Express to Dreamcard

[Kevin Miller]

On 22/7/04 4:05 pm, "Alex Tweedly" <alex at tweedly.net> wrote:

>> Dreamcard is good news for the community as a whole, we're very excited
>> about the possibilities it opens up.
> 
> I'm not sure I understand properly just exactly what the Player does allow.
> The Player in the 2.5B1 distribution only allows me to connect to Rev
> on-line; does that mean I can't send a stack directly to a Player-owner and
> have them use it ? Can they only get it via Rev online ?

You can send them a stack and run it directly with the Player.  Express used
to only allow delivery on the same platform it was purchased on, with the
Player you can deliver to all of them.

>> If you have a VAT registered
>> business you can claim it back. As for the rest of the price comparison, if
>> you look at the progression of the US/UK exchange rate over the last few
>> years you'll realise it became imperative for us to set the UK price at a
>> firm figure rather than continue to watch it slide into oblivion.
> 
> The US price (as converted into GBP) has been "sliding into oblivion", why
> is it imperative to make the UK price behave differently ?  You have needed
> to adjust your business model and/or prices to account for the decreasing
> income in real terms from the majority of international customers - why
> penalize the relatively small number of domestic ones.

The problem we were faced with was this: over the last couple of years, the
dollar has slid enormously relative to the pound.  We used to tie all our
prices against the dollar, even the UK prices were billed in dollars.  It
was simpler to have one price, and the dollar was the most commonly used.
The problem was that as that slid, *all* our sales to all countries,
including the UK, started to slide as well, as they were fixed against this
value.  This was a really bad situation to be in.  One option was simply to
increase the product price.  The problem with that was that the US market is
very competitive in relation to software, and our research indicated that it
would damage our sales to increase prices across the board in this market.
So the other option was to start tying prices in markets other than the US
to prices to our native currency, here in the UK.  We ended up splitting the
pricing such that the UK and all international prices are fixed against the
pound, and only US citizens can purchase from us in dollars.  The price is
still the same for US citizens - remember that a dollar in the US is still
worth a dollar to someone living in the US, it hasn't "slid" over the past
couple of years relative to that market.  And the price in the rest of the
world is exactly the same as it was before the dollar currency slide, and
the same as it will be when the dollar recovers.  We're still substantially
worse off because of the high volume of US sales that we do, but at least
we're not losing money in Europe and Australia because the *US* dollar is so
weak.  What we're doing isn't any different from what most other companies
do, and we really do not have a choice.  That's just how it is - if anyone
with experience with international currency trading has wishes to propose a
different solution, feel free to email me off list!

Kind regards,

Kevin

Kevin Miller ~ kevin at runrev.com ~ http://www.runrev.com/
Runtime Revolution - User-Centric Development Tools