After being in the game business for only a little while we have seen the lay of the land. We have been playing the other retailers game. What game? Put up a loss leader game (at below our cost) to drag people to our site, then give them a “free shipping” carrot to trick them into buying more games than they want. Drive traffic through low prices and free shipping. Change the game of the day all the time to make you check our site and waste your time looking at our page every day and obsessing over $1 here or there. Basic marketing tricks.
Rinse and repeat. Daily.
Forget that… we are going Walmart on these guys. What does that mean? LOW PRICES FOR YOU. We believe most customers are smart enough to compare shipped prices and not just a single game of the day. We will still occasionally have game specials for those who want to join our very infrequent newsletter, but starting today we are going to a flat 43% off all games, all the time (except for Mayfair’s Games which prohibit this). Figure 2.2% to our credit card processor, figure our “costs” of each game somewhere around 47% off retail, and you can figure our profit if you are so inclined. Don’t forget rent, shipping materials, or labor. We are talking slim margins.
Shipping will now be based on ACTUAL UPS shipping rates for the weight of your items and not marked up or down as others do. Why is this? With free shipping those people on the west coast were getting say $10 in free shipping while those on the east coast were getting $20+ in free shipping for the same package. We are in Utah so shipping nearer to us is much cheaper. Also realize UPS shipping starts at about $6 for the 1st pound and about $0.30 per pound thereafter. Add some stuff to your cart, check our prices, then add the same items to your cart somewhere else and compare. Come and get it!
Do you know of a game we don’t carry that you want at 43% off retail? Email us at support@empireboardgames.com and tell us. We will check availability and get it for you and email you back with a link to the game, or a reply that it is unavailable within 3 business days. Yes we are serious. Try it.
Thanks for your business and understanding.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
on Oct 17th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
So I take it this means no more free shipping over $90? Are you still offering the $2 coupons for reviews of our orders?
on Oct 18th, 2008 at 1:44 am
Sorry for not making that more clear. We are no longer offering free shipping over $90.00 and have no immediate plans to re-enable this option.
As for the $2.00 discount for feedback: Yes, you can still do this. For anybody reading this, that is unfamiliar with the $2.00 discount. Please see this thread on our forum: http://www.empireboardgames.com/empiregateway/community-forum/viewforum.php?f=11