e-mail from ENWorld store re: e-Tools

[Christian]

I signed up at the ENWorld store (an affiliate of RPGShop.com) to be notified when e-Tools was available. Here's a clip from an e-mail I just got in regard to this product:

WOTC has been playing unfair pricing games with the new D&D E-tools product so we have been forced to offer this product on our partner site http://www.RPGStrategy.com (where we don't share the revenue with affiliates). The profit margins is so very low on this item that it was very hard to make sure we were the lowest price on this.

Grump. I really don't like ordering online, but I have used this service for the purpose of supporting ENWorld. I don't know if I'll go ahead and order from RPGStrategy.com (to support their general support of ENWorld, or something) ...

More to the point, 'unfair pricing games'? I can't wait to hear about this one ...

Anyway, for anyone who's interested, e-Tools is available for pre-order at www.RPGStrategy.com.

 

[rpghost]

In short what it boils down to is that WOTC is selling this product direct to premier stores and their own store for cheaper than the standard distributors can supply it to us. Maybe they do this to push their own premier program and direct sales to maximize their profits, I donno. They used to do this a lot with MTG too. We were a premire store at one time, untill we went online sales only and that disqualified us.

To keep our price competitive (actually less than SVGames) we cannot afford to pay affiliates a percentage. So this new site that was in the works anyway, is being used to sell the product.

Believe me, we're not happy about it nor are we getting "rich" off it. There is only a couple bucks profit to be made off each copy. You'll still get the same great fast service, just that EN World won't be taking a small share as they usually do - honestly I wish I could give them some but our contract and WOTC's pricing isn't structured to allow that.

James
http://www.RPGShop.com
http://www.RPGNow.com
http://www.RPGGallery.com
http://www.RPGStrategy.com

 

[bushfire]

To keep our price competitive (actually less than SVGames) we cannot afford to pay affiliates a percentage. So this new site that was in the works anyway, is being used to sell the product.

Wow, how how tight are the margins in the software market? Your discounted price is only $.50 off the Wotc price!

Has anybody seen eTools at more of a discount?

 

[Christian]

To keep our price competitive (actually less than SVGames) we cannot afford to pay affiliates a percentage. So this new site that was in the works anyway, is being used to sell the product.

'... new site that was in the works anyway ...' Ahhh ... that explains why, when I put in my pre-order last night (yeah, I know, right after complaining up above), it turned up with order# 3.

Now, if I had just put in my order instead of taking a few minutes to complain about the situation, I could have had order# 1. Blast!

 

[EricNoah]

My understanding is that software pricing is a whole different ballgame than book pricing. You don't see "suggested" retail prices on WotC's books but I've always seen "suggested" prices on their software. I don't know why that is, however.

 

[rpghost]

Wow, how how tight are the margins in the software market? Your discounted price is only $.50 off the Wotc price!

Very tight. After taking of credit card or paypal.com fees for payment and shipping to get it to us we're left with littlerally about $3 for our trouble in tracking the order, packing it, and paying taxes. Whoopie

Again, if WOTC would have just done this through NORMAL channels and NORMAL discounts, this wouldn't be an issue- but of course you'd probably be paying $39 for the software instead of $29.45 at our store.

Of course if you really want to support EN World, I could post the e-tools product for $34.95 on http://enworld.RPGShop.com and let you buy it there. I may just do that to allow people to make a choice...

James
http://www.RPGStrategy.com