Claim: “Amazon is Stealing Business”
Solution: Postpone Black Friday
Black Friday, the U.S. import that has been embraced by European retailers as the quasi-official kickoff to the Christmas shopping season, will be delayed by a week in France, to Dec. 4, after the government wrested an agreement from Amazon and the country’s biggest retailers to delay their discounts.
The move is intended to level the playing field for booksellers, clothing shops and “nonessential” businesses that were forced to close their doors on Oct. 30 after a second national lockdown was imposed, propelling consumers to online sites, including Amazon.
In France, the episode has ignited a fresh backlash against the American online giant. Since it arrived in 2000, Amazon has become a favorite in France, capturing nearly half of online spending in 2019. During the most recent lockdown, sales in France jumped nearly 50 percent from a year ago, the company said.
Amazon Free Christmas
The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, and environmental organizations and trade groups, circulated an online petition titled “Noël Sans Amazon” (“An Amazon-free Christmas”). Addressed to Santa Claus, it commits signatories to a “#ChristmasWithoutAmazon,” which is described as a tax-dodging Grinch that destroys small businesses, jobs and the environment.
The virtual call to arms, however, quickly fell victim to an online hack that overloaded the website with fake signatures sent from over 200 different servers, including hundreds in the name of Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, with the comment “Sorry, not sorry, Jeff.”
Thanksgiving in France
Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving.
Here’s something to ponder from FrenchToday.
Not only France doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, but the majority of French people don’t have a clue about what Thanksgiving is, and how important it is a celebration for our friends to the West.
At least the French understand Christmas even though “Noël Sans Amazon” rates to be a total flop.
Mish
The number of comments saying what’s good for Amazon is good for America shows you have your work cut y for you, Mish. What’s good for Amazon is good for Bezos and Bezos is famous for not sharing.
The French are aware of Thanksgiving and Halloween as American traditions so no big deal for them. Black Friday however is not in the same category and they see it as just a marketing thing even though some retailers, even big French ones, try to promote it. Small store owners just point out the hypocrisy of allowing large stores to stay open while closing the small ones and they are right. It looks like the government is just doing something, basically just anything, so they can been seen as doing something. Unfortunately to the people here it just looks like inconsistency in action and thought.
People here use Amazon a lot because they like the service it provides just like elsewhere in the world. What they don’t like is that Amazon and other of the US tech companies use EU law loopholes to avoid paying taxes that smaller competitors cannot do. It has been a point of contention for years now and the US government consistently has taken the side of Big Tech these last four years. The French government did try to temporarily close Amazon’s warehouses in April. It didn’t work. Amazon just shipped the products in from their warehouses in surrounding countries. It was a fiasco.
Texas persuaded Amazon collect sales tax here starting in 2012. I’m surprised they can still hold France hostage.
The problem is EU laws. They allow Amazon to book all profits to Ireland via The Netherlands in a complicated manner thereby sidestepping French income taxes. Those two states oppose any changes because they profit handsomely and since any changes to EU law require unanimity then nothing can change. Frankly Ireland without that setup would be a poor backwater. So many foreign companies book through Ireland that they are very prosperous. There was a court case against Google I think where the court ordered Google to pay the Irish government several billion dollars in back taxes and the Irish government refused to take it. They knew that if they did then many companies would leave Ireland. France is not the only country screwed over this way.
Thanks for explaining that. Makes sense. I see it now.
What about dodgy Luxembourg?
Like it or not each country will succumb to the online behemoths.
Speaking or shootings and shopping, I hope this doesn’t turn into a Work Comp claim for poor Bezos:
I don’t have anything good to say about Hidalgo, she is disliked by many for various reasons. What comes across though is that of bureaucrats trying to champion local business at the same time as ruining them – in short it is a ploy of sorts where “all the right things” are said and done but are in fact in contradiction.
There is no reason for europe to know about american arrangements at all, it has plenty of it’s own traditions, each country has. Christmas a flop without consumerism is… american thinking. Savings and sales tend to be… after Christmas go figure. Halloween is another attempt.
It all plays into the hands of those out to destroy these countries, including their own elite, so not sure why anyone would push for large US multinational corps.