Partner Shipping Program (PSP)

PSP Basics

What is the Partner Shipping Program (PSP)? 
PSP is a program that allows you to sell your physical goods—books, cards, dice, boxed sets, GM screens, hats, T-shirts, or other game-related paraphernalia—through the DriveThru marketplaces. When a customer buys any PSP items, we email the order to you or your fulfillment agent, who then processes and ships the order as they normally would. 

What are the benefits of PSP? 
With PSP, you extend the reach of your offerings to hundreds of thousands of potential customers. Every month, over a half a million qualified RPG shoppers browse our digital marketplaces. Through this new sales channel, you gain another avenue to sell through your standing inventory. 

How much will I earn with PSP?
You earn the same royalty rate that you receive for digital sales on our marketplace, depending on whether you are an exclusive (70%) or non-exclusive (65%) partner. 

Compare these earnings with what you might receive when selling into distribution (35%-40%) or when selling directly into retail (approx. 50%). See Sales and Earnings below for a more detailed analysis of the earnings benefits.

How much does PSP cost me? 
As with any other product listed on our store, there is no up-front cost to you (or at least none beyond the manufacturing costs you’ve already incurred in creating your physical products!). 

Are there any limits to where we can sell stuff? 
During this initial launch period of PSP, we are only allowing PSP orders for destinations within the United States. We plan to open it up to other parts of the world in the future, though!

Signing Up and Listing Products

What do I need to do to get involved? 
If you’re new to PSP, you will first be asked to click-thru and accept the PSP sales terms. (Review the PSP Agreement and policies.) As part of this process, you must input a Contact Email (the person who will receive and ship the orders) and Customer Service Email (who is contacted if the customer, say, didn’t receive the product).

If your product already exists as a title on our site, you can simply add the new PSP Retail option to that title listing.

If it is a new product (e.g., a title or product you’ve never sold with us, like a boxed game or dice) you will first create a new title record, then go through the PSP setup process to add the Retail option.

As with current PDF + POD title listings, will I be able to offer reduced-price or free PDFs along with a PSP title?
Yes, there will be a checkbox on the title setup page to charge any price you’d like for an Add-on PDF when purchased with a print edition.

How do I set up PSP items on DriveThru?
Once you’ve reviewed and accepted the PSP terms, you will follow one of these processes:

OPTION 1: If you already have an existing title on DriveThru, follow Steps 1a-6 below.

OPTION 2: If you are adding a brand new title on DriveThru:

1.  Set up a new title record.

a) Under Category Assignments / Filters, be sure to select: Format>Physical Products>Retail Edition.

2.  Click Add new format>Add Partner Shipping Retail Product.

3.  The “Add Partner Shipping Option to a Title” window pops up.

4.  You must accept the terms and conditions, and you must add email addresses for:

a) The person or company that will receive and ship the orders.
b) The person within your organization our Customer Service can contact for any order issues (these can be the same person).

5.  You will then be sent back to “Add Partner Shipping Option to a Title.” You will:

a) Select the Format from the dropdown menu.
b) Input the sales price and SKU.
c) Select (or input) product options (if any). (Options in this case means different versions of the same product. For instance, if you offer different sets of colored dice.) You can add up to 10 options/variations.
d) Input Shipping Settings (including product size and weight).
e) Under Locales, the optional Ship From and Export To fields are currently only for collecting data at this time. We will initially only be shipping from and to the United States.
f) Click Save.

6.  You will be redirected to the Edit Title Listing page for the newly created title.

7.  You will click “Make Public” to activate the PSP title for sale. (Before doing so, you may also connect a Digital option via the Digital Add-on Cost field.)

Receiving and Shipping Orders

How do I receive orders?
When signing up for PSP, you’ll input an email address for the person (or fulfillment company) handling your shipments. For now, whenever a PSP title is ordered, we’ll send a daily csv file containing the order information; the order information will also include an order-specific link you'll click to share the tracking number with us and the customer.

What happens when I get and ship an order?
You (or your fulfillment company, e.g., Studio 2) enter, pack, and ship the product just like any other order you receive directly from a customer.

