lidar2
Castellan
You know, now that you mention it, I actually do rather like Attack of the Cybermen ...
Likes: 5,813
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Post by lidar2 on Mar 22, 2019 14:00:37 GMT
Apologies if this has already been mentioned upthread, but ...
BF's announcement mentions UK customers setting up fake foreign accounts to buy downloads cheaper. If they give UK customers a 10% discount on downloads but not foreign customers, then haven't they created an incentive for foreign customers to set up fake UK accounts to get a 10% discount? Or am I missing something?
The 10% of orders of £50 doesn't apply to pre-orders, subscriptions or bundles. If you're, say, an Australian customer getting, say, a boxset for £11 rather than the UK price of £20, then why would you set up a UK account to save £5? I wasn't aware of UK customers creating overseas accounts until Big Finish mentioned it yesterday, but when they can either get close to twice as much product for the same price or save half the price, then I absolutely understand exploiting that. Are you referring to the current situation of 1:1 conversions in your example? I was referring to the new policy of daily market rate conversions
Say I buy stuff totalling £100, not a bundle / pre-order / sub, and I get 10% discount and it costs me £90
If the dollar rate was say, 1.30, under the new policy a US customer pays $130. If the US customer sets up a fake UK account, and gets the same stuff for £90 because they are now getting a 10% discount and then gets a rate of, say, 1.31 on their credit card, the same stuff costs them $117.90 - hence the incentive for fake UK accounts.
for the record I am a cd buyer not a downloader so I do not have a fake account, nor would there be any benefit as I am not a downloader
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Post by shallacatop on Mar 22, 2019 14:03:46 GMT
I think the biggest concern about this is the loss of potential new customers. I first started collecting Big Finish with downloads and moved on to CDs, but I doubt I would have ever started if those download prices hadn't been as affordable as they were. The download prices were the only thing immediately affordable to me, and I'm sure they're also the only viable option for many overseas customers (see shipping costs upthread...). Come April, the number of new overseas customers is likely to see a marked decrease in number, as well as the purchase rate of existing customers. One imagines they've run their numbers and anticipate making a reasonable level of profit from this move, but their overseas sales are going to suffer a heavy impact after this. Big Finish is going to be the least accessible to new listeners than it ever has been, and that's a real shame That's a good point and I'd imagine that will depend entirely on how large the overseas market is and how the new pricing structure affects sales. Download pricing issues are something I think applies to the UK too. The download prices do seem rather expensive, especially when you can get the physical product and the free download for £3-£5 extra. I have suggested in the past that they should drop the download prices of a few products permanently as a good jumping on point. Items such as Classic Doctors, New Monsters 1&2, The Tenth Doctor 1, The War Doctor 1 and potentially The Diary of River Song 1. They're sets that are accessible and you can pretty much delve into any Doctor Who range Big Finish have produced from there. Whether the new customer is prepared to pay more for sets after that is another matter, but it's a tried and tested way to get people on board.
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Post by shallacatop on Mar 22, 2019 14:05:52 GMT
The 10% of orders of £50 doesn't apply to pre-orders, subscriptions or bundles. If you're, say, an Australian customer getting, say, a boxset for £11 rather than the UK price of £20, then why would you set up a UK account to save £5? I wasn't aware of UK customers creating overseas accounts until Big Finish mentioned it yesterday, but when they can either get close to twice as much product for the same price or save half the price, then I absolutely understand exploiting that. Are you referring to the current situation of 1:1 conversions in your example? I was referring to the new policy of daily market rate conversions
Say I buy stuff totalling £100, not a bundle / pre-order / sub, and I get 10% discount and it costs me £90
If the dollar rate was say, 1.30, under the new policy a US customer pays $130. If the US customer sets up a fake UK account, and gets the same stuff for £90 because they are now getting a 10% discount and then gets a rate of, say, 1.31 on their credit card, the same stuff costs them $117.90 - hence the incentive for fake UK accounts.
for the record I am a cd buyer not a downloader so I do not have a fake account, nor would there be any benefit as I am not a downloader
I was referring to the 1:1 rate, yes. I saw nothing in your post that implied you were talking about the new daily market rate conversions, especially as you mentioned the BF statement of what customers are doing under the current 1:1 rate. Sorry for any misunderstanding.
