Why are YBW article-downloads so damned expensive??

Besides which If the basic price charged was £1 (say) the VAT would only be 20P on top.

I don't get the Apple cut either. Just how difficult is it to arrange a Download server at a reasonable cost. OK card fulfilment may be 1.75% (or less, you are a big company) but digitsing is a once only cost and if you make many repeat sales that is covered more easily.

It's a simple business-idea punt. You try it and see if it works. You can't provide projections because you plain don't know, so assume it will be a total loss. Budget for that. Be pleasantly surprised.

I guess the suits can't live with that amount of risk. Look bad at their review.

I know you'll read this
 
Richard Shead said:
This is not worth taking any further on here.

I am out.

Cheers
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Wimp :D

This is why you need to get the powers that be, soon to become the powers that were, to understand that in the digital age the "we will get back to you later" answer is no longer credible.

Reputations, fortunes and brands used to be made over years. These days they are made and lost in months and any savvy new generation marketeer will tell you that it might become weeks, or days. Who knows? With intantaneous worldwide communications it is conceivble that you could build a brand in days or even less.

Every time I think to IT predictions made over the last 20 years they were way short of what actually happened.
 
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Richard Shead said:
Indeed but digital magazines are subject to VAT, print magazines are not.
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Indeed, but of course there are costs in print media that do not exist for digital, such as paper and printing costs. As I said Amazon do not charge more for their kindle books than they do for real paper, in reality they normally charge a lot less for the digital version, and you can have the content avaialable on any kindle device you have, for ever.

I don't expect stuff for free, having had customers who did expect thingd for free I do understand how annoying it is. What I would however like is to share in the benefits your company obtains from the move to greater digitisation, rather than to actually pay more as seems to be the case at present.

With some respect as well I would suggest that incomplete responses on this forum do your company less good than not responding at all, and yes I know what it is like getting ready for a major exhibition having spent too many hours on company stands for comfort when I was working.
 
Richard Shead said:
Goodnight ! No wonder you can afford what you sail ... ;)
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Who says I can afford it? I just threaten to move my overdraft and the bankers sweet talk me!

As they say, pay peanuts, get monkeys! Not many consultants are willing to swap days rates for a percentage of results. We are.

Sorry, sounds like a sales pitch. Smack my botty!
 
Ex-SolentBoy said:
This is just whining.

Any imbecile with a basic undemanding of finance
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I appreciate that Richard Shead is not exactly helping himself / IPC on this thread :rolleyes:....and whilst accepting that a single thread on a small forum is not exactly a make or break event, perhaps indicative of a wider IPC lack of understanding of how the internet works?.........but nonetheless calling him stuff like a whining imbecile is IMO not the most constructive approach :p.

As I alluded to earlier, appears to be plenty of interest in this thread from folk who know wayyyy more (including hands on) on the making money side of the digital age. One helluva resource to harvest, especially as likely buckshee (for the price of a bit of smoke blowing - and perhaps the odd guinness :cool:)......even if also have to look through those with more ideas than sense (on the internet - like in real life, the ideas are the easy part). Whilst folk on the internet (especially with a shared interest) can be a resource it is also a reminder of what IPC are nowadays competing against - folks who will give up info for free which historically involved writing a cheque for.....or selling by attaching to bits of dead tree once a month :p.

BTW, I am not including myself in the above.
 
Hmm...110 posts later, I don't feel I know any more than when I first asked. :(

It would assist us in understanding, if (as the volunteer, or conscripted IPC spokesman) Mr Shead would reiterate his particular replies, rather than telling us to scan through dozens of earlier posts looking for details that clearly didn't clarify or satisfy us, first time round...

...that's just good politics, and not doing so, risks being interpreted as either insultingly lazy or wilfully evasive...

...because at present the issue seems to many of us to have been dodged rather than squarely answered.

Can we leave VAT and the Southampton Boat Show to one side, and ask for as specific an answer as possible, here, today, to the central question...how the heck did IPC arrive at a figure like £6.95? If the answer has been given already, tell us in what number post that was!
 
dancrane said:
Hmm...110 posts later, I don't feel I know any more than when I first asked. :(

It would assist us in understanding, if (as the volunteer, or conscripted IPC spokesman) Mr Shead would reiterate his particular replies, rather than telling us to scan through dozens of earlier posts looking for details that clearly didn't clarify or satisfy us, first time round...

...that's just good politics, and not doing so, risks being interpreted as either insultingly lazy or wilfully evasive...

...because at present the issue seems to many of us to have been dodged rather than squarely answered.

