Pricing structure
How does logos price books? I am in seminary and would love to keep all of my resources in one place,but they charge much more than the hard copy and other electronic copies for some books. For example one book I am looking at, A Survey of the Old Testament, is $49.99 at Logos (http://www.logos.com/product/9674/a-survey-of-the-old-testament). If I go outside of Logos, the price drops to $19.99 for electronic or $31.50 for hard copy
Does Logos have a pricing structure based on cost or based on what they feel they can get for the book?
I can not see spending 2.5 X the electronic price just to keep my books in Logos. Don't get me wrong, I love logos and I have spent a lot of money on with Logos in my personal study and for classes. I just fail to understand how pricing is done on some of their resources.
Comments
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I can't answer your question directly, but Logos books are "value added" resources. They are more expensive. Have you looked into student discounts?
My opinion? You need to weigh the value of the resource in Logos vs. the cost. There was a book a couple of months ago which Amazon did a loss leader on (they lost money). I picked it up for under $4. Logos sells the resource for nearly $50. (Amazon is much closer to the $50 most of the time). To me, the $4 deal was too good to pass up. I would not have picked it up for $25. Nor $15, unless I really needed it.
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I do have a student discount, but it doesn't seem to discount much - at least not what I need to my classes. Also, this is not a loss leader - that is why I included the pricing from 2 different vendors.
I agree that Logos does add value, and in some cases paying a little more is acceptable, but 2.5X seems a bit excessive.
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Jeffrey Visser said:
I do have a student discount, but it doesn't seem to discount much - at least not what I need to my classes.
Hi Jeffrey, the academic discount on resources outside of base packages is publisher-specific. Some publishers offer a more generous discount than others. Off the top of my head, Baker, for example, tends to be pretty generous with their academic discounts, whereas someone like Zondervan tend to be tighter with theirs!
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alabama24 said:
Have you looked into student discounts?
Bama, the academic discount price is the same as he quoted above: $49.99
I've started to see a lot more of this...academic discounts that are significant for some sets and certain popular books but go pretty much away with resources that are used by seminary and college students.
Can't say I blame Logos...markets will bear what they will bear.
If I were in the buyer's shoes, and needed the book for class, I'd get the hardback copy based on the parameters stated in his OP. (And if you want to stick it to the man, buy a used copy.)
Eating a steady diet of government cheese, and living in a van down by the river.
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Doc B said:
academic discounts that are significant for some sets and certain popular books but go pretty much away with resources that are used by seminary and college students.
It is the publisher's willingness to work with Logos. Zondervan doesn't allow discounts very often.
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alabama24 said:
It is the publisher's willingness to work with Logos. Zondervan doesn't allow discounts very often.
That's the main reason I put my, 'stick it to the man' comment above.
I'm a college Dean, and very few people hate the bizarre cost structure of textbooks more than I do (I'm sure kids' parents hate it more). It may be the number one complaint I get from students overall. And it is justified, in my opinion. No, books can't be free, or in some cases can't even be cheap, but four hundred dollars for a introductory management textbook is simply extortion.
But I won't go there.
Eating a steady diet of government cheese, and living in a van down by the river.
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alabama24 said:
It is the publisher's willingness to work with Logos. Zondervan doesn't allow discounts very often.
But yet they do for every other vendor (Amazon, Christianbook.com, etc)? If they can sell it for $20, Logos should be able to sell it for something in the ballpark. Even $30 would be close enough. But $50? Maybe they have a minimum profit that is much higher than the other providers?
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What was that old thread ... Zonderbooks? Something like that.
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
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Jeffrey Visser said:
But yet they do for every other vendor (Amazon, Christianbook.com, etc)? If they can sell it for $20, Logos should be able to sell it for something in the ballpark.
