[beatrix45]

Since the incremental cost of "production" is just postage and producing a DVD (by the way, why not deliver the thing over the internet or by e-mail), I would suggest starting out with a period of high publicity and a very low purchase price (maybe $2 to 5 - even free for a trial period - along with some advertising) to try to develop a market. Get your vendor to supply you for next to nothing for a while on the condition that you will chip in $X worth of publicity and promotion. You will never get the kind of exposure and word of mouth you need by starting out at anything close to $30.

If the bridge playing public tries the product and likes it, then you can ease the price upward - the ultimate level should be unimportant to you because your vendor needs to bear that risk. It looks to me like you have the upper hand over your English vendor right at the moment. He/she has a product, but no way to reach its public. If he/she needs an ultimate selling price of $X to be successful, let him/her worry about it. You already have by far the best commercial pipeline into the world bridgeplayer market.

Trixie

[helene_t]

I disagree, I think BBO has offered enough free stuff allready and now it's time to make some money. After all, this is an American site, isn't it?

[fred]

We have been selling bridge software for close to 15 years now, but most of our pricing policies have been what I would call "making things up as we go along". From Trixie's post, it sounds like she has some real knowledge and experience in this area. Thanks - lots of food for thought in your post.

Unfortunately I don't think the ideas you present will work with the DVD product. The reason is that we are not the publisher - we have to buy DVDs from the actual publisher in the UK. They are the ones that set the "suggested retail price" and the discount schedule (which depends upon the volume of DVDs that we purchase). Even if we buy enough DVDs to get the maximum discount (50% of the suggested retail price) we will still be paying $13 or so per unit. As such, making the price of the DVD (at least this DVD) very low in an attempt to sell a lot of volume is not going to work.

For years I have been thinking about the concept of selling bridge CDs at a price level that is much lower than the $30 to $60 range that our current line of products retail for. If we could sell 20 times as many $3 CDs than we could sell $30 CDs, it would obviously be good for us. I am not sure if we will ever try this or not since I suspect that the day of the CD is coming to an end - it won't be long before most software is sold by download instead (and this will naturally drive prices down since our distribution and production costs become close to zero). In fact, this concept was the original inspiration of the BBO program - my original plan was to write a "Shop Bridge!" area program, not an online bridge game.

In any case, BBO has evolved in something much bigger than I ever expected in the early days and selling software (and other products) to our huge "captive audience" probably has a lot of potential to generate revenue (provided that we are smart about things like pricing and marketing).

Of course it remains important to us that our customers feel that they are getting good value for their money when they buy products from us, but it is hard for us to know what our customers want unless they tell us. This "survey" has been very helpful in that regard. Thanks to everyone who has offered their thoughts on these matters.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[Deanrover]

i) No - it just does not interest me, sorry.

ii) I would be willing to pay a small price for such a product. However, there are some things you could do that would make such a product much more attractive, namely

i) Most of the problems are declarer play based. If you could introduce a Bridge Masteresque element, this would make me MUCH more likely to buy the product

ii) IMHO you should add a modest number of new deals. This would make things much more interesting.

Best wishes,

Dean

[Deanrover]

fred, on Jan 5 2005, 07:33 AM, said:

If we could sell 20 times as many $3 CDs than we could sell $30 CDs, it would obviously be good for us.

This is wrong. You have to take costs into consideration. E.g. if each CD costs you $2, then you need to sell 28* as many for $3 as for $30 just to break even.

[Free]

Deanrover, on Jan 5 2005, 02:51 PM, said:

fred, on Jan 5 2005, 07:33 AM, said:

If we could sell 20 times as many $3 CDs than we could sell $30 CDs, it would obviously be good for us.

This is wrong. You have to take costs into consideration. E.g. if each CD costs you $2, then you need to sell 28* as many for $3 as for $30 just to break even.

Creating cd's cost about nothing... The cost is negligible.

[Deanrover]

It is pouring with rain here, so I'll treat you to some Economics.

Say you want to find out the optimal price to sell Bridge Master.

