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Message: <blockquote data-quote="woodelf" data-source="post: 1628981" data-attributes="member: 10201">No. On eBay (and any other auction system), it goes for the highest price that anyone thinks it's worth--even if they're an obsessive nutcase, totally out of touch with reality, or otherwise not anywhere near representative of the market as a whole. That's why i don't even bother looking at eBay anymore, generally--i got tired of everything being sold for ridiculous prices. If i want to pay close-to-new prices, i'll buy new. I almost always find the same stuff cheaper and standard used-RPG stores (2 local, plus Titan Games, ABE Books, and Alibris--don't even bother with Crazy Egor's anymore, 'cause they rarely have what i want, and it's always much more expensive than i'm willing to pay). But, that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish--the problem with eBay has nothing to do with it being local or global, small or large.But why did "get competitive" get narrowed down to "get price competitive"? Well, sounds like the 'F' is missing from your LGS. Thta makes a huge difference. There's no reason to shop at a place that you don't want to shop at, period. In short, it sounds like your LGS is a business that deserves to die, and product price has nothing to do with why. The interesting question is "Why should i pay more for a book at my FLGS than online?" IOW, assuming your FLGS is actually Friendly (and helpful, and well-stocked, and non-creepy, and so on), when should you purchase from them, and when should you purchase from a cheaper source. Personally, i buy almost all my new stuff from them. Yes, i can often find it cheaper elsewhere. But i don't mind paying a bit more in order to keep the local store around for a number of reasons, such as browsing, special orders without paying for shipping, an easy contact point for local gamers (only used it myself once, but lots of friends have found game groups that way, or play games at the stores), and the chance of exposing non-RPers to RPGs.Here's a similar situation, in my mind:There's a little co-op grocery store a block from my house. It has a pretty good selection of produce, dairy, meats, and breads. It has a moderate selection of prepackaged dry goods, frozen goods, candy, etc. Let's face it--it's physically small. If i want a frozen pizza, i get three choices of brand, and none of them are cheap. And so on. There're basically two ways i could deal with this: i could only go to the co-op when necessary, and buy most of my groceries from one of the big-box grocery stores (luckily, that can still be community-friendly, because we have a thriving IGA which is locally-owned and independent); or i could buy as much as possible from the co-op, and only go to the big-box when necessary. I've chosen the latter, even though it means i spend more on my groceries, and have less selection. Because i want the co-op to still be there when i "need" it. And that has value to me, so is worth paying for.Back to the game store:Another factor, in my mind, is the product i'm buying. If i really want a game line to survive, i make sure to always buy it's products at full price--i want the retailers to think of my favorite gameline as "this is a sure seller, and makes money for us" not as "well, it moves once we mark it down to half price and barely cover our shipping costs". Frex, i almost always buy my Atlas books from the FLGS, at full price (only real exception is the Penumbra stuff, because it's value to me is usually considerably less than cover price--even though it's probably my favorite D20 System stuff, to date). I want Atlas to survive, and this requires retailers seeing their products as valuable (read: good profit margin) and thus ordering them. However, i don't think i'd care if D20 System evaporated, so on those rare occasions when i find a D20 System product i'm interested in, i have no compunction about waiting until i find it somewhere for cheap, or ordering it online. It's simple rational capitalist consumer behavior: this product is worth X to me, so i'll only buy it at that price or less. For game books/lines/companies i really love, 'X' is "the price they ask for it, because i trust they've set a price that will make it viable for them to continue publishing new stuff". For those i only have marginal interest in, I might set 'X' at a considerably lower price--precisely because i wouldn't feel that badly if the product hadn't existed, or further ones of similar quality never came into existence. And, in those latter cases, i have no compunction about buying it online. In fact, i'd rather do that than buy from the FLGS at a loss [to them]--let them sell it at full price to someone who thinks it's worth full price.I guess the one thing i really don't understand is those who consider all the factors that matter to them (not only individual product's price, but the continued financial health of the retailer, publisher, authors, etc.), decide the book is worth it, and look for it cheaper anyway. IOW, if the book is worth $30 to you, and the retail price is $30, then why buy it for $25? Sure, if the book is only worth $25 to you, buy it at that. But if you'd buy it at full retail if there were no other choice, why not buy it at full retail when there is another choice? I don't understand the "buy it as cheaply as possible" mentality.</blockquote>

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