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Drove past this morning and saw estate agents sign above it, but due it's position I was unable to get a good look. Anybody know if it's closed? From what I could see as I drove past, there was nothing showing in the window. Had a look on the GW site and it's still listed there, but that means nothing. Any Bournemouth store regulars post here?

They posted on Facebook a few minutes ago...

https://www.facebook.com/GWBournemouth?fref=ts

Thanks for that. Didn't want to walk all the way over the other side of town for nothing Must be the shop next door.

Just a small niggle. As everybody is entitled to a full lunch break, and given that 'one man stores' by their very name would indicate that there is only one member of staff running them, could GW standardise their lunchtime closing times? I have walked over twice now in my lunch break to find the store closed. Yesterday I had lunch at 14:30 and when I got to the store there was a sign saying it was closed for lunch and back at 15:15. Too late for me. So I take my lunch at my usual time today, 15:00 and when I get there I see the store is closed until 15:45!!

As I said, the guy is entitled to his lunch break and I blame GW head office for this stupidity. I wonder how many more people have turned up to find the store closed? If these store need to close for lunch then GW should be setting the time and posting it with the store opening times, or perhaps a warning advising you to call to check. In this case it's only a can of matt spray, which I will now get from my local indie.

Having run a GW store, I feel qualified to comment on this.

Having a fixed lunch break is a fantastic idea and works perfectly well so long as you have NO non-regular customers in the store when you're ready to go on break. If you have potential new customers or non-regulars in the store, you can't exactly say "Get Out! It's Sandwich Time!". You wait until they leave and you take your lunch a little later than normal. This is just a function of working retail.

If it's causing you a problem, simply call the store before walking over. It's a simple fix that takes two seconds and is 100% within your control. The shopkeep, on the other hand, doesn't have 100% control over when he closes for lunch.

I think the decision to go one man goes far beyond inconvenient lunchbreaks and unpainted minis in the window. It has the potential to sink the company. Let me explain.

Having two adults working in the store acted as a safety net, for both the workers and the kids coming into the store. In my time working in a gaming store (I've worked in more than just GW, and I'm not going to give names) I met more than one staff member who, if I were a parent, I probably wouldn't feel comfortable leaving my kid with unattended. I should stipulate here that this might have been a complete misapprehension on my part, they could have been completely sound, but nonetheless you got the 'alarm bell' feeling that something wasn't quite on centre with them.

Whether it's right or wrong that parents leave their 10-12 year-old (sometimes younger) kids alone in stores is irrelevant, it happens. The one-man store is creating the opportunity for something horrific to happen to one of those kids, and it only needs the accusation for it to take place to destroy GW's high street presence.

And this is why you have two members of staff - it helps protect both the workers themselves (the guy working alone in the store could have been victim to some kid making up a story about them, this can happen) and the kids that are coming into the store.

Yes I know there are criminal record checks run now, but that only proves that the person hasn't been caught before, not that they are a potential criminal. It's a really uncomfortable thing to talk about, but it's something that seems to have been completely overlooked, and in my book pretty much amounts to criminal negligence on GW's part.

Well, I can tell you that when a parent would leave anyone under 18 in my store I would pull the parent aside and explain that I wasn't a day care and was taking zero responsibility for the well being of the child past what I would do as a random bystander. If the child wanders out of the store and into traffic, so be it. Not my problem. If ANYONE, kid or adult in my store had an issue that necessitated calling the police or emergency services, I would make the call. That's it though.

99% of parents understood. 1% got upset and never came back. They weren't really customers though as they basically never spent any money.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
We also had a sign posted saying that we officially would not take responsibility for minors (below 18).

It must be a pretty miserable existence manning a one man store for GW. Lots of obnoxious kids, harder to stop thefts (if you're dealing with a customer how do you make sure no thefts are happening), no one to help you when it is really busy, difficulties taking lunch or toilet breaks and the responsibility for the sales numbers is entirely on you. I think it takes a pretty resilient kind of person to put up with that for the wages they get paid, and it's a shame that the company moved to this model as it is really pretty bad for both staff and customers, all in the name of protecting their bottom line.

