Need clarification on "No Retailer Links" rule

[Morrus]

EnWorld does not have as many vendors as most of the other sites. In fact, some of the vendors who are here and elsewhere don't have their entire catalogues available at EnWorld.

It's only been in existence for under two weeks! After RPGNow's second week, it wasn't so full, either!

Give it time. The store is growing steadily and rapidly.

There's also a misconception about the advantage of the login. A typical browser, for the sake of expediency, turns on their cookies and auto password. That means following one click in a press release directly to a product purchase page is only slightly less likely if they were going to, say, Drivethru where they auto login, than it would if they were going to another store. Having one's auto login on at another site you switch to is the same as using the same login here.

Registration, Steve. Not login, registration. New customers don't have to register if they already have an account here. Whether or not you think that should make a difference, I can assure you it is doing so.

You have a lot of opinions, backed up by your marketing experience. On the whole, I'm glad to say you're generally being proved wrong by the actual data on most fronts.

 

[Steve Conan Trustrum]

Registration, Steve. Not login, registration. New customers don't have to register if they already have an account here. Whether or not you think that should make a difference, I can assure you it is doing so.

Putting aside for the moment that the above in no way addresses my point, consider that aside from mining current members people still have to register at some point, be it at the store or or here. If you're not accounting for customers that aren't registing for the first time through either access point, then that's not a big selling point to publishres because you're pretty much saying you're not looking far enough ahead to consider growing a customer base.

You have a lot of opinions, backed up by your marketing experience. On the whole, I'm glad to say you're generally being proved wrong by the actual data on most fronts.

That's because you missed my point by changing it into something I didn't say. I didn't mistake what I said: I meant login. I most definately did not mean registration. To clarify ...

If I don't turn on my autologin when coming here, for the store or something else, I have to login each time even after I've registered. Whether I'm logging in at the store or at the messageboards is not relevant. If, on the other hand, I use autologin here and say, RPGnow, then there's no login process at either site--I simply come here and go there and, tada, I'm already in my account. So, if I follow a link from a press release here it takes one click on that link to the EnWorld store without needing to login. However, if I follow a link from here to RPGnow and have autologin turned on there it is also just one link to my purchase. But what if you don't use autologin? Well, to use RPGnow you still have to log in there. If I want to use either the board or the store here, I still have to log in. THAT is what I mean about the "time saving" benefits of EnWorld and the En store being united: backend uniting of the database isn't a customer time saver if you're using autologin anyway, which has absolutely nothing to do with registration beyond initially opening the account. What it is is a space and time saver for the store's database.

As for things I said proving wrong, well, as you said: it's been two weeks. Considering most of what I said was about long term ramifications of removing non-En store links in press releases two weeks would hardly be "long term" to see how that turned out, especially now that the policy has been reversed. Other than minor points like the above about the misconception of time saving, I haven't actually said much on the store itself to prove wrong or right.

 

[Morrus]

Putting aside for the moment that the above in no way addresses my point, consider that aside from mining current members people still have to register at some point, be it at the store or or here. If you're not accounting for customers that aren't registing for the first time through either access point, then that's not a big selling point to publishres because you're pretty much saying you're not looking far enough ahead to consider growing a customer base.


That's because you missed my point by changing it into something I didn't say. I didn't mistake what I said: I meant login. I most definately did not mean registration. To clarify ...

No I didn't! I was pointing out that you were claiming that auto-logins had no time-saving advantage; I was pointing out that nobody said they did, and that the advantage I'd been talking about was that of registration, not login.

There is a registration advantage, already supported by data.

The data indicates that EN World members, who are already registered, are becoming new PDF customers. Nothing to to with autologins. Everything to do with the fact that these new customers are able to become new customers without creating a new account. The login issue is irrelevant, completely. The registration issue is proving extremely relevant.

 

[Steve Conan Trustrum]

No I didn't! I was pointing out that you were claiming that auto-logins had no time-saving advantage; I was pointing out that nobody said they did, and that the advantage I'd been talking about was that of registration, not login.

Morrus, that's not what I was claiming or even talking about at all. It's very clear I wasn't talking about that. I was claiming that it saves the same amount of time so as to make the account sharing irrelevant. YOU may have been talking about registration, but seeing as how you brought up the point by contradicting me while I was making a point that had nothing to do with your point at all ...

There is a registration advantage, already supported by data.

The data indicates that EN World members, who are already registered, are becoming new PDF customers. Nothing to to with autologins. Everything to do with the fact that these new customers are able to become new customers without creating a new account. The login issue is irrelevant, completely. The registration issue is proving extremely relevant.

Which is great and all, but it had absolutely nothing to do with my point you were addressing. My point was entirely about people saying it is time saving to jump from here to the store, and wasn't about customer growth until you tacked that on to my point for me. So, while you have a good point here, I don't see how you're telling me I was wrong about it when I didn't say anything regarding it to begin with, no? If you want to discuss how well mining the users here is working, that's fine and I'd like to know that, but that's not what I was discussing until you brought it up two responses ago.