Promotion Response

Three weeks ago I mentioned that I was trying to set up a promotion to encourage US shops to stock my games, and to help those that already stock my games to sell more.

The deal was that Alliance one of my US distributors, who have my games on consignment would offer my games at a discount price to their retailers. The games would be offered at 25% of US MSRP to shops that buy from Alliance. The restriction was that each shop could only buy at most one copy of each game, for demo purposes only - this wasn't a way for the shops to get cheap copies for resale.

The way my consignment deal works with Alliance is that at the beginning of each month they email me purchase orders for all the copies they've sold during the previous month, and then I invoice them for those sales.

This means I've got a very good idea of how well the deal is going, since I'm told at the end of the month how many copies they've sold. Sales last month were up on January's sales, and I know that in the first two and a half weeks of the deal they've sold 28 copies of It's Alive!, 32 copies of Carpe Astra and 25 copies of Sumeria through the deal. Since I know that each shop can only buy a single copy of each game I know that at least 32 shops have taken advantage of the offer already.

I arranged to offer the promotion for a month, and then we'd check how it was going and work out whether it was worth continuing it. I'll be checking in with my buyer at Alliance in a week or so to work out whether it's worth continuing the promotion.

In the meantime, I'll be able to track over the coming months whether sales seem to have increased (remembering the seasonal dip in sales at this time of year).

One thing I'm still not sure about. Why the differences in sales of the promotional copies? Why has Carpe Astra sold more than the others (considering it's my slowest selling game overall). I'm also wondering whether the total is more than 32 (i.e. did every retailer than bought a cheap copy of It's Alive! and Sumeria also buy Carpe Astra, or are there more than 32 takers?

Breaking into Shops

If you take a look at my stockists page on my website, you'll notice that there are almost as many UK stockists of my games (that I know about) as there are American. America however is a much bigger market (I know of 600-odd games stores in the US and Alliance service 2,500 game and comic shops.

So why is my market penetration so much better in the UK despite several US distributors? There are several reasons:

1. UK shops like to carry UK publishers' games: they're local
2. It's easier for me to contact UK shops by phone and in person
3. It's easier for me to organise events in UK shops
4. My games are cheaper in the UK (less shipping)

So what can I do to improve the number of shops in the US (and Canada, Germany and the rest of Europe for that matter) that carry my games?

The first thing I did was to email all the shops I could find an email address (or web form) for, introducing my games and asking them to consider stocking them. That seemed to go pretty well, but several of the shops wanted demo copies of the games, either to see them before deciding whether or not to stock them or to allow demos of store-owned copies to help them sell the stock they have.

It costs me at least £21 to send a set of all three games to the US so it would be a very expensive effort was I to supply copies to all those who wanted them from the UK. However, my US distributors have stock on hand in the US, and can fold demo copies in with the rest of their stocking order to the shop in question, so the shipping is effectively free. So I'm trying to set up a promotion where one of my distributors allows shops in the US they service to buy my games at a reduced price. Apparently some big US publishers offer shops the chance to buy demo copies at 25% of the full retail price - so that's the deal I'm trying to set up.

One of my US distributors currently have my games on consignment: they have a decent amount of stock of all three games, and they just let me know how many they've sold each month and then I invoice them for those sales. Since they haven't already paid me for the stock they've got on hand, it's going to be easier to set up a promotion with them than someone who has already paid me full wholesale price for the stock they are offering at a reduced price.

Obviously the price I've negotiated with the distributors for the ordinary copies is based on them selling the copies at the ordinary price, so I've got to negotiate a new price for each game when sold through the promotion. Also, I don't want each shop to stock up on cheap copies - I want it limited to one copy per game per store, purely for demo purposes. Fortunately, this is something the distributor can organise.

I've gone around the houses a bit trying to find the right person at the distributor to talk to about this, but hopefully it's going to be sorted pretty quickly, now that I'm talking to the right guy. Things are also being slowed down by the time difference - it usually takes 24 hours to get an answer to my questions :(.

Newsletters

Newsletters, when done right, are what Seth Godin calls permission marketing:

Permission marketing is the privilege (not the right) of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who actually want to get them.

I've asked everyone on my mailing list for their permission to send them a newsletter every quarter, and in every case they have signed up, saying they want to receive this information.

I offer people who meet me at conventions the chance to sign up and I offer people who email me the chance to sign up. Only those that want to get the emails. It's not spam.

In the newsletter, I always list the conventions I'll be attending over the next few months, how each of my games are doing and any information about new games in the pipeline. After Tuesday's discussion about a sale, I decided to offer the sale only to those people on my mailing list.

Pros

Only offering the sale prices to those people on my mailing list is a way of giving them something back for giving me permission to send them marketing information. It says that I appreciate their permission.

