I don't really get it... how have people been able to sell through online carts all this time then? Has this policy only been in place in NA? Or is it because they have had physical locations as well? If so, what's the change, can online-only retailers sell GW now?
I don't know of many shops with online carts in the US. Usually you have to order via some kind of spreadsheet form or something to get around the policy.
Azreal13 wrote: They don't. Americans have to email and request their orders.
That's positively draconian. Sounds very much like Kirby. But why only in NA?
Because I'm pretty sure it's illegal everywhere else! Plus I'm not sure they can specify a maximum discount like that, flirting dangerously with price fixing. It should be a retailer's right to sell at whatever price they see fit, and this is a blatant conflict of interests as GW sell direct at 0 discount.
Retailers do have the right to sell at whatever price they see fit. GW has the right to stop selling to retailers that undermine the value of their product.
Azreal13 wrote: They don't. Americans have to email and request their orders.
That's positively draconian. Sounds very much like Kirby. But why only in NA?
Because I'm pretty sure it's illegal everywhere else! Plus I'm not sure they can specify a maximum discount like that, flirting dangerously with price fixing. It should be a retailer's right to sell at whatever price they see fit, and this is a blatant conflict of interests as GW sell direct at 0 discount.
Not quite. In America, there is something called Universal Minimum Retail Price (UMRP) that certain products qualify under that is basically an agreement between the manufacturer and the vendor preventing the vendor from selling the product below a specific price. It was created to prevent large retailers like Walmart, Amazon, etc. from being able to undercut smaller retailers on high-value items, but it is occasionally exploited by manufacturers to artificially keep prices high. I'm not saying this is specifically the case with GW's maximum discount, but it would likely fall in the same legal area.
LunarSol wrote: Retailers do have the right to sell at whatever price they see fit. GW has the right to stop selling to retailers that undermine the value of their product.
Of course, as has always been the case, but there's a world of difference between doing it covertly and overtly, such as specifying it in the t's and c's.
FFG, PP, and SteamForge all use it. I'm sure there are plenty of others. I believe its also used in most electronic entertainment these days to some degree.
Azreal13 wrote: They don't. Americans have to email and request their orders.
That's positively draconian. Sounds very much like Kirby. But why only in NA?
Because I'm pretty sure it's illegal everywhere else! Plus I'm not sure they can specify a maximum discount like that, flirting dangerously with price fixing. It should be a retailer's right to sell at whatever price they see fit, and this is a blatant conflict of interests as GW sell direct at 0 discount.
Not quite. In America, there is something called Universal Minimum Retail Price (UMRP) that certain products qualify under that is basically an agreement between the manufacturer and the vendor preventing the vendor from selling the product below a specific price. It was created to prevent large retailers like Walmart, Amazon, etc. from being able to undercut smaller retailers on high-value items, but it is occasionally exploited by manufacturers to artificially keep prices high. I'm not saying this is specifically the case with GW's maximum discount, but it would likely fall in the same legal area.
Well what do you know..
Wikipedia wrote:On June 28, 2007, the Supreme Court overruled Dr. Miles, discussed above, holding that such vertical price restraints as Minimum Advertised Pricing are not per se unlawful but, rather, must be judged under the "rule of reason." Leegin Creative Leather Products, Inc. v. PSKS, Inc., 551 U.S. 877 (2007). This marked a dramatic shift on how attorneys and enforcement agencies address the legality of contractual minimum prices and essentially allowed the reestablishment of resale price maintenance in the United States in most (but not all) commercial situations.
You know America, for the largest capitalist economy in the world, some of your trade laws are pretty dumb!
People seem to think gw is the big evil company forcing distributors to keep prices high for themselves. This is way off. Gw makes the same amount regardless how much a vendor (online or brick and mortar) sells thier retail product. distributors automatically get ~30-40% discount. This policy of setting the markdown to a specific amount is there to protect brick and mortar stores who need the higher markup to justify shelfspace and stay in business. If gw didn't use this tactic which most game companies do as well. Then 40k will be an online purchased only game with a lot less marketing.
This is a great step into building 40k community again. Btw is this policy is written like asmodee policy which I assume it is in order to follow legal issues then online stores are allowed to have sales above 15% as well. They just can't keep the standard markdown above 15% for an extended time. They can also do other tactics like free shipping and purchase credit point based systems that essentially give you cash back.
The age of 25-30% off products if bought online has been coming to a close this year. Many sides to the argument. You still get some kind of discount so that something.
The big focus that FFG and PP among others have already done is it is to support your FLGS also. Or at the least has a positive side effect for them.
Good for the gaming community as a whole to keep it going.
Though if you don't have a FLGS then you are just SOL
It was to stop their products being sold for less and 'devaluing them' (ie making it more difficult for them to keep prices and revenue artificially high). Lots of manufacturers try to do it. Not legal to set fixed/min prices in the UK, but people get round it in other ways, such as Apple not supplying if you discount, etc.
actually GW cannot specify a maximum discount legally in the uk. There are restrictions in place that effect them that are not so common because they are Manufacturer,Distributor and Retailer all in one.
It is because of these that for example Forgeworld is not sold in GW stores. GW for a short period sold FW books in store however they suddenly stopped overnight. This was because a flgs pointed out that because of the postion they cannot show preference or advantage to there own stores, as such anything sold in a GW store has to be available by them as a distributor to a flgs.
This is why no FW in stores and there suddenly became a big chunk of direct order only stock because GW loves a legal way to screw flgs.
Same type of thing with prices and discounts as long as GW keeps the trinity they cannot as a Manufacturer or Distributor impose terms on flgs to benefit there retail arm.
JohnnyHell wrote: It was to stop their products being sold for less and 'devaluing them' (ie making it more difficult for them to keep prices and revenue artificially high). Lots of manufacturers try to do it. Not legal to set fixed/min prices in the UK, but people get round it in other ways, such as Apple not supplying if you discount, etc.
It's way way more complicated than that. Devaluing is actually a pretty significant problem, because the cost of goods is generally artificially lowered by the supply chain. A lot of things would be significantly more expensive if they weren't able to rely on the large initial sales volume guaranteed by being purchased in bulk by distributors, who are only able to do so do the large customer base provided by individual stores.
Question is how this interfaces with having a sale. A lot of online discounters started having "pre-release" sales which went below the previous 20% discount limit.
Also, does this mean they are reducing the discount they give to distributors like Alliance? If not, that just means some vendors may start to go through Alliance instead to avoid some of the headaches they have with GW.
Curious if some stores which abandoned GW like MiniatureMarket.com will start carrying them again?
Personally think this may have been driven by FFG's new limit imposed several months back. Isn't it 15% as well?
Marxist artist wrote: How weird no shopping cart, why would you ban that? What harm does it do apart from convenience?
I don't get it
It's probably a very effective psychological barrier. It reminds me of the huge decreases you'll see in the suicide rate in a city just from constructing an annoying-but-ultimately-navigable barrier on the prettiest bridges in town. Little inconveniences can have quite an effect in aggregate.
It's at least a step in the right direction, though it looks like it is still a bear to put up a picture with the item in question - unless GW gets smart enough to put together a "package" of usable pics of their stuff for the vendors to use.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Reason as ever will be to help prevent online stores driving bricks and mortar stores out of business with discounts that they can't match.
If anything isn't backing away from a total ban to a 15% cap a tacit admission that either (a) [something about online retailers, see below] or (b) they don't care about brick'n'mortar stores? I really, really doubt it is (b), especially considering how much organized play type support GW is trying to catch up on.
I think it is definitely also an admission that online retail is the present and will be the future and it can't and won't and shouldn't be restricted to direct sales. If GW really wants to sell via US chains, this is something they would have been pretty well forced to accept.
