This week, we’ve been clearing out and repacking the warehouse to get ready for the first new shipment of a thousand copies of The Climbers coming in next week. Right after they arrive, dozens of cases are going out to back ordered accounts, and then we have to make further accommodations for another two thousand copies a few weeks later.
This is our first big production run, but given how fast The Climbers was selling in its first four months in our markets, some buyers from big accounts we’re meeting during Toy Preview in about six weeks, and the game on the cover of a catalog next month with a circulation of over 1.5 million, we tried to make sure we would have enough to get us into spring 2011.
Pricing has also been an issue, because the game is 4.5 pounds of hand-crafted and painted wood, which is unusually expensive production for a tabletop game, but necessary considering the game dynamics. We found that our initial retail price of $49.95 was too scary for many American retailers and consumers, even though some die-hard game geeks had been paying that plus $35 in shipping costs to get the German edition for over a year. At Toy Fair, we lowered the price to $34.95, and we sold out the remaining inventory in only seven weeks. Now with production and shipping costs higher this year, we are raising the price a bit to $39.95, hoping that the small increase from February’s price will keep buyers from balking.
With fewer than 3,000 units in production, our unit costs would have been even higher, and we would have had to go over $40 on the retail price.
We also did more play tests of Star Hopper and Samsara that indicated that the rules are pretty solid, so they should be ready to go into production as soon as we have the funding.
Mark Salzwedel