Wholesale pricing

Wholesale pricing is the set of discounted prices you offer to businesses that resell your game. The standard structure in hobby games has two main tiers: retailers buying directly from you pay around 50 percent of MSRP, and distributors pay around 40 percent of MSRP. The distributor gets the deeper discount because they are buying larger quantities and reselling to stores at roughly the 50 percent retailer price, keeping the spread as their margin.

The critical discipline is to set your MSRP high enough that the lowest tier still works. If a distributor pays you 40 percent of MSRP, that payment has to cover your landed cost (manufacturing plus freight plus duties) and leave real profit. The widely used rule of thumb is that MSRP should be at least five times your landed cost per unit. At 5x, a distributor sale at 40 percent of MSRP pays you twice your landed cost, leaving a workable gross margin.

Keep the tiers consistent and hold your prices. If you sell to one store at 50 percent and another at 40 percent, word travels fast in a small industry and the first store will not order again. Similarly, undercutting your own retailers by permanently discounting on your website trains stores to drop your game. Most publishers sell direct at full MSRP precisely so retail partners are never competing against a cheaper version of themselves.

Publish simple terms: your wholesale price tiers, minimum order quantities (often as low as a 6-copy case for direct-to-store), payment terms, and shipping policy. Clear, standard terms make you easy to buy from, and being easy to buy from is half of wholesale success.