buy.com and wotc collusion?

[darkbard]

consider me chastened, mr. noah, sir. i've not heard the scuttlebutt regarding a distributor snafu. still, i must say it's mighty odd that the brand manager of a company that is apparently under fire from its parent company to increase profits would actively encourage customers to shop elsewhere for its products. sure, sales are sales, but profits are substantially larger when those sales are made directly to the consumer and not through the discounted rates of retailers.

 

[S'mon]

Negotiating a discount rate with a buyer is _illegal_? In the USA?
In Japan, I can believe it, but...

BTW I do all my RPG Internet shopping by mail order these days, yet I find that the best place to do my Internet shopping from is a London game store a few miles from my home...

 

[EricNoah]

I attribute AV's excitement simply to the fact that a) the books buy.com has are already paid for, so WotC already has the money from selling them, and b) there was a way for some consumers to get the book for a very good price.

Of course, I got the book for free (WotC, you guys rock, thanks for keeping me in the loop!). That's where you should be looking for a conspiracy!

 

[dreamthief]

Whatever happened to the free market?
Well I guess buy.com realised it's error. Mayhap it was just a method to generate revenue in WotC products in a jiffy and justify to the suits to keep funding new products.

 

[Greatwyrm]

I've been going to our FLGS since it opened. However, for a discount of over 70%, I would have been a fool not to take advantage of the buy.com offer. I even went ahead and took the overnight shipping, because I'll still get it at nearly half price.

There are plenty of books at your FLGS that you and I don't buy. I don't feel guilty at all about that. Sure, I get most of my stuff there and I'll continue to do so. But, this is not a trend.

buy.com has to be either getting a really good deal or liquidating someone else's inventory. Either way, I don't see this killing of game stores left and right. buy.com has some good deals, but you can't flip through a book, their selection is very limited, and you still have to wait for it to be shipped.

 

[darkbard]

actually, though i live in japan i'm an american who formerly worked at the management level of the book trade. several years back barnes & noble was found guilty of negotiating unfair discount rates from publishers due to the influence of their market share. competitors could not compete. yes, it's illegal to create a monopoly (despite what microsoft tells us). but, here i go drifting off topic....

 

[Henry]

Anthony Valterra is a businessman first, but he is a gamer second. If he finds a deal that he feels other gamers should know about, it's his perogative to share. He's already demonstrated plenty of time and attention on this board to let this community know here that he feels a part of it.

I think I'll start calling him "The Iron Zulkir" because of the thick skin he has to have by now.

 

[EricNoah]

Anyway, since the matter seems to be all straightened out I'll tuck this one into bed for the night. If you want to continue the online vs. brick-and-mortar debate minus the conspiracy theory stuff, feel free to start up a new thread on the topic.