Need clarification on "No Retailer Links" rule

And okay, to be fair, I'll cop to it. I did think the storefront already existed, but just wasn't particularly large or well known. No clue where I got that idea, but there it is. :o

However, it doesn't change any of the actual points I was trying to make. Hopefully, the forthcoming information will. :)
 

log in or register to remove this ad

Might I suggest for future discussion on the subject that publishers and ENWorld members assume that Morrus has this site's best interests at heart?
 

Morrus said:
For the moment, I'll say no (not in a press release, news item or sig), although I may come back and revise that at some future date. This doesn't apply to general conversation on the boards, of course, where you can say whatever you like.

Basically, we can announce new products, etc, but can't even hint at where customers could find them? Customers need to know products are widely available. And you also know the more clicks someone has to make to get to a site, the less likely they will do so. If I can't even say something like "Available at amazon, rpgnow and most online retailers" I guess I am to hope that the customer is willing to go searching?

I don't use these forums that much, but I know many rely on them (both for promoting their products and for seeing the latest stuff available). And while I can appreciate not wanting to link directly to other stores, not even being allowed to mention said stores, even without a link is contrary to what I always assumed the intent of the forum was, to provide news to gamers.

Another query: what about advertising in the future? Are you going to refuse advertising that links to outside retailers? I need to know so I can plan accordingly.
 



Guys, the simple solution to this is create an announcement on your own company's website (front page) that contains all of the necessary links to other stores. Morrus has already said that you can refer everyone back to your own website with no issues. So you just refer them back to your site (or if you use a PHP driven site, the specific story ID) where they can find all of the relevant store information. Sure it means writing a separate press release exclusively for EN World, but that's really not that big of an issue. Some folks here are trying to make it harder than it really has to be.
 

Ghostwind said:
Guys, the simple solution to this is create an announcement on your own company's website (front page) that contains all of the necessary links to other stores. Morrus has already said that you can refer everyone back to your own website with no issues. So you just refer them back to your site (or if you use a PHP driven site, the specific story ID) where they can find all of the relevant store information. Sure it means writing a separate press release exclusively for EN World, but that's really not that big of an issue. Some folks here are trying to make it harder than it really has to be.
Customers like to buy things quickly and without fuss--the more you can quickly lead them by the hand to finalize their purchase, the happier they'll be. if I go into a retailer to buy jeans, for instance, I don't like a sales person being required to first take me to the back of the store to look at a store map before telling me that the jeans are at the front of the store in a section I had to walk through to get to the map in the back. The same principle applies to Internet consumers--every additional click a customer goes through to reach your product reduces the chance of a sale. This is not speculation. This means every time I have to bounce someone to my site to either a specific product entry or a general page (such as my site's frontpage), I am reducing the chance of a sale happening as compared to the chance of a sale if I have a direct link to where the product may be purchased (be it at one vendor or multiple vendors.)

EDIT: You're also forgetting that a customer will be confused why you're bothering to post a press release without the links, instead redirecting them to a site that either has the same or less info about the product rather than sending them on their way immediately within the press release.
 
Last edited:

Steve Conan Trustrum said:
Customers like to buy things quickly and without fuss--the more you can quickly lead them by the hand to finalize their purchase, the happier they'll be. if I go into a retailer to buy jeans, for instance, I don't like a sales person being required to first take me to the back of the store to look at a store map before telling me that the jeans are at the front of the store in a section I had to walk through to get to the map in the back. The same principle applies to Internet consumers--every additional click a customer goes through to reach your product reduces the chance of a sale. This is not speculation. This means every time I have to bounce someone to my site to either a specific product entry or a general page (such as my site's frontpage), I am reducing the chance of a sale happening as compared to the chance of a sale if I have a direct link to where the product may be purchased (be it at one vendor or multiple vendors.)

But, to use a lot of other peoples' arguments here -- the purpose of this site is not to generate sales for publishers; it never has been - it is to provide information to people. A link to your site achieves that aim perfectly. Any sales generated are a side effect (albeit a welcome one to the publisher). And that system works just fine for the print publishers out there.

I think informative publisher websites are a good thing. I'd love to see more of them.

I've also been of the opinion for a long time now that this site has become too reliant on just receiving press releases and announcing products ad infinitum - sometimes it seems to be more of a giant catalogue than anything else. A change in emphasis in news might not necessarily be a bad thing. I appreciate that a lot of that is because, previously, it has been BIG launches like 3E and 3.5 which have generated rumours, gossip and buzz - and when (if) 4E comes around, that'll happen again. But it's not all because of that; it's also because of a change in what is news and what is just a product announcement.
 
Last edited:

As a freelance author who's interested in letting other people know what he's worked on, and not, particularly, in promoting a particular publisher's site (I.E. I might have half a dozen products I'VE WRITTEN with half a dozen publishers) ... is it still against board rules to post links to my particular products?

I'm just now getting some products on-line and I'd really like to be able to help get the word out. Plus, one of the publishers may not currently have a web-site ... how would I go about saying: "I wrote this, you can buy it because you like me" if there's really nowhere allowed by board policies and rules that I can link them to?

--fje
 

Morrus said:
But, to use a lot of other peoples' arguments here -- the purpose of this site is not to generate sales for publishers; it never has been - it is to provide information to people. A link to your site achieves that aim perfectly. Any sales generated are a side effect (albeit a welcome one to the publisher). And that system works just fine for the print publishers out there.
However, those links HAVE been allowed. For years now, actually. This has indeed changed customer perception of what this particular forum is, along with changing practical application. This is where what I mentioned will result in problems: a customer won't understand why those links are gone all of a sudden. In fact, they won't really care what EnWorld's reasons are. All they'll care about is there is now an additional step (if not an outright obstacle) to them purchasing something they see and like in a press release. This has nothing to do with how informative a company's web site is but rather the proven fact that sales go down the more clicks a person has to take to finalize a sale.

Now, sales may not be what this forum was initially inteded for but you DID allow that to occur, and in fact did accomodate it by making rules governing such behaviors--officially sanctioning this area to that purpose. This policy is stepping entirely back from that and will result in a reduction in this fora's perceived functionality--I wouldn't be surprised if more publishers stop spending so much time here because a large amount of their incentive to do so is being removed.

As for the print publisher's perspective, you may want to consider that they also have an entirely different foundation to work with that provides the majority of their income. That's different when you begin to talk about PDF publishers who, by necessity, utilize related Internet sites to drum up business and don't have their product on shelves where clients can pick it up and then go buy it. Customers will indeed wonder why an Internet-based company isn't posting links to its products on an Internet site where it's posting press releases--it's an inevitable result of this policy.

A compromise may be to consider something like "vendor accounts": something like membership accounts that allow publishers to post links. If you consider all such links to be advertising and are willing to sell advertising on your front page, why not create such an option to do likewise within the fora as well?

I've also been of the opinion for a long time now that this site has become too reliant on just receiving press releases and announcing products ad infinitum - sometimes it seems to be more of a giant catalogue than anything else.
This is because, for most companies, product press releases comprises the majority of their news. If all that was being posted was non-product related news, the publisher's forum would be very slow indeed.
 
Last edited:

Pets & Sidekicks

Remove ads

Top