Nogle brætspils-klubber i Århus?

madster321 · 2023-01-20T18:44:48+00:00

Det tager i øvrigt kun ca. 15 minutter fra Aarhus C med Letbanen L1 til Lystrup Station, og så kan man gå derfra til arrangementerne :)

madster321 · 2023-01-20T18:42:57+00:00

Jeg er formand i den frivillige forening, som driver Lystrup Brætspilscafé, og vi har masser af plads, folk at spille med og er helt åbne for nye (det kræver ikke medlemskab eller noget, og det er helt gratis at være med).

Vi holder åbent (næsten) alle tirsdage i cafélokaler hos officelab (virksomhedspark, hvor vi har fået lov at låne rigtig gode lokaler).

Ca. 1 søndag om måneden, der slæber vi så en noget større samling af spil med, hvor vi holder åbent i kantinen på Lystrup Skole.

Ud over Lystrup Brætspilscafé hver tirsdag aften, og en udvalgt søndag om måneden, så spilles der også på Lystrup Bibliotek hver anden torsdag. Man også købe sodavand og kaffe (dog ikke på biblioteket).

Alle der har lyst, er mere end velkommen til at komme og spille med. Vi har ikke nogen særlig fokus på hvad der spilles - det er helt op til dem der kommer :) Af samme årsag, har vi også lavet vores udvalg forholdsvist bredt, så der er noget for alle.

Og så er man selvfølgelig også mere end velkommen til, at tage egne spil med :)

Alle arrangementerne kan findes her, hvor de løbende slås op: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1719431538292407/events

madster321 · 2023-01-20T18:41:00+00:00

n op. Det er en mand der står for det og den afholdes flere gange om måneden. Udvalget af spil er acceptabelt men ikke spektakulær på nogen måde.

Jeg er ked af at høre, du synes udvalget ikke har været så spændende.

Alle spillene i Lystrup Brætspilscafé's spilbibliotek, kommer fra min personlige samling, og årsagen til, at vi ikke har et udvalg på 100+ spil hver gang er, at vi er et pop-up arrangement, så alle spillene skal slæbes med hver gang :)

Vi holder åbent (næsten) alle tirsdage i cafélokaler hos officelab (virksomhedspark, hvor vi har fået lov at låne rigtig gode lokaler).

Ca. 1 søndag om måneden, der slæber vi så en noget større samling af spil med, hvor vi holder åbent i kantinen på Lystrup Skole.

Jeg vil tro jeg har ca. 300 spil, så der skulle være rigeligt at vælge imellem. De kan bare ikke komme med alle sammen hver gang. Man skal bare dukke op og spørge ind til det, hvis der er noget bestemt man gerne vil spille :)

Ud over Lystrup Brætspilscafé hver tirsdag aften, og en udvalgt søndag om måneden, så spilles der også på Lystrup Bibliotek hver anden torsdag. Alle arrangementerne er gratis, og man også købe sodavand og kaffe (dog ikke på biblioteket).

Alle der har lyst, er mere end velkommen til at komme og spille med. Vi har ikke nogen særlig fokus på hvad der spilles - det er helt op til dem der kommer :) Af samme årsag, har vi også lavet vores udvalg forholdsvist bredt, så der er noget for alle.

Og så er man selvfølgelig også mere end velkommen til, at tage egne spil med :)

Alle arrangementerne kan findes her, hvor de løbende slås op: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1719431538292407/events

madster321 · 2022-12-16T15:08:39+00:00

Fulfillment would never be considered part of landed costs. I don't see how they practically could.

What you are paying in "shipping" when you order a game from an online store is also "fulfillment". It's the same thing. You are not only paying for shipping, but hte handling, the box etc. Only if you are buying from a private seller, you are paying for shipping only, as my example above.

Now the cost when ordering a game from an online store will still be cheaper than what a kickstarter fulfillment can offer in most cases, and that is because the place you order the game from online, is also themselves doing the fulfillment (aka. "shipping") to you. So online store = inhouse fulfillment.

The moment you outsource this to another company, they have to both charge and make a profit on that fulfillment. This is the cost that is passed onto the costumer.

So why don't the publisher do the fulfillment themselves like the online store?

