D&D beyond International Store

Quote from toddhdow >>

And agreed with some of the above comments... it would make so much sense to have physical book purchases come with some sort of digital discount code that could be used to complete a bundle purchase - this would be a great way to accommodate international purchasers who now lack the option to buy bundles online.

 This is a logistical nightmare, especially if you want FLGS to have books on the shelf that people can look at, not to mention unscrupulous FLGS staff using or selling the codes.  I was adjacent to a similar sort of setup in another life, and that ended in litigation and a whole mess of international courts.

If they built the ownership of a book meaning ownership of the digital assets, it would also raise the shelf price of the content, and that means people who don't use D&D Beyond at all (and there's still a big chunk of that market) are paying for the effort to digitize all of the options, that they'll never need or want.

The reality is, the cost of putting digital options on D&D Beyond is a cost, as much as writing the book in the first place.  The reduction in digital cost is because there's a big chunk of that cost that's distribution and printing of physical media that may not get sold, which the digital doesn't require.

Having them tied together, given the strength of D&D Beyond, is a hard ask for companies trying to balance in-person pen and paper players, digital only players, and the mix between.

Quote from toddhdow >>

And agreed with some of the above comments... it would make so much sense to have physical book purchases come with some sort of digital discount code that could be used to complete a bundle purchase - this would be a great way to accommodate international purchasers who now lack the option to buy bundles online.

 Perhaps, but the WotC attitude in the past has not leant credence that this is likely. That they've closed down much of the international store suggests that they've found that it wasn't worth the resources. That they did it that way first (instead of giving codes, etc) suggests that they think that the international store was a more cost efficient method - and if that wasn't worth it, then codes etc aren't likely to be considered. Instead, they're likely to conclude that global bundles were a failure and just maintain them where they're considered profitable.

The best case scenario, I think, is that they noticed that certain areas have been very prone to distribution issues, are doing an overhaul to fix them, and having to temporarily close things down while they do that.

I could be wrong, but codes and the like are very unlikely be their solution to the problem.

Quote from Perringaiden >>

Quote from toddhdow >>

And agreed with some of the above comments... it would make so much sense to have physical book purchases come with some sort of digital discount code that could be used to complete a bundle purchase - this would be a great way to accommodate international purchasers who now lack the option to buy bundles online.

 This is a logistical nightmare, especially if you want FLGS to have books on the shelf that people can look at, not to mention unscrupulous FLGS staff using or selling the codes.  I was adjacent to a similar sort of setup in another life, and that ended in litigation and a whole mess of international courts.

If they built the ownership of a book meaning ownership of the digital assets, it would also raise the shelf price of the content, and that means people who don't use D&D Beyond at all (and there's still a big chunk of that market) are paying for the effort to digitize all of the options, that they'll never need or want.

The reality is, the cost of putting digital options on D&D Beyond is a cost, as much as writing the book in the first place.  The reduction in digital cost is because there's a big chunk of that cost that's distribution and printing of physical media that may not get sold, which the digital doesn't require.

Having them tied together, given the strength of D&D Beyond, is a hard ask for companies trying to balance in-person pen and paper players, digital only players, and the mix between.

 Ugh. Yeah. I see your point there. It definitely isn’t as easy as it first seems.

Sigh… definitely unfortunate for international customers just the same. Shame that Hasbro didn’t find a replacement option before closing the international store. I know they wouldn’t share this info, but I would be curious to know what the costs and break even point are to facilitate international shipping. I do wonder at how many international customers this is actually displacing… if it is a small number, that should be easy for Hasbro to still handle without being overburdened. And if it is a lot of international customers, then how could it not be profitable for them to want to keep selling to international customers?

The biggest takeaway for me from this whole scenario is that my local game store was the biggest beneficiary of the lack of a pre-order shipping option for me here in Canada. Until they announced that Canada shipping is now available (last week), I honestly thought that part of Hasbro’s plan was to help encourage and boost local game store revenues by encouraging customers to buy local instead.

Either way, the lack of an international bundling discount does suck. Maybe if enough people ask/complain/petition Hasbro (via these forums and elsewhere - where would elsewhere be?), then maybe they will work to provide some sort of new option to accommodate that.

The easiest solution would be to bring back a la carte purchasing as part of the site rewrite.  It was supposedly removed as the current system was struggling to handle the number of items, but a modern system should be feasible.  If you've already bought the physical book it's a lot easier to justify $5-10 to unlock what you need for your character, vs having to buy the entire book again.  Especially if you want options from multiple books.