News

Book store owner starts petition against Amazon

December 27, 2011

A small shop owner is standing up against Amazon.com and its recent promotion urging customers shopping in brick-and-mortar stores to use its price-check app. By scanning a bar code in the store, Amazon would give the customer a 5 percent discount, up to five dollars.

Small business owners, including Jasmine Johnson of San Francisco, think the tactic turns their stores into showrooms while persuading shoppers to purchase online.

Johnson recently created an online petition that has received more than 11,000 signatures and a lot of publicity in defense of her family's small book store, Marucs Books.

"Seeing how many people have joined the campaign on Change.org has been really remarkable and I think it's even better that folks are going into local shops deliberately after seeing it and deciding to put their money there," Johnson said in an interview with NPR. "I think it's a great, great thing."

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