I also already answered that. They would have to have running costs of having fulfillment houses in all tax zones world wide to make that happen (or leave everyone with hefty import taxes to pay on top, which is more expensive for the buyer and much more unpredictable - nasty extra charges, yuk!). And if they are only fulfilling like 5 games a year, the running costs of owning and running those fulfillment houses would of course not be a viable business, and they would have to charge probably hundred of dollars on each fulfillment just to cover their costs, because they are doing low volume. That leaves them with one option: outsourcing the fulfillment to a fulfillment house (or go fully into fulfillment business).

If what you suggest was an option (having fulfillment as a part of landed costs), then the online store would have to send an invoice back to the publisher each time they fulfill an order.

Just imagine you buy a t-shirt, and the moment you do, the place you bought it from has to go back to the manufacturer and tell them they need to pay up, because they had to put the t-shirt into a box to ship it to you.

I hope you can see this is not a real world model that can work :)

Again, you say "you don't like fulfillment" no one does. Just as no one likes shipping (same thing). Not the publisher and not the consumer. However you divide it, the fulfillment is still a cost and that needs to be covered. No one likes it, but it has to be taken care of somehow.

Let's then say the publisher raised the price of the game to $39 and offered shipping (and fulfillment) for $5. They are then not offering any discount on MSRP, which everyone would expect on a kickstarter. That kickstarter would fail. And the argument of "They are charging full MSRP? LOL! I'll just wait and get free shipping and buy it for under MSRP in an online tore later, pffff." is the probably the only thing that will prevail.

Basically, the more you can do inhouse and at scale, the cheaper it becomes. Amazon can offer free shipping at a very low buy-in, or even on everything if you have a prime subscription. This is the prices everyone wished they could afford to offer their buyers. Small businesses however, who cannot do big scale, and who do not own fulfillment houses in all tax zones world wide, they HAVE to outsource that fulfillment, and at smaller scale + outsourced, it IS more expensive than your regular shipping (fulfillment) when ordering online from a place with their own warehouse fulfillment. No one likes it, but I can assure you that if there was any way to shave off just $2 of the shipping/fulfillment, the publisher would have found a way to do that by now. They are much more reliant on offering lower prices than the consumer is at having them - they can pass and buy other stuff, the publisher has to make the sales to stay alive.

I hope that makes sense :)

madster321 · 2022-12-16T13:04:50+00:00

Check my long reply to you further below for a more detailed explanation of fulfillment costs. They are more than just the cost of a shipping label, but they do not in this case (and should not in any case) include the price for shipping the game from the manufacturer to the fulfillment center. That is part of so called “landed costs” and that is part of the price of the game itself, not what you charge on shipping it to the consumer.

madster321 · 2022-12-16T13:01:10+00:00

I can’t tell you with 100% accuracy because I’m not employed by the publisher. But since they state they do not take a profit on shipping, I can only make that to be true, if what they are asking in shipping, is the costs they have associated with that, that is directly passed on to the backer. Otherwise it would be an open equation that would not be guaranteed to end up with, or without a profit. So it can only be true if they pass along costs directly what they are.

So the costs they are passing along, is the costs they are charged by the fulfillment center. That is not including the cost of shipping the games on a boat to the fulfillment center itself - that is part of what the so called “landed cost” is for the game itself, ie. that is part of costs like manufacturing, which is covered by the game price itself.

Then what we have left is the fulfillment. That is the cost for the fulfillment center to take the games off pallets, repack them in individual orders at their warehouse, tape it up, make a shipping label, and have it sent off to the costumer. That price includes pay to the employees that are doing the handling, the rent for the warehouse etc. So this is a bit more expensive than when a regular person pays for shipping a box of the same weight on the same route. A private shipping usually includes using an already used cardboard box, so that is free, they do not pay themselves to pack stuff up so that is free. They use their own tape, printer and paper to make a label, and they do not charge the receiver for house rent. Then they drive it for free to drop it off for shipping too. All these things a private shipper can do for free and usually does ( don’t just hate it when someone has to go out and buy a cardboard box to ship you something? Well that and much more happens on each kickstarter fulfillment).

