NivlacSupreme wrote: It seems apparent that policies on things like model usage vary from GW to GW. I thought I'd start a thread to collect these differences.
Mine is ok with 3rd party conversion parts as long as most of the model is GW. They also don't seem to have anything against Forgeworld.
I used to run a store about 6-7 years ago. The only official guidance I was given is that it was a company store and that the expectation is that GW product should be used on the GW supplied tables. Past that, it was my discretion.
I generally allowed conversions so long as the majority of the model was GW product. Company folk threw around the 85%+ number, but there was no actual policy. I generally allowed Forgeworld. I generally disallowed homemade terrain unless someone was running a specific event. I did provide terrain.
I also gave table priority to people who bought stuff in the store. Yes, your converted Stompa that you made from a fixed up eBay Monolith with some extra bits glued on looks cool, but you haven't actually bought something in this store for a long time... so that other guy gets to use the table. Yes, your all Forgeworld Heresy Era army looks amazing, but you haven't actually bought something in this store for a long time... so that other guy gets to use the table.
The sad reality is that you have to prioritize the guy who is actually spending money in your store or else you won't sell enough to be able to pay your people, your rent, etc. It tends to alienate the guys who are hardcore hobbyists, but who don't actually spend much money in the stores. From a store perspective, that's tricky. Having them hang out in your store fills space and makes the store look fun, but you sort of want them to step aside as soon as an actual paying customer needs the seat.
I've been kicked out of GW stores for correcting staff on rules, and this wasn't argumentative either; this was "We work for GW, hence we know the rules better than you." Even if you show them how they're wrong.
I've had staff verbally abuse me that would get them fired from any other job on the planet.
Several places I've been to had a "don't ask, don't tell" policy for non-GW stuff and at the other end of the scale I've had staffers who were so vehemently opposed to special characters being on their tables that they declared "ALL SPECIAL CHARACTERS IMMEDIATELY EXPLODE! GET THEM OFF MY BOARD!"
I could go on, but a lot of these stores are run like personal fiefdoms so you're never going to find the same policies in any two stores.
My local GW store doesn't always adhere to the no quibbles exchange policy. Which I have a strong feeling isn't allowed to be at the description of the worker and is being biased due to sales quotas.
It seems to boil down to... the exchange will be accepted (popular product being returned) and other times the exchange will be refused (items that move slowly).
Several places I've been to had a "don't ask, don't tell" policy for non-GW stuff and at the other end of the scale I've had staffers who were so vehemently opposed to special characters being on their tables that they declared "ALL SPECIAL CHARACTERS IMMEDIATELY EXPLODE! GET THEM OFF MY BOARD!"
.
I see this from alot of old guard.
Why are so many against the use of special characters?
In 3rd edition all special characters were "use only with the permission of the opponent" and generally were never allowed in tournaments or anything like that. Given how many 3rd edition codexes were legal well into fourth edition, I think that persisted into that edition as well.
Kriswall wrote: Yes, your all Forgeworld Heresy Era army looks amazing, but you haven't actually bought something in this store for a long time... so that other guy gets to use the table.
If you pulled that on me it's something I'd be emailing GW customer service about and hoping you get you pulled up on, and if I was in a particularly grumpy mood tell my friends to avoid your store like the plague.
Luckily the dude who works in the local GW wins people over with honey rather than vinegar. He seems to maintain a pretty good turnover while not being a dick about where you bought your models and whatnot. Of course he'll still try and sell you stuff, but it's far less obnoxious when he tries to sell you something after he's been friendly rather than abrasive.
I could go on, but a lot of these stores are run like personal fiefdoms
I worked for a company (in a completely different sector) that similarly allowed its store managers a wide degree of freedom. It was great for me as I got to make my reputation taking on stores that had been run into the ground by idiots and turning them around. This is, of course, less good for the company!
Kriswall wrote: Yes, your all Forgeworld Heresy Era army looks amazing, but you haven't actually bought something in this store for a long time... so that other guy gets to use the table.
If you pulled that on me it's something I'd be emailing GW customer service about and hoping you get you pulled up on, and if I was in a particularly grumpy mood tell my friends to avoid your store like the plague.
Luckily the dude who works in the local GW wins people over with honey rather than vinegar. He seems to maintain a pretty good turnover while not being a dick about where you bought your models and whatnot. Of course he'll still try and sell you stuff, but it's far less obnoxious when he tries to sell you something after he's been friendly rather than abrasive.
lol... you can email GW customer service all you want. Generally never did anything. Ultimately, the stores answer to the regional managers (or whatever they're called nowadays). Things may have changed, but a few years back a complaint to customer service would filter to the regional manager who would follow up with the store as necessary. My regional manager fully supported the concept that paying customers were prioritized over non-paying people using the store as a hangout. From a store profitability standpoint, boycotting a store when you weren't really a paying customer accomplishes little to nothing. If you weren't spending money, a boycott takes away how many sales? (Protip... it takes away no sales.) Also, and don't take this the wrong way, but anyone who doesn't get their way and retaliates by trying to hurt the store is generally poison to a gaming community. They tend to be a ticking time bomb. Ok, you can game on the table today. Will you freak out and organize a boycott tomorrow if we sell out of a new product before you're able to come in?
Also, I don't know why you assume I was "abrasive" or that I only used "vinegar". I was actually pretty friendly. It was generally understood and accepted that the tables were there for paying customers of the store first and foremost. Never once got a complaint over that policy. Table space, both gaming and painting, was limited. If a seat is free, feel free to sit down. If no seats are free, I might ask someone who hasn't spent anything in a long time to give up a seat. I know this is a wildly unpopular concept with certain entitled gamers, but GW stores are profit oriented, sales driven retail stores where the managers are paid more when sales go up. Lots of people hang out there, but they aren't gaming clubs.
The store managers are often in very awkward positions. Their target numbers can mean that GW's other sales channels are competing against them.
In the next city over there is a GW store as well as a couple independent trade accounts and it can be a bit awkward as the customer base is split between the GW store, the other stores, GW's online store and online discounters.
GW made sales performance the key metric for their retail staff and that means they are directly competing with every other way GW product reaches the customers.
So they should prefer customers who actually buy things. And it really is there business where you got your army. It could end up meaning their job ends if they have a store full of people who play there but then buy from online discounters or even from GW's own online store.
GW also seems to be experimenting at the moment. Some single employee stores have had their hours increased and a part time employee added. Store managers can try things and apparently they've added more regional staff that actually care more about what is working.
The fact that online sales that you buy in your house and pick them to be sent to a store don't count to that store sales is just stupid. GW should change that, and it will help greatly GW store managers.
Galas wrote: The fact that online sales that you buy in your house and pick them to be sent to a store don't count to that store sales is just stupid. GW should change that, and it will help greatly GW store managers.
Really? That sucks That is stupid if it's the case.
It counts for them if you do it in store to be ordered, though, right?
GW stores aren't somewhere I'd ever want to game, but I used to do that quite often just to help the manager out, who was awesome. Hopefully it wasn't a waste
Yes. Ordering from the in-store kiosk online counts as a sale for the store. That's why you can pay for what you order online at the register in store. I do it frequently because my local GW is an awesome store with an amazing manager so I want to support it.
The fact that you can't order from home and ship to the store and have that count is a dumb policy, but fits into the thinking for Kirby-era GW. 'If they have to go to the store to do it....' It'd be nice if it changed.
Bookwrack wrote: Yes. Ordering from the in-store kiosk online counts as a sale for the store. That's why you can pay for what you order online at the register in store. I do it frequently because my local GW is an awesome store with an amazing manager so I want to support it.
The fact that you can't order from home and ship to the store and have that count is a dumb policy, but fits into the thinking for Kirby-era GW. 'If they have to go to the store to do it....' It'd be nice if it changed.
With the pick up, do you pay online or when you pick it up? If you pay on pick up I can see it going to the store, but if you pay online then pick up, the money never went through the store. So I can see it through the COmpany's point of view in that instance.
That's why I'm really glad to be part of a gaming club, instead - pay a yearly membership, get table access. I feel like most people would do so if given the chance. Unfortunately they're not nearly as common as just the tables-in-stores setup in the US...
It was generally understood and accepted that the tables were there for paying customers of the store first and foremost.
I feel like this is one of those things that should go without saying ... and yet ... it almost never does ...
When the customer has paid, just through a different channel, that's when the line starts to get fuzzy.
You can imagine how someone not familiar with GW's staff incentive scheme may be a little baffled to be told they aren't entitled to use a table in a GW store because they've spent £££$$$ in another GW store or through their website.
Bookwrack wrote: Yes. Ordering from the in-store kiosk online counts as a sale for the store. That's why you can pay for what you order online at the register in store. I do it frequently because my local GW is an awesome store with an amazing manager so I want to support it.
The fact that you can't order from home and ship to the store and have that count is a dumb policy, but fits into the thinking for Kirby-era GW. 'If they have to go to the store to do it....' It'd be nice if it changed.
With the pick up, do you pay online or when you pick it up?
Neither.
You pay at the register when you make the order, along with anything else you're picking up at the store that day.
When you order online to pick up at the store you pay online using a credit card (or something like it) or paypal.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Azreal13 wrote: When the customer has paid, just through a different channel, that's when the line starts to get fuzzy.
You can imagine how someone not familiar with GW's staff incentive scheme may be a little baffled to be told they aren't entitled to use a table in a GW store because they've spent £££$$$ in another GW store or through their website.
If I saw some social media posts about the new kharadron overlords and bought some $300+ of the stuff on the GW online store and then showed up at a local GW store the manager was like "no, you can't play because you didn't buy anything" I'd probably be pretty pissed off. It's not really a customer's business to be aware of the way GW competes with their own store managers and puts them out of a job if they lose.
It really shouldn't be the customer's concern and they probably shouldn't be treated as a lesser customer than someone who spent $50 at the store vs $300 online.
Kriswall wrote: My regional manager fully supported the concept that paying customers were prioritized over non-paying people using the store as a hangout.
That just shows how utterly f'd up GW's management structure is/was because people who buy from FW are paying people.
The more angry emails they get due to silly managers turning away paying customers the better.
From a store profitability standpoint, boycotting a store when you weren't really a paying customer accomplishes little to nothing.
Which is why I specifically said I'd tell OTHER people not to buy from your store
Will you freak out and organize a boycott tomorrow if we sell out of a new product before you're able to come in?
What? That has literally nothing to do with anything I mentioned.
Never once got a complaint over that policy.
That's probably because most the unhappy people didn't complain to you but instead encouraged their friends to buy elsewhere.
I don't deal with stupid retail clerks. I just can't be bothered. If you piss me off in your store I'll leave.... and bad mouth you to everyone.... and/or talk to the people over your heads.
When you are a GW store manager you are the face of GW. You aren't some independent retailer who is just carrying GW stock, it's not even a franchised store, you ARE Games Workshop.
So yes, you ARE being a bit of a dick for telling someone who has spent uuuge amounts of money on Games Workshop products they can't play in a Games Workshop store. I understand you as a checkout chick don't get paid for FW products, and I feel slightly sorry for the GW store managers for that reason, but as far as I'm concerned that's their problem for choosing to work for that company.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Bookwrack wrote: Yes. Ordering from the in-store kiosk online counts as a sale for the store. That's why you can pay for what you order online at the register in store. I do it frequently because my local GW is an awesome store with an amazing manager so I want to support it.
I did that once to try and support the local GW manager because he's a good bloke, but it's so inconvenient. You have to go in to the store, pay for it, wait until it comes in... which is usually middle of the week when I'm working, and then because it's a 1 man store it's probably open weird hours so if you have a normal job you have to wait until friday or saturday and go in and pick it up.
It's so much more of a pain in the arse than just ordering online from home and getting it delivered to my house.
Galas wrote: The fact that online sales that you buy in your house and pick them to be sent to a store don't count to that store sales is just stupid. GW should change that, and it will help greatly GW store managers.
online purchases through the terminals in the GW stores DO count towards the managers totals
but if you order at home etc and use the free delivery to a gw store option then go in and pick the stuff up it doesn't
My local (GW Maidstone) has fantastic looking tables built by staff and local veterans (all GW materials obviously) usually refreshed over a 6 month period with two laid out ready for gaming in excess of the two demo tables.
Models must be entirely GW or FW components, no exceptions, conversions allowed etc but no use of 3rd party components
Special characters, forgeworld rules etc all allowed.
Events are run by local gamers (also relief staff) designed to be inclusive but generally my campaign packs don't get complaints. Store happy to theme table projects to the upcoming campaigns.
We can argue over these things abstractly but the reality is about relationships.
Last week, I went into the local WH to play a game of Shadow War. I asked if I could bring in a non-GW mat and the clerk said sure. Note: I asked before even bringing the mat in. I also bought something before asking. And I had come in several times over the last few weeks making some purchases and feeling out whether I wanted to play in her store and to introduce myself/establish that I am not a freeloader. So I acted reasonably and lo and behold so did the clerk. And if she had said no - I would not have gone off or anything. Part of realizing that you need to ask permission is realizing that the response can be no.
The same applies to using tables. Understand that a WH store is a retail space and therefore tables are sales displays. Access to those tables is not something you purchase along with your models. If you spend $300 on models then you get the models - guaranteed access to those tables is not part of the transaction.
If you want access to the tables, work on rapport with the staff. This obviously includes buying things but that is not the full story.
Manchu wrote: You're the only one talking about "a community of friends."
You didn't use those words, but that's what you're describing. In a community of friends you do things like feeling out the mood and establishing yourself as a legitimate member of the community. In a normal for-profit store you walk in and buy the thing you want, and if the store doesn't give you what you want you go elsewhere.