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lidar2
Castellan
You know, now that you mention it, I actually do rather like Attack of the Cybermen ...
Likes: 5,813
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Post by lidar2 on Mar 22, 2019 14:08:50 GMT
I genuinely think the 1:1 rate was only ever implemented because there appears to be a lack of knowledge about economic within Big Finish that they've only really began to understand recently. At the time the 1:1 rate started, BF did an announcement (around 2013 / 2014) cutting prices - I think a UK CD 12 release sub used to be £140 but it fell to £130 and as part of that they cut the overseas download price. At the time there was a bit of an uproar on the old BF forum and the thread went on a few pages. All the issues were raised and debated, and Paul Spragg eventually posted on the thread so BF were reading it and were aware of the issues. So I don't think it was ignorance.
Interestingly that announcement was badly handled at the time, with BF letting the debate / complaints run for a couple of days before posting anything by way of acknowledging customers' views / annoyance / support.
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Post by shallacatop on Mar 22, 2019 14:12:21 GMT
At the time the 1:1 rate started, BF did an announcement (around 2013 / 2014) cutting prices - I think a UK CD 12 release sub used to be £140 but it fell to £130 and as part of that they cut the overseas download price. At the time there was a bit of an uproar on the old BF forum and the thread went on a few pages. All the issues were raised and debated, and Paul Spragg eventually posted on the thread so BF were reading it and were aware of the issues. So I don't think it was ignorance.
Interestingly that announcement was badly handled at the time, with BF letting the debate / complaints run for a couple of days before posting anything by way of acknowledging customers' views / annoyance / support.
Yes, they're not the best at handling these things. I remember the flack they got when they did the 50% off everything sale... twice! They're a group of passionate fans who produce good product and are massively successful, but they're not always business savvy. It's nothing that hiring the right people wouldn't resolve, but it's whether they think it's necessary or cost effective.
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Post by shallacatop on Mar 22, 2019 14:18:44 GMT
On a slight tangent...
The new rates for downloads are going to be implemented on 1st April. That's just how it is. However, what other things could Big Finish implement to make themselves a little more appealing when it comes to purchasing from them, download or otherwise? Discount codes? Proper shipping rates? Scrapping the per order charge? Other things?
It might be worth putting together a list of things that might ease the pain a little, so-to-speak, and sending it to Big Finish?
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Post by Whovitt on Mar 22, 2019 14:25:56 GMT
On a slight tangent... The new rates for downloads are going to be implemented on 1st April. That's just how it is. However, what other things could Big Finish implement to make themselves a little more appealing when it comes to purchasing from them, download or otherwise? Discount codes? Proper shipping rates? Scrapping the per order charge? Other things? It might be worth putting together a list of things that might ease the pain a little, so-to-speak, and sending it to Big Finish? As a CD purchaser I like the idea of addressing some shipping costs, but that won't help mitigate anything for the now-affected download customers, same with the per order charge. As for discount codes, that's how they run their sales now. Maybe if they could introduce some sort of loyalty points system - for every £100 (converted currency) spent (5 box sets on download, which is pretty reasonable), get a £5 voucher or something like that. There should be rewards for regular customers who buy direct, now more than ever, as there needs to be some form of additional bonus to ordering direct outside of free download access and the occasional bonus extra, as I'm not sure they're really the incentives they once seemed any more.
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Post by Ela on Mar 22, 2019 14:32:32 GMT
Maybe if they could introduce some sort of loyalty points system - for every £100 (converted currency) spent (5 box sets on download, which is pretty reasonable), get a £5 voucher or something like that. There should be rewards for regular customers who buy direct, now more than ever, as there needs to be some form of additional bonus to ordering direct outside of free download access and the occasional bonus extra, as I'm not sure they're really the incentives they once seemed any more. I've been thinking along those lines, too. Not sure how much of that they can afford to do. But considering many of us pre-order months to years in advance, essentially giving BF our money interest free long in advance of receipt of any goods, seems like something could be done, even occasionally.
