Federation Commander

I know ADB has some-- without the box wrapper thing last I heard.

I would prefer to patronize my local store because the owner is a long time ACTA fan and I know he will see my ships at some point and know I did not buy them from him.

My son has his heart set on Gorns and I was counting on them being available right about... NOW.

Danger signs:

* My local store has not gotten back to me about a preorder. I worry about the level of service I am liable to get from them.
* The Gorn Fleet Box does not show up on Amazon-- this implies to me that it is not readily available.

I think the writing on the wall is that I have to buy direct from ADB right now (and pay double what the local store would probably charge me-- BUT be sure to get quality assured product.) This is the old Good/Fast/Cheap problem. The alternative is to wait for both Mongoose and my local store to get sorted out and tell my son now that his main thing will not be under the tree. (I don't know if he'd go for a Fed box set instead. Hmm... maybe he should get that for me, though...!)

My panties are clearly in a wad over this.

Update: the local store says that none of the distributors have it in stock and that none of them expect to have it before Christmas.

Looks like it is ADB or nothing!

Not sure if this is accurate but try this link. I have shopped here before and the service is good.

ACTA Star Fleet: Gorn: Fleet Box Set

Link deleted -- J. Sexton

Guys, we have a policy that we do not promote retailers that are online only. Brick-and-mortar stores with an online component are ok.

Promoting an online retailer hurts ADB as they undercut our price and they don't have the advantage of having our products available to walk-in customers who might spot the product and buy it.

It is rare that this comes up, so it is an easily forgotten policy.

So let me get this straight, are the on-line retailers selling ADB products to the public for a lower price than what ADB charges the on-line retailers for the product?

wedge_hammersteel wrote:So let me get this straight, are the on-line retailers selling ADB products to the public for a lower price than what ADB charges the on-line retailers for the product?

No.

Forget ADB for a minute. Let's just take a "widget" that has an MSRP of $10. In reality, Widget Co. sells it for, let's just say, $6. The retailer then can charge what is necessary to cover their expenses and provide a profit above that. It is expected that the additional $4 will cover that. So, most stores sell the widget at $10 after having paid $6 for it. (Some will actually charge more because either they think they can get away with it, or because they have to due to higher operating costs.)

Widget Co., which also sells directly to customers, could just charge $6, but instead they sell it for the same $10 as the stores. Why? Because Widget Co. knows that if they sell the widget at $6, it will undercut the stores, pissing them off. Eventually stores would stop selling widgets all together. To not piss off the stores, Widget Co. also sells the widgets at $10, too.

Online retailers, however, don't have the same expenses as a store. So, that means they can undercut the costs of an actual store. So, they sell the widgets for $8, instead of $10, because their profit at this price is effectively the same as that made by the stores selling at $10. Doing this annoys (and hurts) the stores, as that means there are fewer people going into the store to buy widgets. (But the online retailer doesn't care, so it doesn't affect their pricing.) If the hit to the store's business is bad enough, they will simply stop selling widgets. If this hits enough of what the store sells overall, then the store will have to close due to not getting enough business.

Widget Co. can't stop online retailers from selling less than the MSRP, but they can do their best to not promote any online retailers who are doing this. Instead, they work to promote the real stores. While they can't stop the online retailers, they can not support them.

In the case of games (as opposed to the above widgets), ADB has a significantly vested interested in the survival of stores who carry their games. When someone goes to a store, they will usually look around to see what else is there. They will interact with other customers. Most stores will sponsor gaming in-store, which gives more visibility. Online retailers provide none of that at all.

So, to answer the specific question, the online retailers do not sell ADB products for a lower price than what ADB chargers retailers. However, they do sell at under the MSRP which undercuts the real stores and thereby jeopardizes their very existence. ADB has a vested interest in preventing that, and so one of the ways they can try and push in that direction is to not support online retailers on Forum or BBS.

Oh, one more thing.

Yes, I know the old "Well, that is the new economy! Adjust or die!" canard. While you could say it applies here, realize that the company you are telling to die is ADB, not just the store. So, regardless of where you are in the whole "online vs bricks-n-mortar" debate lies, do realize that if "brick-n-mortar" loses, ADB loses. If the stores die, ADB dies with them.

If the stores die, ADB stops selling to wholesalers and the online stores have no source, so ADB becomes the only source and can charge whatever it wants to charge.

Yes, we make extra profit on mail order, but then, we also have extra expenses (manpower costs are hellacious on individual mail orders).

In pure dollars, half of our dollars come from the cart and half from the wholesalers (who gets 2.5 times as much product for those dollars). We'd be financially better off in the short term to just pull out of the market, shutting down the discount eTailers, and sell by mail order only. But then, we'd have no in-store gaming and no "just happened to see it while walking to the other shelf" sales.

Random thoughts:

* The economics of these internet retailers is weird to me, but I guess I see y'alls point.

* I dislike most game stores anymore. They seem mostly concerned with Magic and 40K and maybe a few gateway euro games, but other than that seem to have a lot of antipathy for the sort of games I like.

* I generally buy from the game stores anyway. I picked up R3 and GURPS Klingons that way-- not stuff I would have grabbed given the state of my collection; it was just what was on the shelf! It ended up changing the course of my gaming as I would never have thought to try game mastering otherwise.

* This is the second Christmas that the store could not figure out how to get hold of Gorn spaceships. Weird and irritating.

* The price point on these Mongoose fleet boxes is way above what I can stand... especially when my local store is selling Klingon and Fed fleet boxes for $100 each.

* Obviously I'll need to spend the difference on SFB Modules and/or e23 PDF's!

Ah well... Christmas is saved. My set arrived today. Hopefully my local store will be able to get a Romulan set once we've worked up a good chunk of these Gorns....

Update: Just bought LEGOS for the kids for Christmas.

I guess $40 is the new "entry level" bare bones price point. The price point for "enough to actually seriously get started with" is now over $100. For just about anything.

The price of Fed and Klingon boxes went to the same point as the Gorn boxes months ago. Your store may not have noticed/used the price increase on boxes they bought earlier, but if the store tries to order them now it will pay the higher price.

Yep... looks like I'm living in bizarro world. As usual.

On the other hand, if they still have Klingon boxes for the lower price, you can go grab another one to get a starter on those Romulan ships you wanted!

My local store noted that they still had the Klingon and Federation boxes at the prices that related to what they had paid for them a while back but that would indeed be changing to the higher price to match the upcoming Gorn box very soon. So, it looks like the new pricing is indeed filtering through the distribution chain.

mjwest wrote:On the other hand, if they still have Klingon boxes for the lower price, you can go grab another one to get a starter on those Romulan ships you wanted!

You know it!

Gotta have Federation Old Light Cruisers and Police Cutters to go with the F5's, D6's, and that C8, too... so I better go ahead and get both sets.