D&D 5E Tomb of Annihilation on Amazon - why so expensive?

Enevhar Aldarion · Sep 10, 2017

Mercurius said:
I pre-ordered back in June and as far as I can tell, it never got lower than $44.96. I know, support your FLGS, blah blah blah - hey, money is tight (I live in Hawaii, among other things). I ended up cancelling the order as i can't afford $45 right now.

Anyone have a different experience? Why hasn't my pre-order gone below $44.96 in three months? Or does Amazon "profile" people by location and because I live in Hawaii and it costs more to ship to me, my discount sucks?

Nope, it has been sitting at the same pre-oder price me too here in Virginia. No idea why this one has not dropped any further.

Also, when Amazon fails me for decent prices, I tend to go to Miniature Market for some books:

https://www.miniaturemarket.com/wocc22080.html

You can pre-order it from them for $37.49. Also, since they are both a physical store and an online store, you can pre-order the FLGS-exclusive cover versions of books from them too for home delivery.

happyhermit · Sep 10, 2017

Amazon's pricing algorithm has always been unpredictable, like a lot of others. Lately it has been strange in a few ways, I have noticed that RPG books have been significantly cheaper in Canada.

Right now ToA AFAICT is;
US: $44.96 USD
Canada: $32.52 USD ($39.57 CAD)

That's, just weird. RPG books apparently rank better here in general, but still.

NotRussellCrowe · Sep 10, 2017

Mistwell said:
There is something weird going on with pricing on this one.

Fantasy Grounds and D&D Beyond have it at half the price of Roll20 and Amazon.

That tells me something weird is going on with pricing behind the scenes.

I've asked Roll20 why their version of the adventure is priced double the Fantasy Grounds version. First I did it on their message board, and the message was deleted without comment. So then I emailed them and asked. I hope they answer.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, eh?

It's too bad a company can't handle a little negative criticism or even just having someone mention the truth. I've heard on reddit that the mods will delete posts critical of Roll20 as well (on the Roll20 sub anyways), so it's not surprising that they would delete your comment from their official forums. Their rules over there are rather overbearing and unreasonable in my mind, but c'est la vie, it is their site and they can police it however they choose.

Hopefully you are able to get an answer to your question. It's one thing when a company can't meet your expectations on service but at least you can accept it when they are open and honest with their customers. When a company is closed and silent with their customers and fails to communicate is when I find someone else to give my money to.

Happy gaming!

gyor · Sep 10, 2017

happyhermit said:
Amazon's pricing algorithm has always been unpredictable, like a lot of others. Lately it has been strange in a few ways, I have noticed that RPG books have been significantly cheaper in Canada.

Right now ToA AFAICT is;
US: $44.96 USD
Canada: $32.52 USD ($39.57 CAD)

That's, just weird. RPG books apparently rank better here in general, but still.

It's extra weird because outside of Amazon, it's far more expensive in Canada, like most things.

But I suspect it's because physical books stores in Canada like Chapters are doing far better then their American versions like barns and noble.

briggart · Sep 11, 2017

Right now, it's 29.97 USD

happyhermit · Sep 11, 2017

Yeah, the pricing is so unpredictable, $15 drop in a day. The way they work the pre-orders where you get the lowest price after you order makes it a little less ridiculous though.

Fanaelialae · Sep 11, 2017

I recall that shortly after DDB announced their pricing FG announced that they were slashing their prices (presumably to remain competitive). Maybe FG was able to work out some kind of a deal with WotC that R20 couldn't or wouldn't agree to.

ccs · Sep 11, 2017

Mercurius said:
I pre-ordered back in June and as far as I can tell, it never got lower than $44.96. I know, support your FLGS, blah blah blah - hey, money is tight (I live in Hawaii, among other things). I ended up cancelling the order as i can't afford $45 right now.

Anyone have a different experience? Why hasn't my pre-order gone below $44.96 in three months? Or does Amazon "profile" people by location and because I live in Hawaii and it costs more to ship to me, my discount sucks?

Have you considered asking Amazon?

Mull Ponders · Sep 11, 2017

As others have pointed out, Tomb of Annihilation is now $29.97 USD on Amazon. I am going to take personal credit for this

because when I cancelled my preorder to get it from my FLGS I put down "found it at a better price" as the reason. And my FLGS did give me 10% off, so it was close to the old Amazon price.

LordEntrails · Sep 11, 2017

Fanaelialae said:
I recall that shortly after DDB announced their pricing FG announced that they were slashing their prices (presumably to remain competitive). Maybe FG was able to work out some kind of a deal with WotC that R20 couldn't or wouldn't agree to.

FG did mention that with the DDB pricing they were able to renegotiate with WotC to have the same pricing as DDB. So it's wasn't them deciding to cut their profit to remain competitive, it was probably WotC being convinced on multiple front to allow price reductions.

Don't know why Roll20 either has not been able to negotiate the same deal or has refused to. They won't allow that question to be asked on their forums and will not respond to requests for comment etc.

D&D 5E Tomb of Annihilation on Amazon - why so expensive?

Enevhar Aldarion

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happyhermit

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