>Hmmm, my experience has been much different. Where I come from (east
>coast US), the big stores are the ones that can afford to buy in bulk
>and tend to be less expensive than the small mom & pop type store that
>has to charge full suggested retail because they can't buy the massive
>quantities that get the large chains such a discount. However, the
>people in those small stores tend to know their stuff and generally
>make for a better shopping experience.
>
>Getting gaming books from my local hobby store is a little (and
>sometimes a lot) more expensive than going to the nearby toy or book
>chain but I know the people there and they go the extra mile for me
>(calling me when an item they know I'd be interested comes in and even
>pulling a copy for me until I have a chance to look at it, for
>instance).
>
>It's interesting to note that the wholesale cost for the DVD store
>where I used to work was often higher than the retail cost at the
>nearby megastore. We'd often go there to buy stock for our store since
>it was cheaper than the distributor!
In Britain this is only true of high volume stuff like "best selling" books. The big chains will discount those to get customers in and then make their money by charging full retail on everything else. Equally a small shop with good contacts will get stuff the chains don't usually handle. In the book trade for example it can be cheaper to buy from a US distributor than the UK publisher.
For gaming books the biggest variation is the dollar exchange rate, the retail price is worked out on the rate the distributor paid on that particular consignment so books with the same dollar price can have significantly different prices. At least they've stopped the dollar = pound conversion rate which used to be applied.
-- Donald Oddy http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/
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