As to (a) above - this could include a broad field of conclusions, such as online retailers and brick'n'mortar stores aren't aren't actually exactly aligned as competitors or that brick'n'mortar stores competing solely by virtue of product availability aren't ideal venues for GW products, etc, etc. In any case, this could cover a lot of ground.
silent25 wrote: to avoid some of the headaches they have with GW.
From what I understand, GW is very easy to deal with as a distributor.
Hulksmash wrote: As long as some companies still do pre-order sales for 25% off or so I'm good.
I don't see this going anywhere, it just makes too much sense for GW, retailers, and customers (considering this is a new era of reasonableness for the historically least reasonable party, i.e., GW).
Azreal13 wrote: Just the arbitrary geographic restrictions to go GW....
This will never be removed do to the way GW operates.
If you are a stockist GW gives you free shipping once a week. Due to the free shipping different zones have different prices based on exchange rates.
I don't know if GW offers free shipping to US retailers but if they do that's a huge cost in postage.
GW has a horrible exchange rate and I think it has to do with the free shipping they offer to stockists.
Here is an example using a Tau Stormsurge € 120= $128 $ 150= €140,5 £ 90 = €103 or $110
Do to GWs horrible exchange rates the € price is 15% higher than if you bought in £ and the $ price is 26,6% higher than if you bought in £. A stormsurge from a UK store with 20% discount is £72 which is €82,4 or $88 which is a 31.3% discount in € and a 41,33% discount in $. New Zeland Stormsurge is 295, £72 is 127 NZ$. So the base price of a Stormsurge is 130% more expensive in Nz....
What all this means is that what would happen is what did happen before, people would buy from UK stores because the prices they get are ALLOT better than they can get in local stores.
So lets say you have a store in the US, GW gives you 45% discount on products. So if you sold for $100 you would make $45 if you sold at GW retail. Now if a UK store can sell with 41.33% discount (20% store discount and 21.33% exchange rate discount) you would have to be able to match that discount if you wanted to be competitive or hope people didn't buy from the UK. Postage isn't much of a factor as most retailers are willing to offer free postage if you buy for allot.
So a person can buy an army from you for $1000 or the exact same thing from the UK for $600. Him buying it from the UK only helps the UK store and his wallet, it pretty much ruins your store if people find out about it and buy from the UK instead of your store.
GW wants to protect physical stores from being shut down by online retailers. Think of it like Amazon, Wallmart or whatever other huge place to buy stuff. How many hundreds of thousands of businesses have gone bankrupt because of them? So in order to protect retailers they have to limit the zone you are allowed to sell in. Nothing prevents your friend from buying in the UK and posting to you anywhere in the world.
So a successful store offers allot more than just the base product, they offer a place to pay, food, drinks and so on. Problem with this is it requires a large store which often means high rent. Discounts diminish how much money you make and you have to factor in shop lifting, wages, insurances, rent etc etc etc. Running a store can be very expansive for very little gain.
MadCowCrazy wrote: GW has a horrible exchange rate and I think it has to do with the free shipping they offer to stockists.
.....
Postage isn't much of a factor as most retailers are willing to offer free postage if you buy for allot.
.....
GW wants to protect physical stores from being shut down by online retailers.
I cut a few lines out of your post to somewhat highlight your logical flaw. GW charges more internationally because of shipping..... except retailers themselves are willing to offer free shipping which means it mustn't be costing the retailers much so unless GW have horrible connections, it's probably not costing them much either.
Lastly your idea that GW wants to protect physical stores is flawed. GW are the ones inflating the wholesale price that prevents physical stores being able to compete with foreign online retailers. So if GW are protecting physical stores, it's only because they are protecting them from a problem that GW themselves created.
If a person sitting in NZ can order a product at retail price from an international store and have it shipped to them cheaper than a NZ retailer can buy the same product wholesale, it indicates GW is simply inflating prices because it can (which it can because it stops independent international retailers selling to NZ).
If GW charged NZ retailers the same wholesale price as the rest of the world, NZ retailers would have prices competitive with the rest of the world.
The problem is GW charges a UK independent $60 wholesale for a box of whatever with a RRP of $100, the same product is sold to a NZ independent for $120 wholesale with an RRP of $200. (Note: I'm not sure what the numbers actually are, but from memory the Oz wholesale is close to the UK retail, so I imagine NZ is even worse)
JohnnyHell wrote: It was to stop their products being sold for less and 'devaluing them' (ie making it more difficult for them to keep prices and revenue artificially high). Lots of manufacturers try to do it. Not legal to set fixed/min prices in the UK, but people get round it in other ways, such as Apple not supplying if you discount, etc.
It's way way more complicated than that. Devaluing is actually a pretty significant problem, because the cost of goods is generally artificially lowered by the supply chain. A lot of things would be significantly more expensive if they weren't able to rely on the large initial sales volume guaranteed by being purchased in bulk by distributors, who are only able to do so do the large customer base provided by individual stores.
As someone who used to head up a huge department at Tesco, take it that I know all this and was giving a potted summary. ;-)
This wouldn't be very surprising at all if people played games other than those made by GW.. As stated previously, most other games you see in a game shop also have similar restrictions to discount on MSRP.
This is only a good thing, IMO, for all retailers (except online only stores but they can burn for all it matters). Even if you don't care about local game stores they do help promote the hobby which you enjoy. Less discount = more profit for them and less chance they go bankrupt. Since we know a lot of warhammer players are addicts and will buy the newest toy regardless of price if all stores sell at equal price.
Which is an extremely slim margin, and only done because they have to compete with online only shops. Sure you may pay 5% more (and still buy the same amount of new releases) but they will pay their lease and utilities that much easier.
Which is an extremely slim margin, and only done because they have to compete with online only shops. Sure you may pay 5% more (and still buy the same amount of new releases) but they will pay their lease and utilities that much easier.
It's funny how you misunderstood me like that.
Anyway......even with the discount, many products are too expensive. Add in sales tax, and I'm already paying more than retail minus 15%. Truthfully, I do spend more at the FLGS (where I do most of my shopping) than I would need to at say, Miniature Market on a per-item basis. I support the FLGS, but that support only stretches so far...
Kirasu wrote: only done because they have to compete with online only shops
Competition is the name of the game. A physical shop can offer stuff that an online retailer doesn't but if they don't, or can't make it profitable enough, them's the brakes. Let's not go down this road but so far as it is mostly off topic. The relevant part is, the 15% discount cap can't torpedo a LGS that is already successful. I doubt a higher cap (20-25%) could either. Capping the discount probably has more to do with GW preserving its brand image than anything about brick'n'mortar shops. The protectionist angle is mostly smoke and mirrors. Burt even here: if I can get 20% from a successful LGS and only 15% off from a reliable online retailer then I will buy from the LGS whether or not I play there.
GW has a horrible exchange rate and I think it has to do with the free shipping they offer to stockists.
It doesn't. It has to do with GW not wanting to have to keep adjusting prices to deal with exchange rate fluctuations, and so they set their exchange rate considerably above the actual rate to compensate.
lord_blackfang wrote: Even purely digital content is more expensive in your part of the world. Steam game codes are region-locked. This isn't a GW issue.
The hell it isn't.
GW are the ones blocking sales across boarders, and it affects more than just Oz. US can't order from UK. UK can't order from Canadia. Canadia is stuck with their nonsense prices when a few miles away things are cheaper.
This isn't just about Australia and it damn-well is a GW issue.
lord_blackfang wrote: Even purely digital content is more expensive in your part of the world. Steam game codes are region-locked. This isn't a GW issue.
The hell it isn't.
GW are the ones blocking sales across boarders, and it affects more than just Oz. US can't order from UK. UK can't order from Canadia. Canadia is stuck with their nonsense prices when a few miles away things are cheaper.
This isn't just about Australia and it damn-well is a GW issue.