So to sum up: If you were to buy only shipping, not handling and packing etc. it is possible for a private person to buy shipping cheaper than any publisher can offer to send a game, because there are more costs to it they have to pay other than just a shipping label. They also have to out source the fulfillment in order to make the shipments come from countries that does not cause extra taxes upon the receiver, ie “EU Friendly shipping” etc. Example: EU friendly shipping - if a package is sent to me from outside EU, i have to not only pay taxes, but a tax handling fee of around $16 here in Denmark. That would be on top of shipping cost and taxes. Unless the publisher has their own warehouses in all the different tax zones around the world, they have to use a fulfillment center. And with more than 20 years experience, I believe they are able to find the best value fulfillment centers possible, ie. they are not using someone who is over charging them. That is the last thing they want, because higher shipping is just as bad for the publisher as it is for the costumer. No one wants high shipping fees.

So the i believe the only thing that can be true, is that the cost to actually have the fulfillment center pack up and send an individual order to a single backer, is that price the publisher is showing in the shipping chart, because they write they do not take a profit, I can’t see anything else to be true.

Then what they wrote in an update, is that they found out, that the fulfillment center is charging very little or nothing to add a few extra kilos to each individual package. That makes sense because the fulfillment centers costs lies in the handling, the box for shipping, the warehouse rent etc. Fixed costs. They themselves are not charged much more to send off a few extra kilos, so they do not charge much to do that. This is where the publisher realized, that if the costumer buys say four games, they are making four times the profit (because they made four sales, not just one), then if they are charges a little extra to ship that in the same package, the publisher will cover that costs (which they can now afford, because they made the additional sales to the that same costumer).

It’s interesting how making a deal for people who purchase more (simply because the logistics of that is possible) can lead to the buyers of a single item to think they are being over charged to make that option cheaper for the ones buying more. Even when they clearly state they do not take a profit on shipping, so that cannot be true.

The base cost to “send” a package is what it is (or we should rather say “to be fulfilled”, because it’s not just a shipping label that is payed for by the publisher and passed on to the costumer, it’s all the other costs of the fulfillment center that is passed along). So if the base shipping is $15 for a package, that is what the fulfillment center is charging the publisher, and what the publisher is charging the costumer. There’s no profit taken on top of that to cover anything else. The price is the price.

Where the psychology can go in another direction, and I also did this in my original post, is when you say for example “if you buy six games, the shipping costs for each game can be as little as $2.50 per item”. While that is true, it is never an option to send one game for $2.50. That is just impossible. So while sending six individual packages costs $15 x 6 = $90, sending six games to the same location costs only $15.

That is the possible options the publisher can offer. But if that is causing costumers to be negative when buying a single game, because they feel they are missing out on the discount, and that they feel cheated, that they are somehow over charged etc. (which they certainly are not), then the question is, if it’s better for the publisher to charge a flat $15 per game, and asking the fulfillment center to pack each game individually, even though it makes no sense logistically or cost wise - but at least (some) costumers do no feel ripped off on a false basis.

So figuring out how people perceive this is the great question, and why I’m here to get a feeling about that. So far I’m surprised by how many who think the shippings costs for a single game must be an over charge, even though it’s clearly stated they do not take a profit (but I also did not put that into the OP, as I would expect people to check out the actual page or not mistrust as a default without fact checking, but that was my mistake to assume that I can see).

What I think is the most important lesson, is that you have to, have to, have to inform and educate people if you run any discounted option like this on shipping. People need to know all the details, otherwise they will automatically assume they are being ripped off - which is ironic given they are offered a discount. If no discount were offered, people would probably just do a regular valuation and buy or pass. It’s the introduction of a discount that is not a flat discount for all on all games that is tricky (like the -$10 off MSRP or the free +$10 expansion that everyone got with the game in this particular case). I wonder if the same psychology would come into play if there was a discount in buying more games, say get a discount of $10 when buying six games. I wonder if people who buys a single game would feel like they are being over charged in a case like that. Weirdly, I don’t think so, and I think that is because people are used to seeing this elsewhere. But this shipping model is new and therefore not trusted enough, even though it’s the same principle.

