The New York Times reports that $100 Textbooks Cost $50 Overseas.

The publishing industry defends its pricing policies, saying that foreign sales would be impossible if book prices were not pegged to local market conditions … entrepreneurs have begun what are essentially arbitrage business to exploit the price differential.

I’m sure that the publishing industry will fight. But the reality is that these pricing schemes are doomed. I accept the reality that US jobs will be outsourced overseas. Because fighting it would be like pushing water up hill – there is too much demand for outsourcing to keep it bottled up. But turnabout is fair play. Just as local jobs go overseas, so will overseas goods come ashore.

A few months back, John Patrick wrote:

[This] highlights the major impact the Web is having on how business is being done and from where it is being done. The bottom line is that a successful distribution business has to have available bandwidth and be on the route of UPS and FedEx or Airborne. If you have that you can build a business wherever you can get the kind of employees you need or increasingly where you want to live.

Local companies can still compete on service. But as shipping becomes less expensive, the competition comes from farther and farther away. Because on the web, everything is only a click away.