The canadia dollar has plumemeted and it is now a lot cheaper up here than in the US
casvalremdeikun wrote: Pretty sure UK can't order from Canadia because it isn't a real place...
What about the Canadian Gate?? Did Abaddon blow her up, bud?
Clanan wrote: Well dang, I'm going to be spending even more on GW now that my main impediment - going to the store - is gone.
You and a lot of people! I wonder if Mr. Rountree has an estimate of the damage caused to GW over the last decade by its extreme hostility toward customers. Or are they just going to measure it indirectly by elevated profits going forward?
Speaking of Canada I will be happy if this rolls out over here. I feel like a criminal having to order all my stuff via email, spreadsheets, and smoke signals. Guess that was why the whole ridiculous system was implemented in the first place. It made the GW website the only way to get their stuff.
I mean just check out the website of where I have to order my stuff. A shopping cart (and some basic web design) would go a long way!
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Reason as ever will be to help prevent online stores driving bricks and mortar stores out of business with discounts that they can't match.
If anything isn't backing away from a total ban to a 15% cap a tacit admission that either (a) [something about online retailers, see below] or (b) they don't care about brick'n'mortar stores? I really, really doubt it is (b), especially considering how much organized play type support GW is trying to catch up on.
I think it is definitely also an admission that online retail is the present and will be the future and it can't and won't and shouldn't be restricted to direct sales. If GW really wants to sell via US chains, this is something they would have been pretty well forced to accept.
As one of the conditions is still that they must have a brick and mortar store the discount is irrelevant as the same online stores that would undercut would also be the brick and mortar stores. Meaning the ones that could undercut would be the ones somehow selling without a trade agreement with GW.
That's not how it actually plays out. Miniature Market, for example, has a physical store. You can go there and shop and play games. But the real business is the huge online retail component. MM is the kind of company - in fact, probably the company - that the usual LGS is worried about.
Of course MM dropped GW like a bad habit years ago in light of GW's hostile policies. Perhaps that will change now - especially guven that MM swallowed the bitter pill of FFG and PP's discount caps.
Manchu wrote: Miniature Market, for example, has a physical store.
Most of the bigger online discounters over the years have seemed to have had a physical store. At least the ones that lasted for any length of time, at least.
Which seems to somewhat put a lie to the claim that online stores are a problem because physical stores can't compete.
lord_blackfang wrote: Even purely digital content is more expensive in your part of the world. Steam game codes are region-locked. This isn't a GW issue.
The hell it isn't.
GW are the ones blocking sales across boarders, and it affects more than just Oz. US can't order from UK. UK can't order from Canadia. Canadia is stuck with their nonsense prices when a few miles away things are cheaper.
This isn't just about Australia and it damn-well is a GW issue.
The exact same rules apply to Magic cards, DVDs, college textbooks. It's not a GW issue. It's an issue of our governments allowing corporations to maximally exploit consumers in each region.
lord_blackfang wrote: Even purely digital content is more expensive in your part of the world. Steam game codes are region-locked. This isn't a GW issue.
The hell it isn't.
GW are the ones blocking sales across boarders, and it affects more than just Oz. US can't order from UK. UK can't order from Canadia. Canadia is stuck with their nonsense prices when a few miles away things are cheaper.
This isn't just about Australia and it damn-well is a GW issue.
So why then I can't buy from other companies stuff? At least easily. I need to utilize reshipping services to get stuff from Japan periodically.
Funny thing but not every company sells everywhere.
Nevermind really bonker stuff like amazon kindle. I can't buy kindle books from UK or(more crucially) Japanese amazon. I have to buy from US(despite being in Finland. WTF?). This is HUGE issue as US Kindle store has like <10% of books I would like to buy. Thanks a lot!
tneva82 wrote: Funny thing but not every company sells everywhere.
'Cept GWdo sell everywhere. That's the difference.
You're aware that when the embargo first came in (and it could still be the case, I haven't checked) they didn't stop you from ordering from different GW stores overseas, but they slapped on massive shipping to discourage it. So a £3 pot of paint had a £70 shipping tag to Oz whereas a week before it was a 10th of that.
tneva82 wrote: Funny thing but not every company sells everywhere.
'Cept GWdo sell everywhere. That's the difference.
You're aware that when the embargo first came in (and it could still be the case, I haven't checked) they didn't stop you from ordering from different GW stores overseas, but they slapped on massive shipping to discourage it. So a £3 pot of paint had a £70 shipping tag to Oz whereas a week before it was a 10th of that.
And for good measure, it ships from the UK anyway. At least if you're in Japan.
Order from GW Japan, and they charge minimal shipping and post it from the UK. Order from GWUK and the shipping charges skyrocket. Even though it's all coming from the same place, by the same means.
The exact same rules apply to Magic cards, DVDs, college textbooks. It's not a GW issue. It's an issue of our governments allowing corporations to maximally exploit consumers in each region.
The difference being that if I want Magic cards cheaper than they're available locally, I can just go and buy them from a US webstore.
GW chose to restrict independent sellers to selling within their own region, which I can only think had to cost them sales overall without actually doing anything significant to help the local accounts.
There were still ways around it, of course... EBay being the main one. But make it too hard for customers to buy your product at a reasonable price (yes, Black Library, I'm looking at you) and they are just as likely to not bother, and spend their money elsewhere.
lord_blackfang wrote: Even purely digital content is more expensive in your part of the world. Steam game codes are region-locked. This isn't a GW issue.
The hell it isn't.
GW are the ones blocking sales across boarders, and it affects more than just Oz. US can't order from UK. UK can't order from Canadia. Canadia is stuck with their nonsense prices when a few miles away things are cheaper.
This isn't just about Australia and it damn-well is a GW issue.
The exact same rules apply to Magic cards, DVDs, college textbooks. It's not a GW issue. It's an issue of our governments allowing corporations to maximally exploit consumers in each region.
We can branch off in to looking at other products, but when it comes to wargames and plastic models, I've always been able to buy them internationally and have them shipped to Oz, though the local Oz price isn't usually a hell of a lot worse unless you're looking at GW products anyway.
You can blame the governments not creating legislation stopping companies from doing it, but having a faulty lock doesn't mean the thief is a stand up bloke deserving of respect.
Retailers had been told this was coming a bit back, but not exactly when or what the discount cap was. Frontline Gaming was the face of the "enemy" that they used in their presentation.
Commander Cain wrote: Speaking of Canada I will be happy if this rolls out over here. I feel like a criminal having to order all my stuff via email, spreadsheets, and smoke signals. Guess that was why the whole ridiculous system was implemented in the first place. It made the GW website the only way to get their stuff.
I mean just check out the website of where I have to order my stuff. A shopping cart (and some basic web design) would go a long way!
The exact same rules apply to Magic cards, DVDs, college textbooks. It's not a GW issue. It's an issue of our governments allowing corporations to maximally exploit consumers in each region.
The difference being that if I want Magic cards cheaper than they're available locally, I can just go and buy them from a US webstore.
GW chose to restrict independent sellers to selling within their own region, which I can only think had to cost them sales overall without actually doing anything significant to help the local accounts.
There were still ways around it, of course... EBay being the main one. But make it too hard for customers to buy your product at a reasonable price (yes, Black Library, I'm looking at you) and they are just as likely to not bother, and spend their money elsewhere.
That last paragraph is so true.
GW: "What if we made our whole company into Black Library?"
The exact same rules apply to Magic cards, DVDs, college textbooks. It's not a GW issue. It's an issue of our governments allowing corporations to maximally exploit consumers in each region.
The difference being that if I want Magic cards cheaper than they're available locally, I can just go and buy them from a US webstore.
GW chose to restrict independent sellers to selling within their own region, which I can only think had to cost them sales overall without actually doing anything significant to help the local accounts.