Although I am undercutting some retailers with my sale prices, it's a limited time offer, to a select group of people, so it shouldn't annoy my distributors and retailers.

Cons

Because it's going out to a limited number of people, lots of whom will already own my games, it won't boost my sales that much.

Because it's only mentioned to people on my mailing list, although it is a reward for being on my mailing list, it doesn't act as an incentive to join my mailing list as those people who aren't on it will never hear about it.

It's led to a few sales so far, not sure how many more to expect.

September Could Be Slow

I'm expecting September sales to be fairly low, since I've no new games coming out, and I hope lots of people will be waiting to buy from me at Essen next month (and get the Sumeria 2-player expansion free with a purchase of Sumeria!).

So far, every month's sales this year has been better (sometimes a lot better) than the corresponding month last year. So far so good. But in fairness, last year I had a few hand-made copies of It's Alive! in April and May, then nothing until September when the professional re-print of It's Alive! arrived.

Last year's September was at the time my best month ever, more than twice the turnover than the previous June (which was the best I'd had so far). Of course it didn't keep the record long as October was when I went to Essen for the first time, and last October's sales were nearly five times September's, which remains my current record.

The It's Alive! re-print will have been out one year on Friday. Last September's figures were the result of the pre-orders and the initial stocking orders for It's Alive! With no corresponding new game launch this year I'm going to struggle to match last year's September figures this year. I've been considering doing a September sale to try to boost sales this month.

To make it worthwhile, the sale price has to be low enough to entice people to buy from me (not a local internet retailer), while still making me some money after I've paid the shipping and VAT. I figure I've got three options: free shipping, discounted games with full price shipping and discounted total (shipping and games). I'll consider these against example UK and US online pricing (I've used Games Lore and Board and Bits respectively as examples). I've used Carpe Astra as the example (it's in the middle of my game price range) and the middle price for Boards and Bits shipping ($8.50). Note that both online retailers offer discounted (or free) shipping if you place a large order, so me considering a purchase of just Carpe Astra is a little disingenuous.

Free shipping. My price for Carpe Astra: £22 (approx $36.30). Games Lore Price: £20.20. Boards and Bits price: $34.10. Makes the game more affordable for US customers (but still more expensive than buying from an online retailer in the US), and doesn't help UK customers at all (they can get it cheaper from a UK online store, or from a shop). I'd make a decent amount money on a UK sale (£22 - £3.14 shipping = 18.86 which is £16.40 ex VAT), less on a US sale (£22 - £8.30 shipping = £13.70 which is £11.91 ex VAT).

Discounted games, full price shipping. If I did 30% off: My UK price: £15.60 + £3.14 shipping = £18.74, My US price: £15.60 + £8.30 = £23.90 (approx $39.50 - almost full retail price!). Helps the UK customer, but doesn't help the US customer at all (since the shipping is not discounted and very expensive). I'd make a reasonably amount of money each sale (£13.56 ex VAT).

Discounted total. Say 40% off the total game and shipping price: My UK price: £25.14 * .6 = £15.08, my US price: £30.30 * .6 = £18.18 (approx $30). This would be a great deal for the UK customer, and a reasonable deal for the US customer. My ex Vat pricing would be £10.38 for a UK sale (more than a distributor sale, less than a shop sale), £8.59 for a US sale (in the same range).

So, I wonder. Would this work? Would I sell any copies as a result? Would I look desperate? If I decide to do it, then I can advertise it in my quarterly newsletter which is due soon, and on BoardGameGeek and Boardgame News.

Sumeria 2-Player Expansion

Sumeria was originally submitted to me as a 2-4 player game. I played the 2-player version several times and really liked it.

During play-testing, one of my blind playtesters found a weakness in the two-player game that made the second city-state worth less than the third (and the choice of influence counters pretty meaningless). Since the 2-player version also added to the cost of the game (since it needed extra wooden pieces), Dirk and I decided to drop it so the game was only 3-4 player. Later in play-testing a slight change to the 2-player rules fixed these problems, but it stayed out of the game as released.

Until now! I've decided to release the 2-player version of Sumeria as a promo expansion at Essen. What's the deal? Buy Sumeria from me at Essen and you'll get the limited edition promo expansion free! It includes 6 extra trader pieces in each of the four player colours, a sticker to add to the board to show a fourth player turn per round and a rulesheet (in English and German again). All wrapped up in a plastic baggie.

If you've already got a copy of Sumeria (well done :-) ), the expansion will be available to pre-order from my website shortly, and if I have any left after Essen they will continue to be available there. To keep the cost to a minimum, I've decided on baggie packaging rather than a small box, this means it probably won't be available in shops ever, but I hope it will only cost £2 plus postage and packaging from my website.

This is my first time making both an expansion and a convention promo, it will be interesting to see how it goes...