The Big Boss' post about nominating your favorite game store got me thinking about this....and I thought it would interesting to hear others thoughts on
this - there are edition comments, but I don't want an edition war. Really looking for opinions on whether or not this store is doing something silly.
The store I've dealt with for close to fifteen years sells comics, CCGs, the normal comic 'stuff' (statues, etc.), board games, and RPGs. The entire time I've shopped there, they've had a policy of knocking 20% off the list price of all titles (with the exception of certain elite huge board games).
So a $35 WOTC book cost $28 at this store. The equivalent book from Amazon or some other Mass Mkt retailer would normally be about $24 - so I see the $4 difference as the price you pay to have a person to talk to about things. Call it the Personal Touch Fee, or PTF. To me it was worth $4 a book to deal with people and support local business.
Also, in the past they always had a very wide selection of things.
When 4e launched, they immediately closed out almost all of their 3.0/3.5/OGL stuff, and went 4e. That immediately hurt my ability to buy there, because I'm happy with my old version. I figured I could still buy the occasional book or module and convert if necessary, or buy some of the dwindling old version stuff. So that wasn't the big problem...
At almost exactly the same time, they discontinued the 20% discount. $35 list price means you pay $35.
Doesn't this seem like shooting yourself in the foot?
I know one theory would be that in harsh times you're selling fewer ITEMS, so you need to make more per item. But everything I know about pricing and more importantly INCOME elasticity of demand tells me this is stupid. So now customers have to be even more frugal about their purchases of entertainment items, and they do this?
Gamers are generally tech/web savvy, and yet they make a change that amounts to a 25% INCREASE in price on everything they sell? From my own perspective, they have a MUCH diminished selection of the things I want, and those things are now far more expensive than they were.
This also means that the PTF has increased from around $4 (24 at Amazon, 28 at Not-So-FLGS) for each $35 core book, to $11. I'm paying almost 200% more for the service of my local game store. Looking at it in terms of competition, I'm now being asked to pay 46% more for a book at this LGS than I would pay online.
In addition, the FLGS has maybe two employees working at any time, and so at most I'll get two opinions on whether something is right for me or not. On the web I get thousands of opinions...and I don't have to pay and extra $11/book for those opinions.
I realize everyone will draw the line at a different point, but for me this was too much, even if they still focused on 3rd edition. So my favorite gaming store is probably bn.com or Amazon.
The store I've dealt with for close to fifteen years sells comics, CCGs, the normal comic 'stuff' (statues, etc.), board games, and RPGs. The entire time I've shopped there, they've had a policy of knocking 20% off the list price of all titles (with the exception of certain elite huge board games).
So a $35 WOTC book cost $28 at this store. The equivalent book from Amazon or some other Mass Mkt retailer would normally be about $24 - so I see the $4 difference as the price you pay to have a person to talk to about things. Call it the Personal Touch Fee, or PTF. To me it was worth $4 a book to deal with people and support local business.
Also, in the past they always had a very wide selection of things.
When 4e launched, they immediately closed out almost all of their 3.0/3.5/OGL stuff, and went 4e. That immediately hurt my ability to buy there, because I'm happy with my old version. I figured I could still buy the occasional book or module and convert if necessary, or buy some of the dwindling old version stuff. So that wasn't the big problem...
At almost exactly the same time, they discontinued the 20% discount. $35 list price means you pay $35.
Doesn't this seem like shooting yourself in the foot?
I know one theory would be that in harsh times you're selling fewer ITEMS, so you need to make more per item. But everything I know about pricing and more importantly INCOME elasticity of demand tells me this is stupid. So now customers have to be even more frugal about their purchases of entertainment items, and they do this?
Gamers are generally tech/web savvy, and yet they make a change that amounts to a 25% INCREASE in price on everything they sell? From my own perspective, they have a MUCH diminished selection of the things I want, and those things are now far more expensive than they were.
This also means that the PTF has increased from around $4 (24 at Amazon, 28 at Not-So-FLGS) for each $35 core book, to $11. I'm paying almost 200% more for the service of my local game store. Looking at it in terms of competition, I'm now being asked to pay 46% more for a book at this LGS than I would pay online.
In addition, the FLGS has maybe two employees working at any time, and so at most I'll get two opinions on whether something is right for me or not. On the web I get thousands of opinions...and I don't have to pay and extra $11/book for those opinions.
I realize everyone will draw the line at a different point, but for me this was too much, even if they still focused on 3rd edition. So my favorite gaming store is probably bn.com or Amazon.