Add on to that the obvious issues with working alone with kids, and it's a nightmare. I'm a school teacher and I always make sure to never be alone in a room with a kid without notifying someone else, sitting well back from the kid and in view of the open door. In the shop, it's just not possible to do that and it leaves the workers exposed to all sorts of risks, not to mention the risk to the children. I actually have more sympathy for the workers though- they have no choice but to remain in the store when a kid comes in, the parents do have a choice about whether they let their kid attend GW all day unsupervised.

 Da Boss wrote:
It must be a pretty miserable existence manning a one man store for GW. Lots of obnoxious kids, harder to stop thefts (if you're dealing with a customer how do you make sure no thefts are happening), no one to help you when it is really busy, difficulties taking lunch or toilet breaks and the responsibility for the sales numbers is entirely on you. I think it takes a pretty resilient kind of person to put up with that for the wages they get paid, and it's a shame that the company moved to this model as it is really pretty bad for both staff and customers, all in the name of protecting their bottom line.

Add on to that the obvious issues with working alone with kids, and it's a nightmare. I'm a school teacher and I always make sure to never be alone in a room with a kid without notifying someone else, sitting well back from the kid and in view of the open door. In the shop, it's just not possible to do that and it leaves the workers exposed to all sorts of risks, not to mention the risk to the children. I actually have more sympathy for the workers though- they have no choice but to remain in the store when a kid comes in, the parents do have a choice about whether they let their kid attend GW all day unsupervised.

It's super miserable. Which is why I no longer work there.

For context, most one man store operators in the US start at around 30k+ USD per year, before taxes. The only way to raise that number is to increase store sales, which can be difficult. For additional context, GW is generaly unhappy about overtime and unwilling to authorize it... so it's not like those single man stores can just stay open longer. Staying past your set hours is generally a discipline issue. So, you get paid little and can't do things like stay open longer or even everyday. When your competition (other game stores, video game stores, etc) are open maybe 12+ hours a day, 7 days a week... you just can't compete. Low pay, difficult to compete, no real chance of promotion (there are no regional managers, etc). It's a terrible job. Having said that, if you have a working spouse and are just looking for a relatively low stress job where income isn't important and you have a healthy community of regulars... it can be a great job.

That is interesting information about the overtime. I had assumed that you would have freedom to set whatever hours you wanted as long as you met the sales targets. Weird that they give you so much responsibility in one way and then handcuff you in others.

Is it true that the sales target is fixed across all locations? Because that is also completely crazy.

 Pacific wrote:
I think the decision to go one man goes far beyond inconvenient lunchbreaks and unpainted minis in the window. It has the potential to sink the company. Let me explain.

Having two adults working in the store acted as a safety net, for both the workers and the kids coming into the store. In my time working in a gaming store (I've worked in more than just GW, and I'm not going to give names) I met more than one staff member who, if I were a parent, I probably wouldn't feel comfortable leaving my kid with unattended. I should stipulate here that this might have been a complete misapprehension on my part, they could have been completely sound, but nonetheless you got the 'alarm bell' feeling that something wasn't quite on centre with them.

Whether it's right or wrong that parents leave their 10-12 year-old (sometimes younger) kids alone in stores is irrelevant, it happens. The one-man store is creating the opportunity for something horrific to happen to one of those kids, and it only needs the accusation for it to take place to destroy GW's high street presence.

And this is why you have two members of staff - it helps protect both the workers themselves (the guy working alone in the store could have been victim to some kid making up a story about them, this can happen) and the kids that are coming into the store.

Yes I know there are criminal record checks run now, but that only proves that the person hasn't been caught before, not that they are a potential criminal. It's a really uncomfortable thing to talk about, but it's something that seems to have been completely overlooked, and in my book pretty much amounts to criminal negligence on GW's part.

Yea, I never considered that. The one man store model carries a huge risk of catastrophic liability. I mean, even if a case were completely fabricated, it could very easily be the store manager's word against the child. Who is going to win that one? Follow a criminal case with a civil liability case and GW could be staring down the barrel of millions of dollars in damages, let alone massive damage to the brand.

 Da Boss wrote:
That is interesting information about the overtime. I had assumed that you would have freedom to set whatever hours you wanted as long as you met the sales targets. Weird that they give you so much responsibility in one way and then handcuff you in others.

Is it true that the sales target is fixed across all locations? Because that is also completely crazy.

