EN World GameStore Closing

[Mark CMG]

True. However, well-considered collective action can have greter impact than uncoordinated individual actions.

Which begins with individual query and discussion.

If that weren't the case, you wouldn't need to use a vendor at all.

That seems to be the question being discussed by some.

Now, it'd be even better if they gave publishers a more detailed plan, but at least they did make some attempt to address the concern before folks asked the question.

It's hard to take an extra 5% to 10% from people and give them no reason whatsoever. Tends to raise some eyebrows.

 

[Twin Rose]

So i take it that pdf publishers would be interested in an e-tailer that would sell their wares at a significantly lower commision?

They say so, but the reality is, they don't really. They hope that any site that sells their product at a lower rate makes all the sales for them, and less than 20% of the publishers actually sign up, and often discourage eachother from signing up anywhere but their preferred retailer (which, in 90% of the cases is RPGNow).

 

[Mark CMG]

They say so, but the reality is, they don't really. They hope that any site that sells their product at a lower rate makes all the sales for them, and less than 20% of the publishers actually sign up, and often discourage eachother from signing up anywhere but their preferred retailer (which, in 90% of the cases is RPGNow).

If you're speaking in regard to ENGS specifically, there are likely a myriad of additioinal issues involved that are too many to discuss in this thread. While someone might start a new store and get no one to sign up, I have no doubt the situation would be quite a different one from the one here.

BTW Did you get my last email?

 

[jgbrowning]

I am sure it is their good faith intention right now. But the reality is that they are taking control of the promotional use of those funds, and they are taking it away from manufacturers, who could have spent it on market expansion if they so wished, for their own benefit rather than the benefit of other companies.

Indeed. The amount of money I'm losing in fee increases could be spent for a much better return to my company and an equal return for theirs. Publishers are already generating 50% of the sales for rpgnow.com and for my efforts in creating a mutally beneficial relationship with my vendor I'm going to be charged more fees to "grow the market" for their end of that 50% as opposed to using it to grow on my end of that 50%. And for them, regardless of what end the growth comes on, they'll still get the same profit. That's not necessarilly the case for me, as a growth in their site wide sales doesn't necessarily mean a growth in my sales.

These things would have taken more effort to plan and implement, but they would have changed their basic approach from a dictation of terms to an offer of mutual benefit. Right now the only definite benefit is to OBS, which will make a lot more money than the two companies did separately, even if sales are stagnant.

Yes again. If there is no growth above and beyond the historical growth of the two sites when they were independent, they've managed to fail at my expense without any risk on their end as they are going to use my money to see if it will perform.

I expect that my direct-link marketing will continue to be as successful as it has been, so I'm not expecting a drop in sales there.

I agree.

I am expecting that I will get an increase in browsing traffic, once everything is on the single site and fans of formerly-site-exclusive publishers start seeing product that they previously were not exposed to. I'm expecting an increase in sales from that, among other factors.

Gareth, I believe you're already at those sites. Those fans of formerly-site-exclusive publishers have already been exposed to your products and your company. You're not going to see an increase in sales in this manner because you've already seen your sales increase from that when you joined those respective sites.

joe b.

 

[Twin Rose]

If you're speaking in regard to ENGS specifically, there are likely a myriad of additioinal issues involved that are too many to discuss in this thread. While someone might start a new store and get no one to sign up, I have no doubt the situation would be quite a different one from the one here.

I don't really have much else to go on. One of the things I was told frequently, however, was that people liked to drive sales to a site where they weren't in the "top seller" list such as RPGNow specifically to try and climb it. In the case of edge publishers, they invariably chose to link to edge with the hopes of climbing onto the "real site". In many cases, we didn't even get product releases until a week after the initial launch, with 0 support on their home pages or a secondary press release saying, "Now available at ENGS". Essentially, people hoping that ENGS would get all their sales through customers browsing product.

The reality is, this is a very small percentage of customers at any PDF retailer.

The EN World review database had about 100 links to products on ENGS before. Now it will have some 1500 links to the affiliate store. I can't give exact numbers, but a lot of our sales would ahve a sales source such as, "Review of Product X". That customer may not even have bought product X, instead buying 3 other products similar to it, or from the same publisher. So, in this particular instance, there should be a tremendous growth of sales across the board.

I expect people will just be trying that much harder to 'climb the top list' and consolodating it. This is my theory, mind... One I'm banking on much as ENP is - I am going from 0% comission of sales of Campaign Suite and related products to 35%. That's 10 dollars or more per sale for me. Looking at the sales analasis from ENGS, more than 50% of customers came looking at one product - whether from banners, whatever, and bought something else while they were there anyway.

BTW Did you get my last email?

I got the email. You should have some money waiting in your paypal.

 

[Mark CMG]

I got the email. You should have some money waiting in your paypal.

Thanks.

 

[philreed]

Thanks.

I'm jealous.

 

[Mark CMG]

I'm jealous.

As well, no doubt, as being in need of considerably more digits than I received. Good luck.

 

[Twin Rose]

I'm jealous.

If you'd rather be paid by paypal let me know and we can just clear it all up.

 

[Cathix]

To publishers:
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?p=3144090

It'd be nice to have a list of those publishers whose websites offer buying options, OBS-free.

Actually this merger has made me reconsider selling pdf's from our website. We were only going to sell our books POD from our own site, but maybe there's merit in making the pdf's available there as well. While I'm not sure what to think of the merger yet (aside from the obvious larger fee), I have briefly considered what it'd be like if the stores' server crashes.