Fulfillment Houses
guildofblades:
A point to consider.
Look at their fulfillment contract and find out who is responsible for the inventory. In other words, do they take responsibility for shrinkage and damages while the inventory is in their care?
If not, you are exposed to a great deal of potential risk.
Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Retail Group - http://www.guildofblades.com/retailgroup.php
Guild of Blades Publishing Group - http://www.guildofblades.com
1483 Online - http://www.1483online.com
Danny O:
Ron,
First off, thanks so much for the kind words. I would like to start off by saying this is my first post to a forum *anywhere* *ever*. So if I break the convention of forums, well, please cut a noob some slack. :) I should also tell you I am addicted to emoticons. Sorry about that.
Ron, you got it *almost* right. I know you spoke to Gabe on the phone and that likely accounts for the few inconsistencies in your description. But rather than go over what you said point-by-point, I am having Gabe prep a document that explains things more clearly. We have also prepared a Power Point Presentation about our services. It's about 2.5MB and we are happy to mail it to whomever would like to see it. Just let us know.
In the meantime let me speak a bit about myself and the creation of the Alliance Fulfillment Department.
I have been a fanboy of the Adventure Hobby Industry for the past 25+ years, and I have been a professional for almost 12 years now. I began to design my own games at a very early age and fell in love with RPGs, board games, and later TCGs. I volunteered my time to help run a university game club and several conventions in the Edmonton, Alberta area. For two years I managed a local game store named Warp 2, and soon created the premiere open gaming experience in Edmonton by hosting weekly tournaments, leagues, and demonstrations for all kinds of games. Eventually I graduated into distribution, working first for a Canadian outfit named TDI, before moving to Fort Wayne where I have been Alliance's Midwest Sales Manager for close to a decade.
Along the way I created my own imprint, Hammerdog Games which I manage from home on evenings and weekends. Hammerdog was designed to give myself and some friends an outlet for our creative urges and for that it worked very very well. As a business however, it was challenging to keep things in the black without cutting corners somewhere. All too often the corner that got cut was my wage. That meant that the guy who was designing the products, brokering their printing, liaising with distributors, shipping the product, and eventually collecting the monies was the guy that wasn't drawing a wage. I realized this couldn't last and started to analyze my business model and look for ways to improve it. Working for Alliance I knew how difficult it was to even get products placed into distribution and wondered how other micromanufacturers were managing the issue.
When the first fulfillment houses began to appear, I was wildly excited about them. Here was a means for the micromanufacturer to reach a wider audience. When two notable fulfillment houses faltered, I began to consult with professionals inside and outside of Alliance to determine what could be done to improve the situation. The eventual result was the creation of the Alliance Fulfillment Department. Luckily for me, my bosses recognized that my experiences at all levels of the industry (fanboy, retailer, distributer, manufacturer) made me a good candidate for the position. Furthermore, when I explained that I would create things to be fair to all manufacturers, from the biggest to the smallest, they backed me up 100%.
And that brings me here. I am not going to tell you that Alliance is the perfect solution for you. There are too many business models and too many variables for me to make such a claim. However, I have designed Alliances fullfillment services to match the business models of *most* manufacturers in the industry and that includes micromanufacturers like the ones in this forum. Our services are "a la carte" meaning you choose and pay for only those services that fit your needs. So if this sounds like something you would be interested in, please contact us at your earliest convenience. We'll discuss your personal situation and see if there is a way we can help you reach your audience more efficiently and more profitably. If we can we will create a customized solution for you. If we cannot, all we have spent is some time.
Thank you everyone for reading this far. If you have any further questions please contact Gabe (gjg@alliance-games.com) or myself (djo@alliance-games.com) and we will get back to you as soon as possible. I will also try to answer questions on this forum whenever possible.
Best,
Danny O'Neill
Fulfillment Coordinator
Sales Manager
Alliance Games
Fort Wayne, IN
Danny O:
Hey folks, I thought I'd jump in real quick to clear up a misunderstanding that seems to be going around. Those of you that have contacted us so far seem to think that Alliance is looking to be the exclusive distributor of your product.
This is inaccurate. Fulfillment services exist to help you with your operations, not to create an exclusivity deal. The idea is that you can pass on to us the parts of your business that you can't or don't like to do. That way you can focus on creating great games and accessories. Fulfillment includes services like storage and shipping, collections services, sales help, marketing incentives, consumer orders, assembly, and print brokering. So if you sell to somebody else, say another distributor, then we will store your product and ship it to that distributor for you. Every week we ship fulfillment orders to people like ACD, Blackhawk, PHD, Lion Rampant, Universal Distribution, Esdevium, and so on. Furthermore, distributors have been performing these services for each other for almost a decade.
I hope that helps clear the air on this issue. If there are any new questions or concerns in this area, just drop us an e-mail or post the question to this forum and we will get you an answer as soon as possible.
Have a great weekend everybody.
Danny O'Neill
Alliance Game Distributors
Eero Tuovinen:
Oh, just to note: while I don't need an American distributor right now, this is an interesting read anyway. Welcome to the Forge, Danny and Aldo, and thanks for your perspective.
iago:
I don't have a lot to bring into this discussion right now, but it does overlap some of the territory that IPR (www.indiepressrevolution.com) walks in as well, though that overlap is not complete. Folks can find a link to some initial information about becoming one of IPR's publishers here:
http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/manufacturers.php
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