You're totally handcuffed. They want you to drive sales and traffic, but won't allow you to do things like run certain types of events (Bizarre Bazaar/Auctions), won't allow you to shift your hours around or work long hours and won't allow you to give occasional discounts or write off product for prize support. One man store operators are generally not much more than hybrid cash register operators/salesmen. It's incredibly demoralizing.

In terms of the sales targets... each store is told what they need to sell weekly to be profitable. This is not always the same number for each store. They aren't told what their rent is or any other expenses, so this target feels arbitrary. Pay is directly tied to store revenue, so if you want a raise... you either have to sell more or move to another store that sells more.

You definitely don't have the ability to set your own hours. My store was closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. I would have loved to have been open those days, but it would have meant being closed other days. I would have loved to be open in the morning to catch the "moms going to the grocery with their kids" foot traffic, but that would have meant being closed some evenings. It was a lot of give and take. I wasn't even allowed to work through my lunch break. I HAD to clock out. In practice, I would eat in the store and leave the store open, but clock out and just let everyone know I couldn't ring them up for any sales until I "got back from lunch".

When I first became a store manager they had just decided to make us all salary so at least the hours thing could be taken care of, but all of the other problems that Kriswall has stated were still there. Combine that with terrible locations in the US, really made for a demoralizing job. I remember days when I would have no one come in. Period. Granted I had the worst store location-wise in the entire US (corporate staffs' words, but I agree) yet I still had to meet ridiculous targets. My wife and I are now living with parents and I have to drive 45 minutes to work a retail job with a constantly different schedule, but I can't really say I miss that job except for the subject matter of it.

i used to work near the one up in the triangle (still the same one i think) and yeah the number of time my lunch break rush to get paint was a bust was quite annoying - in the end after work was the best time i found to go

weeble1000 wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
I think the decision to go one man goes far beyond inconvenient lunchbreaks and unpainted minis in the window. It has the potential to sink the company. Let me explain.

Having two adults working in the store acted as a safety net, for both the workers and the kids coming into the store. In my time working in a gaming store (I've worked in more than just GW, and I'm not going to give names) I met more than one staff member who, if I were a parent, I probably wouldn't feel comfortable leaving my kid with unattended. I should stipulate here that this might have been a complete misapprehension on my part, they could have been completely sound, but nonetheless you got the 'alarm bell' feeling that something wasn't quite on centre with them.

Whether it's right or wrong that parents leave their 10-12 year-old (sometimes younger) kids alone in stores is irrelevant, it happens. The one-man store is creating the opportunity for something horrific to happen to one of those kids, and it only needs the accusation for it to take place to destroy GW's high street presence.

And this is why you have two members of staff - it helps protect both the workers themselves (the guy working alone in the store could have been victim to some kid making up a story about them, this can happen) and the kids that are coming into the store.

Yes I know there are criminal record checks run now, but that only proves that the person hasn't been caught before, not that they are a potential criminal. It's a really uncomfortable thing to talk about, but it's something that seems to have been completely overlooked, and in my book pretty much amounts to criminal negligence on GW's part.

Yea, I never considered that. The one man store model carries a huge risk of catastrophic liability. I mean, even if a case were completely fabricated, it could very easily be the store manager's word against the child. Who is going to win that one? Follow a criminal case with a civil liability case and GW could be staring down the barrel of millions of dollars in damages, let alone massive damage to the brand.

This is something that bothered me when gw 1st started one man stores. Their are also other issues.

What if a gw store was robbed by a gun man, and the only person in the store was the single store operator. Most retail I ever worked had a policy that their had to be two employees in the building at all time for this reason. That way if one is hurt during the robbery the other can call for help once the criminals have left.

Having two people in store also reduces the chances of being robbed and a required policy by many retail insurance polices. Gw must pay a premium for insurance on a lot of their north American retail locations because of this policy.

Having at least 2 people in a store is common policy here. The only places I can think of in the UK that have single staff other than GW tend to be burger vans or mall kiosks; everywhere else usually has another member of staff even if they are in the back, because having to close to use the bathroom or to eat lunch is insane.

Bournemouth? Go to LvlUP - the have GW stuff, loads of room to play in and are quite friendly!

