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Eslite insists B2B platform is a winner

Amid criticism, Eslite Bookstore (誠品書店), the nation's largest bookstore, yesterday insisted its new business-to-business (B2B) platform would truly reflect sales performance to ensure publishers' rights.

"Via the B2B platform, publishers will have access to actual sales figures, which can be used as a reference for them to beef up competitiveness," Lee Yu-hua (李玉華), manager of Eslite Corporation's public affairs department, told a press briefing yesterday.

However, publishers will be forced to pay service fees, ranging from NT$2,000 to NT$45,000 per month, which domestic publishers said was "unfair."

Hau Kuang-tsai (郝廣才), editor-in-chief of Grimm Culture, last week lambasted Eslite's new e-commerce mechanism as "ridiculous" because he said it asked suppliers to pay for it.

However, Eslite yesterday said more than 500 suppliers had signed contracts to support the platform, with only 50 still in negotiation.

Eslite also decided to change its past practice of monthly settlement to consignment, which will result in publishers only getting paid based on how many copies the bookstore has sold.

Moreover, publishers will have to retrieve books that remain unsold.

Eslite argued that the consignment system has been used for many years by the nation's major convenience stores and outlets.
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