 hours later. It took several emails and phone calls. I had never had any problems with Kindle.

Gassho, Jishin, ST

Maybe someday Amazon will go into the business of psychiatrists, and then you can go work for them! :)

In Japan, you can find a Buddhist priest for a funeral by Amazon ...

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/OFSLqNXg_hvrW9NqHjdBBkOIBhy_irpc5o7inHtQ0tFw7ZC64-HYf1J6oMzqCZ1V8HjnCwlUB0zuSTuxLaFh8n2DVZVQZRW6HRGe myN_A8kE-cjzDLJ0NAU


Anyway, we are not here to debate economic principles, so those who wish to order from small shops can, those who wish to assist Mr. Bezos can.

Gassho, J

STLah

[Jishin]

:)

[Kendrick]

I really enjoy our local bookstore/coffeeshop and have given them business for decades but they are definitely quite expensive compared to Amazon. I can often find books lower than MSRP and used on Amazon (I typically buy used), but our bookstore sells only new books and they are sometimes 25% HIGHER than MSRP. I enjoy being able to read a little bit of a book in person before I buy it sometimes so that is a price to pay for that luxury but especially right now in economic hardship I've been using Amazon more. Even though they are higher I do still give them business because I want them to stick around but I would give them even more business if the book prices weren't so marked up. I guess it all comes down to balance. Amazon does employ a lot of Kentuckians near here though. The $10-$12 an hour may not sound like much from the OUTSIDE but that is a very good wage here (sadly). Some jobs that require Masters degrees here only pay $12.50 an hour so to be able to work for Amazon with a high school diploma and make $10/hr isn't such a bad deal in a place like this.

Gassho,
Nathan
Sat

[Meitou]

I personally can't say enough in praise of Amazon. If you are fortunate and priveliged enough to have the choice of where to buy your books , good for you, support your local bookshop. But there are so many of us around the world who have little access to any kind of choice. And this year, when we in Italy lived for nearly three months in a total lockdown situation, and continue to live in semi-lockdown, Amazon has been our saviour. Not just because we were able to shop online but because they kept many Italians in constant employment. Yes, it's an ill wind etc etc, but I'm thinking of those hundreds of delivery drivers throughout Italy who would have been otherwise without a wage and no prospects, but instead have enjoyed constant employment, including overtime, throughout this crisis.
I've been an avid reader all of my life, and could never imagine a day when I could easily renounce paper books, but thanks to Kindle I did that some years ago and I'll be eternally grateful.
It's always good, before sitting in judgement on something or someone, to pause and reflect on what the other side of the story might be.
Gassho
Meitou
sattoday lah, took delivery of two beautiful bargain sketchbooks and bought three books gassho Amazon.

[Cooperix]

As an inveterate reader I love books and I also love Amazon. And use it regularly...But also I have fond memories of browsing the local, now gone, bookstores of the past. The warmth and even the woody aroma of hundreds of new books surrounding me. Easy chairs and conversation areas. One bookstore here in Albuquerque (The Living Batch) even had a meditation sitting space. Lovely.

On National Public Radio’sMorning Edition yesterday was a piece on a Paris bookstore’s struggle to stay afloat during the pandemic... The famous Shakespeare and Company bookstore. https://www.npr.org/2020/11/20/936973329/paris-iconic-shakespeare-and-company-bookstore-in-trouble-amid-covid-19-pandemic

Bows
Anne

~st~

[Soka]

For me, I personally don't want to be giving money to someone who has the wealth to cure Malaria, but won't even provide comfortable working conditions for his employees, and someone who is personally profiting from Coronavirus without giving anything back to the world.

https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/ and https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5bfbcba4fcf7fde7d37017ec/t/5f7f12fd8fa07434196b68a5/1602163491754/caitlin+moran+anti-bezos.pdf give some nice representations of the scale of wealth.

There are plenty of other places that can deliver the same services as Amazon, some of them are even cheaper, but Amazon has become the place everyone defaults to. If there was no Amazon there would still be warehouses of stuff, it's just that one of those might be a bookshop's warehouse, another a home furniture warehouse, owned by different companies rather than one monolith. Delivery drivers would still be delivering without Amazon, they'd just be delivering products from other places. And Amazon is actively working to cut those jobs as quickly as possible anyway. They are an employer of low-skilled labour until it can automate their way out of it. Over the long term Amazon is creating a system with lower employment opportunities, not more.

Sometimes I still use Amazon (I do like my Kindle), but for me personally, I feel that I am breaking the three pure precepts when I use them.

Gassho,
Phill
sat

[Kendrick]

For me, I personally don't want to be giving money to someone who has the wealth to cure Malaria, but won't even provide comfortable working conditions for his employees, and someone who is personally profiting from Coronavirus without giving anything back to the world.