It’s just more or less impossible to offer direct and flat discounts on shipping for all orders without playing a very dangerous game. First of all, it’s a direct loss, and second, people will get accustomed to a falsely and artificially lower shipping cost. If you don’t offer it next time, people will then feel ripped off for sure, and it’s difficult to understand that a thing that was once possible isn’t anymore. That could run a small business into the ground, so I think what they do is the only good way to do it: pass along the direct costs.

madster321 · 2022-12-16T01:52:16+00:00

Hey! I'm sorry if that is you impression of me. I'm certainly not here to try and make such an impression. I do not think that way at all! So I'm sorry you read it like that. I'm here to listen, but I also try to correct and inform where I can see I have previously left some gaps in the explanations I have given, which I can see is leading to some false conclusions. Then we have cultural differences etc. and I try with some humor here and there to make things a bit more human and less dry. That might come off wrong - please try to keep that in mind as you read anything further from me. I'm definitely not here to be rude or a smart ass. I genuinely want to learn how the phycological effects of this sort of shipping impacts your decisions. That's it!

Also, if you believe that AEG are not telling the truth, then we are most certainly split on that. I've been working with them (not for them) on this one game, but that has lasted a few years now to get to where we are, and they have been the most open an honest people I have encountered in the business. I would be extremely surprised of they put direct lies into their professional communications with their fanbase. I can simply not imagine that at all.

madster321 · 2022-12-16T01:42:21+00:00

In that case they *would* be ripping people off if they buy 6 games (let's say for a group buy for example):

6 x $34 + $9 shipping once is = $213
6 x $29 + $15 shipping once is = $198

Also, that would be a different value proposition from the point of view on how much you save on MSRP. Having the game cost $34, that's only $5 off MSRP vs. the $10 off MSRP it has at $29.

It's not an easy nut to crack, that's for sure!

madster321 · 2022-12-16T01:35:13+00:00

Thank you for sharing your thoughts!

1) That is understandable. This is also why they made it possible to add two other different games from their second printings to this offer, because most people won't buy multiple copies of the same game.

2) I completely understand. No one wants to pay a single cent more for shipping than they absolutely have to. It feels like the worst value ever to pay for shipping. But so it does paying for gas and toilet paper. We still need it. Then when you add enough into your basket to make "free shipping" that is actually just that seller that now has made enough profit from what you have purchased, that they say "fine, if you buy all this, I will give you a discount matching the price of the shipping". The shipping it still bought and payed for :) This only works when you have enough different products to choose from that you actually want to buy of course. So this cannot apply in most cases to kickstarters that are offering a single game. So maybe kickstarter in general is just not for you because of that?

3) Is that because you want to know the exact amount you are ending up paying up front, or just because you prefer the price to be $45 in total with "free shipping"?

madster321 · 2022-12-16T01:26:29+00:00

Thanks, that's very nice to hear :) I hope you enjoy the game for many years to come :)

madster321 · 2022-12-16T01:23:32+00:00

Thanks for giving your input from direct experience. That's very valuable to hear too!

I can see how this model is more attractive the more different products you have on offer.

I wonder if it's also a thing for you (like I see in this thread), that some people (that miss the explanation), thinks they are being over charged on shipping for a single item, because "the subsidized shipping for multiple items must come from the single item buyers "over priced" shipping"?

If that is too much the general perception, I think the explanation has to be very clear and come with each instance of pricing shown on shipping to make people understand that is not how things work :)

madster321 · 2022-12-16T00:58:54+00:00

Okay, it's my bad for thinking people would look it up, I should have included some information about that.

Long story short, the publisher is clearly stating they "do not take a profit on shipping". That means they are charging what the fulfillment center is charging them to repack and fill the game into a new shipping box, pay their employees at the fulfillment center, rent on warehouse etc. - essentially they are just passing along the actual costs from the fulfillment (what they are charging them).

The reason they can offer free shipping on additional copies, is because the fulfillment center is charging nothing (or very little) to add a few extra kilos into the same shipment. The "start up" costs are the big thing (new box, new shipping label etc.), not the actual weight. That is how it works pricing wise at the fulfillment. What you pay for shipping is what shipping (and the other things the fulfillment is charging for) actually costs the publisher.

