Europe Subscription Prices are much too high


Customer Service


Hi

can anyone explain the enormous price difference between an american an a european subscription? When I buy a US-RPG I pay about 0.85 to 0.9 Euro per US$, so that a $20 book is Euro 17.80. When I buy a Dungeon, I have to pay between 9 and 11 Euro per Dungeon - and, sorry to say that, they are not worth this much of money.

A subscription is about $40 a year in the US - that would be Euro 35 - but I have to pay $72 for a european version. Let's get serious, when every other book bought from the US is so much cheaper, it SHOULD be possible to do the same to your Magazines. I am quite sure there are enough european distributers willing to help spread the mags here. I'd be one of the first subscribers for the "real" price.

best regards

gurps


The mail prices are pretty high now. You used to be able to air mail stuff to Germany pretty cheap, but something like a magazine is like $4-$5 now. I know that Paizo gets a bulk discount from the Post Office, but that's still high.

Unless Paizo has a printer in Europe? If they do and they're not mailing the magazines from the U.S., then they have to pay for that also.

I subscribed to "Focus" for a while in the late 90's when I couldn't get my German TV on cable and they charged like 3-4 times their cover price in Germany for the U.S. subscription, so this is not a unique trend.


Postage is expensive, I know, but WHY are US RPG Books like Eberron, GURPS or other so much cheaper - they were sent here in the same way, ok, they are not monthly sent, but it wouldnt matter much if a european sub arrives some days later (if sent with other products for instance).

gurps


gurps wrote:
When I buy a Dungeon, I have to pay between 9 and 11 Euro per Dungeon - and, sorry to say that, they are not worth this much of money.

The price you indicate seems very high. In France (Paris), an issue of Dungeon in a game store costs me about 6.80 euros. But it's true the subscrition fee is prohibitive, it's far cheaper to buy the magazine monthly.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

gurps wrote:
Postage is expensive, I know, but WHY are US RPG Books ... so much cheaper

Because you pay a high shipping price <i>once</i> for an RPG, as opposed to twelve times for a subscription. Broken down, that extra $34 works out to $2.83 per issue. It's pretty tough to get anything transcontinental for much less than $3.

We have worked hard to fulfill European subscriptions as inexpensively as possible. Issues destined for European subscribers are shipped along with issues headed for retail distribution; individual issues are then sent from the UK by our fulfillment partner. This way, we are able to save some money on the overseas transit, but then we still have to cover the cost of having a third party fulfill the issues. (Without this system in place, we'd have to price European subs the same as other international subs—currently, that's $79.95.)

Unfortunately, we just don't have enough European sales (at retail or otherwise) to justify printing separate runs in Europe - and even if we did, we'd still have to pay somebody to fulfill those issues.

That said, we are continually looking at ways to reduce costs for everything.

-Vic.
.


Vic Wertz wrote:
gurps wrote:
Postage is expensive, I know, but WHY are US RPG Books ... so much cheaper

Because you pay a high shipping price <i>once</i> for an RPG, as opposed to twelve times for a subscription. Broken down, that extra $34 works out to $2.83 per issue. It's pretty tough to get anything transcontinental for much less than $3.

We have worked hard to fulfill European subscriptions as inexpensively as possible. Issues destined for European subscribers are shipped along with issues headed for retail distribution; individual issues are then sent from the UK by our fulfillment partner. This way, we are able to save some money on the overseas transit, but then we still have to cover the cost of having a third party fulfill the issues. (Without this system in place, we'd have to price European subs the same as other international subs—currently, that's $79.95.)

Unfortunately, we just don't have enough European sales (at retail or otherwise) to justify printing separate runs in Europe - and even if we did, we'd still have to pay somebody to fulfill those issues.

That said, we are continually looking at ways to reduce costs for everything.

-Vic.
.

I don't pay ANY shipping price for an american RPG - neither intercontinental nor german, when I order my games from a german distributor - so WHY do I have to pay the higher prices when I order a dungeon from the same distributor? Because his price-to-buy-a-dungeon is much higher than for a "normal" RPG product.

The combined shipping is of course the right way. I don't want to destroy any jobs or distributors in any country, but we DO have an enourmous price-difference for services and postage in europe - maybe the UK isn't the right place to send the magazines from (I guess, Germay isnt either, but maybe something in the eastern part) - OR what about using an existing organization as amazon or libri?

I guess the European sales will grow when the prices become lower for us european customers :) And printing costs in europe vary in a great deal from country to country - from 100% here in Germany (for instance) to 40% in the southern eastern european countries.

gurps


Being a former German citizen, I have to admire all my former countrymen (and women) who play D&D and use English language products and presumably play in German...just thinking about having to read the products in English and then run a game in German gives me a headache. Kopfschmerzen (hey, that would make a cool villain name!)

