Rolling for Initiative is a weekly column by Scott Thorne, PhD, owner of Castle Perilous Games & Books in Carbondale, Illinois and instructor in marketing at Southeast Missouri State University. This week, Thorne lays out the benefits for retailers of choosing to buy through distribution as opposed to direct from the publisher.
Every day our store receives at least one email from a company or publisher soliciting our business and touting the benefits of buying directly from them instead of through distribution (see “Why Distributors Matter“). We usually demur and will continue to put most of our orders through distribution for the following reasons:
Product selection. Publishers and manufacturers generally focus on one category of product or a particular product mix. The Pokemon Company makes Pokémon TCG cards in a variety of packages: tins, Elite Trainer Boxes, boxed sets, etc. Evil Hat Productions produces a number of RPGs which tie in with their FATE system. DC Comics publishes DC comics, while Stonemaier Games publishes Wingspan, Scythe and Tokaido. I sell all of these and a good number of stores reading this do too. I cannot, however, get Pokémon, FATE RPGs, and DC Comics from Stonemaier Games. Distributors allow us to bring in a wide variety of products from one source.
Just one, please. Most publishers and manufactures have an extensive catalog, but have just one or just a handful of products we want to carry. Alley Cat Games, to pick one example, has about 20 games in its catalog, but we only want to stock two or three of them, such as One Deck Dungeon. Choosing distribution allows our store to buy what sells and meet minimum free shipping requirements without having to purchase other parts of the catalog that may not sell in our store.
Freight. Tied into the two points above are freight charges, which can take a significant amount of the gross margin on a product or require fairly large purchases in order to qualify for free or reduced shipping. Looking at the show specials from the recent ASTRA Marketplace event, many of the manufacturers required purchases of $1000 to $2000 to qualify for free or discounted shipping, which goes back to my previous point. There are very few product lines, aside from some from Games Workshop, Wizards of the Coast and The Pokemon Company that most mid-sized single stores need in that quantity. I can assort an order of several lines through Universal Distribution, ACD Distribution or Southern Hobby (our primary distributors) and reach free shipping, which helps store margins.
Thoughts? Send them to castleperilousgames@gmail.com.
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.
Source: ICV2
