LCG Fair - Digital Contingency Plan

One of the complaints I hear a lot at conventions when the new hotness comes around is that the company ran out or did not order enough to make everyone happy. There are reasons this happens, and we wanted to learn from that. So, here, in some detail, is our digital contingency plan for if we run out of things at the LCG Fair.

The Basic Problem with Convention Copies

When a publisher is trying to figure out how many copies of a game they should bring to a convention, an event (like the Locally Crafted Games Fair), or just to have on hand in general, they do a lot of number crunching. A few things really play into this, though.

• How much money do I have, right now, that I can spend on buying copies?​
• How long can I live without that money while I try to sell those games I bought?
• How many copies will it take to make back my money?
• How many people will buy copies of my game at the event?
• Will the copies I can sell make my money back in time enough for me to pay my bills?

It is a lot of guessing. Some of it is educated guessing, but there are a lot of variables to consider. Sometimes, publishers get it right. Sometimes, they only bring as many copies as they can afford and/or get at the time, run out, and gain the ire of many a gamer. Sometimes, they forego this whole mess and just pre-order or do a Kickstarter.

We have seen all of these, and want to avoid it for the Locally Crafted Games Fair (July 19, 2019). The solution we found for this issue lie right at TheGameCrafter.com, a Print on Demand game publisher.

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The Joy of Print on Demand

We use Print on Demand services to make our games. That means, when someone orders a copy of a game, it is put into a queue, created/printed, and sent to the customer. The main one (and the one we'll get into specifics about here) is TheGameCrafter.com. There are lots of benefits to this.

• We don't have a basement, warehouse, or fullfilment center full of games hoping to be sold.
• We can order 5 or so copies at a time to make sure we have copies on hand to sell, if need be.
• We can tell people about a website and they can get order a copy online, just like at Amazon.
• Everything is printed in the US.
• When we want to get ready for an event or show, we place orders 5 weeks ahead of time, and they are printed and at the house in plenty of time. No slow boat form another country or anything.
• We can use them to fulfill any crowdsourcing things we do, like Kickstarter or Crowd Sales.

Print On Demand really works for us and how we want to do business. The Game Crafter makes great products, and they are incredibly helpful in customer service. The only downside is that the cost is not (and should never be) the same as ordering 5,000 copies off-shores. It is worth the trade-offs, though.

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The Digital Contingency Plan

So, while looking for a way to make sure we did not run out of copies at the Locally Crafted Games Fair (LCG Fair), we looked at how we made games, and found the answer. 

The Game Crafter has a great process called Bulk Order Fulfillment (BOF). If you upload a spreadsheet with all the customer info (name, address, e-mail, etc.,) and select how many copies of what game you want that customer to have delivered to their house, they will do their Print On Demand magic, and get games to your customers in about 3-4 weeks (I usually get them in 2). We've used the BOF for a Kickstarter before, and it was seamless, and simple. In fact, an order got damaged, and The Game Crafter's shipping insurance covered it. Just a top-notch experience for us and our backers.

Knowing that BOF existed, we decided to use it to solve the "I ran out" problem. It looks something like this.

1. We demo a game to a customer and they like it, but we ran out of copies.
2. The customer goes to buy the game at our "cashier" which uses Square to take the payment and run the shop.
3. Inside Square, we have a flag set-up that says Ship to Customer. Any product going to be shipped gets that flag.
4. Inside Square, we have an item called Shipping. For 1 item being shipped, it is $6.00. For 2 or more items, it is $12. Any one getting items shipped also gets that item added to their cart at the appropriate price.
5. Using Square, we ask the customer to fill in their personal information so we can ship things to them.
6. Customer pays for everything (both physical stuff they are taking with them and things to be shipped to them).
7. That night, we upload all of the customer data for things being shipped into a BOF spreadsheet.
8. We upload the BOF spreadsheet to The Game Crafter, and place the order.
9. The Game Crafter prints and ships all copies of all the games we mass ordered to all the customers.

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The Pros and Cons of the Digital Contingency Plan

There are lots of good things to using this strategy at an event of show.

• Low Up-front Cost. You can print less copies of games you have to bring and physically transport less copies of games to the event.
• Try the Market Out. You can take a few copies of games that you don't know will sell well, and do POD fulfillment on the any orders outside of the few you brought.
• Near-Instant Gratification. Customers get copies of games within a month. That's relatively fast compared to pre-orders and Kickstarters.
• Concentrate on the Experience. With less stuff to worry about, you can concentrate on making sure people enjoy their experience at the event. That leads to better connections, and more sales.

Of course, there are some down sides:

• Where's the Beef? If people don't see copies of the game around, are they going to balk at buying one?
• Fondle-slab Syndrome. Since you are getting customer information, lots of people will be looking at an electronic device while with you. You'd rather them be gaming with you.
• Near-Instant Gratification. It is better to receive immediately, than tell someone to hold on for a month to enjoy the thing they just enjoyed. That 3-4 week lag could turn away a sale.

Contingency or Main Plan?

While all of this is being used as a way to avoid the feeling that we did not print enough copies for people to enjoy at an event, this Digital Contingency Plan could be more than that. In fact, it could be the way to go for a show. 

Imagine if you had a table or booth. In that table or booth is you, demo copies of games, and a few tablets and hand-outs. You could show people the game, hand them some promo material, and then turn them loose on a tablet to order whatever they wanted, all shipped to their house in 3-4 weeks. Vendors do the show-and-tell part today and tell people to just "go to the Kickstarter page". Those same tactics with a closer deliver date would probably work great. You could just them show up to the show or event with minimal products, footprint, and no need for a cash box... just tablets and card readers. The Digital Contingency Plan is then your Digital Event Plan.

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What Do You Need to Do the Plan?

So, you now know the plan, the good, the bad, and the possible. How can you do this? Well, here's your checklist.

• Have products available for sale on The Game Crafter.
• Get 1-3 Android or Apple tablets or phones.
• Sign-up for Square.
• Download the Square POS app.
• Get 1-3 Square Readers to accept credit cards. You can find some good prices at Amazon.com.
• Create a list of items to sell. Include options for shipping to customers in your Items, and a way for them to pay shipping.
• Get some space to demo your games at a show, event, or local game store.
• Get things for your demo-table.
• Order at least 1 demo copy of the games you want to sell from the Game Crafter at least 5-6 weeks in advance.

Well, that's it. That's the Contingency Plan. We'll let you know how it goes after the Locally Crafted Games Fair on July 13. If you end up trying this out, let us (and The Game Crafter) know!