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

gurps wrote:
I don't pay ANY shipping price for an american RPG...

I guarantee you *somebody* is paying to ship it, and that cost inevitably is getting passed on to the final purchaser somehow. One place it may hide is in the currency exchange. You might not even notice if you're asked to pay the equivalent of $23 for a $20 product, but when you find you're asked to pay $10 for a $7 magazine... well, that's why you're posting here.

gurps wrote:
...so WHY do I have to pay the higher prices when I order a dungeon from the same distributor? Because his price-to-buy-a-dungeon is much higher than for a "normal" RPG product.

That shouldn't be the case. The percentage discount a retailer gets on one of our magazines from his distributor should be the same exact percentage discount he gets on any other product he buys from that distributor. (To clarify indistry terminology, publishers sell to distributors; distributors sell to retailers; retailers sell to consumers.)

(An example of what is meant by "percentage discount": if the retail price of a product is $10, and the retailer buys it from his distributor for $6, he's buying at a 40% discount.)

-Vic.
.


farewell2kings wrote:
Being a former German citizen, I have to admire all my former countrymen (and women) who play D&D and use English language products and presumably play in German...just thinking about having to read the products in English and then run a game in German gives me a headache. Kopfschmerzen (hey, that would make a cool villain name!)

Hey, that's the main reason why I learned english to this level - I'm used to play in german and read and translate the original game parallel - that's fun :) Though I found myself sometimes using english Satzaufbau - putting the verbs to the wrong places in german :)


Vic Wertz wrote:
gurps wrote:
I don't pay ANY shipping price for an american RPG...

I guarantee you *somebody* is paying to ship it, and that cost inevitably is getting passed on to the final purchaser somehow. One place it may hide is in the currency exchange. You might not even notice if you're asked to pay the equivalent of $23 for a $20 product, but when you find you're asked to pay $10 for a $7 magazine... well, that's why you're posting here.

ok :) I'm quite sure that I DO pay the postage somehow :) But let me compare two prices from one seller - the cheapest I could find:

d20 eberron Whispers of vampire blade - US price $10 to european price Euro 6.50 incl postage

dungeon 126 - US $7 to europ Euro 8.60 - though it should cost 4,55 if the ratio were the same as in the d20 adventure above. thats nearly twice the price.

Both articles were sent the same way I guess, so why do I have to pay nearly twice the price?

gurps


Well, I subscribed to Dungeon and Dragon mainly because you can not buy these magazines normally in Hungary (I could buy it in the local game store before, but even then they did not get every issue, and sometimes they got the issues 4-5 months later). :-(

But I think the price is normal, for 72$ you get 12 issues, which is cheaper than to buy each issue, and I get it delivered to my post box.

My problem is the shipping time, as it takes more than 3 weeks for the magazine to arrive from the date it is said to be shipped on the web. OK, I know the magazines first arrive to the UK in a mass, and then get shipped to each address, but it still seems a bit much. When I order back issues, I get them in a week from the US.


gurps wrote:
d20 eberron Whispers of vampire blade - US price $10 to european price Euro 6.50 incl postage

I have to assume you are talking about purchasing from a retailer in Europe. As Vic mentioned, prices will depend on what's happening at the publisher, distributor, and retailer level.

The real question here is how you are able to get Whispers of the Vampire Blade *cheaper* in Europe, given the current exchange rate of 1 Euro = 1.2391 U.S. dollars. 6.50 Euros is probably pretty close to the distributor cost here in the states.

Of course, part of the reason is that you are comparing full suggested retail price in the US ($9.95) with the actual discounted retail price in Europe (E6.50). Apples and Oranges.

Several possible additional contributing factors:
a ) Wizards of the Coast deliberately sells product cheaper to european distributors. Seems unlikely.
b ) The distributor is flush with that product and is unloading it. More likely.
c ) The retailer is flush with that product and is unloading it. More likely.

Without knowing everything about every step of the way, I couldn't possibly tell you how you are able to get Whisper of the Vampire Blade so cheaply, but there are some possibilities.


Gray Eminence wrote:
But I think the price is normal, for 72$ you get 12 issues, which is cheaper than to buy each issue, and I get it delivered to my post box.

Excellent. Well said.

Gray Eminence wrote:
My problem is the shipping time, as it takes more than 3 weeks for the magazine to arrive from the date it is said to be shipped on the web. OK, I know the magazines first arrive to the UK in a mass, and then get shipped to each address, but it still seems a bit much.

Subscriber copies can take two weeks or more within the US, depending on your location, so 3 weeks in Europe actually exceeds my expectations.

And of course, herein lies the balance. Cost and speed are inversely proportional.

Gray Eminence wrote:
When I order back issues, I get them in a week from the US.

Back issues are shipped by a much more expensive method and therefore ship faster.


