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I just got back from a local GW store. The store will remain nameless to protect staff.

There has been a mass layoff of GW retail staff, reportedly including some upper management. Store openings in MD will proceed, as those plans were already paid for and in the works. GW staff layed off will be considered for staffing those open positions.

There was a good deal of confusion, and the dust hasn't settled enough to get a clear picture. Can anyone from the company give a better idea of what happened?

Well, a crapload of Canadian staff got or are getting the axe very shortly too, so its not just the US....

I know my old local GW went from 5 staff to 4, and the hq got gutted.

Do you know if the HQ store in Oakville is still open?

AJC

Matt Varnish wrote:I know my old local GW went from 5 staff to 4, and the hq got gutted.

The HQ got gutted because GW Canada doesn't exist any more. Its all GW North America now and it doesn't need much of a Canadian staff.

They've eliminated jobs in local ones as well as after hours nights as well.

trhey have been downsizing their staff in the UK for about a year now so this really shouldn't be that suprising especially considierng the 'current climate'

In the Uk they are moving to one or two staff per store. yes one full timer, no part timer. this experiment is considered to work, so the store shuts two days in the week to cover the employment law five day week and if the manager/staff memeber/everything goes away someone is brought in.

Up to a point I understand this, the largest overheads for retail are staffing, slash that, slash costs.

It is my understanding tht GW US is trying to move the majority of its stores away from malls and move to a bankers hours style store. This means the stores will be closing around 6-7 PM. I dont see much gaming in that sense nor do I see the ability for much floor traffic either. I understand that this is how they do it in UK (Verify?) and they are trying to use that model in the US. There will only be one or two staffers per store.

Orlanth wrote:In the Uk they are moving to one or two staff per store. yes one full timer, no part timer. this experiment is considered to work, so the store shuts two days in the week to cover the employment law five day week and if the manager/staff memeber/everything goes away someone is brought in.

Up to a point I understand this, the largest overheads for retail are staffing, slash that, slash costs.

I have to admit a lot of game stores are pretty dead during the week. Closing a day or two isn't the worst idea to save a couple bucks. I used to go by the local independent store at lunchtime during the week every now and then to chat with the manager and would be the only one in the office.

Of course, it's summertime, so the kiddies are are home and looking for stuff to do, so it may be bad timing...

yeah but gaming after work on 40k nights will suck if the place closes at 7 pm... wtf.

Yea if I can't game during the week then GW ceases to exist for me.

Edited for spelling like a donkey

I think going to 'bank hours' would be a bad idea. I think a more appropriate time of operation would be 11am to 8pm... maybe even 9pm; Tuesday through Saturday. And judging by the size of all the GW store I've been to (three in total) having two staff member on hand would seem like enough.

gw's in the uk tend to close at 8 so i gneerla get abotu 2 hrs of gaming in, it did do till 10pm but it was harsh on the manager....

battle bunkers are a dif story iirc

What are the hours for a battle bunker? We had one in Houston and its hours were like 9.00PM (until it closed of course). I would think those would be the stores that stayed open longer, not shorter hours.

Yeah well i could care less if they change their hours, their staff, or their locations. They still suck... lol. I went to a GW store and i must say first off its over an hour away from me. Here is what i was thinking. Ill go down there have some good nerd talk with other like minded nerds and spend a couple hundred bucks and feel good while doing it.