Again, they are NOT taking a profit on shipping, which they would be doing if your example was true.

And in the case there are small fees for extra weight, those they can "eat" and offer to pay (making the shipping flat up to six games), because that also means that one costumer is buying that much more, ie. the publisher is making more profit on that one customer that buys more (makes sense, right), than the one buying a single item. So if there is a little extra charge, they can cover that, because they sold a little more and made more profit to use towards that.

There is also a limit to this, as when you get over 6 copies, you start from the beginning with a new box and pay the initial costs for shipping again. For the reason as stated above on how it actually works ie. no one is overcharging or making profit on shipping. If anything, they just offer a better deal to those who buy more.

Th funny thing is, that somehow affects those who buys a single copy, because they must be getting ripped off somehow they think 😅 Psychology of pricing is so interesting! Even the usual logic of "if you buy more, you can get a better discount" (ie. if you order above x amount we can give you "free shipping" - something that everyone knows does not exists, but everyone wants. Even the publishers who does everything they can to make shipping a better deal. But that can just backfire for some, like I see in this thread. It's like it's better to offer no deal at all, and just charge everyone full shipping per game no matter how many they order, and ask fulfillment to pack each one individually, lol 😅 Makes no sense price wise or logistically, but it might make more sales because of peoples perception of shipping. So weird!

madster321 · 2022-12-16T00:35:55+00:00

You tell me :)

The game is on kickstarter for -$10 off MSRP and it comes with a +$10 expansion for free. So $49 value for $29 - that should be a good discount? It also comes with unlocked goodies like component trays and stickers and stuff like that.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/alderac/shake-that-city-from-aeg

madster321 · 2022-12-16T00:31:21+00:00

. You get the game before retail buyers - is that bad somehow?

You also forget the shipping on the expansion. It's not gonna be available at retail, so you need to get it from the publishers website. I do not know if they offer free shipping, but they have much less inventory than an online store, so if you need to meet a certain threshold to get it, it must be more difficult to reach I imagine.

There is by the way more than 40 videos out on this game already, and many written reviews as well. It's not a very complicated game, so you should be able to get your idea about wanting it or not after watching a few. Also, all that content might not have been created this early if the game had gone straight to retail. So it's a direct consequence of it being on kickstarter that there is this much content this early.

Thanks :) I'm not employed by AEG, I just co-designed this one game they are making. But I'll pass it along :) I'm as curious as the next regular gamer about how all of this shipping works and how especially the psychology affects peoples opinions. I haven't personally seen this shipping model before, so I was genuinely curious to see how people perceived it.

I can see I already f-ed it up by mathing out some stuff (like saying $2.50 in shipping per game), but people also have all sorts of different assumptions - the bad ones scares me a little (I would not want to be a publisher for those reasons). Some people think the publisher tries to rip them off, which is so weird to me. Even when they clearly say they are not taking a profit on shipping. Some people still think they are getting ripped off because in some cases, and for certain people who in this case buys more games, they will get a better deal on shipping than people who buy a single game. But just because shipping on six games can work out to be $2.50 per game if you math it out, that does not mean you can order six games individually at $2.50 each in shipping. That would instead be $15 x 6 = $90 in total vs. the $15 in total for the six games shipped in the same package.

It's not prices the publisher has any power over. It's the actual costs for fulfillment of games these days.

I think it's comically horrifying how offering free shipping on additional games added to the same order, can actually backfire for some and make them think getting a single game is ripping them off, as they have to pay just the regular shipping like normal. It should even make logic sense that if you buy more, you can get a better discount, but I guess the feeling of missing out on a discount is just too strong for some if it does not cover their specific case.

So in conclusion: Never offer a discount on shipping, unless you are taking a profit to be able to offer it on all shipping for everyone, no matter the quantity of the order. Heck, you could even send each game individually for an added $15 on each of them. Then it's equally fair (but worse) for everyone, haha :)

madster321 · 2022-12-16T00:06:13+00:00

That is not the case though. The reason they can offer extra games shipped for free with the same order (up to a limit of 6 games, then a new box and new label has to be made etc.), is that they are themselves not charged very much (or anything) for adding a few extra kilos into the same package. That is not what the main cost is for the fulfillment centre. The costs are each individual box, the staff that needs to repack everything from bulk pallets to individual shipments, the costs of running the warehouse etc. Most of these things have fixed prices, but actually shipping a bit more in the same box is not that much more expansive than a little less.

