The UK’s Times Online says Penguin, Bloomsbury and other publishers are trying to woo customers with steep discounts on their own Web sites. Amazon isn’t happy about the cuts:
There are fears that Amazon may retaliate by regarding a publisher’s online price as the recommended retail price and applying its trading terms to that. If a publisher discounts a £20 book to £15 online and Amazon has a contract for a 50 percent discount on the full price, Amazon would pay the company £7.50 instead of £10. Publishers say that this would be unfair and could ultimately drive up prices.