Can you? Have you actually tried? I know for a fact that WotC does not allow Europeans to buy Magic from the US, and does not allow North Americans to buy Magic from South America, using the exact same mechanisms as GW.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Someone is full of gak and it's not me.
The exact same rules apply to Magic cards, DVDs, college textbooks. It's not a GW issue. It's an issue of our governments allowing corporations to maximally exploit consumers in each region.
The difference being that if I want Magic cards cheaper than they're available locally, I can just go and buy them from a US webstore.
GW chose to restrict independent sellers to selling within their own region, which I can only think had to cost them sales overall without actually doing anything significant to help the local accounts.
Can you? Have you actually tried? I know for a fact that WotC does not allow Europeans to buy Magic from the US, and does not allow North Americans to buy Magic from South America, using the exact same mechanisms as GW.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Someone is full of gak and it's not me.
Due to distribution restrictions we are only able to ship this product to the United States, Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands.
You realise your whole argument is basically "leave GW alone because other companies are equally massive dicks" right?
Showing how other companies may or may not impose similar restrictions does not diminish what GW are doing, and in order for you to establish even the same level of dickishness, you'll have to find a company doing it that is also selling directly into the consumer channel at a price inflated beyond all reasonable allowance of logistic costs or trade tariffs.
The exact same rules apply to Magic cards, DVDs, college textbooks. It's not a GW issue. It's an issue of our governments allowing corporations to maximally exploit consumers in each region.
The difference being that if I want Magic cards cheaper than they're available locally, I can just go and buy them from a US webstore.
GW chose to restrict independent sellers to selling within their own region, which I can only think had to cost them sales overall without actually doing anything significant to help the local accounts.
Can you? Have you actually tried? I know for a fact that WotC does not allow Europeans to buy Magic from the US, and does not allow North Americans to buy Magic from South America, using the exact same mechanisms as GW.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Someone is full of gak and it's not me.
You realise your whole argument is basically "leave GW alone because other companies are equally massive dicks" right?
Showing how other companies may or may not impose similar restrictions does not diminish what GW are doing, and in order for you to establish even the same level of dickishness, you'll have to find a company doing it that is also selling directly into the consumer channel at a price inflated beyond all reasonable allowance of logistic costs or trade tariffs.
Yeah, so blackfang has basically established that WotC are *also* massive dicks in addition to GW
In the realm of wargames and plastic models, at a guess I'd say the vast majority allow international sales and don't have hideously unequal wholesale prices from one region to the next.
You realise your whole argument is basically "leave GW alone because other companies are equally massive dicks" right?
Showing how other companies may or may not impose similar restrictions does not diminish what GW are doing, and in order for you to establish even the same level of dickishness, you'll have to find a company doing it that is also selling directly into the consumer channel at a price inflated beyond all reasonable allowance of logistic costs or trade tariffs.
I'm showing some perspective because others are tying to make it out like only GW does this, and because at the end of the day, this amounts to nothing more than grown men complaining about the unfair price of toys when the exact same unfairness applies to everything from food, to medicine, to education. It's pointless to point fingers and rage at one company in an irrelevant field. Work against unfair international trade agreements.
AduroT wrote: Frontline Gaming was the face of the "enemy" that they used in their presentation.
Could you please elaborate on how Frontline is supposed to be "the enemy" according to GW? (I'm interested in their actual argument rather than speculation.)
You realise your whole argument is basically "leave GW alone because other companies are equally massive dicks" right?
Showing how other companies may or may not impose similar restrictions does not diminish what GW are doing, and in order for you to establish even the same level of dickishness, you'll have to find a company doing it that is also selling directly into the consumer channel at a price inflated beyond all reasonable allowance of logistic costs or trade tariffs.
I'm showing some perspective because others are tying to make it out like only GW does this, and because at the end of the day, this amounts to nothing more than grown men complaining about the unfair price of toys when the exact same unfairness applies to everything from food, to medicine, to education. It's pointless to point fingers and rage at one company in an irrelevant field. Work against unfair international trade agreements.
Yeah exactly this and reinforces my belief that there are a lot of GW gamers that ONLY play GW games. This isn't new or surprising.
On the matter of MTG cards.. yes you can find them at NEAR distribution costs if you pre-order however those businesses make basically no money off it. Why do they do it? Because a lot of players sell back a good portion of their cards at 25% the price which allows that store to sell them back as singles. That simply doesn't happen with models.
Retail policy isn't about freedom to do what you want and what is most advantageous for the customer, it's about making money.
Kirasu wrote: Yeah exactly this and reinforces my belief that there are a lot of GW gamers that ONLY play GW games. This isn't new or surprising.
Or, ya know, they don't play MTG, because I've bought other non-GW games from international sellers without a problem. In fact I've bought from GW's UK online store and had it shipped to Australia not all that long ago
Can you? Have you actually tried? I know for a fact that WotC does not allow Europeans to buy Magic from the US, and does not allow North Americans to buy Magic from South America, using the exact same mechanisms as GW.
Must be a relatively recent change, as I was buying plenty of WotC product from the US not so many years ago.
You could take out 'Magic' and substitute just about any other non-GW wargames company, though... except that in the case of, say, Privateer Press (also not the best example, as they're currently trying very hard to be the next GW) there's not as much need for me to buy from overseas as the locals prices are as ridiculously inflated.
To be clear - nobody thinks that GW are the only company on the planet that uses regional pricing or distribution restrictions. They are, however, far more aggressive with it that any other miniatures company I know of. And that's largely because so many of their policy decisions are still rooted in outdated market ideas. More progressive companies are starting to realise that the internet is a thing, and that regional restrictions like that either aren't good for business or simply don't work any more.
And then, of course, as others pointed out, there's the obvious fact that 'everyone else is doing it' isn't actually a particularly good excuse for dodgy behaviour.
AduroT wrote: Frontline Gaming was the face of the "enemy" that they used in their presentation.
Could you please elaborate on how Frontline is supposed to be "the enemy" according to GW? (I'm interested in their actual argument rather than speculation.)
They're going up against massive online discounts, and Frontline offers those.
You realise your whole argument is basically "leave GW alone because other companies are equally massive dicks" right?
Showing how other companies may or may not impose similar restrictions does not diminish what GW are doing, and in order for you to establish even the same level of dickishness, you'll have to find a company doing it that is also selling directly into the consumer channel at a price inflated beyond all reasonable allowance of logistic costs or trade tariffs.
I'm showing some perspective because others are tying to make it out like only GW does this, and because at the end of the day, this amounts to nothing more than grown men complaining about the unfair price of toys when the exact same unfairness applies to everything from food, to medicine, to education. It's pointless to point fingers and rage at one company in an irrelevant field. Work against unfair international trade agreements.
So Magic is 40+% more expensive in Australia than it is in the US?
Genuine question.
Edit.
Which I've answered myself, as that's the sort of question that doesn't tend to get genuine answers or is glossed over.
Good Games.au - Tarkir booster AUS$175
The War Store - Tarkir booster US$120
Difference in price for a box at today's exchange rate? AUS$14
So less than 10%, which is within the realms of what is explicable due to logistics and tariffs, could all but disappear with a small swing in exchange rate and likely smaller than the cost to an Ozzie consumer ordering from the US.
AduroT wrote: Frontline Gaming was the face of the "enemy" that they used in their presentation.
Could you please elaborate on how Frontline is supposed to be "the enemy" according to GW? (I'm interested in their actual argument rather than speculation.)
They're going up against massive online discounts, and Frontline offers those.
I remember when The Warstore was the face of the enemy when GW first instituted the no online shopping cart ban in NA. What's funny is both Frontline Gaming and The Warstore had brick and mortor locations and in fact now have mulitple locations. Furthermore Frontline Gaming is one of, if not the largest, private supporter of organized play (ITC, LVO, BAO, etc.) and GW focused content (Podcasts, Twitch, Youtube).
