Yes. When you (by which I mean a publisher) sell into distribution it's at half the cover price (or less). Buying direct from the publisher, they get the full cover price.
Tell me about the RPG section of your local game store
- Thread starter definiteFreakyFishGuy
- Start date
FitzTheRuke
Legend
What Morris says above is what I mean by "skipping the middle-man". I get why it's attractive to publishers, but it unfortunately makes it MUCH harder for stores (in particular stores in other counties). With a distributor, the MSRP gets spread across more businesses, but so does the expenses. (In this case, the shipping/duty is the big problem, as THAT becomes the replacement middle-man, but the onus is on us FLGS, rather than the publisher).
There's no easy solution, other than when you are in the same vicinity, and can skip both distributor and shipper.
There's no easy solution, other than when you are in the same vicinity, and can skip both distributor and shipper.
John Lloyd1
Rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty
Buying directly from the publisher usually comes at a huge cost when you are in Australia.
I bought physical copies of 3 Sly Flourish books and paid the same again in postage. They weren't available in distribution locally or I would have bought them through my FLGS.
I usually prefer to use my FLGS for physical products. Extra credit if you get a PDF download with them.
I bought physical copies of 3 Sly Flourish books and paid the same again in postage. They weren't available in distribution locally or I would have bought them through my FLGS.
I usually prefer to use my FLGS for physical products. Extra credit if you get a PDF download with them.
FitzTheRuke
Legend
It's probably the reason that you can't find it at an FLGS - they would have to pay more shipping than their margin, so unless they jack the price (probably beyond what would seem reasonable) they wouldn't make any money.
John Lloyd1
Rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty
I suspect they just don't do anything other than distribution. They are a chain of game franchise stores.
Peter BOSCO'S
Adventurer
As a reminder from a person who makes their living ordering games for our store - sometimes the game we do not have is the one that sold out and is unavailable from distribution and is either unavailable from the publisher, or is from a publisher whose minimum order size is too large for us to profitably order from them. You are not obligated to pre-order anything from us BUT if you want the game and you don't want to pay shipping, it might be a good choice. Thank You
My last visit to my (F)LGS was even more depressing than usual.
The upper floor, which has the RPG stuff, is now almost completely given over Warhammer 40K, in a large and impressive display. Nobody was actually playing Warhammer at the time, so I had the entire floor to myself.
The RPG section in the corner has halved in size since my last visit, and the only "current" things I could see were some D&D (2024) players handbooks. They had a random selection of 5e D&D books (but no DMG or MM of any description), quite a lot of Pathfinder 1e (all at full price), some Pathfinder 2e and other books that they seem to have had for years - a fair few Call of Cthulhu supplements, for example, but nothing for the current edition.
The Legend of the 5 Rings books they have are at least for the current edition, but they didn't have the core rulebook - I'd have bought it if they had, and might then have bought some of the other ones, but I'm not going to pick up supplements for a game I don't have the actual rules for.
None of the staff ever seem to come up to that floor, so there is nobody to deal with any queries. The display is so cramped that if they did happen to have something I wanted the only way I'd know is if I picked through everything myself, which I've done in the past but usually can't be bothered with anymore. For the stuff on the bottom shelf, you pretty much have to sit on the floor if you want to read the spines.
They used to have a little display area where they could show off something to entice customers, like putting the D&D core books where you could see the front covers instead of just the spines, but that space has now gone.
I wanted Adventures in Faerun. They didn't have it, and there was nothing to indicate if they had it in the past or might have it in the future. I ordered it from Amazon when I got home.
The upper floor, which has the RPG stuff, is now almost completely given over Warhammer 40K, in a large and impressive display. Nobody was actually playing Warhammer at the time, so I had the entire floor to myself.
The RPG section in the corner has halved in size since my last visit, and the only "current" things I could see were some D&D (2024) players handbooks. They had a random selection of 5e D&D books (but no DMG or MM of any description), quite a lot of Pathfinder 1e (all at full price), some Pathfinder 2e and other books that they seem to have had for years - a fair few Call of Cthulhu supplements, for example, but nothing for the current edition.
The Legend of the 5 Rings books they have are at least for the current edition, but they didn't have the core rulebook - I'd have bought it if they had, and might then have bought some of the other ones, but I'm not going to pick up supplements for a game I don't have the actual rules for.
None of the staff ever seem to come up to that floor, so there is nobody to deal with any queries. The display is so cramped that if they did happen to have something I wanted the only way I'd know is if I picked through everything myself, which I've done in the past but usually can't be bothered with anymore. For the stuff on the bottom shelf, you pretty much have to sit on the floor if you want to read the spines.
They used to have a little display area where they could show off something to entice customers, like putting the D&D core books where you could see the front covers instead of just the spines, but that space has now gone.
I wanted Adventures in Faerun. They didn't have it, and there was nothing to indicate if they had it in the past or might have it in the future. I ordered it from Amazon when I got home.
