Strike me with a silly stick, but why as a brick & mortar business owner should I make a business decision to stock your products in my store? I already have difficulty selling your books. In a tough economy, where every dollar counts, explain to me the benefit of stocking your products since you have now become my major competition....Why should I give you free marketing? More importantly, why should I continue to carry your products in the store and expect my staff to educate themselves with your products in preparation to detail these items to a customer for you?
What she's saying holds some truth. Consider that FLGSes are in general changing their models to reflect the current economy. I offer events in my store. The best margin item I have in store is a bottle of water, which retails for 15 cents and that I sell for a dollar. I also sell used video games, and while the margin isn't huge, it's better than RPGs.
What the publishers don't get when they make SALE SALE SALE decisions is that we FLGS owners would LOVE to support them. I don't know any FLGS owners who started their businesses to become rich. It's a foolish choice. I could be making a lot more money (and have) doing something else...but I chose this career because I was willing to take a hit in potential earnings to support a hobby. I don't bemoan this choice. I do not, however, intend to LOSE money doing what I do. But the point she raises is valid in that what I'd like to do (support and sell their games), becomes much more difficult when they don't promote their things in my store and make them available dirt cheap via the internet.
Consider that this wouldn't (and isn't) a problem for publishers who don't put out physical copies of stuff...but these are folks who, apparently, WANT me to carry their physical books. If they didn't, that's fine. But if they DO, then why are they shooting me in the foot?
Eric Mona (on the above-referenced blogger's comments) sez:
Also, while we're on the subject, I should mention that the Pathfinder RPG Beta Playtest Edition was a hobby exclusive, and was not solicited to the "big box" clients serviced by our book distributor. Given that that product had the highest sales (and cost to produce) of any product Paizo published last year, I think this is a significant example of our support for the hobby market.
Now this is extremely disingenuous. It's available on Amazon. But more than that, the odds a "big box" retailer would buy his product (or sell it in any numbers) are very low.
Don't get me wrong, I like Pathfinder. I have a small customer base that does, too. But for all his expressed support of small retailers, amongst my customers, he does more business in subscription-based, convention-based and online sales than I bet he does on the retail level. There's nothing wrong with this--many, if not most, Pathfinder buyers I know learned about his products because they were tracking alternatives when 4th edition came out on Paizo's website. But claiming to be a huge supporter of LGSes would be much better if Pathfinder offered us some marketing support, as Goodman Games does.
It wouldn't frickin kill him (or for that matter, White Wolf) to put a Retailer Locator on his frickin website, either. Green Ronin does it. Wizards does it. Telling me you support retailers on the one hand and then not doing anything, really, about it...that's a bit of a problem in my mind.