Well i get to the store. Some people playing, some people painting, lots of crack all around. A red shirt comes walking up and nicely asks "so can i help ya?" I say "yeah im looking for Shrike where can i find him?" His answer is something to the effect we dont carry him in stores, direct order from website... hmmm ok i can dig that. "Alright, i need an eversor assasin and a couple Death Cult Assassins where can i find them?" "Oh we dont have those in the store we only carry the Vindicare and Culexus in stock..." but you can get that on the website.... Hmmmmm ok.. im now trying to make excuses for them i understand they are not the most popular models in the range and stocking them just takes up space and doesnt move. So i start talking armies and fifth edition with some of the guys painting. Some well versed folks to chat it up with. I appreciate the conversation and i begin to forget the trip i made. "Oh yeah mr. redshirt i need 2 boxes of assault marines , where can i find those?"...hmm there arent any on the shelf here next to the 4 boxes of Marneus and his Honor Guard. Redshitrt says, " Oh let me check in the back for you" right on... so i go back to my nerd talk with the locals. It takes about 5 minutes for him to come back with a 90$ battle force and look at me and say we dont have any assault marines here, but you could pick up this battle force there are 5 in them. Ok now i am pissed , so far you have had nothing i was looking for and your solution to my latest problem is you want me to spend more money than i wanted to to get 5 assault marines when i wanted 10...? So i take a slight step back, look at the people painting, position myself so my response can be heard by enough people. " So basically you have nothing i want in stock at a GW store and your answer is to sell me something i dont want nor need?"at that moment my wife is walking by with the Baby and my 2 daughters and i ask her to wait a sec because she has my bag in the stroller..Inside i have my laptop which i always keep with me. I pull it out set it on the counter next to some painters in clear view of the red shirts and proceed to load up, connect to the internet, bring up the GW site. The red shirt makes his way over and says cool you can order it right here thats nice... i look at him as he watches the GW site come up painfully slow then fail to load altogether due to the GW site being a pile of crap...So what do i do.. i laugh and load up Ebay i proceed to bid on an assault marine box set and next i load up TheWarstore and give them a call with my cell phone i order 220 dollars of stuff right there and then i look at the red shirt and go wow that was easy.. Oh and it was 20% cheaper. I guess my work is done here... i can at least say i bought stuff while at the GW store.

GW obviously has a poor idea of how to stock there stores and on top of that there selling practices are a bit off. I would think if i dissapointed a customer not once or twice but three times in 15 miutes i would be looking to offer some empathy and regard for the customers plight. I know the money i spent is going to GW either way but i think it was important to let them see that they are not needed much at all and the mere presence of their stores should be just a tad more respectful to an internet capable world where we dont need the stores we just need the magic of a place where nerds can congregate and enjoy our experience. Stock your store with everything and some day everything will sell.


Bah ive said enough.

*Rant Off*

Something to consider is that many malls and strip malls require you to be open, or open a certain number of hours. I know for example in New York, if it snowed and the staff member was late or could not get in to open, the store got fined 500 dollars. I know the local store here is required to be open 50 hours a week.

Depends on the location.

As Keith said above, if you are in a Mall, all shops are typically tied to their opening hours.

But GW's, in my experience, tend to 10-6 Mon-Sat, except Thursdays when it's 8 for Veterans Night, and something like 10-4 for Sundays (due to the UK's idiotic Retail Law).

They did a round of redundancies last year in the UK, and my mate was one of those who went. This was to cut down on 'non-essential' staff, cutting the wage bill considerably. From what I recall (and this may have depended entirely upon size) each store was left with a Manager, a Full Timer, and a Part Timer. My local store now closes on a Tuesday in order to make up the lost hours.

Me, I've applied for the vacant position at my local Store, so fingers crossed they are done with redundancies!

In most every major mall, being open isn't an option. It's written into your lease that you follow mall hours. The mall follows the hours set by the anchors. For my shop, if two anchors are open, the mall is open, and my shop is open. This means normally 6 days from 10 to 9:30, and one day 11 to 6. During Christmas season, we are often open 6am until 11pm. Sometimes 5am to midnight.

Mall leases are going to be avoided like the plauge, if GW is looking to cut hours. For several years, they have been working on moving most stores to strip malls or freestanding stores.

I don't mind the hours. It gives us lots of time for leagues and open gaming, and guarantees coffe, pretzels, pizza, (and beer), are just a few feet away from the store.

Windswept, I work in retail, I would not want you as a customer. Poor guy was trying to be as helpful as he could be and you go out of your way to embarrass him and his store.

on topic, shame to hear about layoffs I feel for the guys and gals losing their jobs.