Furthermore the legal entity that both sold the customer the product and invited them to come play at a given day and time are the same company.
Barring someone from participating because they aren't navigating the way staff are compensated to the liking of those staff is just ridiculous. It's not the customer's business to know internal matters like taht. The store is owned and operated by the same business that sold them the models from their online store.
When the customer has paid, just through a different channel, that's when the line starts to get fuzzy.
And THAT post is exactly WHY the policy often needs to be spelled out. There really isn't anything fuzzy about this at all. If I buy online or at a different GW store - then the store I didn't buy from sees ZERO sales and creeps that much closer to getting closed. People seem to think that, because both the stores and GW Corporate both carry the same boiler plate that they are literally the exact same thing and nothing could be further from the truth.
You can imagine how someone not familiar with GW's staff incentive scheme may be a little baffled to be told they aren't entitled to use a table in a GW store because they've spent £££$$$ in another GW store or through their website.
No. I can't imagine it. At all. Until you said it just now, I was unaware of the staff incentive. I have also NEVER been baffled by not being allowed to take up a table at a store where I never bought anything. Like I said, buying at a different store or online from home does nothing for the store I DIDN't buy from even though they are all "GW". I would never expect to be allowed to take space in any business where the store hadn't directly received some of my money. I don't understand why gamers struggle so hard w/that concept.
Furthermore the legal entity that both sold the customer the product and invited them to come play at a given day and time are the same company.
Barring someone from participating because they aren't navigating the way staff are compensated to the liking of those staff is just ridiculous. It's not the customer's business to know internal matters like taht. The store is owned and operated by the same business that sold them the models from their online store.
Nope. Another common misconception. For reasons of risk/financial liability there are layers in between. Really though, it doesn't matter. It's a pretty basic concept. If a store's sales slip below a certain point, the store gets closed. The fact that the players in the store all bought stuff through other channels won't matter. If THAT specific store does not have sufficient numbers, it WILL close. Between that and the fact that most GW stores have limited space to begin with means table space is at a premium. So of COURSE tables are prioritized to people who actually spend money IN the store.
Again, baffling to me that people are struggling with this concept ..
That just shows how utterly f'd up GW's management structure is/was because people who buy from FW are paying people.
The more angry emails they get due to silly managers turning away paying customers the better.
Yeah ... they paid Forge World. Not the store. If FW and/or GW posts a billion dollar profit but an individual GW store has poor sales ... the store gets closed. In terms of keeping a store running/operating and it's employee/s paid, buying from that store (or ordering online from the in-store kiosk) are the only sales that matter.
Right, so if you need to return something to Target, for instance, but it's more convenient to go to a different store than the original purchase, you don't because that's not where you made the purchase?
Right, so if you need to return something to Target, for instance, but it's more convenient to go to a different store than the original purchase, you don't because that's not where you made the purchase?
This isn't even remotely applicable to the topic.
EDIT: To be clear - I'm not saying you have to buy everything from the store you're playing in. I'm just saying that if you're someone who never (or only rarely) buys from a store, you shouldn't be surprised if table space gets prioritized to people who DO frequently buy there. Again, I sincerely don't get the resistance to this concept ...
Only because you don't understand what I'm getting at.
It's just so simple. GW looks at a store's bottom line. Is it generating sales? If the answer is "no" then it gets closed. Period. They don't care that people bought stuff online from home and took it to play in that store. They look at it like those people will buy online whether there's a store or not and GW can't support a store that isn't registering sales. That's all that really matters.
So if you were running a store, and you knew this was the case, you would also prioritize the actual paying customers. That's pretty basic imo ...
To clarify returning a product to a GW shop with a receipt wont matter where it was purchased from, yes a manager might internally be upset about the fact it may effect their sales but any returns I have had to do have been done graciously.
Table space is a different thing, in buying the models you receive the model, it doesn't come with a token for X free games at a GW of your choice. You buy the models, you get the models. Playing in store is an additional privilege extended by the store/managers/companies and usually done at managers discretion (must be painted, or all GW, or GW and FW, they set the standards). As that manager is responsible for that store they set the standards that best suit THEIR customer base, that is the tables exist to facilitate sales that keep THAT store open.
To clarify returning a product to a GW shop with a receipt wont matter where it was purchased from, yes a manager might internally be upset about the fact it may effect their sales but any returns I have had to do have been done graciously.
Table space is a different thing, in buying the models you receive the model, it doesn't come with a token for X free games at a GW of your choice. You buy the models, you get the models. Playing in store is an additional privilege extended by the store/managers/companies and usually done at managers discretion (must be painted, or all GW, or GW and FW, they set the standards). As that manager is responsible for that store they set the standards that best suit THEIR customer base, that is the tables exist to facilitate sales that keep THAT store open.
Only because you don't understand what I'm getting at.
It's just so simple. GW looks at a store's bottom line. Is it generating sales? If the answer is "no" then it gets closed. Period. They don't care that people bought stuff online from home and took it to play in that store. They look at it like those people will buy online whether there's a store or not and GW can't support a store that isn't registering sales. That's all that really matters.
So if you were running a store, and you knew this was the case, you would also prioritize the actual paying customers. That's pretty basic imo ...
But it's not that simple. Firstly, when running a chain you take a holistic view, it is perfectly feasible for a loss making store to be allowed to remain open if it is felt it offers other value to the company (prominent location, keeping competition from moving in, etc..)
Secondly, as I was getting at with my Target example, when you make a purchase from a company, you're a customer of that company not the store. In the case of indys, that's a distinction without a difference, but in the case of GW it isn't unreasonable to think their purchases of GW product entitle them to service in a GW location. How you would react if when making a return to Target the clerk turned around and sai they wouldn't accept your return because their KPIs included keeping returns below a certain value?
I've had hours of work dumped in my lap down the years when a customer has made a purchase from a different store but come to mine for after sales support, it's no fun, but you suck it up because it isn't the customers fault they don't understand that you're on commission and not only did they give that commission to another's staff member in another store, counting towards their KPIs and not yours, but they're taking you off the sales floor and robbing you of the opportunity to generate your own sales. It comes with the territory of working for a multi location retailer.
If a GW manager has people using GW product bought from GW elsewhere (bought from a competitor is a slightly different prospect) in store, then that's their opportunity to persuade them to buy from the store in future, not the chance to be unprofessional and play pocket dictator with store resources.
As a sales person, it's a total gut punch when a customer comes into your store having made a substantial purchase from another location in your company, but the professional tries to make it into a future opportunity, not run the risk of generating ill will and costing the whole company a customer.
But it's not that simple. Firstly, when running a chain you take a holistic view, it is perfectly feasible for a loss making store to be allowed to remain open if it is felt it offers other value to the company (prominent location, keeping competition from moving in, etc..)
You're wanting GW stores to run in a way GW stores don't really run. Loss making GW stores get closed. Period.
Secondly, as I was getting at with my Target example, when you make a purchase from a company, you're a customer of that company not the store. In the case of indys, that's a distinction without a difference, but in the case of GW it isn't unreasonable to think their purchases of GW product entitle them to service in a GW location. How you would react if when making a return to Target the clerk turned around and sai they wouldn't accept your return because their KPIs included keeping returns below a certain value?
I would crap myself at a front line clerk knowing what a the KPIs even were. Seriously though, you're talking about two different things here. I've NEVER had an issues with a GW return ever. Regardless of where it was purchased from and returned to. It's completely different than being entitled to an implied service because you bought a product. Like Melcavuk said, when you buy a GW product, you get the product. Not the product and a token to play in a GW store. When I buy a car from Toyota, I don't expect that I can go back to the dealership and use their facilities to wash my car.
Most store owners will allow you to p[lay with an army you didn't buy from them, but only provided you aren't taking the space from someone who DID. There's nothing wrong with that and that's my point. Managers can, will, and SHOULD prioritze the customers who put money in their pockets. Yeah, as good sales people they should also be working to build relationships with the other customers, but I don't think it's unreasonable to favor the one who's currently putting food on your table.
If a GW manager has people using GW product bought from GW elsewhere (bought from a competitor is a slightly different prospect) in store, then that's their opportunity to persuade them to buy from the store in future, not the chance to be unprofessional and play pocket dictator with store resources.
Most stores barely have room for the one small table they've got. I completely agree that it should be looked at as a future sales opportunity, but really, is that hard to see the manager's pov here? If I've got players in store who buy from me all the time (or at least on a regular basis) and players who don't - I'm not kicking out the players who don't, but I am for sure prioritizing the players who DO.
Peregrine wrote: You didn't use those words, but that's what you're describing.
I didn't use those words precisely because that is not what I am describing. I'm describing being reasonable and respectful to other human beings - something that even applies to retail clerks, believe it or not.
Peregrine wrote: In a normal for-profit store you walk in and buy the thing you want, and if the store doesn't give you what you want you go elsewhere.
Sure - at a WH Store, the things you would be buying would be models. They don't sell table time. Remember? That's the topic ITT: table use is up to the manager's discretion.
Ok, you can set the whole returns thing to one side, I was drawing a line between GW and another retail chain, and how you'd reasonably expect every store in a retail chain to extend the same level of service to a customer who had made a purchase from the chain regardless of location, I chose returns as the most common.
Refusal to allow a customer of GW to use a table provided for the use of GW customers because the manager deems some customers more equal than others based on how they contribute to their wage packet is analogous to having a return turned down by a clerk in a store for the same reasons.
I'm not pretending for one second I don't see the manager's POV. You don't think that on some level, every time I had a customer require an hour or more of my time to sort out their problems after someone else had made £100s in commission from them and didn't have to deal with their gak, I didn't want to scream at them to feth off back to the store they bought it from and let me get on with dealing with customers that would actually make me money? Of course I did, but you don't, you smile, you act like a professional and look for an opportunity to get the customer to come back next time they were looking to buy.
Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't, but you sure as hell made sure that the image of the company was upheld ahead of most anything else.
EDIT: Aimed at Tycho before Manchu got in the way!
@Azrael13 - Surely there are more options than on the one hand offending a potential (however unlikely) customer by crudely casting them aside and on the other hand totally ignoring the fact that some customers are actually buying things from you when you know that they know they have other, and in some cases cheaper and more convenient options, and that the reason they choose to support you even if it is more expensive and less convenient is because you manage a rapport with them and offer them a venue for play. There is room, between those ends of the spectrum for an effective salesperson to cultivate that rapport with the paying customers without being a jerk to the tirekickers and gamestore hobos.
I think the issue with using the tables without spending can be summed up by the following example (names masked for decency)
I play in Store X, a fellow local gamer wanted to organise a Horus Heresy league in shop after the release of prospero (the boxed game). Despite attempts to garner interest nobody in shop was very interested (more of a Sigmar Scene), so instead he pitched it to gamers from store Y
Now All gamers from store Y love their manager, bought their prospero, kits and paints from Y, and then would be coming over to store X to use both gaming tables for their games, preventing any customers from X from gaming in the shop despite having spent money there.
In that example I feel it is completely acceptable for the Manager of Store X to prioritise his own customers, over providing gaming space for players who have no intentions of spending any money and just want to use the store with bigger better tables to game on.
, I was drawing a line between GW and another retail chain,
GW ≠ Target
There are more Targets within 10 miles of my house than there are GW stores in the next few states combined. Target sells common items that everyone needs everyday. GW is a niche luxury retailer in a niche non-essential product category. You simply cannot compare the two at all. I know what you were trying to do, but it just doesn't work like that in this instance.
Refusal to allow a customer of GW to use a table provided for the use of GW customers because the manager deems some customers more equal than others based on how they contribute to their wage packet is analogous to having a return turned down by a clerk in a store for the same reasons.
No. It really isn't analogous, and this is because, again, GW stores work differently than you want them to. This isn't some petty little "If I get them to buy from me I can hit my quota and get a 5cents per hour raise" type of deal. It's a "If my sales drop I don't have a job anymore" type of deal. I'm sure there are some bad apples out there, but this is, in principle, a much less petty thing than you seem to think it is.
And yeah, if you've got no one on your tables that day and two people you've never met before walk in with legit GW armies and you tell them to sod off - that's just bad business. For sure. So I'm not advocating that either.
I'm not pretending for one second I don't see the manager's POV. You don't think that on some level, every time I had a customer require an hour or more of my time to sort out their problems after someone else had made £100s in commission from them and didn't have to deal with their gak, I didn't want to scream at them to feth off back to the store they bought it from and let me get on with dealing with customers that would actually make me money? Of course I did, but you don't, you smile, you act like a professional and look for an opportunity to get the customer to come back next time they were looking to buy.
Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't, but you sure as hell made sure that the image of the company was upheld ahead of most anything else.
I'm not sure you ARE seeing the manager's POV here though. You seem to think it has to do with them getting a small incentive bonus and it's (unfortunately) a hell of a lot bigger than that. That's why your Target example falls apart. GW's system is set up to compete with itself. Target isn't. Since you brought Key Performance Indicators into it - we can start there -
GW isn't tracking where you play with the models you bought online. GW isn't taking surveys of what stores people are going to. GW isn't watching what FW products get bought online and taken into a store for league play. The KPI they ARE tracking, is the store's bottom line. They don't have the corporate culture that is overly concerned with how it looks to close a corporate store and will do so with almost cavalier readiness. The managers often aren't even given a whole lot of time to get sales up. Sell now or be in the unemployment line tomorrow. Oh, and by the way, the entire time we're telling you to get your sales up, we're also directly completing with you. So good luck.
I wish it was set up differently, but the fact of the matter is, this is the reality the managers are dealing with. So while I would hope no manager would be overly tyrannical about it, I can't really blame them for saying "You haven't bought anything from me. That guy bought 2000pts of Orks last week. He gets the table space."
