Re: [DL] Canada prices (Shane or John)

[Ross Coburn <coburn@sympatico.ca>]

on 9/27/00 11:02 PM, travis lide at sinisterdexter@mindspring.com wrote:
 
> Okay.. from my point of view, and I'm an annoying, opinionated American, so
> bear with me here.. I also manage a game store, so I have retail prices
> galore...
> 
> Don't feel like I'm yelling at you here, but I think you're ranting yourself
> into a corner..
> Here are the US breakdowns on the items you mentioned..
 
Double-check my previous posts; I am speaking both of Canadian prices, and
perceived value (in terms of 'bang for the buck').  I shall check with a
friend who runs Le Valet d'Coeur here in Montreal (annual sales in the
really lots of dollars, more than I think I should be blathering online so I
won't and it's not like I'm their accountant dollars, most of which comes
from the RPG market) for the details (such as he'll tell me) of their
relationship with distributors, but I do know that they aggressively try to
price products as low as they can manage, and that in so doing PEG (among a
few others) comes out consistently higher than just about everyone else.

Since we know that the (irrelevant to me) US Cover prices are, and as you
mention they're usually fairly close, obviously something is up.

Part of it may well be volume; yes, Wizards got a price break for printing
such a huge run (and would not get it for lesser runs, further discouraging
them from keeping up the effective subsidy), and I'm willing to bet that WW
gets a decent break from Quebecor (their printer, unless they've changed
recently) for doing volume above and beyond what the smaller companies move.
But how does it explain the disparity compared to, say, SJG?  (As far as I
can tell, GURPS is not a huge seller in this area.)  Palladium?  Could it be
that distributors cannot move as many copies, and so cannot offer as much of
a break to even their biggest customers?

Heck, I've bought a PEG supplement directly from a national distributor
(have a friend who worked there in the Montreal office), and it wasn't
compellingly cheaper than in-store (compared to a LUG product I priced from
said distributor that would have saved me about $20).

So what does this stem from?  I also bought PEG stuff among others in San
Francisco (at the Divisadero Gamescape), and it still seemed to be
overpriced.  Then again, I was making a $400 order at the time (gotta love
tech salaries in the Bay Area!) so I didn't look at the line items too
closely.

Anyone else have any thoughts on the matter?


Ross Coburn
coburn@sympatico.ca