Making boxed sets for the store is one level of capital investment and risk. The risk is, if you don't sell them, you lose your investment. As the shareholders newsletter said, selling from the store is higher margin. The return on a fixed production/distribution investment is greater. The demand for production is less and you can, probably, be more flexible/invest less money in a produce-as-needed strategy. The distribution cost is prepaid and as-needed.
I don't know the mechanics of getting product distributed worldwide but there must be vastly more man-hours involved in making wholesale arrangements with various and sundry resellers in many cities in many countries, arranging and paying for shipping, etc. Maybe Mandrake has to eat unsold product, I don't know. Maybe there is an order-of-magnitude greater capital outlay required to build and sustain the brick-and-mortar distribution channel. Maybe two. The online store is the leaner, higher-margin channel. The times call for frugality.
Last time I checked (I work for a big supermarket chain in the UK) Shops buy things from the people that make them. It's then the shops responsibility to sell them.
If they don't sell Mandrake still got there money (granted the shop won't buy them again but hey)
Mike