As for how retailers like Frontline Gaming and The Warstore can adapt to the new pricing floor, one easy thing is free shipping or lower their free shipping threshold.
Ultimately I don't think this will change anything for my local FLGS (or any others that wan't already significantly invested in online sales) as they don't offer online sales and if the floor to do online sales is offering the maximum allowed discount, then they don't have much incentive to undercut their own sales. GW knows this so this isn't an attempt to protect brick and mortar stores, this is an attempt to prevent product devaluation through systemic discounting. They basically are telling places like Frontline Gaming and The Warstore that in exchange for limiting your discounting, we will allow online shopping carts.
So don't believe this is a consumer or even a brick and mortar store friendly move. It's another attempt by GW to scale back/limit discounting without cutting off their noise to spite their face.
I think it's good that they're allowing online shopping carts for NA stores. I'll mostly continue to buy from local brick and mortar stores, because they have a secondary function as a clubhouse and I think that tabletop gaming needs visible clubhouses in order to truly thrive.
(A combination of Youtube and Meetup-type groups might be able to replace physical locations in terms of fostering a community, but I'm not sure.)
Slightly off-topic, do gaming clubs ever start their own stores under some type of co-op model?
Azreal13 wrote: You know America, for the largest capitalist economy in the world, some of your trade laws are pretty dumb!
Unfortunately, many Americans, having no real education in economics and thus no real understanding of the necessity of regulation, hate all regulation as an ideological default. Special interest groups have taken advantage of this to get laws passed in order to minimize competition and reduce the free market via stripping regulation that would otherwise encourage a free market.
Because, ultimately, the idea of a free market is not actually all that profitable to the companies providing goods and services, especially compared to a non-free market wherein the companies themselves have control over information, prices, barriers to entry, and other sources of monopolistic market power, and are able to use them to maximize profit.
Instead of talking about necessary regulations to encourage a free market, we get "hurr regulations bad mkay" and any argument to the contrary gets instinctively dismissed.
Slightly off-topic, do gaming clubs ever start their own stores under some type of co-op model?
It's been done, but it rarely lasts very long as the people running it discover how much work it is, or get everything they need and move on. It used to be a thing down here, before GW started insisting on accounts having a physical store location.
I am a brick and mortar store owner, and I was at a seminar at GAMA for GW when the new policy was read to those in attendance. The room was silent. The majority of those in the room were brick and mortar owners and they were shocked. Shocked that GW took the same steps that most of the gaming industry has taken to insure the health of brick and mortars. Deep discounts are not sustainable for any great length of time in brick and mortar hobby gaming industry. Most of us live on a 10% margin. What I mean is that at msrp your gross profit is 45 cents on a dollar. But that is not your real profit, after paying rent, payroll, electric, water, insurance, mall fees, cleaning supplies, advertising, and any other operating costs, a healthy/successful store makes about 10 cents on a dollar in actual profit. If you discount 10%, you make no profit. Anything beyond that is a loss. Most of the costs I outlined are not a as much a factor to an online company. What I mean by this is that often online stores have fewer employees, less rent, generally less overhead. Some of the larger ones can become distributors, and then they get an even better discount from the manufacturer. The game industry as a whole have decided that brick and mortal stores are vital to their success. That is why Privateer Press, Asmodee (including FFG, Days of Wonder, Plaid Hat, and many of their products like Settlers of Catan), Iello, and GW have created this maximum discount. Other companies are giving brick and mortars early access to products rather than limiting discounts. Now either all of these multimillion dollar companies are run by idiots, or they actually know something about what is healthy for this industry. I know everybody wants to buy cheaper, but when that is applied to the way you make money, it is not so appealing. Pay Firemen based on their success, give them money for every home and person they save, subtract money every time someone dies or a home burns. Is that fair? Not everything can be cheap. It is easy to devalue the way others make a living, but when it happens to you it is very different.
Without discounting your experience, though, it's clearly possible for brick and mortar stores to operate a competitive online presence... because some are doing it, and have been for years.
However they were spun, GW's sales restrictions weren't for the benefit of the B&M store. They just funneled online sales either directly to GW, or to those sellers who were still operating online regardless of the policy.
insaniak wrote: Without discounting your experience, though, it's clearly possible for brick and mortar stores to operate a competitive online presence... because some are doing it, and have been for years.
I think at this point of time, most people who will be buying online will probably stick with the existing online stores with a good reputation instead of risking a new online store unless they're familiar with the brick and mortar location (and then why buy online?).
KingmanHighborn wrote: Makes me wonder if bitz stores will come back. I need the biggest thunderwolf tail I can get. and maybe 2 of Yvraine's lynx cat thing....
Unlikely to happen in any substantial fashion, I would think. The trading rules were only a minor inconvenience for bits sellers (I never had a trading account, just bought from discount sellers or eBay)... what killed off bits sellers is that it's a huge amount of work that gets increasingly harder to juggle as the range keeps growing. Keeping it profitable while balancing prices of high- vs low- demand parts, trying to maintain enough stock of the parts everyone wants while not getting drowned under a pile of assorted crap, and keeping up with changing trends require some really clever handling and a certain amount of luck, and most of those who try it go into it thinking it's an easy way to make boatloads of money and very quickly run smack-bang into a great big wall of difficultness.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Your argument is that this is a good thing, but it's weird that the room was silent. Shouldn't this have been something the room was happy to hear?
According to the same poster, a 10% discount eliminates all profitability. So I would have thought that GW announcing a 15% discount ceiling iwould be bad news? But yeah then he went on to talk glowingly about GW doing this ...
Ghaz wrote: most people who will be buying online will probably stick with the existing online stores with a good reputation instead of risking a new online store
Disagree. There is a lot more room for competition among online retailers. The big ones seem to focus on brand recognition these days so that they are top of mind when a gamer has the urge to spend. But I am more than willing to make a test purchase from any reasonably professional looking store if the deal is sweeter. The other issue is, there is such a diversity of product - none of the more established online retailers carry everything.
But one thing is for sure: Even without considering discounts, online retailers are often able to carry more product lines than just about any LGS. For me, it's hardly worthwhile to step into a LGS because I am not interested in the top 5 ICv2 product lines other than some GW releases - and there is a GW retail location with a much more extensive inventory to compete with the LGS on that score. Getting back to the 15% - if GW allows online retailers to offer this plus the convenience of shopping cart style customer UI then competition against the LGS just got that much steeper. Between carrying a larger amount of products direct-only, opening retail stores, and warming up to online retail, it's a wonder that any LGS owners can really buy that GW is committed to preserving their 80s-style LGS business model.
Manchu wrote: But I am more than willing to make a test purchase from any reasonably professional looking store if the deal is sweeter.
With GW capping the discount at 15%, what can a store do other than offer free shipping that the others do as well?
Manchu wrote: The other issue is, there is such a diversity of product - none of the more established online retailers carry everything.
If a store already had the diversity of product to support a webstore before and didn't have one, I don't see GW's new policy changing that for more than a few of them. I just don't think we'll see a flood of new online stores out of this.