Step i) Make a C(q) function. e.g. C(q)=500+ 1Q, i.e. it costs 500 to set up a print run, the $1 for each extra CD.

ii) Set up a Dd(p) function. e.g. Q(p)=10,000-50P. which means if the price of BM was $0, 10,000 copies would be demanded. If the price was $100, 5,000 would be demanded, $0 would lead to demand 0. The actual function would probably be nonlinear. Rephrase this as P = (10,000 - Q)/50. Revenue is just P*Q, giving Revenue = Q(10,000-Q)/50

Differentiate i) and ii) WRT Q giving

iii) 1 and
iv) 200- .04Q

Equate iii) and iv) giving 200 - .04Q = 1 or Q = 4975. So the optimal amount to sell is 4975 units, which we see leads to a price of $100.5

Note that this ignores tax. Say you were taxed 20% of revenue. Now your revenue would be 0.8Q(10K-Q)/50, and the resulting calculations would lead to a higher price and lower quantity solution.

However, real life is more dynamic. E.g. if you think sales today will effect Demand tomorrow, you have to alter some of the equations.

Sorry if any of the math is wrong, I am in an internet cafe in Jerusalem and have no calculator.

Have to get running, but hope this helped,

Dean

[flytoox]

lol, since when this became an optimization course? CD's cost should be largely neglectable.

[scoob]

i would definetely be interested in the dvd's

[inquiry]

Hi Fred,

I would be marginally interested in both products. 6 hours of DVD sounds fun, I would guess somewhere around 15 to 20 dollars would be my limit on that. However, I fear if you bought a bunch of these you might get stuck. Maybe you could take "pre-orders" conditioned on getting enough to justify buying a bundle from your distributor....maybe. I think buying a load of these is a risk.

I really enjoyed the Deal of the week hands on line (not as much as Bridge master, but still it was a great feature. The right price is a little fuzzy, but for all 155 hands, I would surely pay at least 15 or 20 and it would be a bargain at that price.

Ben

[fred]

flytoox, on Jan 6 2005, 01:03 PM, said:

lol, since when this became an optimization course? CD's cost should be largely neglectable.

That is true when you are the publisher of the CD. It is not relevant when you purchase the CDs/DVDs from the publisher - what matters in this case is their wholesale price.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[han]

The deal of the week was what drew me to BBO in the first place, and I loved it (I think I saw a link in the online version of a Dutch newspaper). Having read them all, I don't know if I would be interested in buying them. Perhaps, $10 doesn't sound like too much for so much material.

The dvd doesn't interest me, I can't imagine buying it.

I bought some Larry Cohen and Kit Woolsey cd's through bridge base and I loved them. They are definitely worth the money. I might treat myself to some new cd's soon.

What I like so much about the cd's (and the deal of the week's) is that you get a chance to think about the hands before you hear the expert's answer. I don't think this would be as nice on a dvd.

[DenisO]

The DVD is now on sale in the EBU (English Bridge Union) shop in the UK at £17.99 +P&P - but there is a 20% discount for EBU members. The discounted price equates to about $27US. My experience is that Bridge software in the UK is generally some 30 to 40% more expensive than in the US or elsewhere - hence I tend to buy from BridgeBase.com -but have also bought from Canada and Australia (Nick Fahrer's Bridge Shop) with good savings on UK prices.


Denis

[vang]

i would love to have product #1, since i never had a chance to see live a big tournament. and the proposed price seems just fair to me.

#2 is not so attractive for me.

[newmoon]

fred, on Jan 1 2005, 05:29 AM, said:

Would you be willing to pay for a collection of the first 155 Deals of the Week if they were converted to our new format? Most likely we would sell such a collection as a download through the Shop Bridge! area of BBO (as opposed to on a CD-ROM that we would ship to you).

Yes, I'd be interested in obtaining those as a download.

I'd be willing to pay $10-$20.


I would also like the reinstatement of the weekly "Deal of the Week" emails I used to receive - now THAT was nice.


The SkySports DVD? $15 tops.


Newmoon