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ravinhood -> RE: Tin Soldiers: Alexander The Great Now Available! (10/27/2004 2:45:07 PM)
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quote:
Guess you never ran a business?
I have and the cost of wages is always factored in and averaged out over the cost of the product(s). That is why there are wage budgets and projected revenue budgets. It doesn't cost $10 in wages for the clerk to prepare one item for delivery, it's nickels and dimes. A clerk could package 60 packages a minute, given a one minute scale to grab a cd, grab a cd case, put it in the cd case, grab the box, place the cd case in the box, close the box, place it in an envelope and slap a priority sticker on it. If they have a postage machine (and they should if they are shipping bulk shipments), the weight and cost would be pre-calculated, therefore all necessary would be to press the lever to receive a postage label to place in the top right hand corner, place the premade address labels of the addressee that are printed from the computer address data files as orders come in, on the envelope, wallah, game ready to ship. Postal service pickup is provided by the US postal service, they come to the business you have the packages waiting in a hopper and the happy postal clerk takes the whole hopper and leaves you another empty one. So there is no cost to going to the post office to ship the packages. Thus for 1 hours work the company brings in $600 revenue and pays the clerk $5-$7 if that lol.
Here's what the consumer pays for extra in that $10. IDLE time, the times where there are "no orders", "no shipments" and the clerk is sitting on his butt, reading sad sack magazines or some computer gaming magazine waiting on another shipment to be delivered to him/her. Consumers should not have to pay for "IDLE TIME" of workers.
Second thing the "consumer" pays for, the cost of a PC/Printer, something they pay for 100x over, as PC's can last a long long time without need of upgrade to merely print out shipping labels and keep a data file, also shipping labels, hah, probably less than 1/10th of a cent per label when you buy them in bulk, same with shipping envelopes.
All n all the consumer ends up paying for everything, the electricty bill, the water bill, the building maintanence, the building itself, the cute secretary that sits pretty and answers the phone, etc. etc.. lol It's all part of the equation, but, these are factored into the cost of the "product", not the cost of "shipping and handling".
Many a company in the bulk mailing business will rely on shipping and handling fees alone for profit, this I know and it's very common. It's really common on ebay, $8 to $10 shipping charges to send a CD/CASE through "media" mail, lol costs $1.49 to do this and they profit $6.50 to $8.50 in pocket. The media is sold at cost, for whatever value it is, many will sell them for .99 cents and then charge outlandish shipping and handling fees.
Mainly the bulk of costs goes into the "price of the product" and should not go into the price of shipping and handling. Shipping and handling is merely "free money" in most cases, it's the easiest, low cost, low effort part of most businesses and the cost for some is rediculously high. Matrix for example. We all know there really aren't much costs in designing or programming the game itself, these games have been sold from publishers for $5 to $10 for many years, and then royalties delivered to the programmers based on sales. With direct sales, the developers are now drawing in not only the $5 to $10 per game to create (cd/case/boxing/no flippin maual), they are also drawing in every dime from the middleman down to the retailer, thus, $20 to $30 more dollars profit per item (in Matrix case more like $30 to $40) and then they want to tack on an "extra $10" on us for shipping and handling? lol no way.
It's not "our" fault they will not get as many sales by being direct sales, thus, it should not be handed to the few of us that would buy the games by direct purchasing to have to "make up" for those losses. That's totally wrong in the fair consumers rights eyes, and profits will adjust accordingly over time.
Your average consumer has "set prices" in their minds, it's why there are sales and price drops (Walmart's anyone), the average consumer will go where the best price for the best quality is. Many will take price over quality most of the time. So prices like Matrix has are for the most unconcerned with prices, accepting any price for what they perceive as "quality", yet, in most cases, it's the same ole pc game, littered with bugs and flaws and an AI lacking in any challenge.
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