Report To The Stakeholders

[Suboptimal00]

Originally Posted by philreed

Think of it as a type of consignment arrangement.

To make sure I'm clear, does that apply to both a flooring contract and a fulfillment agent agreement? Are they basically the same thing?

[Steve Jackson]

>> Turhan’s Bey Company >> actually, I might just slap some legs on it and use it as a gaming table.

In fact, I inquired of Geek Chic whether they might like to make Ogre Coffee Table Legs, but I never heard back.

>> Suboptimal00 >> The difference between flooring and non-flooring is: our flooring distributors have games in their warehouses (“on their floors”) that they will not pay for until they sell them; the inventory remains ours. (So, not unlike consignment, but apparently not legally quite the same thing.)

PSI is our fulfillment agent; they receive shipments from printers, warehouse them, and ship them to distributors and chain stores. They do not sell to individual retailers – that is the job of the distributors.

Most distributors buy their games through PSI, pay for them on standard 30-day terms, and sell them as soon as they can. Several factors, including sheer sales volume, affect whether a distributor is offered a flooring contract; we can’t afford to offer a distributor a flooring contract unless they have a lot of throughput, because it ties up our inventory! But when a flooring deal works properly, it makes it much less likely that a distributor will run out of a given product due to a temporary sales bulge. (Still, it can happen, which is one reason that we advise retailers to have accounts with more than one distributor.)

[stefanj]

PSSSST! STEVE! OGRES have treads.

[Pragmatic]

Originally Posted by stefanj

PSSSST! STEVE! OGRES have treads.

Cue Steve saying, "Oh no! We have to redo the rulebook!"

:-P

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by stefanj

PSSSST! STEVE! OGRES have treads.

I have power tools and demonstrated poor judgement when it comes to this sort of thing. I may have to build a Coffee Table Mk. V.

[Buzzardo]

Originally Posted by stefanj

PSSSST! STEVE! OGRES have treads.

Originally Posted by Pragmatic

Cue Steve saying, "Oh no! We have to redo the rulebook!"

:-P

Oh, noes! ;)

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

I have power tools and demonstrated poor judgement when it comes to this sort of thing. I may have to build a Coffee Table Mk. V.

You could probably have a cottage industry making legs for all those Ogre boxes. ;)

On a more serious note, I just want to thank Steve for being the most open business person I know of and for making Ogre Designer's Edition, and GURPS, and Illuminati, and Car Wars, and .... :)

[JLV]

Nice report, Steve. Thanks for taking the time. Again.

Reminds me slightly of the good old days with SPI, before the wheels came off in the mid to late 70's.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Steve Jackson

>> Suboptimal00 >> The difference between flooring and non-flooring is: our flooring distributors have games in their warehouses (“on their floors”) that they will not pay for until they sell them; the inventory remains ours. (So, not unlike consignment, but apparently not legally quite the same thing.)

At least in my own business, we call this "Vendor-Managed Inventory." We use it to keep critical spares within stone's throw of important equipment that could go down (and thus impact our ability to supply all you fine folks with hard disc drives for all the SJG PDF releases) without it. The vendor keeps the spares on site, and we pay them when they're used.

[Balok]

I am happy to see the report each year, and happy to see that the company is doing well. Years ago there were problems with accounting that had me concerned - I'm glad to see those business issues addressed.

Would I like to see more GURPS? Sure, it's my favorite SJ product. But since I also like Ogre and Car Wars it's a little difficult for me to complain! :)

Thanks for writing the report, and I wish you continued success!

[Alden Loveshade]

I've been following Steve Jackson Games since before Steve's quite unusually open and frank stakeholders report. One thing I've seen over and over again is a version of "support the hobby." In this report he promotes other companies and game makers and offers to support other people and their games. One might just get the impression he wants to support the hobby.