SUGGESTION: Improved Collections at Logos.com

I was reminded of
this issue in the recent post about
lack of links in the Comparison Chart.

I recently considered byuing the Original
Languages Supplement. Needless to say I want to know how much I could be
paying for what I'm about to pay 515 USD for. The information about savings
under the price is not helpful at all as it is showing the inflated "retail price". (here at 725.33 rather than the 677.8 the individual resources would have cost at logos.com) I still only rarely find that I want
all the resources in a collection. It would therefore be great if the price of
the individual resources was given on the collection page, perhaps even as a
columnar addition [:)] If Logos don't find that this is beneficial (because
they don't want people to know that they could pay less for the resources they
are actually interested in?) it would be a huge improvement if they put the
link to the page of the individual resources to save us price conscious of a
lot of copy-/pasting.

A similar issue is
that the price of the collection is unchanged if you own one of the resources
in it. Perhaps it would be possible to make the collections more dynamic. In the above mentioned Supplement I already own BDAG. What i suggest is that Logos withdraw the price of the resources already owned minus the saving percent the package would have given. The savings of the Supplement is 24% and the price of BDAG- a 24%rebate would be $114. My price on this collection would then be $515-$114=$401. This favors the big buyers, but that shouldn't be something negative for a company. If Logos still feels this would simply create too good deals they could withdraw 90 or 80% of the rebated price instead. If choosing to withdraw 90% my rebate would have been $102.6 and the price of the Collection would have been around $412.4.

Disatisfied with the price of the collection I emailed a Logos employee to see if he could give me a custom rebate, and I got one of $10 rebate. Needless to say this wasn't exactly what I was looking for. Because Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics was the only resource I was willing to buy at a full price at this time I ended up making a purchase of 39.95 instead. I may buy HALOT and possibly also LSJ in the future, but the other resources would only be interesting with a significant discount. I'm not totally sure I would have bought the Supplement at any of the suggested prices, but it serves well as an example[:)]

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Comments

Mark Barnes

It would therefore be great if the price of
the individual resources was given on the collection page, perhaps even as a
columnar addition

Agreed.

A similar issue is
that the price of the collection is unchanged if you own one of the resources
in it.

Trying to achieve all this programmatically on the website may not be worth the investment, but I agree that a human being ought to be able to give you a better discount than $10 if you already own BDAG, though I suspect $114 is unrealistic. Depending on when you bought BDAG, it might be possible to ask for a refund and then invest that money back in the collection. I've done that when I've bought a resource relatively recently and soon realised I'd have been better off with a collection.

Johan L

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/223436#Comment_223436

I got it as part of the Platinum package which at least from my point of view is the best deal logos offers. I guess I may have gotten a better rebate if I had bought it individually in the first place. The point here is not that I deserve a rebate because I've invested already (something I would have done if I had bought BDAG for the full price), but rather that owning resources decreases the value of otherwise good collections a lot and that the price should reflect that.

I never viewed a 100% discount on the price minus collection savings as very realistic, it would be nice though[:)]

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/223439#Comment_223439

I never viewed a 100% discount on the price minus collection savings as very realistic,

Very interesting brand new blog post! http://blog.logos.com/archives/2011/02/how_to_check_out_a_collectionrisk-free.html

I got it as part of the Platinum package

That, then, will be why you weren't offered much of a discount (though I still think you should have had better than $10). When you bought Platinum, you weren't paying the retail price for BDAG. So why should you be offered a 24% discount on retail when you probably already got a 75% discount on the retail price of the individual resources by buying platinum. So if BDAG is $150, you only paid $37.50 for it. As you point out, the package you're interested in is a 24% discount, so I think all you could reasonably hope for would be a discount of $28.50.

Johan L

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/223440#Comment_223440

That, then, will be why you weren't offered much of a discount (though I still think you should have had better than $10). When you bought Platinum, you weren't paying the retail price for BDAG. So why should you be offered a 24% discount on retail when you probably already got a 75% discount on the retail price of the individual resources by buying platinum. So if BDAG is $150, you only paid $37.50 for it. As you point out, the package you're interested in is a 24% discount, so I think all you could reasonably hope for would be a discount of $28.50.

You're probably right about the reason for the low discount. I guess I should have included that I got BDAG through a good deal, but I simply forgot. My point is that a collection also should get cheaper because of it's reduced value, not only because of investements already made. Many collections loose their value if you own only one of the resources it includes. People with large libraries are then unable to benefit from at least some of the good deals Logos offers. For me this doesn't feel like a good way to treat loyal customers. (When buying Platinum, one of the drawbacks was that I could not in the future get deals like the BDAG/HALOT bundle which seemed to be on sale regularly).

Although I got BDAG as part of a package I got cheap (compared to the full price of the resources) I won't say I got BDAG at 25% (or less as it probably is if you compare the full price of the individual resources). BDAG is one of a few resources in Platinum I would even have considered paying full price for. (In addition to one or of the commentary packages, some dictionaries, NIV and some other resources.) Some resources had some value to me, others practically no. My point with this is that for most customers the larger libraries get's it's value mainly from a few of it's resources, and had Platinum not included BDAG it's likely I wouldn't have bought it in the first place unless significantly cheaper. (I'm glad I did however[:)]) I would also guess that the publishing house of BDAG gets a disproportionate share of the Platinum package as compared to some of the other publishing houses with books included. When getting 6,67% of the value of one of the resources that made me make as an heavy investment as Platinum discountedI don't feel as a valued customer.

I don't expect every Logos sales rep. to know all their customers motivations for buying whatever product they offer[:)], but in this case they made me feel that the investment I had made in their products earlier was not being valued. (Which is probably not good in the long run.) They also made my next investment a lot lower than it could have been.

I'm not as disgruntled a customer as it may seem. I'm happy I bought Platinum and I'm happy I bought Basics of Biblical Greek[:)]. I still believe Logos would get even more of my hard earned money in the future if they changed their attitude here... [smiling kindly at the sales rep. silently watching our discussion.]

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/223466#Comment_223466

The principle stated in the blog post I linked above is quite generous, I think: "A Scholars Library: Silver owner can buy a copy of Classic Commentaries on the Greek New Testament (14 vols.) and not have to purchase it again to upgrade to Platinum. We'll credit the difference toward your purchase on your new base package."

The only complication is how much credit you should get for puchases that are part of a bundle or base package. I do agree $10 was rather paltry for BDAG, as its a particularly valueable resource, but I guess Logos will find it difficult to make generous exceptions to an already generous policy. I'm glad you're not too disgruntled, though…[:)]

Johan L

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/223487#Comment_223487

The principle stated in the blog post I linked above is quite generous, I think: "A Scholars Library: Silver owner can buy a copy of Classic Commentaries on the Greek New Testament (14 vols.) and not have to purchase it again to upgrade to Platinum. We'll credit the difference toward your purchase on your new base package."

It is indeed generous! It seems like they are at least going halfway where I hoped they would go in the first post[:)] And although I don't agree with letting us library buyers out I understand that they differ between people buying things at full cost and as part of a package. It's also good news if you want to buy your way into one of the larger collections at your own pace. (However, that would probably be risky business...)

I still can't but wonder: If I bought the Original Languages Supplement, getting at least LSJ and HALOT (and maybe some of the other resources in Portfolio) How large a discount would they give me if I considered buying Portfolio.[:P]