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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RyanD" data-source="post: 420279" data-attributes="member: 3312">Almost universally in the hobby gaming industry the US retailers get between 40 and 45% off of SRP.  Because most retailers can qualify to order directly from WotC and GW if they want to, most "real" game stores get up to another 5% off when they buy direct from the publishers or engage in special pre-release ordering programs and early payments.  Call the "average" discount of everything in the game inventory about 47% off SRP.On average books have the same margins as games for hobby game retailers.Bookstores order books at a wide variety of discount based on the kind of book and the size of the order.  Fantasy and Science Fiction hardcovers and softcovers usually sell into book stores at between 40% and 45% off SRP.Half of all of WotC's RPG sales come from bookstores who order product through WotC's book trade distributor, Holtzbrink.  Of those sales, 80-90% go to the biggest 10 book chains (including Amazon).  Independent book stores don't sell a lot of RPG products, or if they do, they often order from a hobby game distributor to get additional points of margin.I've been told conflicting things, and so I believe the real answer is "it depends".  Some chains, like Waldenbooks, give local store managers a lot of lattiude about the products they stock.  The "big box" retailers (Barnes & Nobel and Borders) usually try to stock such a wide selection that it wouldn't make sense for a local manager to be too involved in inventory decisions.  And I beleive that if a publisher worked hard, they could get a corprorate mandate to control inventory on certain products.Some do, some don't; some order direct from some publishers, and use a wholesaler for others.  WotC exclusively uses Holtzbrink for book trade sales, but other publishers often sell direct to the chain bookstores.Yes; that is how WotC's book trade business works.  Everything goes to a warehouse in New York, where it is consolidated with shipments going to the distribution centers of the chain stores, or in some cases directly to individual stores.  The logistics of that process are managed by Holtzbrink and it is opaque to WotC who gets what, when.My opinion is that now that the new sales-tracking software is going into the chain stores that they will be astonished at how much money they make from WotC RPGs compared to how little inventory risk they take.  Turns on D&D in the chain bookstores are ferocious.The top-down management of the orders in the system is really a function of persistence and isn't very automated.  When a buyer or a salesperson really stays on top of the issue, inventory ratios can be kept quite high.  When nobody's minding the store, they tend to get very spotty.The answer to this question depends completely on whether your'e asking about an established top-selling game (D&D), an upstart new RPG, a supplement, an adventure, or some other subcategory.D&D earns huge sales every year from the "top of the order" products - the PHB, DMG, MM, etc.  Other games show a spike when a new core book comes out, but then show successive, smaller spikes as follow on content is reduced.At the end of the day, most retailers make about half their RPG revenue from selling 50-100 products which have become "Evergreen" which means they sell at high, predictable volumes over a number of years.  Exceptions of course for the years that D&D has a new release, and to some extent, when Vampire has a new release.Ryan</blockquote>

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