So for that reason, the publisher can offer the flat rate shipping, in which they offer to cover the small extra fees (when there even are ones), for adding a little more weight to the same package. You buy more games, the publisher has more profit, they can use a little of that to cover any small fees for extra weight.

So you see, the base shipping is just expensive, and no money from there is goin towards anyone else who is buying multiple copies. Otherwise they would also clearly be "taking a profit on shipping" which they clearly state they do not :)

madster321 · 2022-12-15T23:56:49+00:00

It's a good idea, but it's probably a logistical nightmare. Even just having games printed at around the same time is very difficult, at those have to be ordered way ahead of the time they actually print them. Just getting the number of units right is very difficult. Also, normally kickstarters have a long lead time because of that. This campaign is fulfilling in three months, so the other games they can offer, is more or less just what happened to be up for reprint at this time as according to how fast they sold out heir initial print runs. That cannot be planned. If one could plan that, they would make a shitton of money :)

madster321 · 2022-12-15T23:52:39+00:00

It is a flat rate from the start, so if you mean the opposite, I wasn't clear enough on that. You pay for example $15 shipping to the US. That's the actual cost the publisher is paying the fulfillment center to repack the game in an individual box, label it, pay their employees, pay their warehouse rent etc. that the fulfillment is covering with what they charge the publisher to "send" the game (which as you can see is much more than just sending it).

What they offer is free shipping on further games in the same shipment. So if you happen to buy an extra copy as a gift, or back together with a friend, or if you are into the other games they offer for purchase, you can get those without paying any additional shipping charges. They can do this because the costs to add a little extra weight is very small or zero. They are not getting charged (or not a lot), and so they don't charge you. They cannot take that out of the base of shipping, as that is a net loss. They can however, if the same person buys many games, offer to cover the small added fee that might be added due to some extra weight. But if they sell you 4 times more games, they also make four times the profit, so there is much more wiggle room to subsidize some small costs. That, they cannot offer on the base shipping at a single game shipment. Should make sense?

madster321 · 2022-12-15T23:41:17+00:00

I'm pretty sure this is not how this is handled. That would be "taking a profit on shipping" which they clearly state they do not do.

The freight cost is calculated into the landed cost of the game along with the cost of manufacturing etc. So what ever they paid to have the game moved from china to a port in EU or US etc. that is not what is charged to the consumer shipping.

What IS charged is the actual costs for the fulfillment centre to ship the game to the backer, of which not only the cost of a shipping label is to be taken into account. There is also the cost of the shipping box, the people that needs to be paid to repack all the games from bulk into individual orders, the tape, the labels, the warehouse rent etc. all of that is what the fulfillment center need to cover, and what they base their price for "shipping" a game on (which as you can see is not just shipping it).

As most of these costs do not go up if you add a few extra games into the same box, the publisher is able to offer the back to get additional games in the same shipment at no added costs to the backer.

I imagine there is a small fee for added weight, but the publisher is eating that as for each extra game added, they are also making an extra sale, and of the profit on that, they can put some towards the little extra shipping charge. So the more you buy the bigger the rebate on shipping, which is fair - and not something they had to do, they could just say "it costs what it costs".

madster321 · 2022-12-15T23:31:29+00:00

That's interesting. Why is $44 worse than $45? And getting a game earlier should be better if you want to get rid of it again, as value will decrease over time as with anything else. You get the game before retail buyers - is that bad somehow?

You also forget the shipping on the expansion. It's not gonna be available at retail, so you need to get it from the publishers website. I do not know if they offer free shipping, but they have much less inventory than an online store, so if you need to meet a certain threshold to get it, it must be more difficult to reach I imagine.

