Cergorach
The Laughing One
I just stumbled onto a thread that talked about the 'uber' cheapness of the new 4E D&D core books and gift set at certain German retailers. I was quite surprised about how cheap the books were and thought that the suggested retail price was far higher, I was quite right. I dug around some more and also found that amazon.co.uk was also very cheap, with shipping (to the Netherlands) and tax, the price of the gift set came to €63,50. Some German game shops are even selling them for €54,00 including shipping and tax (within Germany). If you order it from amazon.com it's €51 including shipping and tax (Delivery within 18 to 32 business days), €53 for quicker delivery (Delivery within 8 to 16 business days).
That made me wonder what kind of price the distributer set. We have two in the Netherlands (that I know of), PS-Games and Boosterbox. MSRP is €104.95 for the gift set, the cheapest I could get it at the distributor (with all the discounts and added tax) is €48,80. If I bought enough of them, I would not have to pay any shipping, but when I have to ship it to a customer I would have to pay €6,50 (the set is 6cm thick), add to that €1,20 for packaging and the cost of payment transfers (such as Ideal). For a total of €56,50.
If I had to compete with Amazon.com in price, I would take a loss. While it might bind some of the customers to me if I did that (and I might have if I wasn't in the middle of moving to another city), the loss it would create (around ~€5+ per order) and the labor involved would be significant. And while Amazon.com isn't the fastest deliverer of new productsn to international customers, not a lot of customers know that or care...
So it isn't profitable for me to sell these (not that I have time to do that at the moment anyway), if I want to compete in price with amazon.com, but that leaves me to wonder how happy fellow (European) retailers are with the new edition of 4E. These are significant savings compared to MSRP (over €50,00 for the gift set) and knowing people, they might browse through the books at the local book store and still order it online. Maybe a few brave souls can't wait for a somewhat slower delivery and buy it on release day from a local store at full price, but I suspect that those are few. Maybe the folks that don't know about online ordering or are not comfortable doing so, might pay the 'higher' prices, but I don't think there are that many this day and age.
Where does that leave the common retailers? Large amounts of the customers gaming budget goes to a popular, but unprofitable book series. Leaving customers with less cash to spend on actual profitable products. I suspect that most of the 4E releases will follow similar pricing schemes and 4E will be unprofitable for the European retailer. WotC really needs to adjust the MSRP on their D&D products in Europe. MSRP for the gift set in the UK is 60 Pounds, that's €81 (inc. tax). MSRP for the gift set in the US is 105 dollar, that's €75,50 (inc. tax)
That made me wonder what kind of price the distributer set. We have two in the Netherlands (that I know of), PS-Games and Boosterbox. MSRP is €104.95 for the gift set, the cheapest I could get it at the distributor (with all the discounts and added tax) is €48,80. If I bought enough of them, I would not have to pay any shipping, but when I have to ship it to a customer I would have to pay €6,50 (the set is 6cm thick), add to that €1,20 for packaging and the cost of payment transfers (such as Ideal). For a total of €56,50.
If I had to compete with Amazon.com in price, I would take a loss. While it might bind some of the customers to me if I did that (and I might have if I wasn't in the middle of moving to another city), the loss it would create (around ~€5+ per order) and the labor involved would be significant. And while Amazon.com isn't the fastest deliverer of new productsn to international customers, not a lot of customers know that or care...
So it isn't profitable for me to sell these (not that I have time to do that at the moment anyway), if I want to compete in price with amazon.com, but that leaves me to wonder how happy fellow (European) retailers are with the new edition of 4E. These are significant savings compared to MSRP (over €50,00 for the gift set) and knowing people, they might browse through the books at the local book store and still order it online. Maybe a few brave souls can't wait for a somewhat slower delivery and buy it on release day from a local store at full price, but I suspect that those are few. Maybe the folks that don't know about online ordering or are not comfortable doing so, might pay the 'higher' prices, but I don't think there are that many this day and age.
Where does that leave the common retailers? Large amounts of the customers gaming budget goes to a popular, but unprofitable book series. Leaving customers with less cash to spend on actual profitable products. I suspect that most of the 4E releases will follow similar pricing schemes and 4E will be unprofitable for the European retailer. WotC really needs to adjust the MSRP on their D&D products in Europe. MSRP for the gift set in the UK is 60 Pounds, that's €81 (inc. tax). MSRP for the gift set in the US is 105 dollar, that's €75,50 (inc. tax)