thatdarnedbob said:
Seriously though, I've transferred the vast majority of my gaming purchases to Amazon because the faceless people filling my orders with them and the gaming stores that list products on their site give me a much better service experience than my local gaming stores with owners similar to you.
Today, we opened up our
second game room for
D&D at 1PM. As of the time of this post, we have
three groups of
D&D playing: one beginning at 1st level, one at 5th level, and another at 6th level. At 2PM, another table started for a
Traveller campaign. We've made this space available to the players
free of charge. Over a third of our main sales floor is devoted to open gaming: 6 tables, 36 chairs, available at no cost, 7 days a week, from store open to close.
We host
D&D Encounters every Wednesday
(I DM it, off the clock), and we've hosted a series of Wednesday night 4E campaigns
(volunteer DMs, mostly myself, off the clock) for almost the last two years. On weekends we open up a second game room, another 8 tables and 40ish chairs, and host the local
4E, RPG, and Boardgame
Meetup Groups, in addition to running CCG tournaments 7 days a week. We've run
every D&D World Wide Game Day, and I
volunteer to run them
all.
We maintain a list of players and their interests, and whenever a new book comes into stock, we give them a call and offer to hold the new book as if they had
pre-ordered it, that is,
25% off. We support roleplaying campaigns
outside the store as well, and introduce players of similar interests to one another.
What
exactly is
Amazon.com doing for you?
GMforPowergamers said:
wont some of the essentials target both new and old customers? I mean the new rules compandium, the tiles set both of witch target just as many people who played in 4e game day 1 as those that start brand new. Add to that the starter set has new powers and builds so some (mostly no DDI subscribers) current players will want those. Depending on the set up many of those books can be good (mostlikely not great) sellers.
In my experience,
most players buy no or only a small number of books, and a small fraction of players, mostly GMs, buy the vast majority of books. Given what I've sold in the past, and to whom, I am torn about
D&D Essentials. I am not sure what it will accomplish that I can't already with the very well produced existing
4E D&D Starter Box, with mini PHB, DMG/MM, tiles, tokens and dice, for $16.99.
GMforPowergamers said:
so to recap, the promotions ment to get people into your store is being improved.
Yes, I
do appreciate the effort, and they are doing a
much improved job providing adventures. However, I do
not appreciate being strong-armed,
e.g., run these
Encounters if you want to sell the product as early as
Barnes & Nobles, who does
not run events. $25 dollars worth of pizza is
nice, but they are essentially pushing their costs onto me. If I get two or more tables at next week's
Encounters,
where do you suppose the extra pizza money coming from? I could be
playing with my own group on my own time, but instead, I am
volunteering to run
their campaign with
their rules.
GMforPowergamers said:
maybe your open hostility to WotC as shown in this post comes across and limits your sales...
Actually, between two stores, I've sold about a thousand 4E books since release, including about 200 PHB/MM/DMG sets. To keep the game going, I volunteer to run every week, sometimes twice a week. I myself only get to play as a
player twice a month.
I have every right to be vocally critical of
Wizards of the Coast.
gamerprinter said:
He is primarily a comics shop, that also serves as an FLGS, but business is down in all aspects of his business, not just 4e and MTG sales. Being forced to purchase larger orders than he requires is further causing financial strain to his business, but if he does not comply to WotC requirements - they will screw him even harder.
Our store is similar situated: primarily a CCG shop, big
WotC customer, but sales in general are actually
up (although 4E sales are declining). However, I must say
WotC never treats us that way, I suspect some of what the owner is telling you is B.S., or you don't understand him. What
is true is that in order to get certain discounts, you have to maintain a specific
volume. The only thing like that
I've ever seen is when I order from other suppliers, some of their salesmen are on commission, and they often try to slip in extra product. If we don't catch that within 48 hours of delivery, we are stuck with the product. But it's always something like a couple extra copies of this, duplicate back orders, and so on. In my experience,
WotC salespeople are very professional.
Ourph said:
Is it beyond the realm of possibility that these promotional events, rewards and incentives for customers and retailers are WotC's ideas?
I said I
"feel" like a fire has been lit under them, based on my
decades of previous experience with
WotC. I was one of the first tournament organizers for
Magic The Gathering, way before there was a
DCI. Up until now,
D&D Game Day Adventures appear to have been farmed out to their
B-team, often apparently RPGA volunteers rather than actual staff, some of them so embarrassing they did not even credit an author, let alone an editor.
D&D Encounters shows every sign of having dropped a lot of salary and cash. Why the sudden change? Based on the sales numbers
I am seeing, I think they are highly motivated to turn things around as soon as possible.
malraux said:
Is that a bad thing? From a store owner's perspective, it seems neutral to good that WotC incentivizes buying more product.
I'd prefer it to be less naked. I'd prefer it if the guy I
just sold a
PHB played on more equal footing. They'll already be behind compared to the more experienced players, why make the inequality more egregious? If recruiting new players is their primary goal, why not a
Reknown reward for newbies? Why should the newbie be 3 weeks behind? The intro
DDI may be free, but what about that computer?
Maggan said:
Is it "reknown" or "renown"? You guys are making me confused!
Renown. My apologies.
I move a
lot of product. I serve a
lot of players. I have
every right to be critical of
WotC.
Smeelbo
Abuser of EZCodes