GW's store policy should be changed to a franchise system.
As long as the income requirements are reached, it should be the store's own methods that do that.
Being left to do that their own way would be better than what there is now.

Franchise means less income on the same sames. At the moment GW gets 100% of RRP, this isn't the case with a franchise.

Also Franchise are not really something that is that common in the UK, therefore not to be trusted!

I'd have thought that the lesser expense is countered by a smaller amount of overhead controlling the franchisee. Less cost for HQ, and more chance that a sale is made.

Kriswall wrote:Well, I can tell you that when a parent would leave anyone under 18 in my store I would pull the parent aside and explain that I wasn't a day care and was taking zero responsibility for the well being of the child past what I would do as a random bystander. If the child wanders out of the store and into traffic, so be it. Not my problem. If ANYONE, kid or adult in my store had an issue that necessitated calling the police or emergency services, I would make the call. That's it though.

99% of parents understood. 1% got upset and never came back. They weren't really customers though as they basically never spent any money.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
We also had a sign posted saying that we officially would not take responsibility for minors (below 18).

Yes, that might be what was done in your store Kriswall. But, what I'm saying is that there is a major potential grey-area there for a criminal/pervert worker to take advantage of the fact that they are working alone.

The fact is that individuals who are paedophiles will find ways to work in jobs where they have access to kids, this is well documented, and the situation as it is with GW now must be like an open ticket to them. In my view it's a potential headline waiting to happen, potentially fatal for the company, and I can't believe that their strategy and planning departments either haven't considered it, or rather think it is worth running the risk.

notprop wrote:Franchise means less income on the same sames. At the moment GW gets 100% of RRP, this isn't the case with a franchise.

Also Franchise are not really something that is that common in the UK, therefore not to be trusted!

Franchises are mega common amongst food and drinks chains, fast food outlets etc.

I guess it would have less application for a gaming store, just because they are that less frequent, but this happened to an extent with independent sellers. That's if GW didn't keep viewing those other stores as some kind of shameful parasite that they tolerate, but probably would rather didn't exist.

When I worked for gw it was company policy that when there were kids in the store there should always be at least two staff on the floor as well. Hence we had keytimers come in for a couple of hours to cover lunch breaks.

 Wolfstan wrote:
If these store need to close for lunch then GW should be setting the time and posting it with the store opening times, or perhaps a warning advising you to call to check. In this case it's only a can of matt spray, which I will now get from my local indie.

The managers are required to take a lunch, even if they are not working an 8 hour day. (For example, our local GW store is only open for for 6 hours on sunday). It's California state law that requires this. It doesn't matter, if you as the store manager wants to work through the lunch or simply not take one. Some lawyer in CA will sue GW for your right to take a 30 minute lunch. So GW mangers are required to take a 30 minute lunch. Since there are GW stores in CA, they've got to comply with this everywhere. It doesn't matter that your local store isn't in CA.

Annoying, but that's legal for you.

(also, the lunch time should be posted on the store hours next to the door...although it may slide a bit, depending on people in the store.)


But yeah..technically you're not even supposed to use the bathroom in a one man GW store, since most of the time, the bathrooms are where the rest of the backstock is. That doesn't make it conducive for keeping people in the store long term over a day to play games, make models, and sell them stuff.

They can't even advertise. Our local GW store is somewhat tucked away in a strip mall location. They can't even put the Games workshop store name on the electronic sign that says what stores are in the lot, because "that's advertising".

 Schlyne wrote:

 Wolfstan wrote:
If these store need to close for lunch then GW should be setting the time and posting it with the store opening times, or perhaps a warning advising you to call to check. In this case it's only a can of matt spray, which I will now get from my local indie.

The managers are required to take a lunch, even if they are not working an 8 hour day. (For example, our local GW store is only open for for 6 hours on sunday). It's California state law that requires this. It doesn't matter, if you as the store manager wants to work through the lunch or simply not take one. Some lawyer in CA will sue GW for your right to take a 30 minute lunch. So GW mangers are required to take a 30 minute lunch. Since there are GW stores in CA, they've got to comply with this everywhere. It doesn't matter that your local store isn't in CA.

