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Dec 17, 2020 at 19:43 comment added user28517 @user6726 with books, the content is > 90% of the cost - paying the author, editors etc. They know they can force students in the US to pay $100 for the book, because its going to be mandated by course lecturers etc and they also know that students in India are never, ever going to be able to pay the same, so they charge what they can in India. The "restrictions" on sale of the books is an attempt to stop someone taking 100 copies of the cheap book from India and selling it in the US for 80% of the price there, making a huge killing at the expense of the publisher.
Dec 16, 2020 at 5:58 comment added user6726 The content is usually the same but the production values often differ. We'd have to know the likely US/European production cost and the price differential to evaluate the "huge price inflation" hypothesis.
Dec 16, 2020 at 2:52 comment added user28517 Typically the reason why these books have such "restrictions" on them is not because the content differs, but because they are sold at a huge discount in that particular market, and the publishers don't want grey imports back into western markets where the books are typically sold at huge markup anyway (think $100 for a book in the US that might cost $15 in India) - pricing set to what the specific market will bear. Of course that doesn't matter if the higher priced market won't enforce your restrictions, so the lower priced market tries to instead so it can get the pricing in the first place.
Dec 16, 2020 at 2:43 comment added Ankur Agarwal I updated the question. I ordered a new book in US from a 3rd party seller on Amazon.com, to be shipped to a US address.
Dec 16, 2020 at 1:19 history answered user6726 CC BY-SA 4.0