You aren't grasping the issue. Amazon, CBD, Nook are selling the same product. They are basically selling the ePub version of the book. By the way, the same is true for Logos Vyrso label. Those books are all sold under similar terms and conditions. Logos editions are very different. They are value added resources. You aren't just paying for the $20 ePub file… In addition for paying for the eBook, you are also paying for Logos to:
- Tag the book
- Maintain the book
- Develop the Logos software
The license agreements are different… In fact, there are titles which Logos is allowed to sell through Vryso, but desires to sell in Logos. In those situations, they have to wait for the new license agreements to be signed for those titles. In other words, "all things are not equal."
Jeffrey Visser said:Even $30 would be close enough. But $50? Maybe they have a minimum profit that is much higher than the other providers?
I don't have any inside info… I don't know how much the publisher is charging Logos for this title. I do know that Logos has sales regularly. Zondervan titles are rarely included in those deals, and when they are, the discounts are generally on the meager side.
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One more thing...
Logos does work from a "higher mark-up, bigger sale" model. I know there will probably be considerable groaning and complaining when some people read this… but it's true. It is also true that this model is generally unpopular in theory, but highly popular in practice. People like sales. People buy more with sales. If this weren't true, companies would stop using this model… but it is true. With Logos, knowing about the ebb and flow of sales will save you money. This doesn't help seminary students who need the book THIS semester!!! [:S] Of course, students do have access to "academic discounts" that most of us do not have.
This doesn't apply to Zondervan titles, as I mentioned before.
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alabama24 said:
With Logos, knowing about the ebb and flow of sales will save you money.
Very true indeed. Good things come for those who wait for sales! [:)]
Using adventure and community to challenge young people to continually say "yes" to God
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alabama24 said:
You aren't grasping the issue. Amazon, CBD, Nook are selling the same product. They are basically selling the ePub version of the book. By the way, the same is true for Logos Vyrso label. Those books are all sold under similar terms and conditions.
Personally, I would be very happy for this book to be sold by Vyrso. I don't need the value added, I just would like it searchable as it would be with the other vendors and located with the rest of my resources. As it is, I need to search a few different vendors when I do a study because my resources are not all in logos. Not convenient, but maybe I should have thought of that before investing so heavily in Logos. Regardless, I would probability still have invested. Maybe the solution is to offer it in both logos and Vyrso at two different price points....
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Jeffrey Visser said:
Personally, I would be very happy for this book to be sold by Vyrso. I don't need the value added, I just would like it searchable as it would be with the other vendors and located with the rest of my resources. As it is, I need to search a few different vendors when I do a study because my resources are not all in logos. Not convenient, but maybe I should have thought of that before investing so heavily in Logos. Regardless, I would probability still have invested. Maybe the solution is to offer it in both logos and Vyrso at two different price points....
Some thoughts:
- Logos does not intend to sell two editions of any resource... And it really doesn't make sense for them to do so.
- "Vyrso" editions are OK, but the quality can be dramatically different from one resource to another.
- Some resources make a BIG difference being in the Logos family... Others, not so much. I think this would be somewhere in the middle.
- buying this book in kindle does NOT provide the same search ability as does Logos... Not even close. Furthermore, you'll be crippled in copy and paste... Another Logos advantage.
- If you don't mind Vyrso quality, you could consider making a personal book from the kindle version. I would not do that with this resource, in my current stage in life. In your shoes, I might consider it.
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Jeffrey Visser said:
How does logos price books?
You will almost always pay more for Logos format than other electronic formats. Many titles you will pay the full retail price for the printed product.
The main exception is when you buy a large package of titles, then you get a nice discount on a bunch of titles that you probably don't want [H]
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John said:
You will almost always pay more for Logos format than other electronic formats. Many titles you will pay the full retail price for the printed product.
I have 12,094 books in Logos. I have paid the Logos "retail" price on less than a dozen of them. The rest were purchased at some savings, usually significant
.John said:The main exception is when you buy a large package of titles, then you get a nice discount on a bunch of titles that you probably don't want
Oh, but I do want most of them. [8-|]
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