by TheFlatline
RogueThirteen wrote:
Well, a big problem for the FLGS is that online retailers are undercutting them hard on X-Wing. The vast majority of people here at the Geek (presumably some of the most 'hardcore' of the players out there) seem to have bought the vast majority of their product online (I wish instead of dropping $200 at CSI people would have dropped $200 at the local game store and just gotten a couple less ships).
Well hold up now. Let's do the math for what you get for 200 bucks.
40 bucks MSRP for the core set, and let's say 2 core sets.
So that's 80 bucks, leaving 120 for expansions. At 15 a piece, that's around 8 models. However, I have 8.5% sales tax, which works out to about 17 bucks tax on that purchase, so let's knock a model off. For 200 bucks at my LGS I get:
2 core sets
7 expansions
Now, online, the core sets are 25 bucks a pop, and the expansions 10. If I'm going all in for 200 bucks I am almost certainly getting free shipping and they don't charge me tax (though I really should pay it as a use tax, it never gets collected).
So, 2 core sets at 50 bucks leaves me with 150 bucks on expansions. That gives me, for the same amount of money:
2 core sets
15 expansions
That's *hardly* "a couple less ships". That's a third more models, or over double the expansions for the same amount of money.
To put it another way, to get online and buy the same amount that I paid 200 bucks at a brick and mortar store, I could go to CSI and spend 120 bucks and pocket the extra 80(!) dollars and buy something else.
Now, if my LGS is a place I *like* to go to and game at, this isn't going to be such an open and shut case. I bought my first core set at a gaming store that I love and want to encourage that sadly isn't local enough for me to play at. But if I did play there, and someone fielded a particular configuration of fighters I didn't feel like I could counter, I could saunter over to the expansion endcap, grab a fig or two, and plunk down my cash, happy that it was there and I was able to support the local scene.