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Post by redsharkJason on Mar 22, 2019 14:45:27 GMT
On a slight tangent... The new rates for downloads are going to be implemented on 1st April. That's just how it is. However, what other things could Big Finish implement to make themselves a little more appealing when it comes to purchasing from them, download or otherwise? Discount codes? Proper shipping rates? Scrapping the per order charge? Other things? It might be worth putting together a list of things that might ease the pain a little, so-to-speak, and sending it to Big Finish? If VAT is included in the prices of Big Finish products then it should be lawfully removed for exports to non- EU countries.
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Post by barnabaslives on Mar 22, 2019 14:46:01 GMT
The new rates for downloads are going to be implemented on 1st April. That's just how it is. However, what other things could Big Finish implement to make themselves a little more appealing when it comes to purchasing from them, download or otherwise? Discount codes? Proper shipping rates? Scrapping the per order charge? Other things? Buy direct from Big Finish and get a 1:1 rate of exchange? lol Well as a download customer, at the moment I seem to be trying to figure out how to budget things when I don't seem to know the actual cost of them anymore. If there was any way they could offer a fixed price increase, whether that involves raising the item price to a fixed price or billing at a fixed rate of exchange, perhaps that would help generate more optimism and confidence? Not sure I see them scrapping the per-order charge, I don't know why they implemented it in the first place if it's negotiable, and with the shipping rates I'd always assumed they must have gotten themselves locked into a deal with a more expensive carrier or else they'd just go with a less expensive one and make it easier on everyone.
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Post by nottenst on Mar 22, 2019 14:46:54 GMT
On a slight tangent... The new rates for downloads are going to be implemented on 1st April. That's just how it is. However, what other things could Big Finish implement to make themselves a little more appealing when it comes to purchasing from them, download or otherwise? Discount codes? Proper shipping rates? Scrapping the per order charge? Other things? It might be worth putting together a list of things that might ease the pain a little, so-to-speak, and sending it to Big Finish? As a CD purchaser I like the idea of addressing some shipping costs, but that won't help mitigate anything for the now-affected download customers, same with the per order charge. As for discount codes, that's how they run their sales now. Maybe if they could introduce some sort of loyalty points system - for every £100 (converted currency) spent (5 box sets on download, which is pretty reasonable), get a £5 voucher or something like that. There should be rewards for regular customers who buy direct, now more than ever, as there needs to be some form of additional bonus to ordering direct outside of free download access and the occasional bonus extra, as I'm not sure they're really the incentives they once seemed any more. It used to be that if you subscribed to the main range for a year then you could get a free CD from one of the other ranges. I remember picking up one Companion Chronicle or something else that way then.
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Post by Whovitt on Mar 22, 2019 14:52:46 GMT
As a CD purchaser I like the idea of addressing some shipping costs, but that won't help mitigate anything for the now-affected download customers, same with the per order charge. As for discount codes, that's how they run their sales now. Maybe if they could introduce some sort of loyalty points system - for every £100 (converted currency) spent (5 box sets on download, which is pretty reasonable), get a £5 voucher or something like that. There should be rewards for regular customers who buy direct, now more than ever, as there needs to be some form of additional bonus to ordering direct outside of free download access and the occasional bonus extra, as I'm not sure they're really the incentives they once seemed any more. It used to be that if you subscribed to the main range for a year then you could get a free CD from one of the other ranges. I remember picking up one Companion Chronicle or something else that way then. I'm pretty sure that's still a thing - any single-disc release under £10.99 (with the odd exception of Tom Baker at 80) for free with any 12-month sub. It's not a wide-ranging offer though, as it's only available to Doctor Who Main Range subscribers. Big Finish's audience is significantly larger than that now, so it would be sensible to make more readily usable offers/deals.
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Post by barnabaslives on Mar 22, 2019 14:57:16 GMT
It used to be that if you subscribed to the main range for a year then you could get a free CD from one of the other ranges. I remember picking up one Companion Chronicle or something else that way then. I think that offer seems to quickly cease to be an incentive when you either can't think of anything you want in the price range for the free bonus, or you already own everything you want that's in the price range for the free bonus. I think what might have been lovely is if they'd given a discount code as a bonus, that could have been used to partly pay for items outside the bonus price range.
