brick and mortor

Rhaevyn Thu Dec 31, 2015 12:25 pm

I dont often post stuff from BOLS, but this article is pretty great.

I hope someone at GW is listening, because this guy gets it.

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2015/12/ffg-asmodee-the-true-value-of-brick-mortars.html

asmodee wrote:
“What do you say to those that argue that online retail is a more efficient channel, one helped by technology that is able to bring product to consumers in a more price-effective manner?
Online retail is an amazing and valuable road to market. We recognize that and as a publisher we certainly want to keep this channel viable. However, it is primarily a mechanism to more efficiently effect transaction and delivery for an existing demand. The stage of transaction and delivery is only one part of the necessary market functions to have a successful sale to a happy consumer. Another function is communication of availability and benefit (fancy words for marketing) and the most important, and most difficult, function is the creation of demand. Without those others, the function of transaction and delivery will have no reason to exist.

At its core, the value of physical gaming products stems from the medium of shared play between people in the same location. A game is only as valuable as the customer’s ability to play it. Our products, in most cases, require players to connect with other people willing to share a gaming experience.

The most significant obstacle in the growth and perceived value of the gaming business is the need for players to find other players, and for new players to enter the hobby. I estimate that the hobby loses between 10 – 20% of its players every year, so the creation of new players into the hobby is vital for every participant to have a thriving marketplace and have exciting new products developed.

…For a market to be efficient, it must internalize its true cost and be sustainable. In the case of the current hobby market, one channel (online) is relying significantly on the cost and investments of another channel (specialty retail). Our new sales policy seeks to reconcile where Asmodee North America is willing to pay (in the form of the wholesale discounts we extend) for the services we need for the creation of demand.

Does the Specialty Retail Policy cover specialty retail chains (e.g., Barnes & Noble)? …
Broad and mass merchants, being Barnes and Noble, Target, Amazon, etc., are important players and obviously cannot be ignored as important outlets for our products. We categorize these in different channels, with different scale and cost of operations than that of specialty retail.

What impact do you expect this change in policies to have on the online marketplace for products from the Asmodee companies?
We believe that online sales is a viable and important marketplace, and that some consumers either prefer to buy their games online, or do not have access to a high-quality brick-and-mortar gaming retail store. As a publisher, we obviously still want to serve those consumers. We expect to authorize a number of excellent online specialty dealers, and would expect our products to be easily found online…

Do you expect the number of online retailers to decline?
Yes.”