Good or bad for Destiny and other FFG games?

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/65897/asmodee-north-america-go-exclusive-alliance-game-d

Both.

Good that now all allocations are done through one distributor, but now the distributor can play favorites with whichever store does the most in sales instead of balancing for everyone.

Should be interesting.

46 minutes ago, RybackStun said:

Both.

Good that now all allocations are done through one distributor, but now the distributor can play favorites with whichever store does the most in sales instead of balancing for everyone.

Should be interesting.

Yeah, I know a lot of stores that order the same product through multiple distributors to make sure they get enough product. I also know that some stores might usually buy FFG/Asmodee product from a different distributor. They'll have no real sales history with Alliance, which could definitely put them on the "doesn't order much, so doesn't get a big allocation" list.

This might be good in the long run, but it'll hurt some stores in the short run.

Bad. Very bad.

#$@% Diamond/Alliance.

This is bad for shops, distributors and customers. Alliance prices are generally higher than distributors like Southern Hobby. They have trouble maintaining stock, their online ordering is horrible and now there is 0 competition so Alliance runs the show for prices and stock. So if your local shop is looked at as a small fish to their Alliance rep, they'll be treated as such when it comes to order quantities. Example:

Store A on average orders 7000$ worth of product .

Store B on average orders 1800$ worth of product.

Awakenings boosters come in for restock and both stores request 7 boxes. But Alliance has 11 boxes. In order to keep the high value Customer happy they give store A it's full order, while B gets the remaining 4 boxes. When the fair deal would be 6 and 5.

This deal stinks, real bad

4 hours ago, pitsch said:

Good or bad for Destiny and other FFG games?

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/65897/asmodee-north-america-go-exclusive-alliance-game-d

I'm not a local shop, but frequent many...I will "wait and see," but I can't say history says much for the "benefits" of consolidation/limitations like this. The market is usually better for consumers when we have more options since they tend to compete more against each other. The stores I frequent are on the smaller scale, so I am afraid they will get hurt by this deal. Some are mainly comic book stores first and gaming second, so the only hope is that their order/status/product order is combined and that somehow helps them on the supply issue front. But...doesn't sound good. I'll hopefully be wrong and this will somehow fix some of the issues we've had with SWD supplies...but the real question is how this will affect all Asmodee products. They make a LOT of stuff (pretty much 7/10 of the top10 ranked board games out there, all supplies related to those, and more)...and now all of that goes through one distributor. And...I assume this also affects any "direct sales" people have had through Asmodee/FFG as well, since the deal said exclusive distributor. So...time will tell, but a bit scared. That's a LOT of stuff going through only one channel.

There has been a cry in the Magic community for a long time for Hasbro to go vertical with their distribution. Of course a company that big couldn't be bothered to do so since there are so many deals being made. There is however a reason for this desire and bad distribution of product is one of them.

Asmodee is one of those companies that could go vertical with their distribution however this move seems to be a replacement for that. Their partner seems to be a known bad actor unfortunately. Alliance's high prices may squeeze out many game stores, especially with all the minimum wage increases happening on a state by state basis.

23 hours ago, Mep said:

There has been a cry in the Magic community for a long time for Hasbro to go vertical with their distribution. Of course a company that big couldn't be bothered to do so since there are so many deals being made. There is however a reason for this desire and bad distribution of product is one of them.

Asmodee is one of those companies that could go vertical with their distribution however this move seems to be a replacement for that. Their partner seems to be a known bad actor unfortunately. Alliance's high prices may squeeze out many game stores, especially with all the minimum wage increases happening on a state by state basis.

i think you lost most people at "vertical" ...but I approve

Marketer, Wall Street or just Business owner?

Miniature market can no longer break their agreements and now must order from a single source. How many stores would have gotten more SoR if miniature market had stuck to their actual allocation?

TLDR the back end of the industry sucks and ANA is trying to fix it.

3 hours ago, Tierdal said:

i think you lost most people at "vertical" ...but I approve

Marketer, Wall Street or just Business owner?

High school grad, pre-common core.