Smellingsalts wrote: I am a brick and mortar store owner, and I was at a seminar at GAMA for GW when the new policy was read to those in attendance. The room was silent. The majority of those in the room were brick and mortar owners and they were shocked. Shocked that GW took the same steps that most of the gaming industry has taken to insure the health of brick and mortars. Deep discounts are not sustainable for any great length of time in brick and mortar hobby gaming industry. Most of us live on a 10% margin. What I mean is that at msrp your gross profit is 45 cents on a dollar. But that is not your real profit, after paying rent, payroll, electric, water, insurance, mall fees, cleaning supplies, advertising, and any other operating costs, a healthy/successful store makes about 10 cents on a dollar in actual profit. If you discount 10%, you make no profit. Anything beyond that is a loss. Most of the costs I outlined are not a as much a factor to an online company. What I mean by this is that often online stores have fewer employees, less rent, generally less overhead. Some of the larger ones can become distributors, and then they get an even better discount from the manufacturer. The game industry as a whole have decided that brick and mortal stores are vital to their success. That is why Privateer Press, Asmodee (including FFG, Days of Wonder, Plaid Hat, and many of their products like Settlers of Catan), Iello, and GW have created this maximum discount. Other companies are giving brick and mortars early access to products rather than limiting discounts. Now either all of these multimillion dollar companies are run by idiots, or they actually know something about what is healthy for this industry. I know everybody wants to buy cheaper, but when that is applied to the way you make money, it is not so appealing. Pay Firemen based on their success, give them money for every home and person they save, subtract money every time someone dies or a home burns. Is that fair? Not everything can be cheap. It is easy to devalue the way others make a living, but when it happens to you it is very different.
Just so I understand this, does the new policy primarily hurt the brick and mortar LGS which now has to compete with online web only stores?
KiloFiX wrote: Just so I understand this, does the new policy primarily hurt the brick and mortar LGS which now has to compete with online web only stores?
It hurts in so much as B&M now have more competition because online stores can use carts again, but it helps them in those online stores can't offer more than 15% discount.
Most stores seem to be in the 10-15% discount range anyway.
Cause either way GW sells the product right?
Ideally from the GW perspective, they want to shift sales to their own webstores where they make the most profit. They only make (roughly) $60 on a $100 kit if it's sold through an independent, but make the full $100 (minus packing and shipping costs) for sales through their own webstore.
Limiting the discount to 15% should somewhat reduces the incentive for people to buy from independent online stores and thus maybe will increase GW's own webstore sales, maybe.
Ghaz wrote: I just don't think we'll see a flood of new online stores out of this.
Yes, I definitely agree with that. This is part of the reason I don't believe - and am sad to see anyone buying into - the line that discount caps are about protecting the LGS. There is a lot more than discounting retail prices that stores - whether physical or digital or both - can do to be competitive. Some companies force their retailers to do this kind of stuff just to reliably get the product (e.g., WotC).
AllSeeingSkink wrote: Limiting the discount to 15% should somewhat reduces the incentive for people to buy from independent online stores and thus maybe will increase GW's own webstore sales, maybe.
But how?
Keep in mind that the current situation in the US is, online retailers cannot sell GW product through customer-friendly UIs. GW forced online retailers to make online shopping inconvenient. The big news isn't the 15% discount cap - it's that US customers of GW will now be able to enjoy the conveniences of shopping with online discount retailers. The alleged "face of the enemy" (Frontline Gaming) was only offering 10%-20% off non-preorders. Limiting this to 15% is not going to kill Frontline - if anything, allowing Frontline to sell GW products with a customer-friendly UI at 15% discounts is going to help Frontline, as long as Frontline can stay competitive with big name online retailers like MM, which ditched GW over their previous rules.
If GW wanted to drive direct sales, they would expand their direct-only line. Oh wait, that has already happened. That's not what's going on here. I think this is about driving overall volumes, probably with an eye to moving product back into national chain stores.
KiloFiX wrote: Just so I understand this, does the new policy primarily hurt the brick and mortar LGS which now has to compete with online web only stores?
It hurts in so much as B&M now have more competition because online stores can use carts again, but it helps them in those online stores can't offer more than 15% discount.
Most stores seem to be in the 10-15% discount range anyway.
Cause either way GW sells the product right?
Ideally from the GW perspective, they want to shift sales to their own webstores where they make the most profit. They only make (roughly) $60 on a $100 kit if it's sold through an independent, but make the full $100 (minus packing and shipping costs) for sales through their own webstore.
Limiting the discount to 15% should somewhat reduces the incentive for people to buy from independent online stores and thus maybe will increase GW's own webstore sales, maybe.
But at 15% discount, wouldn't people automatically buy from web / online instead of brick LGS or directly from GW? Unless it's just stock that's the issue.
I'm sure all of this has been gone over before but I appreciate the insight / recap.
Just so I understand this, does the new policy primarily hurt the brick and mortar LGS which now has to compete with online web only stores?
The brick and mortar stores already had to compete with online only stores... except under the old policy they couldn't, because they weren't allowed to sell online. Now they can.
KiloFiX wrote: But at 15% discount, wouldn't people automatically buy from web / online instead of brick LGS or directly from GW?
All other things being equal, a customer will buy something for 15% off MSRP rather than MSRP. But the first clause of that sentence assumes a lot. For example, GW previously forced online retailers to make online shopping meaningfully inconvenient for American and Canadian customers. Did this policy encourage customers to buy from a LGS that doesn't offer discounts? Probably not. I would guess it just damaged GW's overall volume. Was the idea ever actually to promote LGS sales? Also probably not. Keep in mind that during the same period, GW made more and more of its products direct only. What was really going on here was, GW wanted to make its own web sales competitive by making it harder for customers to deal with other online retailers. But again, the result seems to have been lower volume overall. So now online retailers can offer convenient service and a discount. So you tell me, how does the LGS benefit?
KiloFiX wrote: But at 15% discount, wouldn't people automatically buy from web / online instead of brick LGS or directly from GW? Unless it's just stock that's the issue..
Some people will go for whichever store is cheaper. Some will choose to pay more in order to support their local store. Again, nothing has changed there with the new policy.
Just to be clear, discount product has been available online for the entire time that this US shopping cart ban has been in place. People who wanted to sell online found ways to do so, by using eBay aliases, or sourcing product from distributors rather than directly from GW, or by doing deals with other account holders... or just be not being from the US (GW still hasn't managed to wrap their heads around the fact that anyone can access websites located in any part of the internet from any other part of the world).
The only thing that this new policy changes is to open up the market for those B&M stores who want to also sell online. Giving stores more potential ways to sell product and to widen broaden their customer base is a good thing.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Manchu wrote: Was the idea ever actually to promote LGS sales? Also probably not. Keep in mind that during the same period, GW made more and more of its products direct only. What was really going on here was, GW wanted to make its own web sales competitive by making it harder for customers to deal with other online retailers.
Indeed... The idea that it was ever intended to help B&M independents is laughable in the face of the fact that GW continued to sell online through their own webstore and shifted an ever-increasing portion of their product range to webstore exclusive. I very strongly suspect that the whole driver behind the no-webcart policy was that independent accounts in the US were doing really well, and the GW US online store wasn't, and so this was implemented as a way to cannibalise sales from the independent channel and funnel them to the webstore to make the balance sheet look better overall.
I'll be buying from whatever online store has free shipping and either a customer loyalty program or preorder discount program that is still eligible under gw new rules. If I can find one that doesn't charge tax either that be great. However none of the 3 stores within 15min of me that sell gw offer any discount anymore so I'd likely won't be picking up from them regardless. Only in the rare spontaneous purchase.
insaniak, GW never really kaiboshed online sales altogether - the issue was, it couldn't be convenient. You can see the logic here: online shopping is popular because it's convenient so you attack the convenience part of it. What you would have to do was call up the retailer during business hours and place your order over the phone. Or you could fill out a form and send it in to them. MM used to have spreadsheets of available stock and prices that you could request to make up your order, which you would place by phone.
I don't think people understand the new rules. Even in the case of ffg when xwing went into this change.
Online retailers have to have a standard 15% discount however they can have occasional sales and still have loyalty reward programs. I believe something like frontlinegaming may still be able to offer thier preorder discount.