Manchu wrote: @Azrael13 - Surely there are more options than on the one hand offending a potential (however unlikely) customer by crudely casting them aside and on the other hand totally ignoring the fact that some customers are actually buying things from you when you know that they know they have other, and in some cases cheaper and more convenient options, and that the reason they choose to support you even if it is more expensive and less convenient is because you manage a rapport with them and offer them a venue for play. There is room, between those ends of the spectrum for an effective salesperson to cultivate that rapport with the paying customers without being a jerk to the tirekickers and gamestore hobos.
I honestly can't see a way you can "get them to step aside as soon as a paying customer needs a seat" and not leave them feeling like a second class citizen, no.
Working further up the chain, having a conversation about whether people making a purchase may want to book a table later that week etc may help keep the tables busy with paying customers and naturally inhibit the opportunities for "outsiders" to get a game in.
But no matter how politely it's presented the message of "move aside, this person is better than you because they made the choice to buy from the same company in a different manner" is going to be a tough concept to sell and a hard pill to swallow.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Seriously though, if people are choosing to pay full price for product but are deliberately choosing not to do so from their local GW store, to the point where it's hurting sales to the degree that the store is in danger of closure, that's probably indicative of a bigger problem.
People buying elsewhere at a discount and using tables is a different matter.
In that case, manager of X gets to decide whether the 30k event is a good opportunity to move HH product or whether it is just going to put out the paying AoS crowd. But that is why this is best left up to that manager's discretion.
@Azrael13
I don't think the manager should ever say 'step aside' barring some specific circumstances where that woul actually be reasonable. But neither do I think a good customer is one who throws a fit when they are slightly inconvenienced.
This is the part of the relationship that is up to the customer,
I dont walk into the WH Store with all my gear, feeling entitled to a table. I go in, see if there are tables available, ask if I can play, then go back to get my stuff. It'd be even smarter on my part to call ahead.
Whether customer or salesperson, we're all playing the game to get what we want - why not play smart?
People buying elsewhere at a discount and using tables is a different matter.
No it isn't. That's just trying to move the goal posts.
If I'm a manager and I know you occasionally buy elsewhere, I don't really care (and in my experience most GWmangers don't care) as long as you are also buying from me form time to time. However, if you don't ever buy from me, and then only want to use my tables ... sorry. Probably not gonna happen. There's one table in most GW stores and if I'm the store manager, that's going to the paying customers. The stores aren't rec centers or charities. They're businesses. Yeah, if you come in during slow times or off-peak hours I probably wouldn't care that much as there's always the chance to get you to buy things like paint, etc. from me, but like I said, you need a table and a paying customer needs a table ... hmmmmmm ... let me think about that one ....
Whether customer or salesperson, we're all playing the game to get what we want - why not play smart?
Yes, and I do not believe moving people on because they don't happen to have made a purchase in a while is smart.
EDIT
Note I'm specifically objecting to interrupting people, less so simply saying "no" to gaming/painting space, that is at least easier to execute without offending anyone.
No, it's not, because the basis of this conversation is people buying direct, just not from the store.
And, at least as GW is concerned, that's your problem. Like I said before, for the purposes of sales, KPIs etc., GW doesn't look at its stores like other retail chains do. Target has incredibly complex interaction models and very deep pockets. They can keep a store open that's losing money because they're bale to track and see the fact that even though it isn't a huge money maker, it works as a hub for other community interactions and is worth it to the brand of Target to stay open.
The way GW judges their stores means that each one is on its own once it's been set up. Little to no help in terms of cash infusions etc., or any of the other things retail chains usually expect. So when you say "bought direct", the way they judge their stores, "direct" only counts if you bought from that store. So again - it's a case of you (and honestly me too) wanting the GW stores to work differently than GW currently has them working.
Should you remove a customer who's currently on a table? nah. Let them complete the game (or at least complete whatever round they are on). On the other hand, should a customer who buys the majority of their stuff elsewhere reasonably expect a store to accomodate me in the same way it would a regular who buys there all the time? Well ... apparently if I'm a gamer I guess ...
No, it's not, because the basis of this conversation is people buying direct, just not from the store.
And, at least as GW is concerned, that's your problem. Like I said before, for the purposes of sales, KPIs etc., GW doesn't look at its stores like other retail chains do. Target has incredibly complex interaction models and very deep pockets. They can keep a store open that's losing money because they're bale to track and see the fact that even though it isn't a huge money maker, it works as a hub for other community interactions and is worth it to the brand of Target to stay open.
The way GW judges their stores means that each one is on its own once it's been set up. Little to no help in terms of cash infusions etc., or any of the other things retail chains usually expect. So when you say "bought direct", the way they judge their stores, "direct" only counts if you bought from that store. So again - it's a case of you (and honestly me too) wanting the GW stores to work differently than GW currently has them working.
Which is a problem for GW to solve, or it's staff members to tolerate or move on. It isn't coincidence that staffing issues have been in the chairman's notes in several FYE reports over the last couple of years, clearly the system is flawed.
None of this is the customer's problem. If they've spent £500 this month on GW.com and go into store to play, they're clearly a more valuable customer to GW than one who bought a Tac Squad this month, but happened to do it from that same store yesterday.
It's an issue, but it isn't one that the customer shouod be affected by.
Should you remove a customer who's currently on a table? nah. Let them complete the game (or at least complete whatever round they are on). On the other hand, should a customer who buys the majority of their stuff elsewhere reasonably expect a store to accomodate me in the same way it would a regular who buys there all the time? Well ... apparently if I'm a gamer I guess ...
Yes, they should. Buy a GW product from a GW direct channel, you are a customer of GW. Buy it from a FLGS, you are a customer of that FLGS. If you're a customer of GW, why wouldn't you expect service from one of their shops?
Irrespective of all the reasons you keep rolling out that Target is different, you're still missing the point (by getting hung up in the choice of example, rather than looking at the point I'm making, still, one more go eh?) If you've bought something from anywhere in a company, it is not unreasonable to assume your custom is equally valuable to that company irrespective of where it occurs. Therefore, being told you're less valuable as a customer because of the location you chose to make a purchase from despite it being the same company is not good.
You're getting hung up on being able to "expect" a service. You buy a model from GW you get the model, there is no entitelement to followup service via in store gaming through that purchase. It isn't part of that transaction.
Your box of tactical marines entitles you to that one box of tactical marines, it doesn't come with inherent rights to X amount of gaming time as you have bought it. At no point in the transaction from the shop were you advertised to use it in a different shop (infact when buying from a GW I get invited back to that GW to use my models, not "well why not head one town over to use this model you just bought from me).
The shop tables are a privilege not a right guaranteed because you spent X online.
And by store manager standards buying X amount online and having it delivered to the store, not using the store terminal is actually potentially considered a black mark on the store. If a customer COULD have made it down to that money, and IS infact coming in to collect it, question are asked as to why that store manager didn't manage to sell said products through their shop. To you it might seem like you spent 500 at GW and are therefore more valuable than the guy who bought the tactical squad but from a store performance criteria that customer buying the tactical squad is justifying the stores retail location, your online purchase doesn't.
Again, why's any of that's the customer's problem?
That GW's staff incentive scheme is flawed and can cause staff to act in a negative manner to people who spend more money with the company in total over people who happen to spend their pocket money in store is a problem for GW to solve.
As for entitlement, I'm pretty sure most of the managers I've let offer me a demo have, at some point or another, used the availability of in store gaming as an enticement to buy.
Melcavuk wrote: You're getting hung up on being able to "expect" a service. You buy a model from GW you get the model, there is no entitelement to followup service via in store gaming through that purchase. It isn't part of that transaction.
There's no entitlement through purchase. There's just the gakky customer experience of being treated worse because of what sales channel you purchased your product through.
Manchu wrote: I didn't use those words precisely because that is not what I am describing. I'm describing being reasonable and respectful to other human beings - something that even applies to retail clerks, believe it or not.
No, you're describing a community of friends that goes way beyond basic politeness. Being respectful and reasonable would be things like not swearing at the GW employee when you return a defective product, and politely explaining the situation and letting them resolve the replacement. That does NOT include things like buying extra stuff to be nice to them, or trying to figure out the mood at a new store. You wouldn't "feel out" the community if you went to a different grocery store, you'd just go in and buy your stuff.
Sure - at a WH Store, the things you would be buying would be models. They don't sell table time. Remember? That's the topic ITT: table use is up to the manager's discretion.
They may not explicitly charge money for the tables, but it's implicit when you buy GW models that GW hosts in-store gaming. Easy access to in-store gaming is a major reason why people buy GW games, even if the game isn't 100% ideal for them. So essentially what you're saying here is that GW should get the extra revenue from the promise of in-store gaming, but then their individual employees should have the ability to deny access to anyone that doesn't help their personal sales quotas.
Of course the real problem here is that we're talking about a GW store, where GW's idiotic retail policies limit in-store gaming space to 1-2 tables at most and there's often a shortage of space. At an independent store there are likely to be 10+ tables (up to 50 or more, depending on the store!) and plenty of space for everyone who wants to play there. The conclusion is that you shouldn't buy from or play at GW's own stores, and they should be allowed to die for the good of the community.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Melcavuk wrote: And by store manager standards buying X amount online and having it delivered to the store, not using the store terminal is actually potentially considered a black mark on the store. If a customer COULD have made it down to that money, and IS infact coming in to collect it, question are asked as to why that store manager didn't manage to sell said products through their shop. To you it might seem like you spent 500 at GW and are therefore more valuable than the guy who bought the tactical squad but from a store performance criteria that customer buying the tactical squad is justifying the stores retail location, your online purchase doesn't.
This is only a problem because of GW idiocy. A reasonable person would see that most people aren't going to be interested in making a special trip out to a store to use the store's computer to make an online order. This isn't 1990 anymore, people have their own internet access and can buy something from home without needing a store employee's help. And that reasonable person would also understand that if a customer is placing an order to be picked up at a local store, instead of having it shipped directly to their home, it's probably because they're expecting to be at that store to play games/paint/whatever and the store's existence is contributing to their decision to make the purchase.
You feel the limit of courtesy owed to anyone who is not a friend is mustering the forbearance to not swear at them. OK ...
I realize you are probably (hopefully) exaggerating for effect but even so your point seems to be that because GW is a business (instead of your friend) it categorically owes you something that (a) it does not sell and (b) you did not buy and - here is the kicker - you are within your rights to demand it so long as that demand is not expressed using foul language/you are not acting like a complete (as opposed to partal?) dick.
And your rationalization is that part of the value of the item actually offered for purchase is the implicit promise that you can play with it in a WH stores. But buying a kit is not enough to actually play a game. You need other kits, you need skills and tools to assemble and paint them, you need rules, you need dice and a measuring tape, you need terrain. At what point have you purchased enough to trigger this "implicit" clause in your contract with GW where it owes you a table? I hope the absurdity of the question reveals the absurdity of your premise. But for the sake of argument, let's just assume you have purchased all of it right down to the Citadel glue. Even then, there is no bargain, not even an implicit one, that GW owes you a table at a particular time convenient to you. Even restaurants, which unlike WH stores exist only to host diners, make no such promise barring reservations. And GW has no reservations policy. All you can say is, there are tables there and people sometimes play GW games on them. This custom doesn't amount to a promise.
Furthermore, you absolutley require an opponent to play these games. So what if nobody wants to play with you (hypothetically, because you are that guy who thinks not swearing at others is the limit of courtesy owed to acquaintances) and so a game is impossible? Or are you also suggesting that in such circumstances the GW employee is duty-bound to suffer through a game with you when no one else wants to play with you? In that case, it seems like you are the one confusing businesses with friends. Because only a true friend would deign to spend their leisure time with our hypothetical miserable bore.
Concluding that it's "idiotic" that GW should equip WH stores with so few tables assumes that WH stores - again, like restaurants - exist to host customers playing GW games. I do agree with you completely that online discount retailers have changed the market such that brick and mortar gaming stores have to compete as venues for gaming in addition to being a place where you can buy stuff. Why is it any different for WH stores? One important reason is, GW is not some kind of chain of local gaming stores. The LGS gets by on gamers while the WH store is about creating new GW customers. Gaming in a WH store is a kind of living retail display (hence all the policies about playing only GW games with GW products) - not a feature to compete against online sellers - which let's keep in mind also includes GW. In fact, this is why online sales from the GW website are not credited to a WH store even when the items are delivered to that store. As explained by Tycho above, a WH store stays open as a function of [i]its[i] sales.
Like you, I am obviously not a new customer. I buy stuff from the WH store at full retail on condition that the WH store can offer me something online retailers (including the GW webstore!) cannot ... namely, a venue for gaming. To me, that includes more than just a table and use of terrain that the poor manager has been forced to pay for out of her paycheck. It includes an enjoyable atmosphere - which is something that the store clerk requires discretion to manage, including as to how tables are used. And here too is where I come in, as a customer not as a friend, to contribute to time spent there being pleasant by conducting myself in a reasonable and respectful manner (I define it as more than just forebearing to curse out the clerk). But I also realize that I am not the store's key demographic. Notwithstanding that I make purchaes there, I am not the coveted new customer.
As to the grocery store analogy - if all I wanted to do at a WH Store is buy a kit and leave then sure there would be no need to get a sense of the atmosphere - and no need to consider whether GW owes you a table to play. But we are actually talking about going to a WH Store to spend hours of free time enjoying a social hobby. So yes it is reasonable to check out the vibe of the store to see if it's suitable.
Manchu wrote: You feel the limit of courtesy owed to anyone who is not a friend is mustering the forbearance to not swear at them. OK ...
