So this post is going to be fairly straight forward. I pre ordered 2nd edition. I already obtained the first wave of books. Good deal. I paid full price. Here is where I am confused. Why is amazon offering the books at a sizable discount. Why should I pre order from paizo.com the rest of the books that are releasing, when I can save... A lot.
Normally my thought process follows the fact that on Paizo.com you get the PDF's with them as a bonus with no cost. Except you DON'T get them this time around and have to purchase them separately.
Are the Lost omen books, and those coming after, coming with PDF's, or am I just spending extra money by using Paizo with the only benefit being maybe a few weeks early for the books? I prefer to support the developers of products but I like most like to save money.
This post is more about being surprised about Paizo allowing themselves to be undercut so much when they would receive more profits from their own site then from 3rd parties like amazon.
Will check back in the morning. Good Luck and Have fun with Pathfinder 2 everyone! I love it.
*****EDIT***** I realize now you get the PDF only with a subscription. Still, why get it from here? Why not get the pdf here and get the book cheaper?
Subscriptions will get the books earlier/faster and get a pdf.
But yeah it costs more, a LOT more if you aren't living in the US. And probably won't even arrive faster if you don't live in the US so.
-shrugs-
I realize now you get the PDF only with a subscription. Still, why get it from here? Why not get the pdf here and get the book cheaper?
If you can find a way that the cost of the PDF from Paizo + the book from elsewhere is cheaper than just subscribing, then go for it. I subscribed because it would be expensive to get the book and pay for the PDF seperately, and also to support Paizo (since I'm paying ridiculous shipping to the UK anyway).
I'm pretty sure, business-decision-wise, that producers (e.g. Paizo) sell at a big discount to resellers (e.g. Amazon) because the resellers buy a massive amount of the product in one go, which is confirmed sales for the producer. They aren't really being undercut by someone who they've already sold their product to, eh? It's not like Amazon are buying them full price and then selling them at a loss. Amazon probably bought thousands of each product in bulk, at discount from Paizo, then sells them on and passes some of the discount to their customers. Paizo gets sales and products out the door, Amazon gets sales, Amazon customers get discounts and free shipping from Amazon, everyone wins. It's just how business works.
And probably won't even arrive faster if you don't live in the US so.
It very much depends - I live in the UK and got my books last Friday
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So this post is going to be fairly straight forward. I pre ordered 2nd edition. I already obtained the first wave of books. Good deal. I paid full price. Here is where I am confused. Why is amazon offering the books at a sizable discount. Why should I pre order from paizo.com the rest of the books that are releasing, when I can save... A lot.
Normally my thought process follows the fact that on Paizo.com you get the PDF's with them as a bonus with no cost. Except you DON'T get them this time around and have to purchase them separately.
Are the Lost omen books, and those coming after, coming with PDF's, or am I just spending extra money by using Paizo with the only benefit being maybe a few weeks early for the books? I prefer to support the developers of products but I like most like to save money.
This post is more about being surprised about Paizo allowing themselves to be undercut so much when they would receive more profits from their own site then from 3rd parties like amazon.
Will check back in the morning. Good Luck and Have fun with Pathfinder 2 everyone! I love it.
*****EDIT***** I realize now you get the PDF only with a subscription. Still, why get it from here? Why not get the pdf here and get the book cheaper?
The PDF-with-subscription is the main perk (most subscribers get their copies early, but that isn’t a guaranteed perk and every month there are some subscribers who get their books after streetdate, not before it.
In terms of amazon - Paizo can’t do anything about that. Amazon always price books cheaper than anyone else - even cheaper than it costs them, if necessary.
Paizo have also said they need revenue through all their sales channels and that they want customers to choose the avenue that makes the most sense for each of us. Some people like to support FLGSes, some want the cheapest option, others like the free PDF with a subscription. If you want the cheapest option, there are several places that will beat Paizo’s price (especially once you factor in shipping).
As an aside, if you preordered everything expecting to get the PDF and would rather have subscribed, I’d get onto Customer Service ASAP. They may be able to do something about “backdating” a subscription if you act quickly and got everything. It’s not always obvious to new customers what the distinction is between a preorder and a subscription.
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Amazon sets prices extremely low (probably illegally, in a hard-to-prove-in-court way) to build up a global monopoly, or as close as they can get. If Paizo or anyone else sold books at a loss or lack-of-profit like Amazon without all of the other funding sources that Amazon has to offset it, they’d go out of business.
Buying the PDF here and the book on Amazon works fine. I went with a subscription here to gamble on getting my book early, and I’m buying my friends copies from Amazon or the PDF as they prefer.
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Usually they’re very fast (although they don’t do automated replies).
However, they’ve recently had a CS staffmember leave and a few others take some time off - plus there was a new website on top of a new edition. As such - they’ve slowed down a lot and are focussing on the time critical stuff leading up to GenCon.
The fastest method to sort out problems is to ring them on (425) 250-0800 (between 10am and 5pm Pacific time), the second fastest is to start a new thread in the customer service forum (I’d mention that you’d emailed them in that post, so they can cross reference it).
The CS forum is here:
And probably won't even arrive faster if you don't live in the US so.It very much depends - I live in the UK and got my books last Friday
I've seen people posting pictures of the books on a Danish RPG FB group over the last couple of days, so the pre-orders from Paizo have hit mainland Europe too.
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If I were you, I’d post in the forum now (they are taking some time to get to those too).
They don’t mind if you try both avenues - just make sure to mention it so that if they get to your post before your email, they know to clear it off the list.