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Message: <blockquote data-quote="guildofblades" data-source="post: 3301032" data-attributes="member: 27324">>>It might be better for your company, specifically, for retailers to deal directly with manufacturers/publishers but this simply is not the case for the retailers themselves.<<When the retailer can double their year end profit by doing so, yeah, its better for them. The extra labor that entails is easily covered by the additional margin they receive and then some.Thats why any retailer doing any real volume does indeed directly order from WOTC, Upper Deck and GW. Because at those volumes even a blind man can see the benefit. But with the mid sized (in revenue) product lines and the strong performing small press lines its not so obvious "per product line", but plainly obvious once you lump that volume together and add up the savings. They claim its not time efficient because they simply don't see the need, but some of the more successful stores do order direct on their better performing lines just so they can get the better discount, product availability and service from the manufacturer. Other stores like the mall store I mentioned orders from 150 different sources. Some hobby stores work with dozens of different vendors or more. So why is it that you think game retailers just "can't"? They obviously can. But they have to get organized about the process of doing it. And....the manufacturers willing to sell to them direct also really need to make it a quick and easy process too.Taking the easy route and simply getting everything their distributor happen to be offering them this month is the crutch that is hindering them from growing. No retail store can hope to perform well if they can't get a reliable supply chain and based on the current distribution climate within the industry, the distributors can only provide that on the top tier lines. Not a coincidence that there has been a trend over the last decade for a shrinking spread of which companies generate the bulk of the revenues in dedicated hobby game stores. Yeah, you are obviously going to sell more of the product you can stock regularly as compared to those you can't.Ryan S. JohnsonGuild of Blades Publishing Group<a href="http://www.guildofblades.com" target="_blank">http://www.guildofblades.com</a><a href="http://www.1483online.com" target="_blank">http://www.1483online.com</a><a href="http://www.thermopylae-online.com" target="_blank">http://www.thermopylae-online.com</a></blockquote>

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