Robert Head wrote:
gurps wrote:
d20 eberron Whispers of vampire blade - US price $10 to european price Euro 6.50 incl postage

I have to assume you are talking about purchasing from a retailer in Europe. As Vic mentioned, prices will depend on what's happening at the publisher, distributor, and retailer level.

The real question here is how you are able to get Whispers of the Vampire Blade *cheaper* in Europe, given the current exchange rate of 1 Euro = 1.2391 U.S. dollars. 6.50 Euros is probably pretty close to the distributor cost here in the states.

Of course, part of the reason is that you are comparing full suggested retail price in the US ($9.95) with the actual discounted retail price in Europe (E6.50). Apples and Oranges.

Several possible additional contributing factors:
a ) Wizards of the Coast deliberately sells product cheaper to european distributors. Seems unlikely.
b ) The distributor is flush with that product and is unloading it. More likely.
c ) The retailer is flush with that product and is unloading it. More likely.

Without knowing everything about every step of the way, I couldn't possibly tell you how you are able to get Whisper of the Vampire Blade so cheaply, but there are some possibilities.

*lol* no - way I get this (and ALL other products) so cheap is - I choose the seller on his webpage (www.dragonworld.de), choose the product and buy - it's yuite simple :-) No flushing, no secret and illuminated connection - just like this. Compare the prices if you like - but please check his dungeon prices also.

gurps


gurps wrote:

Hi

can anyone explain the enormous price difference between an american an a european subscription? When I buy a US-RPG I pay about 0.85 to 0.9 Euro per US$, so that a $20 book is Euro 17.80. When I buy a Dungeon, I have to pay between 9 and 11 Euro per Dungeon - and, sorry to say that, they are not worth this much of money.

A subscription is about $40 a year in the US - that would be Euro 35 - but I have to pay $72 for a european version. Let's get serious, when every other book bought from the US is so much cheaper, it SHOULD be possible to do the same to your Magazines. I am quite sure there are enough european distributers willing to help spread the mags here. I'd be one of the first subscribers for the "real" price.

best regards

gurps

Nonsense.

72$ for an annual subscription, including shipping, is extremely good value for the product you're getting.

These days a single d20 hardcover book (for instance, the Freeport campaign setting from Green Ronin) from those same German retailers you're referring to costs about 26 euros, that is, about 32$. Books like this have about 160 pages usually. Therefore, for the price of your annual Dungeon subscription you'd be limited to buying two volumes like these, for a total page count of about 320 pages. Considering how every single Dungeon issue has 100+ pages, I can hardly see how anyone could accuse Paizo of excessively high prices.

And don't even get me started with quality: I have become really tired of the endless succession of trash WoTC and many other publishers are currently putting out on the market, and the contrast between their anodine, totally generic stuff and the brilliantly written and designed modules Paizo manages to churn out is enormous.

@gurps: and by the way, I am also located in Germany and a regular customer of the Dragonworld online store.


Hi there!

I have got another question concerning this topic. I see that there is the option for international customers to subscibe for 36 issues. Compared to the international 12 issues subscription you can save a good 10%.

So, why is there no 24 or 36 issues option for customers in Europe?

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Feuerbart wrote:
So, why is there no 24 or 36 issues option for customers in Europe?

We set up the 12-issue subscription price based on cost projections that we weren't terribly sure about, and we wanted to see if we could get a better grasp of the actual costs based on data from sending out 1-year subs before we set up pricing for longer term subs. I'm not sure if anyone ever finished the analysis necessary to set those prices, but I'll give our publisher a poke.

-Vic.
.


gurps wrote:


When I buy a Dungeon, I have to pay between 9 and 11 Euro per Dungeon - and, sorry to say that, they are not worth this much of money.

best regards

gurps

I wonder where that 9 to 11 Euro price tag comes from. My local games shop sold the individual magazines for 7 Euro last time I checked, and still, a subscription is cheaper by the issue (around 5 Euro per issue, due to the exchange rate).

I remember the 80s, when I started gaming, the prices for imported US books were prohibitive due to a very different exchange rate. The 1st Ed PHB had a price tag of around 50 Deutschmarks, the DMG 70 to 80. (The german translations came about 35 Deutschmarks, the DMG around 45-50, IIRC)
Nowadays, a PHB or DMG costs about 30-35 Euro, which is numerically roughly the same as 70 Deutschmarks - but you have to take into account inflation (nearly 20 years!), not to mention the layout and art content of the 3.5 D&D books - 1st Ed. PHB/DMG had b/w stencil drawings, most of them of small size, and not all the monsters were illustrated in the MMs, not even with these small drawings. So, nowadays the books and magazines have rather low prices to me, especially considering the art contained.

Stefan


Vic Wertz wrote:
I'm not sure if anyone ever finished the analysis necessary to set those prices, but I'll give our publisher a poke.

That would be fine. Thanks Vic!

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