I said no such thing, please don't make straw man arguments. I gave that as one example of something that is owed by basic politeness, the same kind of thing you give to all retail employees you deal with.
(a) it does not sell
And this is simply wrong. GW sells table space as an implicit part of the games they sell. They market it to you by telling you all about how they have a network of GW stores everywhere, so no matter where you go you'll be able to play the game you just bought (unlike all those competitors, where you might not get to play again if you leave your original group). It's just like how WOTC markets MTG with FNM events, "wherever you go there is MTG to play, so buy MTG". The fact that you don't sign a contract for the use of the table doesn't negate the fact that GW is, implicitly or explicitly depending on the employee, promising it as part of the package you get by buying into a GW game.
But buying a kit is not enough to actually play a game. You need other kits, you need skills and tools to assemble and paint them, you need rules, you need dice and a measuring tape, you need terrain. At what point have you purchased enough to trigger this "implicit" clause in your contract with GW where it owes you a table?
This question makes no sense. Of course you aren't going to play a game if you don't buy all of the pieces required to play a game. That's why GW tries to sell you their games as a complete package involving multiple kits/paint/glue/rules/etc, not as single kits.
Furthermore, you absolutley require an opponent to play these games. So what if nobody wants to play with you (hypothetically, because you are that guy who thinks not swearing at others is the limit of courtesy owed to acquaintances) and so a game is impossible? Or are you also suggesting that in such circumstances the GW employee is duty-bound to suffer through a game with you when no one else wants to play with you.
You're missing the point there. GW is not selling you a game of 40k whenever you want, they're selling you access to GW's in-store gaming space where there are typically other 40k players to play with. If nobody wants to play with you then GW hasn't failed to deliver anything, and of course the store employee isn't obligated to play a game with you (they might, however, in an attempt to sell you more stuff).
Concluding that it's "idiotic" that GW should equip WH stores with so few tables assumes that WH stores - again, like restaurants - exist to host customers playing GW games.
Of course they exist for that purpose, why else would GW bother to have physical retail stores in low-traffic areas? You'd have a point if GW put their stores in high-traffic locations where having a physical retail store lets them get attention from random people walking by and potentially find new customers, but most of GW's stores seem to be hidden in random low-traffic strip malls. If you aren't going there specifically to play a game on GW's tables then there's no reason to ever go to one outside of maybe the occasional "I need more of one specific paint for this model tonight" run.
But the real reason it's idiotic is that independent stores usually have more tables available (along with discounts, non-GW products, etc). The independent store is offering a superior product if you want to buy GW stuff, so there's no reason to go to the GW store if you have a decent independent store in your area. Why go to the store with 1-2 tables when you can go to the one with 10+ and not have to worry about having too many people?
As explained by Tycho above, a WH store stays open as a function of [i]its[i] sales.
Explaining it doesn't make GW's decision any less stupid. It's clear to any reasonable observer that many online sales are happening as a direct result of the GW store existing, so those sales should count towards GW's calculations about the net value of the store. GW's handling of the situation is lazy and incompetent accounting, not a reasonable business decision.
Quoting your hyperbole back to you doesn't constitute a strawman. But I can certainly understand why you'd like to backpeddle on characterizing yourself as a jerk. Again I get that (or at least hope that) you don't actually act that way IRL - the fact remains that you apparently feel you're owed a table whenever you darken the door of a WH store, regardless of any factor other than having at some point/through whatever channel purchased GW product.
You appear to justify this entitlement by arguing that (a) you relied on GW providing space for you to game as part of your decision to buy GW products and (b) GW caused you to reasonably infer that you could rely on it providing that space. Again, setting aside the threshold question - what amount of purchases is necessary to trigger this reliance? - can you cite any actual, current GW marketing patter to support the inference made by you on which you say GW customers supposedly rely (and yet I don't), namely that that GW will provide you with gaming space if you purchase GW products? Just to be clear, I'm not asking where GW makes that specific promise - I'm asking where GW says anything at all from which it could be reasonably inferred that anyone who buys GW product will be provided space by GW to play GW games.
Turning back to how many (or rather how few) tables you find at a WH store ... doesn't this in fact tend to militate against that very inference? Could it possibly be that what you are calling "idiotic" is actually just something you refuse to understand because it contradicts your underlying assumption? To wit, you claim WH stores exist to deliver on the implicit promise GW makes to provide gaming space to whoever buys their products; ergo it is idiotic to have so few tables. OR it could be that - GW made no promise, implicitly or otherwise, to provide play space and those tables are not there for the same reason there are tables at a LGS because the WH store is not and is not even intended to be a LGS.
Also - we have had two GW/WH stores where I am in the last decade. Both were/are in high traffic/affluent areas. If your WH store is hidden away in some obscure locale and has too few tables and remains open then it stands to reason that it is doing better than you are assuming.
Manchu wrote: Quoting your hyperbole back to you doesn't constitute a strawman.
You aren't quoting, you're misquoting me to make me look like a . Here's the exact quote:
Being respectful and reasonable would be things like not swearing at the GW employee when you return a defective product, and politely explaining the situation and letting them resolve the replacement.
Note the "things like", which clearly states that the example given is just one example, not a comprehensive list of everything you have to do to be a decent person.
Again, setting aside the threshold question - what amount of purchases is necessary to trigger this reliance?
Whatever amount is required to play the game.
- can you cite any actual, current GW marketing patter to support the inference made by you on which you say GW customers supposedly rely, namely that that GW will provide you with gaming space if you purchase GW products? Just to be clear, I'm not asking where GW makes that specific promise - I'm asking where GW says anything at all from which it could be reasonably inferred that anyone who buys GW product will be provided space by GW to play GW games.
We're posting in a thread discussing how GW employees give table access in exchange for purchases (and whether or not this is good treatment of the customer), and you're really asking for proof that GW employees give access in exchange for purchases? The only dispute here is whether the purchase needs to be from GW, or from the specific employee standing next to the tables.
Turning back to how many (or rather how few) tables you find at a WH store ... doesn't this in fact tend to militate against that very inference?
Not really. If GW wasn't offering a promise, implicit or explicit, of table access if you buy into GW games then what's the point in having tables at all outside of the single 2x2 demo game? The fact that GW stores have fewer tables than independent stores just means that GW is run by incompetent morons who don't understand the US market.
OR it could be that - GW made no promise, implicitly or otherwise, to provide play space and those tables are not there for the same reason there are tables at a LGS because the WH store is not and is not even intended to be a LGS.
And yet even a brief look at the situation tells you that GW stores are run like independent stores, just badly-run independent stores. They have open gaming space for customers, run events for people to come in and play, etc. And if you stop by a GW store you'll see a people playing games/painting/hanging out/etc just like any independent store. The only difference between the two is that the GW store only sells GW products, while the independent store sells other stuff too.
Manchu wrote: You're the only one talking about "a community of friends."
You didn't use those words, but that's what you're describing. In a community of friends you do things like feeling out the mood and establishing yourself as a legitimate member of the community. In a normal for-profit store you walk in and buy the thing you want, and if the store doesn't give you what you want you go elsewhere.
I wish my Wife did her clothes shopping like that....
When your own example of being polite is not swearing at a clerk when making a return, I don't need to misquote you for you "to look like a ." I have been giving you the benefit of the doubt by assuming this was just puffery - now you're telling me you were serious?
No I did not ask whether WH store managers give table access to people who make in-store purchases. What I asked could not have been clearer considering I stated it explicitly: "I'm asking where GW says anything at all from which it could be reasonably inferred that anyone who buys GW product will be provided space by GW to play GW games."
Why are there tables in the store? The stated purpose of the WH store is to "show customers how to engage with our hobby of collecting, painting and playing with our miniatures and games" (note: 'provide Peregrine with gaming space' not mentioned). I'll also refer to my earlier description of gaming in a WH store as a "living retail display" requiring discretionary management of what can be played, by whom, when, and using what kind of stuff.
My local WH is run nothing like my LGS. The LGS is a hangout where regulars buy stuff to play whatever is the new hotness as well as 40k and AoS. The WH is a store where walk-ins are sold the 40k and AoS brand experiences.
I have actually seen one LGS run more similarly to a GW store in terms of, for example, how they used their gaming space and organized events (note: not necessarily tournaments). The result was turning around a store that had been run into the ground by its ownership. Unfortunately, the management team running that LGS burnt out because the owners were (long story short) not interested in professionalism. The managers quit and the store went out of business within a year.
Manchu wrote: When your own example of being polite is not swearing at a clerk when making a return, I don't need to misquote you for you "to look like a ." I have been giving you the benefit of the doubt by assuming this was just puffery - now you're telling me you were serious?
I really have no idea what your point is here, saying I look like a and accusing me of "puffery". Are you disputing that not swearing at someone and being the customer from hell is part of basic politeness, or are you making some bizarre argument that mentioning one example of how to be a reasonable customer (and explicitly presenting it as just one example) means that I consider anything else to be acceptable? Because it sure seems like the second case, you're making a huge deal of the fact that I only gave one example instead of a comprehensive list of everything involved in being a polite and decent human being. And I can't see any purpose to it besides trying to find an excuse to insult me.
No I did not ask whether WH store managers give table access to people who make in-store purchases. What I asked could not have been clearer considering I stated it explicitly: "I'm asking where GW says anything at all from which it could be reasonably inferred that anyone who buys GW product will be provided space by GW to play GW games."
No, I can't find you an explicit quote for something that happens in in-person conversations with store employees.
Why are there tables in the store? The stated purpose of the WH store is to "show customers how to engage with our hobby of collecting, painting and playing with our miniatures and games" (note: 'provide Peregrine with gaming space' not mentioned).
And fulfilling that stated purpose requires providing open gaming space to customers, since GW does not hire paid employees to show customers these things. A store where I can't get gaming space is an empty store which fulfills none of these goals.
I'll also refer to my earlier description of gaming in a WH store as a "living retail display" requiring discretionary management of what can be played, by whom, when, and using what kind of stuff.
Yes, but that has nothing to do with the "which GW employee is running the cash register when you buy your stuff" argument. From the point of view of being a "living retail display" a customer that just bought something at the GW store they're playing at and a customer who bought all of their stuff from the GW website are exactly identical. The reason GW employees exclude people who bought their GW products from someone else is that those purchases don't count towards the employee's personal sales numbers, not anything to do with the goal of presenting an attractive image of GW products to new customers.
The WH is a store where walk-ins are sold the 40k and AoS brand experiences.
And both of the GW stores I have been in have had essentially zero walk-in traffic. They're both in back corners of random strip malls with very little traffic walking by. In fact, even during an all-day Apocalypse game at the height of Christmas shopping season, the only customer that came into the store that wasn't involved in the game was a family member of one of the regular players. In both stores the entire customer base was existing GW players being convinced to buy more GW products to expand their collections, the exact same kind of players that would be found at an independent store.
For this theory to be a plausible one GW would have to put their stores in high-traffic locations where they're likely to see a non-trivial amount of new customers walking in to see what it's all about. But instead GW has, over the past ~5-10 years, removed all of their stores in high-traffic locations in favor of putting them in low-traffic strip malls where the only customers are people making a specific trip to the GW store. IOW, the exact same business model and location choice that most independent stores use.
What I'm "going on about" is that we appear to have vastly different worldviews when it comes to being polite. For you, the leading example of your own choosing is holding back from cussing out someone for something they didn't do. It would not even occur to me to cuss them out - for me, being reasonable and respectful is more than just not inappropriately swearing at someone. In contrast to the example you provided, my example - which you objected to as only applicable among friends was:
Last week, I went into the local WH to play a game of Shadow War. I asked if I could bring in a non-GW mat and the clerk said sure. Note: I asked before even bringing the mat in. I also bought something before asking. And I had come in several times over the last few weeks making some purchases and feeling out whether I wanted to play in her store and to introduce myself/establish that I am not a freeloader. So I acted reasonably and lo and behold so did the clerk. And if she had said no - I would not have gone off or anything. Part of realizing that you need to ask permission is realizing that the response can be no.
Emphasis added because the same chasm yawns between our worldviews with regard to what we each think we are owed at the WH store. You feel entitled to game space on demand solely based on having purchased some undefined amount of GW product whenever and from whoever. Meanwhile, I understand that I am not entitled to play space regardless of having bought stuff from that very store recently - whether I get to play there depends on the manager's decision, which will understandably be informed by how it affects her bottom line as well as whether I am pleasant and courteous, among other things.
Please don't confuse the issue of why there are tables in a WH store with the separate issue of a store manager hypothetically kicking freeloaders off of a table to make room for paying customers. The former is a matter of record, quoted above. The latter is an accusation or, at best ITT, an anecdote. Furthermore, as you yourself realized, whether the people playing are paying customers or deadbeats does not effect the "living retail display" purpose - therefore, all else equal, paying customers playing not only fulfills the purpose of the table but also simultaneously reinforces the rapport the manager has been developing with the customers on whom she actually makes commission.
Honestly, I don't think you were trying to confuse the issue. I think you are confused about the issue. For you, this is about (hypothetically? actually?) not getting preferential table access at the WH store because you couldn't buy your FW army from the WH store. Again, your whole argument is built on the nonviable, illogical, and apparently unprovable assumption that GW made you an implicit promise to provide you with a gaming venue if you got that DKoK army ... and now the manager isn't living up to that promise. But of course the promise exists only in your mind.
I just told you that both GW/WH stores that have existed where I am are in high traffic areas. 'Nuh uh' eeally isn't good enough. And again - if your WH store is run like a LGS except worse because they don't have the tables a LGS requires and yet despite this "idiotic" policy they remain open then ... well, I mean what's the point in typing it again?
