Anglo Saxon Tarot base

cirom

As the ToD is a self published project, and one whose sales I am handling direct as opposed to using a distribuiter, I have immediate feedback of who is buying and from where. The statistics would be approximately in the area of 40% domestic (US) 20% Canada, 20%UK, 10% Australia New Zeaand, 10% everywhere else. In other words predominantly an Anglo Saxon base (OK OK before I get crucified by the French Canadians who indeed represent approximatley half of that countries orders, the overall trend is still the same).
Now there are certain obvious factors that contribute to this I assume, such as that forums such as this are predominantly English speaking. And that the dollar exchange rate makes imported items even more expensive for certain regions etc etc. Not to mention the titles on the cards themeselves being in English, but surely the two of cups or whatever is'nt a language barrier to figure out no matter what the title is written in.
So I'm curious, considering its European non English speaking heritage of tarot cards why the statistics were as extreme as they are. Maybe Jeanette from the tarot garden could confirm if that just an anomoly with my deck or is generally the case, and if so why?
Oh and by the way its 80% women.
 

mythos

What a fascinating observation. The predominance of women doesn't surprise me, because in the helping professions (psychology, social work, etc) there is a predominance of females too - no doubt due to socialisation forces that put us into the role of nurturer.

In those same professions, the few males tend to end up in the power positions, or social policy research, teaching psych, social work positions and so on. In other words, not client based work. Indeed, the differences in the way in which men and women are socialised was glaringly obvious when it came to the counselling/family therapy courses too. It was, inevitably, the males who had to repeat these courses. Hopefully overtime we will do a better job of socialising both genders to more balanced roles. Most tarot readers are women, and tarot could definitely be included in the helping professions.

As for the predominance of English-speaking buyers, it may indeed be related more to the fact that most sites are in English ... but without research it would be hard to determine. Hopefully Jeanette has some numbers on this. Fascinating bias.

mythos:)
 

Flavio

Interesting question Ciro, for whatever that are worth, here are some observations about the Mexico market

I believe the problem for selling decks here is not the price or the language, I see it more as a matter of mentality, shops don't want to risk selling very "modern" decks they prefer traditional decks so you go to any shop and see hundreds of RWS, Marseilles and Thoths. Just recently US Games has sent catalogues to the shops so people is starting to discover a lot of deck that had been around for years at other countries.

About specific matters you mentioned...

Exchange rate: as all the decks suffer the impact of the exchange rate at the same time I don't see it as something preventing sales. For example in Mexico the average price for a deck is 300 peso (it means USD28) I've seen online the same decks at a retail price between USD 15 -USD 18, but considering it is an imported item and includes the profit from the retailer, the peso prices seem reasonable.
 

HudsonGray

I did a quick look through my records for the Ferret Tarot (a really quick look, I might have missed one or two), and the breakdown for the first printing of 500 decks came out to this:

USA 449 decks sold
Canada 12 decks sold there
England 12
Netherlands 5
Germany 2
Sweden 1
Spain 2
(17 more were given away for various reasons)

Out of the total sold, a whopping 40% went at wholesale price in groups of 10 or more decks to stores or individuals (a ferret club, a tarot group, etc.), which was a LOT more than I had anticipated for wholesale.