Between the global economic factors, the ease of cheaper product available on-line i think GeeDub is finally gettin to a point in size where it's proper for their company.

About 5 years ago GeeDub exploded and got way too big, both on the showroom floor and in games and mini design. After the bubble burst they now have to make allocations to keep afloat and stay strong.

Well, windswept might have not been nice to the guy. But offering the box really blew the whistle. That´s just plain stupidity.

BTW, layoffs too over here in Germany.

I dunno. The alternative offer is a good idea from a customer service point of view, and it's entirely possible he might have been able to make use of the rest of the contents.

Misanthropes! Do retail employees a favor and buy online.

Scottywan82 wrote:Misanthropes! Do retail employees a favor and buy online.

But if we buy online, it will affect store sales. Affected store sales mean more stores close, which means more retail employees lose their jobs.

Hey, that's not a favor at all! It's just a vicious circle! A vicious circle of lies and bitter disappointment!

Like a high school relationship!

I wasnt mean to the guy i simply stated that i couldnt find what i wnated.. oh and there were 6 other things i looked for after talking to him they didnt have...like scouts with sniper rifles. I was just dissapointed but i did actually help others learn where they could buy more bits from. in the end i did what i wanted to do because i was very dissapointed. In hind sight i could have just left but i have just let too many times in life...since i drove 60 miles to be there that day.. i was hoping to find one thing to spend my money on and i didnt..

I wasnt rude to the staff or the cuatomers i simply voice my frustration as a consumer which i have the right to do and set to getting what i wanted to get...the fact that i did it in the store is no concern to me.. and if they had a problem with it they could have said something, they didnt. Plus i also did other things on my laptop like pull up my codex, the adepticon FAQ whic was very helpful in resolving a dispute on rules between a couple people..also we oohed and ahhed over some painting here on dakka and coolminiornot...

Oh well i dont expect people to understand what i did but i just wanted to bring up my shopping experience and how i chose to deal with it.

so on topic i think the layoffs and consolidations of GW are a sign that they are not recession proof and all companies have to make changes to stay alive. How this translates to the cusotmer may be the root cause of my experience and it just may have bneen a bad day at a decent store.. it also could have been just a poorly run store. Also places like the warstore get everything from GW so they got my money none the less.. just less of it and i cant complain about that.

Nah wind your story is pretty accurate i think. Our closest GeeDub store is two hours away and is poorly stocked at all times.

A few times we go up road trip style and either waht we want is 'direct only' or they have one or two blisters. I mean we need squig hoppers dangit, two blisters!?!??!

At least the largest gaming store in Western Canada is also in the city so we just go there, but only after gettin shut out at GeeDub.

Only your nice rant has no real bearing on the actual topic.

KTHXBYE

AlfredTheStrange wrote:
Windswept, I work in retail, I would not want you as a customer. Poor guy was trying to be as helpful as he could be and you go out of your way to embarrass him and his store.

on topic, shame to hear about layoffs I feel for the guys and gals losing their jobs.

If he really wanted to be helpful he could have offered to open the box and sell JUST the assault squad sprues. Then just replace the sprues later or sell the rest of the sprues as open box specials.

Results would have been a happier customer and at least a sale.


GG

generalgrog wrote:

AlfredTheStrange wrote:
Windswept, I work in retail, I would not want you as a customer. Poor guy was trying to be as helpful as he could be and you go out of your way to embarrass him and his store.

on topic, shame to hear about layoffs I feel for the guys and gals losing their jobs.

If he really wanted to be helpful he could have offered to open the box and sell JUST the assault squad sprues. Then just replace the sprues later or sell the rest of the sprues as open box specials.

Results would have been a happier customer and at least a sale.


GG

I didn't think a redshirt had the authority to do that. Happy customer, jobless worker.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Me, I've applied for the vacant position at my local Store, so fingers crossed they are done with redundancies!

JESUS GOD NO!!!