Whew there is some very incorrect information being peddled in this thread. Let's start with GW sells table space.
To do that we need to define what a sale is. A sale is when goods exchange hands. Here are some examples.
Spaces Marines for X dollars
Your labor for X dollars
A reservation for X dollars
These are all sales transactions. When you play on a table in a GW store their is no exchange of goods. Therefore GW does not sell table space. Just as in a restaurant a table at any gaming store is a sales tool. Imagine going to a restaurant and sitting down and not ordering a thing. That's what you are doing when you go to a GW store just to play a game and never buy from it. You are in essence what is called a 'freeloader' in economics. You are benefiting from something without having to support the business. Now all sales tools can be misused of course and I would say kicking people off a table mid game probably is a misuse.
Next let's deal with this Target example, people seem to think GW should act like a large chain like target and prop up stores that are loses if they meet other KPIs. Well no GW shouldn't because if GW is focused on cash flow management then they'll realize they can't afford to do that sort of thing because they don't have the profits to do it. It's really that simple, GW is not a huge company, they are very small compared to businesses like Target or Walmart.
Ok what about this absolutely silly quote "No, the reality is about business. This is a for-profit business we're talking about, not a community of friends." That's a very foolish thing to say in response to what Manchu said. It shows you don't understand what business is actually about. Business is about building relationships, building them with your investor, with your customers, with your vendors and whoever else. Especially because the business model for the Warhammer store is what's known as an individualized solution. In other words it's about finding out what the customer needs and providing it. Note I'm using need in the sales term, which is more an emotional thing than a physical thing. The business whose customers feel like a friend of the business should count themselves lucky. This type of business model is an excellent one for WH stores to have, but it does require deep customer relationships. Going back to target they have a completely different business model, they in fact have the same model as Walmart. Cheap everyday goods in large quantities but position themselves against the leader (that being Walmart) by providing a more "up-scale" environment. No one approaches you in a Target though and tries to find the need behind the need. WH stores have more in common with the average AT&T store than Target.
In terms of LGS stores being better run the WH stores. I don't find this true in my experience, however anecdotal that may be. They often lack even the simplest of things such as uniforms, they often do not keep books and usually have no actual business model. Try asking your LGS what their business model is, if they can't answer succinctly in a single sentence they don't have one.
What about ordering online and having it sent to a store. Is it stupid for GW to not count that as the stores sale? Well only if you don't actually understand anything about business. First of all, every store has it's own set of books or should. So from an accounting standpoint there was no change at all in the balance sheet for that store. It also from a sales standpoint the sales staff didn't make the sale, so why should they get credit?
Lastly as to whether or not a manager should kick people off a game table for paying customers I would say noooooo. People react very poorly to loss, taking the table away from someone mid game is a definitely a loss to them. There is a better way in my opinion. Here's just one example, I'm the manager and I want to try and have mostly paying customers to play on the table. So I have a escalation league. The price of entry is buying a start collecting box in store or the equivalent if your faction doesn't have starting box. Then during the week I have time slotted to the events for play space. During this time league games will be what's allowed to be played. Do enough events and you can sequester much of the table space for your paying customers. Then you have open play times, during that time you've just got to grin and bear the freeloaders in the hopes of establishing a deep relationship with them and turning them into a customer. This way nobody loses something and I'm using my tables as sales tool in an appropriate way that boost my sells. But hey that's just my two cents!
DrNo172000 wrote: These are all sales transactions. When you play on a table in a GW store their is no exchange of goods. Therefore GW does not sell table space. Just as in a restaurant a table at any gaming store is a sales tool. Imagine going to a restaurant and sitting down and not ordering a thing. That's what you are doing when you go to a GW store just to play a game and never buy from it. You are in essence what is called a 'freeloader' in economics. You are benefiting from something without having to support the business. Now all sales tools can be misused of course and I would say kicking people off a table mid game probably is a misuse.
Except you did buy from GW, just not THAT GW, money is going to GW either way. In the case of buying FW, GW made even more money from you.
It's not freeloading on GW to buy a GW product and then play on a GW table, at worst it's freeloading on that specific store manager. But that's because GW's performance assessment of a store is flawed. I personally have limited pity for store managers in that situation because they're the fools who decided to work and continue to work for GW
The fact is if a GW store is hosting gamers, painting, events, etc and has a large turnout of people then that store is an integral cog in the GW sales system even if they never sell a single item because all those people are using GW figures for which GW is making money.
Next let's deal with this Target example, people seem to think GW should act like a large chain like target and prop up stores that are loses if they meet other KPIs. Well no GW shouldn't because if GW is focused on cash flow management then they'll realize they can't afford to do that sort of thing because they don't have the profits to do it. It's really that simple, GW is not a huge company, they are very small compared to businesses like Target or Walmart.
We already know GW has a bunch of stores that don't make money and in general their stores are close to neutral profit (I can't remember if they either lose a small amount of money or make a small amount of money?). Either way, they absolutely persist with some stores that don't make money.
And it's not really all that relevant to the topic at hand anyway, we are talking about whether GW should offer support for GW products at all stores, not whether they should close loss-leading stores.
It also from a sales standpoint the sales staff didn't make the sale, so why should they get credit?
Because often it is the sales staff that is making the sale, they're just not getting credit for it.
They've made the sale by fostering a relationship with a customer, providing a gaming space and so on. But then the customer goes and buys online because the store doesn't carry the item they want, or it's a preorder item and the customer isn't able to come down to the store early saturday morning to queue up on the in store computer and risk not getting the item, or ya know the store just isn't open when they drive past because one man stores are open stupid hours.
Back in the 90's, GW stores carried a full range of stock, so if you walked in to a GW store you could 95% of the time walk out with the item you were looking for. They were also open regular hours because they weren't one man stores.
At that point I'd agree with you, for the most part if the shop staff "made a sale", the customer would buy from that store, these days it's just as likely that the shop staff do all the legwork to make the sale and the customer buys online for a plethora of reasons.
You also have FW which a customer can't even buy through a GW store if they wanted to. When I was buying my DKOK force I specifically went to the local GW and asked if I could buy through them and it's not even an option.
The online store needs is a little option when you go through asking "do you game, paint or did you hear about GW games through a local store?" and if you answer yes they can take that in to account when judging the performance of a store/store manager.
There is no transaction related to table use. There is no entitlement related to table use. If a store has an event (including open tables from noon to 6pm or however they describe it) and they invite the public, then someone who comes (with models they bought from Games Workshop) and is barred from participating because they didn't buy the products through a channel the particular retail employee would prefer, excluding them is simply going to create a negative customer experience.
The GW retail store and the GW online store are both the same entity. If you buy your stuff online you are a paying customer of Games Workshop and should not be treated poorly because the retail employee dislikes your choice of sales channel. What the employee should do is figure out how to induce them to change their sales channel choice without resorting to anything negative or punitive.
Yes the retail employee has a self interest that is in conflict both with his employer and the customer. GW has created this bad situation, but we shouldn't pretend that the retail employee is doing something good or noble by making people not participate as a form of judgement on their choice of buying direct from GW.
GW wants people to have some sort of integration between their online store and their retailers. For example, they offer free pickup for web orders at their local store. If someone orders online and picks it up at the local store, barring them from gaming as a non-customer is about the stupidest thing you can do. You're going to damage the long term relationship with that customer.
My guess is that if a local GW retail employee has created a community of regulars that use the gaming space but never buy anything at that location, they've created the problem. I'm also guessing that a heart to heart explaining how their sales aren't counting for the store so it might get closed would be far better than passive aggressively shunning people from participating in events you invited them to attend.
The local GW here doesn't have that issue because the guy is really good at sales and making sure people get the product they are looking for there. He does proven sales techniques like actually putting product into people's hands and engaging every customer who walks in. He told me he always think about the kind of experience he wants the person who comes into your location to have and that experience includes leaving with something new.
GW stores had a reputation for pushy sales people who won't just let you browse. The good ones know the proper time to engage and how to create rapport. My guess is that if an employee finds himself with a store full of people who never buy there and just want to use the table space, then they've gone off course at some point.
DrNo172000 wrote: That's what you are doing when you go to a GW store just to play a game and never buy from it. You are in essence what is called a 'freeloader' in economics. You are benefiting from something without having to support the business. Now all sales tools can be misused of course and I would say kicking people off a table mid game probably is a misuse.
This is not true at all in the context of a GW store. You are supporting GW as a business every time you buy a GW product, because GW gets money from the sale. The fact that your money did not pass through a specific cash register on the way to GW's bank account is irrelevant. It still reaches the exact same destination, and GW gets the exact same revenue. GW's idiotic insistence on treating its own stores as competition for each other does not make that policy a reasonable analysis of the reality of the situation.
Now, this argument would be true in the case of an independent store, since the independent store gets no money at all from a transaction if you buy elsewhere. But that's not what this thread is about.
Next let's deal with this Target example, people seem to think GW should act like a large chain like target and prop up stores that are loses if they meet other KPIs. Well no GW shouldn't because if GW is focused on cash flow management then they'll realize they can't afford to do that sort of thing because they don't have the profits to do it. It's really that simple, GW is not a huge company, they are very small compared to businesses like Target or Walmart.
This is a spectacular misunderstanding of how business works. Nobody is saying that GW should prop up a store that is a net loss just for the sake of having a store, we're saying that GW should properly consider the value added by a store instead of using over-simplified sales numbers. For example, a store might make $X in direct sales at the store but also another $Y worth of sales through the GW website (often for delivery to that store), sales that wouldn't exist if the store wasn't there to give the customer a place to use their purchases. GW's idiotic analysis of the situation only considers $X in evaluating the store's net value to the company, a more reasonable analysis would consider the total of $X + $Y.
The real difference here is not the facts of the business situation, it's that Target and Walmart seem to be run by people who understand business, while GW's upper management seems to be the rejects that couldn't get a better job. Target and Walmart do complex analysis to determine the total value of a store to the company, including things like loss leaders, brand presence, etc. GW just adds up the money in the cash register at the end of each day and compares it to the cost of the store's expenses.
In terms of LGS stores being better run the WH stores. I don't find this true in my experience, however anecdotal that may be. They often lack even the simplest of things such as uniforms, they often do not keep books and usually have no actual business model. Try asking your LGS what their business model is, if they can't answer succinctly in a single sentence they don't have one.
First of all, why should I care about superficial things like uniforms? Those are not essential components of running a business.
Second, why should I care about an employee's ability to state the business model? All that matters is the end result of whether or not the store makes enough money to stay open. And the answer to that question is that I can think of two stores in the area that have been around for ~10 years, growing and upgrading to better locations over that time, and the others have been around for at least ~3-5 years (I don't know their history beyond that because I never went there). I can think of a couple others that have failed, but it's pretty clear that "independent stores are badly run" is not a good description of the situation from a purely financial point of view. And from a customer point of view those successful stores are providing better gaming space, cheaper products, much more reasonable business hours, etc, than the GW store.
What about ordering online and having it sent to a store. Is it stupid for GW to not count that as the stores sale? Well only if you don't actually understand anything about business. First of all, every store has it's own set of books or should. So from an accounting standpoint there was no change at all in the balance sheet for that store.
No, this is absolutely wrong. Every store should NOT have their own books, because the store is not an independent business. The financial information needs to be documented, of course, but it should be incorporated into the company-wide accounting and analysis. What you're saying here is like arguing that each cash register at the local Walmart should have its own books, and be evaluated on their individual performance. And that's obvious nonsense, whether a transaction goes through register 1 or register 17 the money is going to the exact same location in the end.
It also from a sales standpoint the sales staff didn't make the sale, so why should they get credit?
Because the sales staff DID make the sale. If a person is having an order delivered to a GW store it's almost certainly because that customer is regularly in the store and its existence contributes to their decision to buy. What you're essentially saying here is that if a store employee runs a good community that a customer enjoys participating in and gives advice on new purchases to the customer, but the customer decides to go home and think about it instead of buying something before they leave the employee didn't contribute to making that sale. That's an incredibly superficial and short-sighted way of looking at the situation.
So I have a escalation league. The price of entry is buying a start collecting box in store or the equivalent if your faction doesn't have starting box.
And then you get unhappy customers because they don't want to buy a new army at that point (perhaps because they recently bought a new project) or don't want to rush through construction of new stuff just to participate in the event. That customer feels excluded and pressured by the used car salesman running the league, and it completely destroys that customer relationship you're trying to build by making the event all about the buying. And that customer may decide to go elsewhere instead of putting up with the poor treatment, I know I certainly have.
The much better way to handle the situation is they way the independent stores I'm familiar with (which, again, have been in business for 5-10 years or more): treat the escalation league as an opportunity to buy stuff, but allow anyone to participate even if it isn't a good time for them to start a new army. Because, you know what? It turns out that a lot of players are looking for any excuse to justify buying a bunch of new toys, and the people who just use their existing models weren't going to buy anything from you anyway so you don't lose anything by letting them play. The only problem is if you have a limited amount of table space available but, as I've pointed out, this is a problem exclusive to GW stores. Independent stores tend to have more than enough tables to give space to everyone.
Yeah, the administration cost related to accounting is really high. Having each location operate as if they are financially independent would cost a fortune. You don't want to multiply the finance department any more than is needed to avoid losing money. It's possible though that GW has cut things too far. That they might want to put in place a means of connecting the sales of "pick up at local store" with the performance of the local sales person. Not necessarily to pay them commission on it, but to learn if there's something the retail employee can do that results in higher web store purchases. GW makes more money on orders through their web site than through the local store. So they shouldn't be penalizing a retail employee if that person is actually helping them make more money. So while you might be able to argue that they didn't do the sales work to merit commission, they probably shouldn't be penalized or have the store closed if they are actually doing something that drives a lot of money into GW's pockets.
