[3.5] TALON: What are you guys going to do?

[KDLadage]

But this is true regardless of the ship date of 3.5. I order a lot of expensive books from Amazon or Books a Million because while I don't mind not getting 30% off every purchase, I can't afford to just buy everything I want and that discount accounts for whole additional books.

An arguement that has merit but one that's been beaten int othe death about a billion times.

OK... I think you are missing the point. I will try again. If you are not, in fact, missing the point, then I appologize and you can ignore this post.

We have two issues here: The first issue is that the large business can afford to discount a lot more than the small business. This is a simple fact created by the economies of scale. Although I feel that this sort of thing hurts the hobby, as it takes money away from businesses that truly care about the hobby's growth, it is a seperate issue all together. As Derek and others have stated -- it is Derek's job to make it worth coming to his store over going to Walmart.com or Barnes&Noble or Amazon and getting a cheaper price. That is his delima as a businessman.

The second issue is the street date, which you appear to be treating as a moot point. The exact day the books hit the shelves, if all stores are treated equally, is not a big deal. If they are all released at the same time, then the little guy is back to square one: how to get customers to buy from her/him when the big chains have such deep discounting. It is a problem, but not one that cannot be recovered from.

If, however, the little guy has to wait a week or so after the big guy to sell the material, then this is a problem that the little guy simply cannot fix -- he has to charge more for a product that s/he cannot deliver as timely. Please note the use of the word 'cannot' -- I did not say that it would be harder to be as timely, I did nto say it would be a challenge to be as timely, I am saying it has become an impossibility to be as timely because one group of businesses are being held to a date that the others can apparently break without recourse.

So here is Derek in his store, trying to tell people "I know you can buy these books a week before I receive them, and you can get them for more than 15% less that I can afford to sell them to you -- but please, wait and buy from me instead! Same books, more expensive, and a lot later!"

So how, in such an environment can a small business compete?

And herein lies the problem. If such a scenario is allowed to continue unchecked, then this will be the end of the small business within our hobby. Will this kill the hobby? No. The hobby will live on.

It will break it though. If you want to know what I mean by breaking the hobby, then we can talk in another thread. I have discussed it before, and I am sure many of you know what I mean by that. The hobby will go on. But it will not be the same. And the changes will most definately not be for the better. (imnsho, ymmv, yada yada yada)

 

[dsfriii]

The second issue is the street date, which you appear to be treating as a moot point. The exact day the books hit the shelves, if all stores are treated equally, is not a big deal. If they are all released at the same time, then the little guy is back to square one: how to get customers to buy from her/him when the big chains have such deep discounting. It is a problem, but not one that cannot be recovered from.

If, however, the little guy has to wait a week or so after the big guy to sell the material, then this is a problem that the little guy simply cannot fix --

Now I might be sounding like I am going back on what I said earlier, but this is a good point. I think once the street date is broken, then WotC should have released all distributors. That is unfair....

 

[Iron_Chef]

Wal-Mart probably lost money on my order. I asked for overnight shipping, right? What does Wal-Mart do? They ship the 2 PHBs, the 2 DMGs, the 2 MMs and the 1 Noble Knights (Avalanche Press) book separately, ALL overnight. Does this make any sense? I don't care, as I only paid $20 total for all the packages, but it seems insane to ship orders piecemeal this way, when each is overnight. I paid $20 for overnight, and wal-mart paid around $80 to ship to me in a bunch of separate packages? Either they get a HUGE, I mean H-U-G-E discount from UPS or they are losing money right and left. Anybody else know anything about Wal-Mart's reason for doing this? Has anyopne else had their 3.5 orders show up in separate boxes like this?

 

[drothgery]

Maybe I'm dense, but I'm not sure I follow what you're saying here. It would be more logical if you said, if not for online retailers, I certainly wouldn't have ordered 30 books of gaming materials, instead of 10. But you're saying that because you saved a few dollars with an online discounted retailer, you ended up spending $350 more? I'm not arguing, I'm just confused what you're saying.

Are you saying that the discount retailer convinced you to buy material you might not otherwise have bought, and that in turn created an avalanche effect on your purchasing?

It's the former. I just strongly favor buying stuff online; I only buy things offline when I absolutely have to (furniture, clothes), when buying online extracts a serious price penalty (aka groceries), or in extreme impulse buy situations (like the cell phone I grabbed just before going on vacation a few weeks ago).

Even if Amazon didn't discount at all, I'd buy more online than offline. Online retailers are so much more convenient that I buy a lot more, because I can read about something on ENWorld and then open up another window and order something. Or I'll add a gaming book order to a software development book order to get free shipping. Or I'll double-check on my finances and decide it's okay to buy a bunch of gaming books -- and I know that an online retailer will have everything I want if it's from a top-tier publisher; I have no such assurances with any LGS.

 

[Camarath]

Walmart shipped my PHB and DMG in a sealed box with a shipping lable inside a bigger box which was sealed and had a separate shipping lable that had my MM in it. I couldn't understand why only my MM was tracking (the other only said they had received electronic confirmation of the order) with USPS when they claimed that they had shipped all 3 and my PHB and DMG separate from my MM. It was very funny to open one shipping box and find another.

 

[TalonComics]

It is... DONE!

All pre-orders for the revised books have gone out *and* I still have plenty available for ordering.

Also, I'll be announcing a special "thank you" give-away for those who purchased the books through my store in the next couple of days.

Thanks again all!

~Derek

 

[youspoonybard]

Thank you Talon!

I eagerly await Monday's coming!

 

[sithramir]

Sucks that places like walmart ruin things like this. I already read the PHB fully and half the DMG and i'm getting Talons books I ordered tomorrow or monday. Good in a way that I got them early for me but I dislike unethical things like shipping early if it hurts other people.

 

[Greybar]

Well, I hope there's some small encouragement here:
My FLGS (Spare Time Shop, Marlborough) couldn't get the books early so they were on the street date by force like Talon. My friend and I walked in and bought two PHBs and a DMG. I'll pick up the MM in a week or so after my birthday when I can get a birthday discount from the store.

Nice to pick up a book, leaf through it, see what you're getting, and immediately buy it and walk out. I can't do that on a website (even Talon's ).

... then we walked back over to his place to see what his Ranger5/Bard4 from my game is going to look like in 3.5 - I think he's happy.

john

(edit - lousy spelling corrected, lousy grammar remains)

 

[herald]

good Job on the delivery Talon. I got mine early this morning!