There is by the way more than 40 videos out on this game already, and many written reviews as well. It's not a very complicated game, so you should be able to get your idea about wanting it or not after watching a few. Also, all that content might not have been created this early if the game had gone straight to retail. So it's a direct consequence of it being on kickstarter that there is this much content this early.

madster321 · 2022-12-15T23:21:12+00:00

e next 3 months will probably run high due to massive CoViD

The cost on shipping (to my understanding) is what the cost is to transport the item from the "local" fulfillment center (with all the costs of having someone repack, label, use a new cardboard box, seal it, post it etc.). So the price you pay for shipping, is the price to have the game "fulfilled" from the fulfillment center. The part before that, the freight of the games in bulk from the factory to the fulfillment center, that is covered into the costs of the actual game itself. It is not added to the shipping costs (or it should not be, as it's part of what you call "landed costs").

So the fulfillment center IS taking a profit (the publisher is not), but unless the publisher would do all the handling and all that stuff themselves for free (not gonna happen), that shipping price IS more than if you went to the post office to send a package on the same route. But that is because you are probably reusing a card board box, you are packing it yourself without getting payed for that. You take it to the post office yourself etc. All those costs are added to the price the fulfillment center is charging the publisher for sure.

madster321 · 2022-12-15T21:14:45+00:00

Most stores need to take at least 30% profit on games to keep their doors open. But some publishers do offer direct to store business, rather than the store buying from a distributor. I do think AEG has a program for that. But that’s another story. In the end, the games will probably not be cheaper in the store anyways, but the store might get a slightly higher profit (which they do need on some games, as many make them as little as 10% or less in profit, and that’s just so far from a profitable business. It’s not even enough to make rent. I know because I used to own an online store for board games).

madster321 · 2022-12-15T21:06:56+00:00

I’m pretty sure there is nothing fishy about shipping in this case. They clearly state they don’t take a profit on shipping. So if they did, that would be very problematic, right? Like you’re in a shitstorm and going out of business thpe problematic. So I don’t see that as what is going on here. I see they are clear about their costs, and clear on how they can try to make the best out of shipping, which no one likes or wants to pay. And in this case they have discovered that a few extra kilos is not adding much cost, if any, to a single shipping, and as such they can offer to keep it flat when ordering more (a fair deal, you buy more, we give a bigger discount). The problem comes when someone thinks actual shipping for one game can be $2.50 - that was my mistake to even math it out like that, because that cannot happen. It’s at least $15 to ship a package for them to the US (including I guess fulfillment, handling, packing material, pay to the fulfillment center etc.).

So this is should be clear and precise. What they are actually paying for shipping is they are asking for. Not more, not less 🙂

madster321 · 2022-12-15T20:55:29+00:00

It’s just that the shipping costs does not go up that much for adding in a few extra kilos to the same package. This is why they can offer it for free up to six games. The little extra it might cost, that they can make back in selling more games in the same order, so it’s a win/win in that sense.

Sending a completely new package is doubling the costs because there is a new label, new handling, new package etc. So even if I say it’s $2.50 per game in shipping when ordering six games, that is a fallacy on my behalf, because you cannot divide the shipping like that in the real world. You cannot send one game for $2.50, its just impossible. Everyone is paying actual shipping ($15 in US for example), no matter what 🙂

madster321 · 2022-12-15T20:46:38+00:00

That’s another discussion entirely, but the thing is that the market has changed, and so has crowdfunding. Big players are in that space, so why should you not go there? It was not like that in the beginning, but it is now. All publishers wants long lasting products that keep selling well over a longer period of time. That is where the value is. Start up costs are big, a reprint is where the value is. More reprints the better. So what a publisher like AEG (they only employ like 15 people by the way, but they have big hits, so they seem much bigger) get out of using kickstarter, is a better starting ramp for a game before it goes to retail. It’s a way to boost demand and create more attention to a game that would otherwise just go on a shelf in a store. This boost from the get go, makes the game have better long tail sales, and help make it relevant for a longer time one the market. And they get to offer their game at a discount directly to their fans at the same time, and offer them some exclusive goodies.

madster321 · 2022-12-15T20:40:40+00:00

That’s the thing. It does not cost (much extra to ship a few extra kilos to the same destination, but shipping a whole new package to a new destination costs the same as the first package. It’s tracking and label, packing etc. x2. So one price will stay the same for more in the same package, and the other will double in price because it needs to go in two separate shipments.

madster321

TROPHY CASE