It's totally possible that if a local store has a lot of pick up orders happening and they close it, they might actually see a decline in those orders. That as people take a break or quit or whatever, they won't be replaced by new customers. Or the critical mass of word of mouth that can result from a thriving local community dries up without the store that is acting as its hub.
Manchu wrote: What I'm "going on about" is that we appear to have vastly different worldviews when it comes to being polite. For you, the leading example of your own choosing is holding back from cussing out someone for something they didn't do. It would not even occur to me to cuss them out - for me, being reasonable and respectful is more than just not inappropriately swearing at someone.
Seriously? Do you honestly think it's ok to make up this kind of stuff to insult me? I never said anything about verbally abusing an employee being something I'd ever do (or feel entitled to praise if I don't do it), or that anything short of that kind of behavior is acceptable. It was merely, as I explicitly stated, ONE EXAMPLE of inappropriate behavior.
Please don't confuse the issue of why there are tables in a WH store with the separate issue of a store manager hypothetically kicking freeloaders off of a table to make room for paying customers.
This is not an accurate description of the situation. The employee is not kicking freeloaders out to make room for paying customers, because anyone who buys GW products is a paying customer. What they're doing is setting policies that favor their own personal sales numbers instead of doing what is best for the company, and using the company's resources (tables, terrain, etc) as a tool to protect their own continued employment. And TBH, if I were in charge and my employee kicked out a paying customer just because that customer bought from another of my employees I'd probably fire them for giving the customer a bad impression of my company.
For you, this is about (hypothetically? actually?) not getting preferential table access at the WH store because you couldn't buy your FW army from the WH store.
It's not personal at all. GW stores suck, and I have no reason to ever go into one. The fact that the local GW store employee declared that I wasn't allowed to play in the store because my FW models didn't count towards his sales numbers just put a very quick end to my "well, maybe I'm being unfair and I'll give the GW store another chance" attempt.
I just told you that both GW/WH stores that have existed where I am are in high traffic areas. 'Nuh uh' eeally isn't good enough.
Ok, fine, your store is the exception to what seems to be a consistent rule. Both of the GW stores in my area are in low-traffic random strip malls, and the one GW store (elsewhere in the US) I remember seeing in a high-traffic mall was closed and moved to a similar low-traffic location to save rent. And IIRCGW has even openly stated a policy of putting their stores in low-rent (which means low-traffic) areas instead of paying for a more desirable location for a "get random people to walk in" business model.
And again - if your WH store is run like a LGS except worse because they don't have the tables a LGS requires and yet despite this "idiotic" policy they remain open then ... well, I mean what's the point in typing it again?
Their continued existence doesn't really mean anything, we know GW doesn't understand the US market and continues to operate an obsolete retail chain despite it not making any sense to do so. But I won't be at all surprised if either or both of those stores closes once their leases are up for renewal.
First of all on the accounting. Number one, it is not the equivalent of every register, that's a false equivalence. Every GW store keeping books is the same as every Walmart keeping books. Now I can't say for Walmart but I can tell you 100% Walgreens another large chain keeps books at every store and I can tell you 100% that Amazon keeps separate books at it's fulfillment centers. I know this because I have seen them with my own eyes. Yes every store should have books and accounting reports. This is because their are two types of accounting a business conducts, financial and managerial. Financial accounting is what you show to outsiders, such as investors. Yes there's no need to keep these at every store, simply being able to show you have an awesome overall business is enough and any loss at an individual store will be incorporated. Managerial accounting is what is kept at each and every store and it is an essential opponent for an manager to be able to do their job properly. Managerial accounting books are therefore kept at each and every store, and no that doesn't drive up accounting cost because the cost equals the software + manager, which you are going to pay for anyway. To further drive this point home here is a question on a state CPA exam.
"The Stockholders expressly instruct the accountant to design an accounting system so that each store may keep its own set of books, pay its own bills, have its own cash account and bank account and prepare its own detailed operating financial statements at the end of each month. The accounts of the Wisconsin Hardware Co. must be so arranged as to reflect the ownership and operating profits or losses of the Badger store. Triplicate sales books are to be used at each store. These will supply the individual accounts receivable accounts, and the system designed should recognize the use of the sales book slips for other purposes."
The above question represents a very standard way to operate for chains. These are accounting facts, not my accounting "beliefs".
I will concede the ship to store should be seen as a good mark for the store manager itself some good points were raised and I can't find fault with them. Though keep in mind there is no way of knowing if people are having it shipped to the store because they like the store or to not have to pay shipping. Perhaps GW can write the software so that when someone chooses a store at checkout the sales transactions is recorded at that store instead of the online store, that's outside of my area expertise so I don't know if it's possible, but with today's cloud point of sale systems it seems feasible to me. Perhaps somebody knows more about the intricacies of writing software than me?
Me saying that Target and GW are not equivalent and GW can not afford to keep open other stores is not a misunderstanding of business. You have misunderstood business, thinking that they can all operate the same way. GW can not adsorb a single losing store no matter what it may help otherwise (on a side note this is not actually a loss leader, loss leader has a completely different definition). Now this is a major assumption on my part and it precludes that GW simply can not afford that business structure based on their public books, which yes I have looked at out of fascination. Also people are greatly over exaggerating Target's willingness to leave an under performing store open. Both Target and Walmart will open keep those stores open for a certain amount of time, they will not and I mean will not keep a store posting a lost year after year open no matter what. This is witnessed by the fact that Walmart is closed and is closing nearly all of it's small stores as the format has proven unprofitable at the local store level, contrast this with Target who is moving away from the Super store format as that format under performs for them. Then you can see how two different businesses in the exact same market have to operate completely differently. You guys act like every retail should make the same decisions. Further we do not know if GW does or does not keep open stores that post loses based on other things, closing a store is a decision made by someone much higher up than a store or regional manager. It's a managerial accounting decision generally made by someone sitting on an advisory board who has taken in many factors. We've all just been making assumptions on this one.
Uniforms are superficial? This one made me laugh out loud. JD Power, one of the largest global market research companies did a survey and found that uniforms overwhelmingly increase strength of brand and sells.
"When a consumer sees an employee in uniform, they feel that they
receive a better product and higher quality of service"
Uniforms are very far from superficial regardless of your personal opinion on them.
Profits and length of time in business is not a metric for how well run a business is either. That's survivorship bias at work if you think that. I will give an example, I traveled a couple of hours to snag some great deals once at a store that was closing because the owner was retiring, the store had been in business for several decades, had remained profitable and was able to stay open until the guy got too old to keep going. First thing I noticed was that new product was sun faded from being displayed too close to a window that had no sort of shielding from UV rays. Second thing I noticed was that they had inventory on the shelf that was literally from the 90s and not just a little but a lot. The one I remember the most was Vor: The Maelstrom which was published from 99 and went debunk in 2001 sitting there still with the retail sticker that was put on when they first got the item in stock. That's some super great inventory management there! Their POS had a black screen and green borders and text on the monitor. It reminded of the system at my first job back in the day at Domino's, straight out of DOS. Are you really going to tell me that was a well run business. In truth there's myriad reasons why a business may stay open, and more often then not well run is not one of them in a market that does not have lots of competition (though B&M LGS stores are going to have to change soon because that competition is coming but that's a convo for another time).
Lastly folks I'm not arguing that the manager is right to kick people off the table, he's wrong in my opinion. If the table wasn't sequestered for an event or reservation there's no reason to do that and will only result in a net loss of customer relationships. A good salesman will sell their product do to having a high conversion rate and retention rate that table can be used as a tool and should be, but a potential customer should never get dick treatment because a converted customer exist. That's just foolish.
P.S. Peregrine the escalation example is something you would only use with new customers not someone who has lots of models already. My reasoning for this is based on when I use to run Journeyman Leagues for WM/H. New players would get wrecked the whole league by experienced players and decide not to play anymore whenever it was run without the restrictions in the packet, i.e. letting people make equivalent starting forces. Put the restrictions in place and new players would often not sign up as much giving a better retention rate. Other events should be used for people who are long time GW customers. Meaning most events will not have a purchase requirement. In my experience tournaments are really great at getting people who already have product to by things on the spot because they'll often buy builds that beat them. So yes events not only help build community but they also help make sales even if the sale wasn't a requirement. Sorry I was not clearer on that.
Automatically Appended Next Post: To go back to the topic on hand, the manager at the GW store closest to me does a really good job. She builds rapport with everyone that walk into the door. Hosts tons of events which even includes Horus Heresy events and cross promotional events with the LGS in the area. Rising tide raises all boats after all. She mostly seems to run it in such a way that she converts lots of new customers who have never played GW games before and then encourages them to play GW anywhere. But even old time players will shop with her just do to the fact she is so warm and friendly and open to listen to the customers. She's also very active on community facebook groups and will answer questions expediently. She's an outstanding salesman and leader far as I can tell. So she really doesn't have any super strict policies far as I can tell, just the standard GW please use GW models in the store only, which to her includes FW.
Keeps books-- I see what you mean now. You may though need to consider that some super Walmart locations do the same yearly revenue as all of GW's operations worldwide. So it makes a lot of sense for them to have a full and separate financial department for each store. My guess though is that gven that GW has been so concerned about staff costs as to switch to single employee stores that adding to their financial costs on a per store basis might not be in the cards. Despite what the cpa exam says, each GW store will not have autonomy to the point of paying its own bills and having it's own bank account as the single employee simply does not have time. They struggle to cover optimal open hours as is.
Given that they can evaluate a single store in terms of sales targets and costs, I'm guessing they already have sufficient record keeping for their purposes. I just think they should invest a little more and try to get useful information about the relationship of a given store to direct orders in the same area. So they can make better decisions about a staff member or location and not fire someone or close a store that is actually making them money through a different channel.
This would also help them make better decisions about retail policy and perhaps not foce their employee's interests into conflict with the larger company.
I don't advocate for the keeping open of loss making stores, but that there may be revenue that a given store is generating that is not being credited in the decision to close a store.
You did not use cussing out the clerk as an example of inappropriate behavior. You used not cussing out the clerk as an example of the upper limit of courtesy owed to someone who is not part of your "community of friends." And the reason you gave the example in the first place was to argue against my point about treating a WH store manager reasonably and respectfully. As a reminder, here are our positions:
Manchu wrote: We can argue over these things abstractly but the reality is about relationships.
Peregrine wrote: No, the reality is about business. This is a for-profit business we're talking about, not a community of friends.
As DrNo17200 pointed out, you are literally arguing that business is not about relationships.
There is no necessary conflict between the actual reason GW equips WH stores with tables and the GW policy of delegating discretionary authority to WH store managers regarding how the tables are used specifically. The notion that there is such a conflict is based on the erroneous and absurd assumption that there are tables in the WH store because GW owes anyone who has purchased its products at any time and through any sales channel space to use those products. The tables are equipment for holistic demonstration of the "GW Hobby" to new customers. GW leverages its existing customers to create a living retail display, managed by a GW employee. This is why, in (potential) contrast to a LGS, there are not many tables and why there are limitations on what can be played, by whom, when, and with what stuff. If you cannot process this fact, you might as well just recuse yourself from the discussion - especially since you admit to not spending any time at GW stores anyhow.
@DrNo17200
Your original position was correct, regarding that it makes sense not to credit a specific WH store with an online order not made in that store. Sure, a given customer might have been influenced by a WH store manager to eventually order something online - just like that customer might have been influenced by looking at Painting and Modeling Blog thread here on Dakka Dakka. But as you know, an effective salesperson manages the sale through to completion. Of course, this is not always (or even often) about landing an immediate sale. But the policy is clearly designed to encourage WH store staff to take sales to completion in the store. While every WH store salesperson is also a brand ambassador, their primary function is to complete in-store sales - hence their compensation structure. Again, the WH store manager is not working to get you to buy any GW product, at any time, through any sales channel. This is why GW does actually care about store performance, despite ignorant claims to the contrary.
One mistake that permeates this entire thread is the bad assumption that "all customers are like me" - yet we are spending spare time posting on a message board about GW store policies because we are already invested in the long term in GW's brands. In fact, we are nowhere near the demographic these stores are meant to primarily serve. We are much closer to the demographic served by the LGS. That does not mean that a WH store should be more like a LGS - again GW is not a chain of local gaming stores.
frozenwastes wrote: Keeps books-- I see what you mean now. You may though need to consider that some super Walmart locations do the same yearly revenue as all of GW's operations worldwide. So it makes a lot of sense for them to have a full and separate financial department for each store. My guess though is that gven that GW has been so concerned about staff costs as to switch to single employee stores that adding to their financial costs on a per store basis might not be in the cards. Despite what the cpa exam says, each GW store will not have autonomy to the point of paying its own bills and having it's own bank account as the single employee simply does not have time. They struggle to cover optimal open hours as is.
No I don't think you see what I mean. You don't need a financial department in a store to keep accounting books. That would be ludicrous and inefficient. I can guarantee every store has at a minimum a Sales Journal, which is a book of original entry, that records daily sales. Now in the modern day we have fancy software that records these things for us but this use to have to be done by hand by the sales clerk, note not an accountant or anyone working in a financial department. In fact in the modern day these systems are so spectacular that local ledgers feed their data into say a regional ledger. Managerial accounting is not done by someone in a financial department. It is done by managers, it is the process of making day to day decisions. In large stores department heads for instance do managerial accounting for their departments and the overall store manager is responsible for all of it. So for instance using my electronic Sales Journal, a type of accounting book, I pull up a sales report. Here is a theoretical example I see that Space Marines are under performing based on a benchmark set by regional (which is a managerial accounting decision they made), so I must make a operating decision that will improve the sales of Space Marines. Accounting isn't simply having a balance sheet, statement of cash flows, and income sheet. In fact most large sophisticated businesses keep three sets of books, books to show potential investors, internal books for managerial accounting purposes, and books to show the government for tax purposes. Even inventory management is actually apart of accounting.