Gassho,
Phill
sat

Though there are many very wealthy people in relation to Amazon.com or any large corporation they have done FAR more to improve the lives of people with jobs, access to goods, etc. than I could ever accomplish. Nothing I have done, or ever could do with my ability pales in comparison and I would be left with no choice but to consider myself a complete, and utter wretch of a human. I will never stack up in impact to someone like that, and so looking at in this light would make someone like me (and I suspect much of us here) rather worthless by those kinds of standards.

Gassho,
Kendrick
Sat

[Soka]

Amazon.com or any large corporation they have done FAR more to improve the lives of people with jobs, access to goods, etc.

Gassho,
Kendrick
Sat

This is my point, the technology, those jobs and the access to goods would still exist without Amazon, other companies would fill the gap in the market. Perhaps even companies that had some sort of compassion for other human beings. I don't see that preventing workers from taking toilet breaks, or allowing a culture of bullying to increase profit is really something I consider as improving the lives of people. I am not convinced that using AI and psychometrics to optimise ensuring people to consume more makes the world a better place either. It's up to other people whether they want to shop there, but for me if I am buying from Amazon I feel am implicitly condoning that behaviour. Or to take another large corporation Apple and the Foxconnn suicide nets, if I buy an Apple phone then I have to accept the role I play in the conditions at Apple's factories - by buying the device at that price point I am saying that I am happy to trade the price of the thing and the vendors desire to increase its own wealth against the suffering caused to those in the factories. So my choice is to either pay a little more or consume a little less, and where possible support those making less profit but treating people a little better.

Perhaps if Jeff Bezos wasn't quite so wealthy, (still a multibillionaire but not richest man in the world rich), but the working conditions at Amazon were a little less toxic then I would be able to agree that he had accomplished something worthwhile. But if we are to compare the value of a person as you suggest, then by the metrics that I believe provide benefit to the world, such as compassion and generosity, then the people whose comments I read on Treeleaf all measure up rather favourably by those standards.

Gassho,
Phill
sat

[Kendrick]

But if we are to compare the value of a person as you suggest, then by the metrics that I believe provide benefit to the world, such as compassion and generosity, then the people whose comments I read on Treeleaf all measure up rather favourably by those standards.

Gassho,
Phill
sat

I do not actually believe in judging someone's worth like that. My comment was sarcasm. I had a much longer reply clarifying what I was intending to say but it's best I refrain and back away from this conversation.

Gassho,
Kendrick
Sat

[Soka]

If you still have the reply then please do PM me with it, if you prefer I won't respond with further discussion, but I am interested in trying to understand your viewpoint.

My apologies for missing the sarcasm and that I have misunderstood your prevous post.

Gassho,
Phill
sat

[Meitou]

There are plenty of other places that can deliver the same services as Amazon, some of them are even cheaper, but Amazon has become the place everyone defaults to. If there was no Amazon there would still be warehouses of stuff, it's just that one of those might be a bookshop's warehouse, another a home furniture warehouse, owned by different companies rather than one monolith. Delivery drivers would still be delivering without Amazon, they'd just be delivering products from other places.

Gassho,
Phill
sat

That may be true of your part of the world but certainly not mine. I'm not offering my biased opinion here, just stating how it is in reality.
Gassho
Meitou
Sattoday lah

[Jishin]

Interesting article.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mind-brain-and-value/202011/the-psychology-the-physical-bookstore-experience

Gassho, Jishin, __/stlah\__

[Kokuu]

That is interesting. Thank you, Jishin.

It is true that there is something about the physical bookstore experience, and I would add the same for record stores, even if the end product can just as easily be obtained online. That something has been taken further by chains such as Waterstones and others who have added cafés and book reading events.

I guess it is a case of if you value it, then use it.

Apologies for over three sentences.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday-

[Kokuu]

As Meitou already mentioned, it seems that Bookshop.org is not unequivocally seen as the saviour of independent bookshops, and may in fact be taking people away from the high street rather than Amazon.

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2020/12/bookshoporg-independent-bookshops-andy-hunter-waterstones

Gassho
Kokuu

[Naiko]

As Meitou already mentioned, it seems that Bookshop.org is not unequivocally seen as the saviour of independent bookshops, and may in fact be taking people away from the high street rather than Amazon.

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2020/12/bookshoporg-independent-bookshops-andy-hunter-waterstones

Gassho
Kokuu

Thank you, Kokuu and Meitou. That’s disappointing, but I guess it’s not surprising that something is other than we would wish it to be. I did wonder about this when I made a purchase there from my local bookstore and found it was shipped from someplace unrelated.
Gassho,
Krista
st

[Heiso]

Thank you, Kokuu and Meitou. That’s disappointing, but I guess it’s not surprising that something is other than we would wish it to be. I did wonder about this when I made a purchase there from my local bookstore and found it was shipped from someplace unrelated.
Gassho,
Krista
st

I wondered the same. My bookshop will place orders for me if I email them direct so I think I'll be doing that in the furture.

Gassho,

Heiso.

StLah

[Gareth]

Good find - thanks for sharing!

Gassho,
Gareth

Sat today