Can we leave VAT and the Southampton Boat Show to one side, and ask for as specific an answer as possible, here, today, to the central question...how the heck did IPC arrive at a figure like £6.95? If the answer has been given already, tell us in what number post that was!
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About 10years ago when you got a real photo copy it cost 4.95, plus P&P if I remeber correctly and I was happy with that, but todays price which you have to print yourself is not realistic. I bought a knitting patern for my wife on line the other day for less than £2, that's realistic, if others can set up decent e-commerce packages why can't IPC.
 
dancrane said:
Hmm...110 posts later, I don't feel I know any more than when I first asked. :(

It would assist us in understanding, if (as the volunteer, or conscripted IPC spokesman) Mr Shead would reiterate his particular replies, rather than telling us to scan through dozens of earlier posts looking for details that clearly didn't clarify or satisfy us, first time round...

...that's just good politics, and not doing so, risks being interpreted as either insultingly lazy or wilfully evasive...

...because at present the issue seems to many of us to have been dodged rather than squarely answered.

Can we leave VAT and the Southampton Boat Show to one side, and ask for as specific an answer as possible, here, today, to the central question...how the heck did IPC arrive at a figure like £6.95? If the answer has been given already, tell us in what number post that was!
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Hang on... I seem to recall we live in a capitalist society comrade. It's not up to them to justify the cost, it's up to you to decide if you are prepared to pay it.

You could also question why raymarine charge £25 for a bit of cable... Or the price of loo spares
 
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northwind said:
Hang on... I seem to recall we live in a capitalist society conmrade. It's not upto them to justify the cost, it's up to you to decide if you are prepared to pay it.
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Okay...one of the questions I've asked here, was to what extent does cutomer-keenness justify the £6.95 price?...

...if we'd been told frankly, that so many people are happy paying that much for a few scanned pages, I'd have shut up and dolefully accepted how far out of touch my wallet has sunk...

...but the response here indicates widespread disbelief that IPC is profiting as it could, if its product was cheaper. And nobody at IPC has expressed contentment with the level of custom for the seven-quid download...so I'm wondering aloud, why is it so-priced?

I thought it was an interesting question. Still awaiting an answer... :rolleyes:
 
Not all publishers charge more for their digital subs, I have just looked at the New Statesman package, and for digital they chage £50 a year, if you want paper it is £87 and if you buy at the newsagent it is £187, so there is a real benefit in both subscribing and going digital so it can be done.

And to answer Northwind all spares are expensive, just look at car parts, but you get something real that has been made and stored just ready for your emergency, not quite the same as a magazine or a pdf copy of an article. The spare you have to have the magazine or article is optional and yes I have excercised my option not to pay the prices they currently charge and do without.
 
dancrane said:
Okay...one of the questions I've asked here, was to what extent does cutomer-keenness justify the £6.95 price?...

...if we'd been told frankly, that so many people are happy paying that much for a few scanned pages, I'd have shut up and dolefully accepted how far out of touch my wallet has sunk...

...but the response here indicates widespread disbelief that IPC is profiting as it could, if its product was cheaper. And nobody at IPC has expressed contentment with the level of custom for the seven-quid download...so I'm wondering aloud, why is it so-priced?

I thought it was an interesting question. Still awaiting an answer... :rolleyes:
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It's the weekend!! and to be honest I wouldn't hold your breath, a public forum (which they own and provide for free) is not the place they are going to share commercial info with anyone.

And to be clear, I have no connection with IPC!
 
maxi77 said:
And to answer Northwind all spares are expensive, just look at car parts, but you get something real that has been made and stored just ready for your emergency, not quite the same as a magazine or a pdf copy of an article. The spare you have to have the magazine or article is optional and yes I have excercised my option not to pay the prices they currently charge and do without.
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Spare parts are sold at a very healthy margin, opportunity cost is good profit.

So it's ok for navionics or imray to sell map data for a large markup but not IPC? The sale of intellectual property may not live on a shelf, But it still has a cost, and a company still has to make a profit to satisfy its shareholders. You may not agree with the way it chooses to commercial operate, but thats upto them. You can vote with your feet!

Playing devils advocate... :)
 
maxi77 said:
Not all publishers charge more for their digital subs, I have just looked at the New Statesman package, and for digital they chage £50 a year, if you want paper it is £87 and if you buy at the newsagent it is £187, so there is a real benefit in both subscribing and going digital so it can be done.

And to answer Northwind all spares are expensive, just look at car parts, but you get something real that has been made and stored just ready for your emergency, not quite the same as a magazine or a pdf copy of an article. The spare you have to have the magazine or article is optional and yes I have excercised my option not to pay the prices they currently charge and do without.
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Nearly all - perhaps all - academic publishers give you a VAST discount if you a are happy with electronic only subscriptions to journals. However, these are VERY low volume publications.
 
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