Hmm let''s put and end to the illusion that a publisher does "no work at all" if he gets it into stores for you... I don''t blame you for not knowing but this kind of thinking seems to make life hard on all publishers. Getting products into stores is by far (and when I say by far I really mean that programming a game is a piece of cake compared to selling it). Let me explain:

Everything is built around relationships between publishers and distributors and in some cases publishers and retailers. The distributors usually just act as the middle man since a publisher funds production of an X number of units and provides marketing and promotion. What these companies use to get products in stores is a mix of persuasion based on their good relationships with retailers and something I cannot translate any way other then "bribe" (retailers like to call this: "marketing development funds". Now CompUSA e.g. charge $20.000,- per title and EB $7.000,-. Those are the American companies. Since my company is owned by a large German publisher called Magnussoft I know exactly how the German market works.

Even though there are a few small guys supplying small selections of stores the market has been cornered by 4 major distribution companies. Koch, AKtronic, Bertelsmann and Alpha. Now the latter one is currently experiencing severe financial difficulties so that may be end of story very soon, and AKtronic are already preying on the "Real Markt" retail chains to take over as main supplier from Alpha. We have to go through either one of these 4 companies to get our products into retail. With AKtronic and Alpha we have built a solid relationship over the past years to ensure we are a preferred supplier. With Koch and Bertelsmann we are still only regular suppliers.

Now I hear you think: ok, let''s contact AKtronic or Koch and I can get my products distributed in 7.000 outlets! Thanks for the tip Alex! Unfortunately "wrong" thinking. You as a nobody with one or 2 titles will never ever get into any of these distribution companies unless you have the next Harry Potter or Pokemon. And even then they will say "go through a regular supplier" in 99% of the cases. It''s not fair, but hey, life isn''t fair in general.

Now just giving your products to AKtronic is not going to get you sales without doing anything for it. Stores like e.g. Mediamarkt have the audacity to charge for shelf space also. It''s not just an American thing unfortunately. Mediamarkt charge for every yard of shelf space. If you don''t pay it: no shelf space for you. On top of that those stores want 120 days payment terms and full right of return. Who ever said publishing was "easy"?

Now if you go to the U.K. then Electronics Boutique (The game Group they are called now I believe) charge by the minute a sales representative takes up time from a buyer. So after talking to someone for 15 minutes, being 300 British lighter and hearing a "no" you can be quite disappointed if you know what I mean... EB in the U.K. also charge marketing development funds by the way. About 6.000,- British Pounds for an ad in their brochure...

Every country is the same. I can assure you of that. Now what I would advise you is to simply contact a publisher in Germany and offer your product to them. They will publish it for you (regarding production of CDs, barcodes, gruener Punkt, GEMA Gebuehr and a variety of marketing charges it''s better to start slowly and earn your income through royalties first).

Self publishing will always remain an internet affair if you have no clue whatsoever how to sell into retail. But what''s wrong with on-line sales? ;-)

And with online sales its much easier to get your money...

http://www.positech.co.uk

You are correct. We wait up to 120 days for stores to pay us in some cases. And still developers seem to think it''s easy to publish and distribute a product... As far as I know there are only a few companies we work with that pay on time. In my opinion 120 days is bad enough as it is

On-line sales is a safe affair but alone it does not really bring in a lot of money. Combined with a retail deal you can double your income at the least if it''s a good product. Bad game = bad sales. It''s as simple as that. Exception is of course Deer Hunter...

Dear Xing Interactive,

nice posting - SADLY you have not read my initial post, as it looks like. We do NOT talk of a game in this respect. This is end user software - not a game. This is being developed by us (for a company in norway, actually) and for technical reasons we HAVE to handle the production. Our customer is fully prepared to handle marketing etc.

In particular, the software we talk of is basically a video conferencing tool - well, better said: an ISDN Video telephone - with the best quality that you have seen so far :-) Resonance has been extremely well, so far - sample CD''s are going to magazines the next days.


Regards

Thomas Tomiczek
THONA Consulting Ltd.
(Microsoft MVP C#/.NET)

Ah I see... Maybe the fact that the post was on gamedev.net fooled me into thinking it was a game

In any case forget about getting into retail with a product like that. It''s a too specialist market and you may only get specialist stores to carry it. In quantities you need to charge hundreds of Euros per unit for in order to make a profit. The way products like yours are sold is through internet and mail order I guess.

In any case good luck as it sounds like you have a great product. I really hope it will catch on with the consumers.

The end user price is calculated at EUR 40-EUR 60 :-) It is going to be carried in a substantial amount of shops in another country.

Please re-read my post - this is actually not even our decision - the customer asked me whether I was able to make some research for him :-)


Regards

Thomas Tomiczek
THONA Consulting Ltd.
(Microsoft MVP C#/.NET)

quote: Original post by thona
What is the best way to get software into shops?
But how do we make shops offer them?
Are there distributers that we could negotiate in?

Contacting various distributors of communications software might help. Here are some links that might prove useful.

Software Marketing Resource

Software Market Solution

Electronics Representatives Association

www.allcomm.com.br

www.zenite.eng.br

www.teletechniki.gr

www.tecnorad.com

[edited by - Game Designer on August 20, 2002 7:17:04 AM]