France sets minimum delivery fee on online book orders

France plans to impose a minimum delivery fee of 3 euros ($2.93) for online book orders of less than 35 euros to level the playing field for independent bookstores struggling to compete against e-commerce giants, the government said on Friday.
A 2014 French law already prohibits free book deliveries, but Amazon and other vendors such as Fnac have circumvented this by charging only 1 euro cent per delivery. Local book stores typically charge up to 7 euros for shipping a book.
Legislation was passed in December 2021 to close the one-cent loophole through a minimum shipping fee, but the law could not take effect until the government had decided on the size of that fee.