Where to buy my RPG materials?

[FullTinCan]

My personal purchase habits are as follows:

1) Support my local gaming store. It rocks, and I get a 10% discount for being me.

2) Support ENWorld by shopping at EnWorld's shop.

I predominately buy from my local gaming store, because I believe in supporting my local gaming community, but I also make about 20% of my purchases from EnWorld's store, to provide support to EnWorld.

By all means, do not order from Amazon. You may be getting a deeper discount, but by supporting your local gaming economy and/or EnWorld, what intangible/tangible benefits do you gain.

Of course it all comes down to examining your purchases and thinking about where you want your money applied and what is being done with the "money that you could have saved but didn't". If you feel that a 30% reduced cost for gaming materials outweighs a 10% reduced cost for gaming materials AND supporting a community, then you should buy from Amazon.

 

[KnowTheToe]

My personal purchase habits are as follows:

1) Support my local gaming store. It rocks, and I get a 10% discount for being me.

2) Support ENWorld by shopping at EnWorld's shop.

I predominately buy from my local gaming store, because I believe in supporting my local gaming community, but I also make about 20% of my purchases from EnWorld's store, to provide support to EnWorld.

By all means, do not order from Amazon. You may be getting a deeper discount, but by supporting your local gaming economy and/or EnWorld, what intangible/tangible benefits do you gain.

Of course it all comes down to examining your purchases and thinking about where you want your money applied and what is being done with the "money that you could have saved but didn't". If you feel that a 30% reduced cost for gaming materials outweighs a 10% reduced cost for gaming materials AND supporting a community, then you should buy from Amazon.

Amazon it is! thank you for your support.

Again, I don't think products like the Freeport city book is worth $30 bucks. How many adventures am I going to run in that city??? I would check it out of the library because it looks to be a good product.

 

[Thorin Stoutfoot]

buying from Amazon.com

Okay, I can't resist. You do realize that no one publisher can just sell their product direct because there's no way they would have time to write the stuff, print the stuff, advertise the stuff, demo the stuff and ship the stuff?

Well, you could buy .pdfs directly from the publisher, so the money goes directly to them, and they don't have to bother printing, advertising, etc. That's a great way to go. I haven't done so yet because it's not cheap for me to print my own stuff. (Inkjets are expensive per page --- once I get a laser printer I'll probably buy more .pdfs)

I've also bought from Talon when I couldn't find what I want on Amazon.com. But that's the point of buying from Amazon.com --- they pimp for the publishers (good lord, they pimp really hard --- you'll always see the top ten lists, reviews, and other stuff like that whenever you buy a product from them), they offer excellent customer service --- whenever anything they shipped me was defective, they've always paid for shipping both ways, and they offer good prices, which means that they aren't eating up 50% of the margins like all the other retailers (they're eating up about 20%, with their 30% off policy, and there are ways to get even more out of them). I value efficiency and lower prices above all, since that frees up my money to pay for product and services, as opposed to spending it on distributors/wholesalers, who basically skim 10-15% off the product price for essentially doing what Amazon.com does.

If I want to support my community, I join the local role playing club and pay my dues and given them more money. If I want to support enworld, I give them money directly. Much more efficient --- enworld probably doesn't get much more than a 5% kickback from its on-line store, so you can buy from Amazon, save 30%, and give 20% of the discount to enworld and enworld will come out ahead.

I realize most people don't make rational decisions when it comes to money, but I try to make those decisions as rationally as possible (and there's good evidence that wealthy people get that way by being rational about money too). Wholesalers, distributors, and retailers don't deserve your money (not unless they provide exceptional service, and come on, is the service at your local game store worth $12 per copy of the CoC book? plus tax?). Charities, your family, your friends, etc do. If you feel guilty, buy your copy of CoC d20 at Amazon, and donate $12 to Greenpeace, the Enviornmental Defense Fund, or buy your friends lunch. Don't give away money that could have so many other good uses.

 

[Thyrkill]

Thanks very much for your replies. I think that I will be checking out Talon and EnWorld's online stores tonight.

Thyrkill

 

[TalonComics]

Thyrkill,

Feel free to email me or give me a call at the store if you have any questions on anything! All my store contact info is right on my main page.

I'm more than happy to help.

~Derek

 

[NiTessine]

I primarily shop at my local game store. They don't have what I seek, I turn my gaze to the net. Since I'm underage, the easiest way to get stuff off the net is add it to the Amazon.com shopping list. We tend to order from them once or twice a year. A few weeks after every order, we have a small grove of trees in cardboard boxes.

With miniatures it is a bit more difficult. We've ordered from GW in the past, and their service is excellent. If I need Reaper miniatures ( as I currently do), I will probably order from the manufacturer, or some other webstore, like Talon Comics.

 

[Mark]

If I need Reaper miniatures ( as I currently do), I will probably order from the manufacturer, or some other webstore, like Talon Comics.

I like buying my Reaper minis from Talon because he's right near them. He can pick from their stock personally and reduce the chance of bad figures or too much flashing.