In the author’s specific case of books, publishers always paid ‘coop marketing’ dollars to booksellers to get ‘face out’ placement on shelves, ‘end cap’ positioning where copies of the book would be positioned on the aisle-facing shelves used to entice people into browsing a section of the store, as well as more for table placements and window features. And that’s on top of just having to discount the price deep enough to get the seller to buy in stock of the book in the first place, as well as further eating margin reductions to induce sellers to offer discounts.

All these same incentives are at work in supermarket aisles and big box stores, shaping which products you see and are offered at what price. You think if you walk into Best Buy and ask them to show you laptops, the one they push you to look at is going to be the ‘best’ on offer? Or is it perhaps the one which is set up with the best sales staff commission this month?

Distribution channels have never been neutral champions of the consumer.