Is it worth doing?
I thought this was appealing at first, retailers might drop more money, maybe help spread the word if they tell their customers they're a backer. But I've been thinking over this one and running the numbers and I don't think it's going to work out.
First of all, you're asking the retailer to:
1. invest a reasonable chunk of money (assuming we're talking about eg selling them 6 at once, even at half MSRP)
2. invest their shelf and storage space
It's more of an investment (and so, more of a risk) than just a single copy of the game.
Secondly, if you're selling to retailers right away, potential customers might already be thinking "it'll be in my local shop, I'll just buy it there".
Thirdly, you aren't going to make as much out of it. It's going to *increase* the cost of that KS pledge (eg say your normal pledge is $40 which takes $20 marginal costing in printing+shipping, while your retailer pledge is 6 copies for $120 which will take $90 in printing+shipping (lower shipping per unit than 6 single units))
So you're getting proportionally much less extra towards your overheads (artwork/marketing) per pledge for the retailer pledge than the customer pledge ($20/$40=50% while $30/$120=25%).
Which means if you balance your campaign budget for say 200 individual pledges (@$8,000) giving you $4,000 for overhead costs, then you (worst case) get fully funded by retailers (~70 retailers = $8,400 funding and $2,100 left for overheads) you've just missed your funding requirements!
Ie every retail backer (if you're offering a good enough deal for them to bother backing) actually reduces the *proportion* of the funding that is left to go to your overheads.
I guess it could work if you set a hard limit on number of retailers you'll take (like, say, 10). But I don't think it's attractive enough for retailers in the first place. They need to look after their shelf/store space really carefully.
I don't get what you're saying here. How would I get the price point to 30% MSRP? I don't think you're using "price point" correctly?
(I'm really hesitant to say that because you normally seem to be very accurate but I can't work out what else you could mean)
I have a hunch that you mean average cost? If I'm wrong, ignore this part. So I'm currently looking at a average cost of about 49% MSRP for 1000 copies. With 2000 copies it's down to 40%. I'd have to produce *thousands* to get it to 30% - though that would be great if I get that much backing, I'm not going to bank on it.
Good point, agreed.
I'm currently looking at charging MSRP on the basic pledge, but that will be *with* free shipping. So essentially yes I'm charging less than MSRP.
Hah. Right. But in terms of KS backing, it would be a *disaster* if I *only* got 70 retail backers (unless I specifically balanced the goal for that). I'm just looking at extreme cases and how the numbers would go (badly) to illustrate the financial problem of retail pledge levels.
I'm not seriously considering the idea that I might get 70 retail backers and no others - if for some reason I had 70 retail backers, the appeal of the game would surely get a ton of regular backers too.
http://stonemaiergames.com/kickstarter-lesson-8-reward-levels/
Ah thank you. I had read the post, but hadn't gone through the comments section before. Interesting point on organising FLGS sales separately, I think I'll go with that.
Another problem I found with retail pledge levels is that it muddles up the pledges, which I think makes it appear a bit confusing. For example:
Basic pledge £40
Bonus pledge £60
Super-bonus pledge £100
Retail pledge £150
Super-special-bonus pledge £200
Super retail pledge £240
You get the retail pledges breaking up the non-retail pledges, making it harder for both types of backer to find the relevant info.