Now I don't know what the manager at GW is responsible for, I can guarantee they keep a Sales Journal via the POS, whether they realize that's what it is or not. Now whether or not they are responsible for their own purchase book and things like accounts receivables and accounts payable I really don't know. It would seem extremely odd to me if they did not handle their own accounts payable via revenue generated by that particular store. I'll see if my local manager will divulge that information. But honestly I'm not going to go into accounting anymore or post about business practices because it's starting to get way off topic. Take care.
Having worked for a multi site retailer of a similar level of revenue to GW (slightly smaller at £80-90m) I can say that it isn't how it works.
You will have one central accounts office, they will pay for and negotiate things like rent, utilities etc.
There will be a method of allocating costs to a store, but there will be no "books" (which is just a euphemism for accounts, any company, whatever the size, only maintains one set of accounts.) simply a record of sales made, and a record of what stock is held (as a value, in these days, almost certainly right down to a live stock level of each SKU.)
Stores will not be responsible for making purchases, they will be made centrally and stock distributed, they will not be responsible for paying bills. The only bookkeeping necessary will be sales (which any modern EPOS system will do automatically) and stock in (which will quite possibly be as simple as scanning a barcode on the box.)
GW (or any comparable company) will have the ability to interrogate this data by location to assess an individual stores performance, but this is not the same as each store maintaining its own accounts.
You did not use cussing out the clerk as an example of inappropriate behavior. You used not cussing out the clerk as an example of the upper limit of courtesy owed to someone who is not part of your "community of friends."
Why are you reading so much into one example but then not listening to Peregrine when he tells you he's not that rude? Why take his words so seriously in one case but then ignore his clarifying statements about it just being an example?
The notion that there is such a conflict is based on the erroneous and absurd assumption that there are tables in the WH store because GW owes anyone who has purchased its products at any time and through any sales channel space to use those products.
Stop this "owe" and "entitlement" talk. Saying that a GW store should allow participation regardless of the sales channel their models come from are not saying the person has a right to them Or is owed it Or is entitled to it. It is simply saying it's a awful customer experience to be made a 2nd class citizen because a retail employee doesn't like your choice of sales channel. And that the person buying from GW online store is a GW customer and should be treated as a GW customer just like any GW customer who shows up to an event they are invited to show up to. In fact they may even be a better customer in terms of revenue generated than someone who recently made a purchase in that store.
From there, the retail employee can work to modify which sales channel the person uses, but to do it in a way that alienates people or conflicts with the larger company goals is stupid. Even if it is a result of GW's policy of how they evaluate store performance and employee compensation.
Azreal13 wrote: Having worked for a multi site retailer of a similar level of revenue to GW (slightly smaller at £80-90m) I can say that it isn't how it works.
You will have one central accounts office, they will pay for and negotiate things like rent, utilities etc.
There will be a method of allocating costs to a store, but there will be no "books" (which is just a euphemism for accounts, any company, whatever the size, only maintains one set of accounts.) simply a record of sales made, and a record of what stock is held (as a value, in these days, almost certainly right down to a live stock level of each SKU.)
Stores will not be responsible for making purchases, they will be made centrally and stock distributed, they will not be responsible for paying bills. The only bookkeeping necessary will be sales (which any modern EPOS system will do automatically) and stock in (which will quite possibly be as simple as scanning a barcode on the box.)
GW (or any comparable company) will have the ability to interrogate this data by location to assess an individual stores performance, but this is not the same as each store maintaining its own accounts.
Yeah again you are talking about financial accounting and not managerial accounting. Perhaps it works different in the UK but I have both worked for Amazon and Walgreens. Walgreens they kept books and the manager was responsible for the purchase book at that store. At Amazon each department manager is feed a constant live stream of data in order to manage labor. Those are managerial accounting practices by the very definition. Also from Professor Kay Stice who I promise knows more than me and you about accounting.
"Now, here's a question that you…may not have not thought of before.…How many sets of books does a large company keep?…And the answer is not one.…A large company keeps three sets of books.…First, there are the records that are used…to prepare the summary reports to outsiders,…the financial reports.…Second, are the detailed internal information sources…that are used to make detailed decisions…that's not revealed to outsiders.…That's the second set of books.…The third set of books prepared based…on a different set of rules are the tax books…for tax reporting to governments.…
Three sets of books.…In fact, it's a sign of a sophisticated economy…and a sophisticated company…that they have three sets of books.…A simple company often has only one set of books,…the books they used to report their income taxes.…But as a company gets more sophisticated and develops,…it develops these three sets of records.…And they're not necessarily the same.…The financial reports reported to outsiders,…the managerial accounting reports used internally,…"
By the way a record of sales transactions is a type of book in accounting, it's a sales book. As I said each individual store will have at a minimum a sales book. Now no one calls it that anymore in this day and age of technology, the indivdual book names such as Purchase Book, Sales Book, and etc fell out of use with automated systems. They still exist though.
Automatically Appended Next Post: A really long time ago when I worked for Domino's they did actually keep physical books, but it was also a franchise store. That was probably the last time I saw a physical accounting book.
No I don't think you see what I mean. You don't need a financial department in a store to keep accounting books. That would be ludicrous and inefficient.
As would be asking a single store employee to add the duties of an accounting clerk to their job when they already don't have time to keep the store open enough hours not to negatively impact revenue (according to GW's own financials, the switch to reduced hours did exactly that).
Spoiler:
Managerial accounting is not done by someone in a financial department. It is done by managers, it is the process of making day to day decisions.
I disagree. It is the process of getting those managers the necessary information to make those decisions.
"Management accounting includes identifying the information needs of management and developing the systems required to meet those needs, such as planning, forecasting, budgeting, cost and revenue management, and performance measurement." CPA Canada
An HR person who makes a decision based on information generated by managerial accounting doesn't suddenly become part of managerial accounting any more than they become part of IT when they access the internet or company network.
Though i do know the blurring of these lines has become popular for larger corporate culture reasons.
Now I don't know what the manager at GW is responsible for ... It would seem extremely odd to me if they did not handle their own accounts payable via revenue generated by that particular store.
Odd to you, but the real world doesn't always look like the things you learn in the class room.
Yeah again you are talking about financial accounting and not managerial accounting.
One of the first things I learned when I was a corporate accountant is that people I worked with did not care about technical distinctions like that. If I went to a meeting and someone said "have that clerk in the finance department prepare the report for the next meeting" they were talking about a person doing managerial accounting but calling it financial. They don't care. Don't correct them. In fact, get on their way of talking and use terms incorrectly as long as communication happens. Non accountant managers often hate being corrected on pedantic details and it will alienate you from the team.
People are using the terms colloquially here. In the broad sense of financial accounting being the accounting of all transactions, not in contrast to managerial accounting.
In the real world there are loads of reasons why a store manager isn't doing accounts payable and receivable, doesn't have access to certain information, isn't depositing or withdrawing from a store specific bank account, etc.,. GW store managers don't do those things. An example of why not:
Spoiler:
A friend of mine owns some commercial real estate and had a tenant that was part of a national chain. Suddenly the rent payments stopped. And then again. To the point that the tenant had violated their rental agreement and my friend had to change the locks and sell off the contents of the unit to recoup the lost rent. And then find a new tenant. The national company was shocked and outraged and made legal threats. Until they learned that the local manager had simply dropped the ball and not taken care of accounts payable and ignored all the notices about late payment and the reminder of what their contract required. Had the manager not had those accounting duties they would not have lost a location and thousands in equipment because of the incompetence of one individual.
This is also a reason why it's sort of strange that the store managers have such differing policies. They are free to try a lot of different things and set a lot of different rules, but they don't have access to the information they need to make those decisions. They can't sit down with the financial information (see what I'm doing there, being intentionally technically incorrect so I'm understood by a larger audience ) to make decisions based on it. Like correlating certain policies with sales numbers across the whole chain.
In actuality GW should probably revoke a lot of their customer facing autonomy after doing what they need to in order to figure out the optimal policies by region. My guess is that the approach of GW stores in the mid 90s and the policies there might actually be optimal for growth. No unpainted models in play. Set schedules of events and table availability. Lots of hobby supplies available for customer use on models they just purchased.
Their retail employee autonomy is likely a result of their flailing about trying to make their retail model fit in different regions they don't quite understand. As people have pointed out, they are largely still trying to jam a UK based high street retail model into side street strip mall locations in suburban America.
I twice dismissed Peregrine's example as mere puffery for the sake of argument, as opposed to an accurate portrayal of his IRL manners. He's the one who keeps defending that example. If you want to know why he keeps defending it, consider that he gave the example in support of his ludicrous assertion that business is not about relationships and what I described as being reasonable and respectful is behavior due only among a "community of friends."
We can't drop the argument that "GW owes it to me" because that is precisely the argument being made. This is because the whole issue is being framed incorrectly, starting from the viewpoint that the tables are just gaming space and therefore every "GW customer" (defined as anyone who has ever spent any money, directly or indirectly, on a GW product) should have "equal access" to them, which in practice seems to be "I get to use the table when I want to." The potential negative customer experience of not getting what amounts to preferential treatment is 100% the consequence of an entitled attitude. We have also been discussing the similar but distinct negative customer experience of the WH store not having "sufficient" tables, where again "sufficient" really means "not enough so that I could use one when I wanted to."
These "negative customer experiences" are unavoidable given that the actual purpose of a WH store, unlike a LGS, is NOT to cultivate some existing customer base. I feel pretty confident that GW knows that the WH stores do not have enough tables to accommodate more than a few games - in fact, I am pretty confident that this is why there are so few tables. GW is willing to risk existing customers having a negative experience in favor of using the WH store to pursue new customers.
Azreal13 wrote: So the more you're talking about "accounting" in the sense of monitoring information, accounting for this, accounting for the other.
By referring to them as "books" it is misleading, as that's a colloquial cover all term for a company's financial records, at least in the UK.
"Ledger" may be somewhat more accurate. At least from this side of the Atlantic.
Ah Ledger and Books are interchangeable in the US as far as I know. At least that's how I learned it when I learned about accounting. That is after all how the term books came up.
@Frozenwastes
Yes sorry I misspoke, when I said managers are responsible for managerial accounting what I meant was that the manager is responsible for making the decisions based on the information provided. Usually that info is fed to them via automated sales reports obviously. I know some large companies do indeed have managerial accountants who along with software engineers will develop custom system per the needs of the business. So my apologies for misspeaking there.
"One of the first things I learned when I was a corporate accountant is that people I worked with did not care about technical distinctions like that. If I went to a meeting and someone said "have that clerk in the finance department prepare the report for the next meeting" they were talking about a person doing managerial accounting but calling it financial. They don't care. Don't correct them. In fact, get on their way of talking and use terms incorrectly as long as communication happens. Non accountant managers often hate being corrected on pedantic details and it will alienate you from the team."
This is actually very true and my apologies for being so pedantic. It's something of a character flaw, when I was a personal trainer I had to break the habit of using scientific terms and similar because clients just don't want to hear that. Comes out as blah blah blah. I will admit it has been over a decade since I worked for any large chain, so I will fully admit that any real world knowledge I have of what a manager does in a retail chain is based on that and could be outdated (probably is, since tech and efficiency increase exponentially). Since you are a corporate accountant I will take your word for it and adjust my knowledge, it would be remiss of me not too.
Automatically Appended Next Post: "This is also a reason why it's sort of strange that the store managers have such differing policies"
Beyond that it also affects brand image. People should be able to expect the same thing from every location, it makes them comfortable and more likely to be retained as customers.
WH store managers should have discretion over how the tables are used. They are in the best position to make that call seeing as how that entirely depends on local circumstances. It's a simple principle of managerial subsidiarity. This is also a matter of developing rapport with those existing GW customers the WH store manager is leveraging to demonstrate the GW Hobby to new customers. Store-by-store discretion does not risk brand experience because the global guidelines are already very restrictive: you can only play GW games using GW models. The discretionary part comes down to managing the relationships rather than brand ID.
P.S. @Frozenwastes as a corporate accountant you probably know waayy more than me. To be honest I didn't even learn in a class room. I learned via reading books, I read constantly. Right now I'm reading the Art of the Start 2.0 by Guy Kawasaki, cool guy. My actual formal in class training when it pertains to business is sales and some brand management. So if I say something wrong definitely correct me. One never learns if one is unwilling to be corrected.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Manchu wrote: WH store managers should have discretion over how the tables are used. They are in the best position to make that call seeing as how that entirely depends on local circumstances. It's a simple principle of managerial subsidiarity. This is also a matter of developing rapport with those existing GW customers the WH store manager is leveraging to demonstrate the GW Hobby to new customers. Store-by-store discretion does not risk brand experience because the global guidelines are already very restrictive: you can only play GW games using GW models. The discretionary part comes down to managing the relationships rather than brand ID.
I would argue that kicking someone off a table because they bought their GW models at their LGS or wherever else negatively impacts GW's brand for that customer. As Jeff Bezo's says "Your brand is what people say about you when you aren't in the room". What will a customer who is playing a GW game with GW miniatures (this includes FW as far as I'm concerned) who then gets kicked off a table going to say about GW when they aren't in the room. A customer simply does not care about the idiosyncrasies of how that manager keeps their job via in store sales. I'm not saying managers shouldn't have discretion but if that discretion includes the above mentioned kicking off when there is not a reason such as an event or table reservation than GW needs to give better guidelines imo.