This is completely incorrect. Yes, California does tend to have stricter requirements and yes, many companies simply implement a blanket policy that covers the strictest state requirement (typically, but not always CA)... but many other companies have a seperate policy per state. My company is that way. For GW specifically, we were held to the local state law. I worked in DE, which meant that for every consecutive 6 hours on the schedule, an unpaid 30 min break was required. This 30 min break couldn't be at the start or the end, i.e. no 5.5 hour shift with "the break at the end".

There is no legal requirement for workers in states OTHER than CA to obey CA labor laws.

Annoying, but that's legal for you.

(also, the lunch time should be posted on the store hours next to the door...although it may slide a bit, depending on people in the store.)


But yeah..technically you're not even supposed to use the bathroom in a one man GW store, since most of the time, the bathrooms are where the rest of the backstock is. That doesn't make it conducive for keeping people in the store long term over a day to play games, make models, and sell them stuff.

They can't even advertise. Our local GW store is somewhat tucked away in a strip mall location. They can't even put the Games workshop store name on the electronic sign that says what stores are in the lot, because "that's advertising".

 notprop wrote:
Franchise means less income on the same sames. At the moment GW gets 100% of RRP, this isn't the case with a franchise.

Also Franchise are not really something that is that common in the UK, therefore not to be trusted!

Outside of fast food restaurants you mean.

 Skinnereal wrote:
I'd have thought that the lesser expense is countered by a smaller amount of overhead controlling the franchisee. Less cost for HQ, and more chance that a sale is made.

You're correct, but GW is run by bean counters, and that's not how bean counters think. Bean counters just see that they're getting less of a margin, so they think that by improving that margin, i.e. selling directly, they'll make more money.

From a business/common sense standpoint, it's absolutely insane.

But that's why GW's revenue is dropping like a rock year after year. Just because you can count money doesn't make you a shrewd businessman.

Yup. The rent man doesn't care about margin. He cares about how many actual profit dollars (or whatever archaic currency you Brits use) you have at the end of the day.

 Kriswall wrote:

 Schlyne wrote:
The managers are required to take a lunch, even if they are not working an 8 hour day. (For example, our local GW store is only open for for 6 hours on sunday). It's California state law that requires this. It doesn't matter, if you as the store manager wants to work through the lunch or simply not take one. Some lawyer in CA will sue GW for your right to take a 30 minute lunch. So GW mangers are required to take a 30 minute lunch. Since there are GW stores in CA, they've got to comply with this everywhere. It doesn't matter that your local store isn't in CA.

This is completely incorrect. Yes, California does tend to have stricter requirements and yes, many companies simply implement a blanket policy that covers the strictest state requirement (typically, but not always CA)... but many other companies have a seperate policy per state. My company is that way. For GW specifically, we were held to the local state law. I worked in DE, which meant that for every consecutive 6 hours on the schedule, an unpaid 30 min break was required. This 30 min break couldn't be at the start or the end, i.e. no 5.5 hour shift with "the break at the end".

There is no legal requirement for workers in states OTHER than CA to obey CA labor laws.

Annoying, but that's legal for you.

(also, the lunch time should be posted on the store hours next to the door...although it may slide a bit, depending on people in the store.)


But yeah..technically you're not even supposed to use the bathroom in a one man GW store, since most of the time, the bathrooms are where the rest of the backstock is. That doesn't make it conducive for keeping people in the store long term over a day to play games, make models, and sell them stuff.

They can't even advertise. Our local GW store is somewhat tucked away in a strip mall location. They can't even put the Games workshop store name on the electronic sign that says what stores are in the lot, because "that's advertising".

Ok, that may not be 100% what legal is, but as far as I know, that's GW policy. I know people who currently work for GW doing the one man store position. NE state law does not require you to take a lunch break.

I second the suggestion made to go up the road to LVL Up, they are opposite the Co-op at Charminster. They are super friendly, have loads of gaming space (a bit like Poole GW used to), stock GW at 15% cheaper (20% for members), as well as stocking lots of other systems, all below rrp.
They are open 7 days a week, and no shut time between open and close for "lunch breaks"

migooo wrote:

 notprop wrote:
Franchise means less income on the same sames. At the moment GW gets 100% of RRP, this isn't the case with a franchise.

Also Franchise are not really something that is that common in the UK, therefore not to be trusted!

Outside of fast food restaurants you mean.

That may be your familiar point of reference pedant but I was clearly addressing a general perspective.