On 4/19/07, Rebiccola <rebiccola@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I'm confused. If you go to your FLGS, you have to drive and pay for gas to get to the store, pay full price on games INCLUDING tax, drive and pay for gas to get to the post office, and pay for shipping to an APO. What is the benefit to do that other than wider selection? I don't want to start a war here (no pun intended), but I'm just missing your point, I think.
My FLGS never said "hey, let's do something great for the soldiers" and couch it in such a way that it appears at first glance that they are doing something wonderful. In any case, I have a good enough relationship with my FLGSs that I can almost certainly get a discount from them for this. And the post office is always advertising how they'll pick up for free, so I could call my store, get them to weigh it to find out how much the shipping is, pay for the shipping too, and they can get the box shipped for me.
I am assuming (yeah, I know) that LL has enough sense to put in items to balance out the order: if everyone buys treehouse, they'll probably throw in some fluxx. Sure if something is coordinated, it might be better. But that would take time and May 5th is coming up fast. I don't see anything wrong with LL charging retail - they are making a donation, and probably won't be pocketing our "extra shipping".
They briefly mention that they'll be throwing in "some stuff games and Happy Flowers" with no idea how much that would be. So brief was the mention, that when you said they are making a donation, I had to go double check the announcement, because frankly, I missed it. If the announcement had been "We're giving some games to Ziggurat con, and we'd like you to too" it would have come across much better. That said, I still think that if they gave a discount for this one purpose, people would be much more likely to buy, and the overall benefit would be greater. Wholesale prices (that which my FLGS pays) are typically less than 50% of retail, and the distributor has already taken their cut at that point. If LL even gave a 20% discount, we feel better because we can get their games to the soldiers with more bang for the buck, LL still gets more than if we'd bought through the FLGS, and LL should be able to use the opportunity to get some nice publicity. I'm NOT trying to be cheap here, I'm simply saying that the surface seems to be "we're doing something nice" and deeper down, it looks more like "Hey, feel good about giving the soldiers some games, but pay full retail so we can make money too". It just appears mercenary. I know LL is a small company, I've seen the videos, I've seen the calls for investors. But a 20% discount to buy direct from LL for this one purpose only still nets LL more money than if we bought from out FLGS. It would be a win (us)-win (LL)-win (soldiers) situation. The curious thing is, it's entirely possible that giving a 20% discount would actually encourage more people to buy, and for those that do, to buy more, that the total sales would actually result in a greater profit for LL overall than by making this "offer" at retail, and it wouldn't appear nearly as mercenary.
Besides, I'm so much happier knowing I'm specifically sending Martian Coasters rather than just giving money for a box of LL games.
As with any donation, you can designate what yours goes to, and the recipient is morally if not legally obliged to follow through. So if you say "I want my money to be for martian coasters", then that's what your money is for. They are then free to balance it out using the money that others donate without having so designated. Come on guys, these are people who are fighting for us, we want to be able to give them the best for our money. Timothy