A rethink on Crowdsourcing.
When I put my Goblin Tarot decks up on Indiegogo last year, I followed along with the idea of including a "retailer" package. I decided that the idea of four decks for the price of 3 was a good reduction that might lure a few people in. It worked a bit, with three people taking up the offer.
I've seen a lot of other crowdfunded projects using the same idea. but until today, I hadn't considered the retailer side of things. Perhaps a retailer doesn't want multiple copies of a product cluttering up their shelves.
I've worked in BIG retail, ordering thousands of products to distribute among hundreds of stores...mostly electrical goods. In this sort of environment, you can get away with an initial bulk order, then a series of top ups to keep inventory at a stable level. But for small retail (the kind of place where you find the types of games I design), there needs to be a different thought pattern.
Two blog posts by Black Diamond Games have highlighted this for me...
Here and Here.
The whole idea of this retailer level package seems to have the old distribution model in mind...the distribution model where a game company just tries to offload as many of their games as possible into the hands of a distributor, and a distributor just tries to get as many of their products as possible into retail shopfronts. Occasionally someone thinks about the retailers needing to get these products into the hands of customers.
With this in mind, perhaps it would be better to provide a retailer support package for a crowdfunded endeavour rather than a higher number of products at a reduced price. I'm thinking about a couple of posters for a store, a quick start play kit, some colour flyers and maybe even a display stand. An advanced retailer support package might then move up to the increased inventory quantity and have some other merchandise related to the game (simple gimmicky stuff like keyrings or pens that could be given away as promotional items for the product). This is usually expensive, but it's the kind of thing that big companies use to promote their products all the time...because it drives sales.
The expense is an issue that the crowdfunding can be used to overcome. So maybe, it might just work.
I've seen a lot of other crowdfunded projects using the same idea. but until today, I hadn't considered the retailer side of things. Perhaps a retailer doesn't want multiple copies of a product cluttering up their shelves.
I've worked in BIG retail, ordering thousands of products to distribute among hundreds of stores...mostly electrical goods. In this sort of environment, you can get away with an initial bulk order, then a series of top ups to keep inventory at a stable level. But for small retail (the kind of place where you find the types of games I design), there needs to be a different thought pattern.
Two blog posts by Black Diamond Games have highlighted this for me...
Here and Here.
The whole idea of this retailer level package seems to have the old distribution model in mind...the distribution model where a game company just tries to offload as many of their games as possible into the hands of a distributor, and a distributor just tries to get as many of their products as possible into retail shopfronts. Occasionally someone thinks about the retailers needing to get these products into the hands of customers.
With this in mind, perhaps it would be better to provide a retailer support package for a crowdfunded endeavour rather than a higher number of products at a reduced price. I'm thinking about a couple of posters for a store, a quick start play kit, some colour flyers and maybe even a display stand. An advanced retailer support package might then move up to the increased inventory quantity and have some other merchandise related to the game (simple gimmicky stuff like keyrings or pens that could be given away as promotional items for the product). This is usually expensive, but it's the kind of thing that big companies use to promote their products all the time...because it drives sales.
The expense is an issue that the crowdfunding can be used to overcome. So maybe, it might just work.
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Comments
A few things:
* Including retailers in stretch goals goes a long way and avoids penalizing them.
* Margin is key, but if you can't have margin, have some price flexibility. That's easy on a tarot deck. Even if you give me a 25% margin, I can mark it up, but not so on an RPG product, for example, where consumers are incredibly price conscious.
We carry Cards Against Humanity despite there not being a retailer program. We buy them from Amazon at $25 and sell them for $35, because there's no risk. Customers come in looking for them after we run out and I explain how we get them, but they don't care. They want to get it from us.
* Don't waste money on promotional items. Most retailers don't need the clutter. We've got something like 10,000 items in the store and limited space for that kind of stuff.
DO include things that directly relate to the item. For example, a colorful box to hold the 6 copies of the game you're requesting I purchase, a book mark for your book, etc. a sheet of stickers to give out, a promo card, etc.
These are the exact discussions we have with new publishers all the time. Kickstarter just makes everyone a new publisher.
Finally, the distribution model your describe does not accurately reflect the game trade. Nowadays, distributors are very choosy on precisely what they'll buy from a publisher. They no longer carry full lines unless you're extremely top tier. They order light and are overly cautious.
Most will not touch a Kickstarter project unless it goes ballistic, which means if you want into the distribution tier, you'll need a consolidator, a middle-middle man, like Impressions Marketing. This is a major reason why Kickstarter exists, as it's difficult to get fringe products into customer hands -- but retailer have that same problem.
"Other stuff" would include more books, more promo stuff, maybe supplementals.
This way, if they find the initial batch of books are sold, they can simply gain more. Or, if it's more useful to them, they have other options.
This also shows a dedication to on-going support instead of just "here is a box of stuff, have fun".
But, I'm not really familiar enough with retailers to say if this would be popular.
- Alex
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