Once shipped, you click the order-specific web link, input the tracking number on the website, and we'll automatically update the order status and share the tracking number with the customer. Each link is specific to each order so you must use the link associated with each order you have shipped.

What about shipping costs?
We use our best-estimate shipping rates and pass the entire shipping fee that we charge the customer through to you via an earnings adjustment to your account every month. On a particular order there may sometimes be a shortfall or sometimes an overage. Thus far across orders in our early beta testing, the discrepancy on average nets out close to zero.

Will there be API integration for receiving orders and for processing shipping costs?
Initially, no. But as we continue to build out the program’s tools, our expectation is to implement such API connectivity. We will also be looking at offering apps / plug-ins for popular e-commerce solutions (like Shopify) to easily integrate PSP order flow into your existing e-commerce operations.

What if we are out of inventory and can't fill an order?
Ideally, you’ll list titles of which you have sufficient inventory. However, if you receive an order that you can’t fill, you’ll just let us know and we’ll refund the customer for that item. You’d then make that title’s PSP option Private until you are restocked.

Sales and Earnings

How do we see our sales and earnings for PSP?
Using your normal sales reporting tool, you’ll be able to run a “Custom Report” that details only PSP-sold items.

How do I get paid (both for my earnings and for shipping)?
Your earnings from PSP product sales accumulate as usual in your publisher earnings balance. For shipping amounts collected from customers, we will calculate the shipping costs we have charged your customers and pass that amount straight through to you via an earnings adjustment to your publisher account balance at the end of every month for all PSP orders in that month.

How do my PSP earnings compare with other sales channels?
It's important to recognize that every partner has unique business costs, making a universal financial picture challenging to paint. Only you have the exact figures for your cost of goods sold (COGS), the value of your time, and other material expenses.

However, based on the some general assumptions, here is a breakdown of potential margins across different sales channels:

COGS & MSRP Assumptions
B&W softcover (200 pages): COGS $6/book, MSRP $25.00
Color hardcover (200 pages): COGS $16/book, MSRP $50.00

Selling through Distribution
Assumption: While 60% of MSRP is typical for selling into distribution, we'll use a more generous 55% (partner keeps 45%).

B&W softcover
Publisher revenue: 0.45 × $25.00 = $11.25
Net after COGS: $11.25 - $6.00 = $5.25
Margin = 21%

Color hardcover
Publisher revenue: 0.45 × $50.00 = $22.50
Net after COGS: $22.50 − $16.00 = $6.50
Margin = 13.2%

Selling Directly to Retailers
Assumption: While 50% of MSRP is typical, we'll use a more generous 40% (partner keeps 60%).

B&W softcover
Publisher revenue: 0.60 × $25.00 = $15.00
Net after COGS: $15.00 - $6.00 = $9.00
Margin = 36%

Color hardcover
Publisher revenue: 0.60 × $50.00 = $30.00
Net after COGS = $30.00 − $16.00 = $14.00
Margin = 28%

Selling through DriveThru's PSP
Assumptions: Non-exclusive partner revenue is 65%. And as an exclusive partner, which does not limit where you can sell your PSP-listed titles, you could earn 70%. Customers cover sales tax and shipping (shipping is refunded to the partner monthly).

B&W softcover
Publisher revenue: 0.65 × $25.00 = $16.25
Net after COGS: $16.25 - $6.00 = $10.25
Margin = 41%

Color hardcover
Publisher revenue = 0.65 × $50.00 = $32.50
Net after COGS = $32.50 − $16.00 = $16.50
Margin = 33%

Side-by-Side Margin Comparison

Conclusions
DriveThru's PSP consistently offers better margins than both traditional distribution and direct-to-retail sales.

Beyond the earnings benefits, DriveThru provides access to a massive market of half a million engaged monthly users. The visibility this provides for your products is a significant value, even if a customer chooses to purchase a retail edition elsewhere. DriveThru functions as a major marketplace, a large e-tailer/retailer, and we are committed to offering the best partner support and customer service in the industry. 

That said, PSP may not be an ideal fit for every single partner, maybe not now and maybe not ever. Only you can decide that for yourself. Keep in mind that this is a new program, and we are committed to gathering feedback and developing ways to address partner concerns to ensure it remains a mutually beneficial program.