MasterSlowPoke wrote: Right now there are three or four online retailers that offer 20% off standard on GW stuff
The problem I have run into is, product availability/shipping delays/poor communication. Overall, I like the prospect of more reliable online retailers selling at 15% off then fly by night outfits selling at 20%. (Please note, I'm not talking about Frontline here.) I do think GW should allow leeway for retailers, digital and physical and both, to offer pre-order discounts exceeding 15%.
I find it interesting that when PP did the 10% cap it was the deathknell of online stores, but GW doing a 15% cap is the death knell of brick and mortar. I wonder where the line is drawn.
Places that offer customer rewards or points can easily skirt the 15% rule.
If MM sells GW again, all at 15% off, they could also offer triple points, or something similar on those GW products. Raising the overall discount to 20% or more, and still be within the rules.
MM does so much volume, I doubt selling at 20%-25% off would even bother them.
There's a little hole in the wall shop near me that sells at 20% off, and they certainly aren't counting on volume. It's not like rent is cheap here, either.
There are several reasons that I tend to buy from online stores - beyond the difference in price.
Number one is that online stores tend to have wider selection - the closest B&M store to me is primarily focused on anime - RPGs and miniatures are a sideline. (Nice folks - but they like what they like.)
Number two is that if I am going to have to special order, then I might as well order online, and combine what would have been several trips to the store into a single order.
But the biggest is simply that it is easier for me to use an online cart from the comfort of home, instead of making the trip to the friendly, not quite so local, game store, in the hopes that they will have what I want in stock.
When GW started preventing the use of carts, my reaction was not to buy direct from GW - it was to not buy GW at all.
While this may seem a baby step, it means that I am... well, honestly not all that likely to buy much from GW, anyway, but more likely than I was before, at any rate. (I might buy the repackaged Island of Blood, for example.)
It does get rid of one of the walls that GW had put in the path of my buying anything at all from them, at least.
The Auld Grump - The War Store, FRP Games, and Miniatures Market, mostly.
Slightly off-topic, do gaming clubs ever start their own stores under some type of co-op model?
It's been done, but it rarely lasts very long as the people running it discover how much work it is, or get everything they need and move on. It used to be a thing down here, before GW started insisting on accounts having a physical store location.
I can see how that would tend to happen. I was thinking more along the lines of a club forming a store as a way to pay rent on their clubhouse, not as a way to get dealer discount miniatures, but it would still probably be a whole lot of work.
Well that's smellingsalt's opinion, but it seems to me most places offer 10-15% discount. There's a couple of places that offer more, but it doesn't seem all that common. There's one FLGS nearby that doesn't offer a discount, but they also don't actively try and sell 40k/WHFB, it just sits in the corner at full price That place is just down the road from an official GW and it seems they don't try and compete with the GW on GW products but rather offer a more complete service to gamers.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: Limiting the discount to 15% should somewhat reduces the incentive for people to buy from independent online stores and thus maybe will increase GW's own webstore sales, maybe.
But how?
Well I said "maybe" twice in that sentence, so you probably could have guessed I'm not overly convinced it would But as I said, it reduces incentive to buy from independents. If you want a direct only item, you're more likely to be buying it from GW direct anyway, so when you buy that direct only item and you also want that other non-direct $50 kit, you're also more likely to buy it from GW anyway in the same order if it would only save you $7.50 to split the order and buy it elsewhere.
Also some people are going to consider buying from the official site safer (and not necessarily for bad reasons), and if they aren't saving as much money buying from a discounter they'll have more incentive just to buy from the source.
Keep in mind that the current situation in the US is, online retailers cannot sell GW product through customer-friendly UIs.
I think on this end GW just realised it's a bad policy to make it so hard for people to buy/sell their stuff, there's a fine line between reducing the incentive to buy from a 3rd party so more people buy from your own webstore and just putting people off so much they don't buy anything.
Obviously GW would PREFER if people bought from their own webstore, but the most important thing is people are buying GW product to begin with, shifting them to buying from their own webstore is a secondary concern.
Even purely digital content is more expensive in your part of the world. Steam game codes are region-locked. This isn't a GW issue.
That's specifically because of EBGames (Gamestop) and a limited number of local distrbutors having too much power in the realm of videogame distribution here. It's not a magical thing that's due to AU or NZ laws or taxes or the price of living here. It's simply gouging and higher profits based on historical precedent. See also: CDs/DVDs/etc. GW simply has us locked to prices based on an exchange rate from 20 years ago.
The exact same rules apply to Magic cards, DVDs, college textbooks. It's not a GW issue. It's an issue of our governments allowing corporations to maximally exploit consumers in each region.
We can branch off in to looking at other products, but when it comes to wargames and plastic models, I've always been able to buy them internationally and have them shipped to Oz, though the local Oz price isn't usually a hell of a lot worse unless you're looking at GW products anyway.
You might not be buying much of a variety of products. PP stuff is about the same, but Warlord's stuff is a good 25%+ more expensive, and Battlefront's stuff is also much more expensive with GW-style regional pricing. GW may be the worst offender, but Battlefront do the same thing as a company, and local distributor's fat margins do the local industry no favours. Spend 10 minutes doing a search and find the number of "RRP" prices that you can find the base box of Zombicide for (before retailer "discounts"). You should be able to find the "before discount RRP" ranging from AU$100 to $150, and dollar fluctuation hasn't gone that far.
Azazelx wrote: You might not be buying much of a variety of products. PP stuff is about the same, but Warlord's stuff is a good 25%+ more expensive, and Battlefront's stuff is also much more expensive with GW-style regional pricing. GW may be the worst offender, but Battlefront do the same thing as a company, and local distributor's fat margins do the local industry no favours. Spend 10 minutes doing a search and find the number of "RRP" prices that you can find the base box of Zombicide for (before retailer "discounts"). You should be able to find the "before discount RRP" ranging from AU$100 to $150, and dollar fluctuation hasn't gone that far.
I honestly don't know anywhere that sells Battlefront in Australia anymore so I'm not all that aware of their practices or price differences The Combat Company I think sold a bit of Battlefront for a while but they had issues with the distributor so dropped them. The local FLGS only stocked a display stand of Battlefront, my 2nd most local had a very limited range but no one was buying so they eventually dropped it.
I buy Battlefront stuff from the UK simply because I can't find it locally, not because of the price difference
Warlord being 25% more, meh, that's really not too bad. That's small enough of a difference that unless I'm doing a massive order I'd sooner just buy it in Australia. The first product I checked was the Blitzkrieg box and it was $130AUD from Firestorm games and $145 from The Combat company, so that's only $15 and about 12% difference. I'm not going to waste time buying from the UK to save $15/12%. A couple of other things I checked seemed to be around the 25% mark.
Honestly that's the sort of price difference I expect living in the middle of bloody nowhere and with exchange rate fluctuations and whatnot. I also pay probably 20-30%-ish more for Airfix kits in Australia than I could get them from the UK.
You have to accept some price difference when you live in an isolated country, I understand that.
BUT.... GW we're talking 40-75% difference in price from the UK to Australia. That's fething insane. If GW reopened their UK online store to Australian customers you'd be crazy to buy from a local retailer (if I recall correctly when the UK online store was still open to Australians, the price difference was more in the 20-30% range and I'm guessing most people just bought stuff locally, but not in the bloody 40-75% range).
AllSeeingSkink wrote: I honestly don't know anywhere that sells Battlefront in Australia anymore so I'm not all that aware of their practices or price differences The Combat Company I think sold a bit of Battlefront for a while but they had issues with the distributor so dropped them. The local FLGS only stocked a display stand of Battlefront, my 2nd most local had a very limited range but no one was buying so they eventually dropped it.
I buy Battlefront stuff from the UK simply because I can't find it locally, not because of the price difference
Battlefront is in New Zealand and their factory is in Indonesia. I find it ironic that they ship the product halfway around the world to a retailer in the UK for them just to ship it back to you...