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lidar2
Castellan
You know, now that you mention it, I actually do rather like Attack of the Cybermen ...
Likes: 5,813
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Post by lidar2 on Mar 22, 2019 15:00:08 GMT
On a slight tangent... The new rates for downloads are going to be implemented on 1st April. Maybe it's just an April fool we've all fallen for?
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Post by barnabaslives on Mar 22, 2019 15:26:33 GMT
You know what else doesn't quite make sense to me is the idea that it isn't practical to have current subscription items loiter around the warehouse until the last one's been released, if we're going to keep seeing measures that inspire people to put off purchases for a year or two in hopes of getting the item on sale. Even among the very loyal and enthusiastic Big Finish fans here I already seem to see a surprising amount of waiting until an item goes on sale. I may have to start doing that myself out of necessity, I really don't know where things stand at the moment.
I really hope they're not doing themselves more harm than good with some of these policy changes.
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Post by Digi on Mar 22, 2019 15:31:29 GMT
You know what else doesn't quite make sense to me is the idea that it isn't practical to have current subscription items loiter around the warehouse until the last one's been released, if we're going to keep seeing measures that inspire people to put off purchases for a year or two in hopes of getting the item on sale. Even among the very loyal and enthusiastic Big Finish fans here I already seem to see a surprising amount of waiting until an item goes on sale. I may have to start doing that myself out of necessity, I really don't know where things stand at the moment. I really hope they're not doing themselves more harm than good with some of these policy changes. Threading the needle here: On a grander scale, I agree. I wouldn't want Big Finish to be catastrophically damaged. Who would that help? On a smaller scale....sometimes it takes a painful failure for someone to realize they're doing it wrong.
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Post by Ela on Mar 22, 2019 15:33:08 GMT
It used to be that if you subscribed to the main range for a year then you could get a free CD from one of the other ranges. I remember picking up one Companion Chronicle or something else that way then. I think that offer seems to quickly cease to be an incentive when you either can't think of anything you want in the price range for the free bonus, or you already own everything you want that's in the price range for the free bonus. I think what might have been lovely is if they'd given a discount code as a bonus, that could have been used to partly pay for items outside the bonus price range. Yes, I'm at the point where it's not as easy to select a bonus.
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Post by frobisherthepenguin1 on Mar 22, 2019 17:02:30 GMT
Funny you say that. The paragraph that's caught my attention in the notice: Feels like a pretty solid counterargument to the new pricing scheme, so I'm experiencing a non sequitur moving from the fourth to fifth paragraph. Might just be where I'm standing, though. The section you quote starts fine, but the third sentence should have been omitted, it is unnecessary and borders on insulting. It seems to be browser based CSS issue. Looks huge like a huge red banner on Edge, but only displays in orange text on Chrome that is difficult to see. EDIT: CTRL-F5 fixed it in Chrome.
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Post by glutamodo on Mar 22, 2019 17:18:02 GMT
Yes, I'm at the point where it's not as easy to select a bonus. Yeah, me too. I was hard pressed to find anything to select for a bonus when I extended my Main Range subscription up to 271. Speaking of the Main Range, I mentioned above how Big Finish had a few years ago offered a huge Main Range preorder. Maybe it was up to the end of the license as they had it then. Then the license got extended. that led me to ask Briggsy when he was "open for questions" on his Facebook page like around New Years last year, if they had some plans with the main range coming up that prevented them doing another such big bundle. I can't remember what he said now, but it wasn't to do with changing the main range. I have to wonder if one reason is the whole currency exchange balance thing was under consideration then.
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Post by tuigirl on Mar 22, 2019 20:53:09 GMT
I thought the whole point of overseas downloads been about half the price of UK was that they weren't used to audio drama and wouldn't buy at a higher price. Unless that has suddenly changed then it seems a really strange decision. Certainly they would not have included Germany in this, since I am from a whole generation who were called "Kasettenkinder", kids raised on audio dramas for kids, and some of the most famous ones are still running 40 years on. One of the reasons Sony Music is still going strong in Germany.
Germans are fanatical about their audio dramas.
We cannot fall asleep without them.
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