In an attempt to help brick-and-mortar bookstores unable to offer the deep discounts and free shipping that has made Amazon so successful, France enacted a law last year disallowing the online retailer from offering a five percent discount and free shipping on books.
That law recently went into effect, and Amazon, professional trolls, have come up with a pretty ingenious screw you solution to the problem.
No free shipping huh? Ok, we’ll ship for a penny.
The announcement via Amazon.fr (translated) explains that they will stop offering the five percent discount and free shipping, as the law requires, but instead “set the shipping costs to the minimum permitted by law, or just 1 penny per order containing books shipped by Amazon.”
Amazon Prime members in France will continue to get completely free shipping.
And this, my friends, is how you render legislation basically pointless.
Image via Stephen Woods, Flickr Creative Commons