AllSeeingSkink wrote: BUT.... GW we're talking 40-75% difference in price from the UK to Australia. That's fething insane. If GW reopened their UK online store to Australian customers you'd be crazy to buy from a local retailer (if I recall correctly when the UK online store was still open to Australians, the price difference was more in the 20-30% range and I'm guessing most people just bought stuff locally, but not in the bloody 40-75% range).
I recently painted the Lizardman Bloodbowl team that I got years and years ago, and I wanted to know where I got it from. Turns out I had ordered it direct from GWUK back when they still allowed that. It used to happen quite a bit for the Direct Only stuff that I couldn't get through Maelstrom Games. It was basically 50% off, plus shipping.
To order from the same company, just from the other side of the planet. Made no sense.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: BUT.... GW we're talking 40-75% difference in price from the UK to Australia. That's fething insane. If GW reopened their UK online store to Australian customers you'd be crazy to buy from a local retailer (if I recall correctly when the UK online store was still open to Australians, the price difference was more in the 20-30% range and I'm guessing most people just bought stuff locally, but not in the bloody 40-75% range).
I recently painted the Lizardman Bloodbowl team that I got years and years ago, and I wanted to know where I got it from. Turns out I had ordered it direct from GWUK back when they still allowed that. It used to happen quite a bit for the Direct Only stuff that I couldn't get through Maelstrom Games. It was basically 50% off, plus shipping.
To order from the same company, just from the other side of the planet. Made no sense.
Interesting, the last time I ordered something from the UK online store it was LotR stuff, so probably early to mid 2000's and I don't remember it being massively cheaper. But maybe I'm just not remembering right and GW have always been scumbags
EDIT: Remember if you were buying stuff back in the early 2000's, the exchange rate was more like 30 to 40 cents AU to a pound. I was under the impression most of the current pricing woes in Australia came from GW being all to happy to raise prices as the exchange rate fell, but only slowed down price rises when the exchange rate recovered instead of halting or reversing. But maybe I'm just remembering wrong.
But either way my point was that GW is definitely on the crap side of regional pricing, even if you can point to other companies with regional price differences, GW is the worst or at best one of the worst. Battlefront seems to be coming in 2nd place, but at least you can still buy Battlefront stuff from the UK without having to go through resellers that are breaking their contract.
Interesting, the last time I ordered something from the UK online store it was LotR stuff, so probably early to mid 2000's and I don't remember it being massively cheaper. But maybe I'm just not remembering right and GW have always been scumbags .
I was buying army boxes from the UK in the mid-2000s for around 60-70% of their local price, even after shipping.
Pre-order stuff generally arrived faster from the UK than locally, too.
Warlord being 25% more, meh, that's really not too bad. That's small enough of a difference that unless I'm doing a massive order I'd sooner just buy it in Australia. The first product I checked was the Blitzkrieg box and it was $130AUD from Firestorm games and $145 from The Combat company, so that's only $15 and about 12% difference. I'm not going to waste time buying from the UK to save $15/12%. A couple of other things I checked seemed to be around the 25% mark.
Honestly that's the sort of price difference I expect living in the middle of bloody nowhere and with exchange rate fluctuations and whatnot. I also pay probably 20-30%-ish more for Airfix kits in Australia than I could get them from the UK.
You have to accept some price difference when you live in an isolated country, I understand that.
I did say 25% PLUS, and so I'll take the slight wait to get four boxed sets for the price of every three - along with not paying transport fees and the time investment to go to a (not so local) store and instead have it delivered to my door or work. And I tend to buy directly from WLG rather than other discounters as well because stock and service. oh, and locals tend to hit you hard on shipping with very few exceptions. When Combat Company raised their free shipping ceiling from (I think) $100 to $150 I pretty much stopped bothering with them. I get to wait almost as long, pay more per item and pay shipping? Sign me up!
BUT.... GW we're talking 40-75% difference in price from the UK to Australia. That's fething insane. If GW reopened their UK online store to Australian customers you'd be crazy to buy from a local retailer (if I recall correctly when the UK online store was still open to Australians, the price difference was more in the 20-30% range and I'm guessing most people just bought stuff locally, but not in the bloody 40-75% range).
You both recall and guess incorrectly. It was still closer to double than 20-30%. That's why we were all buying from the UK/US/etc (and I'd hazard a good number of us still are, not to mention the apparent increasing popularity of other more dubious sources I keep hearing about). Even then it was easier to buy stuff from the UK store and have it shipped to a friend in the UK/Europe and have them ship it to you. Of course, it was only worth doing for direct-only goods, and anything else you'd just get from Maelstrom, Wayland, et al. Which is why they enacted the embargo in the first place - ergo people buying locally would be people who wanted something immediately, didn't trust online shopping, wanted to support their local store or simply were not aware of the full range of options.
I think you're exaggerating slightly. As I said the first thing I checked was only 12% difference from Firestorm compared to TCC.
Looking through a handful of items, I'm seeing a range from about 10% to 30% difference, I found a couple of oddball things that were about 40% cheaper from firestorm (for some reason the T34 tanks are a lot cheaper in the UK, but as I said that doesn't seem to be the norm).
Su76 - 24% Soviet Infantry - 24% Semper Fidelis box - 9.7% US Armoured Fist - 21% US Marines - 29% M4 Sherman - 21% Single T34 - 48% T34 Platoon - 32% Blitzkrieg set - 9.7%
If you compare RRP there's a bigger difference, but that's only relevant if you buy from places that sell for the RRP. GW's problem is that their WHOLESALE price in Australia is insane, so Australian stores can't come anywhere near competing. But on Warlord's stuff it seems the TCC can offer deeper discounts % wise, so that indicates that it's likely that there's a lesser difference (% wise) in wholesale price than there is in RRP.... which means Australian retailers can try and compete.
and so I'll take the slight wait to get four boxed sets for the price of every three
And that's fair enough, but my point was they're still not nearly as bad as GW, where to find something less than 40% difference is strange and you can find stuff up to 75% difference.
You both recall and guess incorrectly.
As I said in another post between that one and this one, I guess GW have always been scumbags then
I do recall less people buying internationally back then, but maybe it was just more people being scared of the internet. I bought locally because my local hobby store gave me 15% off and it was less hassle just to grab stuff on my way to/from work.
I did a few orders from the UK back when it was allowed, but it was only ever when I needed bits that you couldn't get from Australia and I'd usually just tack on a few blisters to the order to make it worthwhile.
Just an update, got this email from Miniature Market:
During GAMA this year, Games Workshop made a major announcement that they were lifting several restrictions in regards to online selling of their product. Starting in May 2017, online websites will be allowed to list products along with pictures and descriptions. Games Workshop products can now be bought and sold just like everything else listed on our website. There will be a M.A.P. (Minimum Advertised Price) associated with these products at 15% off of the SRP.
Over the next few weeks we are going to be stocking up and making room in our warehouse for more than 1,000 Games Workshop products. When the restriction is lifted, we will send out an email notifying everyone once the items are available for purchase. We will not be selling any Games Workshop products prior to that date. Be sure to sign up for our Games Workshop newsletter to be notified of product updates and news.
But wait: there’s more …..
In addition to carrying their products on our website, we also want to help build the Games Workshop community. From 2009 to 2011 our local retail shop in St Louis would frequently host Games Workshop events. There would often be 30 to 40 people in attendance. We plan to bring these events back to our retail storefront. The St Louis gaming community has been missing a reliable place to play and we hope to fill that void. To be notified of local Games Workshop events, please be sure to sign up for our Retail Store Events newsletter.
Finally, two years ago we created a section on our website called the Review Corner. We have more than 1,000 reviews from gamers and we plan to expand this section to include table top games. Games Workshop reviews and podcasts will be a major addition to the Review Corner in 2017.
