The Zondervan collections are attractive to me but too expensive. They all say they are discounted by 50% of their dynamic price, which varies quite a bit for each of us. There is quite a bit of overlap in the collections. If I do the math on each of the collections by dividing the Dynamic sale price by the Total value if sold separately, I come up with various discount percentages ranging 65%, 55%, 45%, 36%, 46%, 41%. I'm wondering if anyone has figured out if it makes a difference in what sequence they are purchased. I know we've proven it does on BPs. Never mind, they're too expensive anyway.
My sales rep played around with it and found that if you purchase in sequence with the highest discount first, you can save a few dollars. Still expensive.
If you put several of them into the cart, the price of some collections gets lowered due to overlap. However, I don't know if you pay for the lowest price of the overlapping resource or not.
No, I tried that. You have to purchase one at a time by my method above or get your rep to do it.
Dale E Heath: No, I tried that. You have to purchase one at a time by my method above or get your rep to do it.
Strange - I see prices reduced in the cart due to overlaps
But not the lowest possible prices. We ran through this pricing problem with all the BP s for the last several years.
Dale E Heath: But not the lowest possible prices. We ran through this pricing problem with all the BP s for the last several years.
Yes - but Faithlife did some work on the site to address this.
My point in posting was to flag this and hope that, if it is not working as designed, someone from Faithlife will have a look at it
OK, that would be nice, but in the meantime I'm going to continue doing it my way and save some money. I don't think FL will ever get this fixed as the formula is complicated. The problem is that each FL customer will have different dynamic pricing on each package. Let's say someone wanted to get all 6 of the new Zondervan collections. The collection discount is 50%, but the dynamic price discount will vary. You would first determine what your best % discount is on the 6 collections and purchase that. Then you would recalculate the remaining 5 collections, because the dynamics will change with each purchase, and purchase that. Continue recalculating and purchasing until you have all 6. The sequence will be different for each individual customer because of our different ownership and the way FL prices and discounts their products. They don't always have complete control over that, especially during sales.
Then there's the situations where some of the items in a collection are on pre-pub, so they are a better bargain with a double discount, and are a better value. It's hard to establish what the true cost is. It all boils down to being able to purchase something, return it, and repurchase it multiple times. Only sale reps can do that.
Dale E Heath:It all boils down to being able to purchase something, return it, and repurchase it multiple times. Only sale reps can do that.
Dale, it looks like by your previous comment that I could buy, recalculate, &, on my own. Here you say sales has to be involved. Could I do this on my own, if no pre-pubs were involved, or must I always contact Sales?
You can only return an item once, if you purchase it a second time, you can't return it again, so you own it. So the strategy is: put everything in your cart to see what the total price will be. Contact your sales rep, who you have a good working relationship with and ask them what their best price is. Go through the steps of purchasing your highest discounted item first, recalculating, then purchasing the remaining items one at a time, recalculating, between steps. If you end up spending less than what your sale rep said, you win. If not, ask your sales rep to return all the purchases and buy from them. Not all sales reps will play this game with you, so you may have to go through the chat support. They don't like it either. I've done several variations of this and it takes a lot of time and effort. I saved about $300, the first time I upgraded to Ultimate step by step. That was before FL changed their cart pricing methods that Mark mentions above. On the Zondervan 6, my sales rep said he could save me $24 over what my cart price was, so I just purchased it from him rather than playing the game. I would only do this if I was making a major BP upgrade. If you don't have a sales rep, you should. He frequently saves me money that I wasn't expecting. If you don't like your rep, you're free to change. Just don't abuse them and they should treat you well.
Dale E Heath: You can only return an item once, if you purchase it a second time, you can't return it again, so you own it. So the strategy is: put everything in your cart to see what the total price will be. Contact your sales rep, who you have a good working relationship with and ask them what their best price is. Go through the steps of purchasing your highest discounted item first, recalculating, then purchasing the remaining items one at a time, recalculating, between steps. If you end up spending less than what your sale rep said, you win. If not, ask your sales rep to return all the purchases and buy from them. Not all sales reps will play this game with you, so you may have to go through the chat support. They don't like it either. I've done several variations of this and it takes a lot of time and effort. I saved about $300, the first time I upgraded to Ultimate step by step. That was before FL changed their cart pricing methods that Mark mentions above. On the Zondervan 6, my sales rep said he could save me $24 over what my cart price was, so I just purchased it from him rather than playing the game. I would only do this if I was making a major BP upgrade. If you don't have a sales rep, you should. He frequently saves me money that I wasn't expecting. If you don't like your rep, you're free to change. Just don't abuse them and they should treat you well.
Dale, I appreciate your thorough reply, and have read it several times. Once again, thank you.
I said Mark (don't know where that came from), I meant Graham.