Manchu wrote: I have not been arguing in favor of WH store managers kicking people off tables. Quite the opposite:
Manchu wrote: I don't think the manager should ever say 'step aside' barring some specific circumstances where that would actually be reasonable.
Ah my apologies. Still as a prior Marine my brain says every failing is a failing of leadership. GW should probably set better guidelines as to how manager discretion of table use is used. Of course it's possible that they do and that manager is simply doing whatever he wants, which in that case a complaint should be filed, so his supervisor can take action. The world is not the Marine Corps though.
DrNo172000 wrote: Since you are a corporate accountant I will take your word for it and adjust my knowledge, it would be remiss of me not too.
I'm a former corporate accountant. And it's been over a decade for me so I'm sure my take is outdated as well. In fact, pretty much every take is as the ways companies structure themselves internally is so inconsistent and ever changing. Don't take my word for it. Things change rather rapidly and for stupid reasons. One of the reasons I left the industry was the misunderstanding of management of what accounting could and could not do for them and how to best assign their staff to different tasks. We had departments appealing to the board for transferring of staff across departmental lines in really awful ways. To the point that tons of staff had to work unpaid overtime to meet the demands of both their own department heads and the claims on their time made by their new temporary bosses. Many people left that company. I left the industry entirely and got into business to business sales and now am semi retired. I'm thinking I might go to culinary school. It's probably what I should have done 20 years ago
Automatically Appended Next Post: "This is also a reason why it's sort of strange that the store managers have such differing policies"
Beyond that it also affects brand image. People should be able to expect the same thing from every location, it makes them comfortable and more likely to be retained as customers.
I totally agree.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Manchu wrote: WH store managers should have discretion over how the tables are used.
There should probably be regional or company wide policies that maximize revenue and make for the best customer experience.
They are in the best position to make that call seeing as how that entirely depends on local circumstances.
I think they lack access to the information needed about what approaches produce what kind of sales numbers and probably can't be universally relied upon to make the right call.
I doubt that corporate policies can ever turn a bad salesperson into a good one. Some WH store managers are going to be awkward people with poor interpersonal skills who offend customers - whereas a more charismatic person can handle the same situations with charm. Training obviously helps but I don't think the issue ITT is that GW employees have insufficient training. Certainly, my local WH store manager seems to have good training and a good personality for sales. Whoever hired her made a good decision.
Than again, this is why i said that talking about this in the abstract is not really suitable precisely because we are talking about discretionary call made on a case-by-case basis. That's what I meant when I said this is really all about relationships.
@frozenwastes
It is a mistake to make a regional-level policy for a store-level issue. WH store managers have sufficient information to figure out how to manage their tables. In fact, they are the GW employee best positioned to know and may be the only GW employee in the world who does possess that info. They know who tends to come in and when. They know who has what kind of forces. They know who is good about doing demos and has a positive attitude, etc. Again - we're talking about the level of personal relationships.
We can't drop the argument that "GW owes it to me" because that is precisely the argument being made.
No, it's not.
This is because the whole issue is being framed incorrectly
Probably because people see things differently. I think you are framing it incorrectly in order to paint people as "entitled" or "freeloaders." Even people who might spend hundreds and hundreds in GW's online store. Despite the fact that GW is intentionally linking their online stores to their retails via the pick up at a local store method.
is 100% the consequence of an entitled attitude.
Like this.
These "negative customer experiences" are unavoidable given that the actual purpose of a WH store
And yet many people seem to have great local GW stores they enjoy without having the supposedly unavoidable experiences. It's almost like the managers who do things in a negative way give their customers negative experiences and those who do not, don't give their customers those experiences.
At the very least GW should develop universal policies to stop those managers from alienating their customers because they can't seem to sell well or induce the GW online store customers to change their sales channel of choice.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Manchu wrote: It is a mistake to make a regional-level policy for a store-level issue. WH store managers have sufficient information to figure out how to manage their tables. In fact, they are the GW employee best positioned to know and may be the only GW employee in the world who does possess that info. They know who tends to come in and when. They know who has what kind of forces. They know who is good about doing demos and has a positive attitude, etc. Again - we're talking about the level of personal relationships.
I disagree because I think a chain store should have a consistent customer experience in a given region. This individual approach store by store is just flailing about hoping to stumble onto what works for a given location when what works might actually be far more about larger regional and human norms.
I don't think that approach should include open table use for anyone who shows up. I think the stores should concentrate on events and open gaming should be limited. I actually think there might be something to a universal policy of earning tickets (or something like that) to use tables by purchasing in that store (or delivered to that store). People on the internet might hate it for all sorts of reasons, but I think it might work wonders for making the local stores give the maximum inducement possible to local customers (regardless of their sales channel choice).
So you can always show up to the 500 point bring and battle, or the group hobby time, but for the windows that open gaming is available, you have to pay where you play and it needs to be a clear and upfront policy that applies to everyone so it doesn't make customers feel like they are being singled out for exclusion. Or penalized because they got excited about a preorder link on the warhammer community site and didn't wait to preorder through the store. It is not at all that because they bought something they are owed table space, but that table space is being offered and how people are being selected to use the table space in some stores is being done for the financial interest of the employee and not the larger company or the customers.
It's not "I put in some much money into the GW online store so I should get to cut in line in front of this other guy" but people being taken out of the que because the manager didn't personally benefit from their purchase. A situation created by how GW evaluates the success of their store to create this conflict of employee and company interests intersecting with managers who can't seem to find a way to make it work for everyone. And no universal or regional policy to make sure it does.
There is a huge difference between politely explaining how table space is for customers who buy from the store and how the store could close if no one does (in a conciliatory manner) and having people que up to wait for a table and then individually kicking people to the back of the line based on what sales channel they use and how it personally impacts the manager's pay and job security.
I doubt that corporate policies can ever turn a bad salesperson into a good one. Some WH store managers are going to be awkward people with poor interpersonal skills who offend customers - whereas a more charismatic person can handle the same situations with charm. Training obviously helps but I don't think the issue ITT is that GW employees have insufficient training. Certainly, my local WH store manager seems to have good training and a good personality for sales. Whoever hired her made a good decision.
Than again, this is why i said that talking about this in the abstract is not really suitable precisely because we are talking about discretionary call made on a case-by-case basis. That's what I meant when I said this is really all about relationships.
@frozenwastes
It is a mistake to make a regional-level policy for a store-level issue. WH store managers have sufficient information to figure out how to manage their tables. In fact, they are the GW employee best positioned to know and may be the only GW employee in the world who does possess that info. They know who tends to come in win and who has what kind of forces and who is good with doing demos and has a positive attitude, etc. Again - we're talking about the level of personal relationships.
Indeed sales is 100% about establishing relationships. Believe it or not but people sell every day, you sale yourself to a new person to become friends with them. You sell your friends on that new 8th edition you are excited about. There are lot and lots of these "life" sales, as I like to call them. Essentially the art of salesmanship is the art of making friends. Now are there some psychological tricks that can be taught, yeah of course there are, but that's what separates professional sales people from an everyday person. The term finding the need behind the need will be meaningless to most people but it's something I was taught to do for instance. Or an effects question, which is not something I particularly like doing when it comes to sales.
One would hope when it comes to GW they would spend ample money on professional sales training.
The "negative customer experiences" I described are only unavoidable because the hypothetical disappointed customer feels absolutely entitled to the space that they are not actually entitled to. It is like how there is an unavoidable negative customer experience in store for anyone who walks in expecting a free Space Marine squad because they were given a SM to paint for free the last time they came in.
If someone comes in expecting table space and they can't get it then how can the WH store manager make that a positive experience? She could suggest an alternate time, or whatever number of other things. What if those approaches don't make the customer happy? Is she supposed to kick off the people playing to accommodate the customer that just came in? But then those customers will have a negative customer experience. It's almost as if it is not possible to make every person happy in every single circumstance, right?
So how is it possible that there are some GW customers who as you say do come away with good experiences? Possibly because they themselves are reasonable and respectful people, in addition to GW having reasonable, respectful staff.
Managing table use is simply not a regional-level issue. Because it depends entirely on details about who comes in, when they come in, what they have, etc, etc, all these details unique to that specific store, it is properly a store-level issue.
The "negative customer experiences" I described are only unavoidable because the disappointed customer feels absolutely entitled to the space that they are not actually entitled to. It is like how there is an unavoidable negative customer experience in store for anyone who walks in expecting a free Space Marine squad because they were given a SM to paint for free the last time they came in.
If someone comes in expecting table space and they can't get it then how can the WH store manager make that a positive experience? She could suggest an alternate time, or whatever number of other things. What if those approaches don't make the customer happy? Is she supposed to kick off the people playing to accommodate the customer that just came in? But then those customers will have a negative customer experience. It's almost as if it is not possible to make every person happy in every single circumstance, right?
So how is it possible that there are some GW customers who as you say do come away with good experiences? Possibly because they themselves are reasonable and respectful people, in addition to GW having reasonable, respectful staff.
Managing table use is simply not a regional-level issue. Because it depends entirely on details about who comes in, when they come in, what they have, etc, etc, all these details unique to that specific store, it is properly a store-level issue.
I will have to agree here with Manchu. A huge part of sales is being able to qualify a customer, which basically means is it worth trying to convert this person into a sale and retain them. This is simply not something that can be done at a regional level, these are on the spot sales decisions. Now regional should definitely set some guidelines for this. Such as it's necessary for the manager to run X number of events, or the manager must make each day an X day. The manager then would make such decisions based on his/her own community.
Now having said that there is a lot of fancy tech out there that can assist those decisions. Facial recognition software through cameras, door counters that can tell if it's an employee or not, lots of spy level gak honestly.
Manchu wrote: You used not cussing out the clerk as an example of the upper limit of courtesy owed to someone who is not part of your "community of friends."
Stop making straw man arguments to insult me. Nowhere did I say that the ONE EXAMPLE was the upper limit, or any kind of comprehensive list of things you're not allowed to do. In fact, I explicitly said that it was ONE EXAMPLE. Obviously there's more to being a decent customer than that, so stop acting like I'm claiming that anything short of swearing at the clerk is acceptable behavior.
And, in any case, I have clarified my position over and over again, so there's no excuse for continuing to insist that I meant something else.
There is no necessary conflict between the actual reason GW equips WH stores with tables and the GW policy of delegating discretionary authority to WH store managers regarding how the tables are used specifically. The notion that there is such a conflict is based on the erroneous and absurd assumption that there are tables in the WH store because GW owes anyone who has purchased its products at any time and through any sales channel space to use those products. The tables are equipment for holistic demonstration of the "GW Hobby" to new customers. GW leverages its existing customers to create a living retail display, managed by a GW employee. This is why, in (potential) contrast to a LGS, there are not many tables and why there are limitations on what can be played, by whom, when, and with what stuff. If you cannot process this fact, you might as well just recuse yourself from the discussion - especially since you admit to not spending any time at GW stores anyhow.
Again, this argument ignores the fact that GW, implicitly or explicitly, uses access to those tables as a marketing tool. They tell the customer "if you buy this game you'll be able to play it here", to make sure that the customer knows they aren't buying into something that will just collect dust at home because they have nowhere to use it. In fact, given the low-traffic locations and virtually nonexistent new customer presence in the GW stores I've been in, I'd argue that the primary goal of their gaming space is to support that promise. The "living retail display" part is marginal at best because no new customers are coming in. In all the hours I've spent in those stores I don't think I saw a single sale made to someone who wasn't already interested in one of GW's games, and the only demo game was the GW employee trying to convince a 40k player to try a WHFB demo.
Again, the WH store manager is not working to get you to buy any GW product, at any time, through any sales channel.
And this position by GW is utter lunacy. The money is getting to GW no matter what sales channel it goes through. If the GW employee convinces you to buy a $50 kit in-store GW makes a $50 sale. If the GW employee gives you some ideas, you spend some time thinking about it, and order it in the middle of the week at home for delivery to the store so you can pick it up when you're in for your weekend game GW makes the exact same $50 sale. If you pre-order a new $50 kit by coming into the store and using the store's computer to buy from the GW website GW makes the exact same sale as if you pre-order the $50 kit from home. The employee's job should be to get you to give your money to GW, regardless of which GW cash register you place that $50 in before it is deposited into GW's bank accounts.
Of course it gets even worse when you realize how often GW does limited-edition stuff. Even if a customer wants to go into the store and give the employee credit for the sale it's virtually impossible to do that when things are selling out as soon as they're released.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Manchu wrote: If someone comes in expecting table space and they can't get it then how can the WH store manager make that a positive experience? She could suggest an alternate time, or whatever number of other things. What if those approaches don't make the customer happy? Is she supposed to kick off the people playing to accommodate the customer that just came in? But then those customers will have a negative customer experience. It's almost as if it is not possible to make every person happy in every single circumstance, right?
Why are you assuming that denial of gaming space only happens because all of the tables are full? Obviously if a person comes in and all of the tables are currently in use the employee is not going to kick another customer out to make room, no matter how much money either person has spent in the store. But that's not all of it. The employee at the closest GW store declared that I'm not allowed to play my FW army* in his store, period, even when the tables were empty. Why? Because my purchases didn't count towards his sales quota, and he didn't want other people to see FW models and be tempted by them instead of letting him milk the cash cow for his own sales quota. Even if the FW sales would make significant money for GW (those models are expensive, after all) they wouldn't count towards his sales. And that's a clear case of putting his own interests ahead of the company he is supposed to be working for.
*His "helpful" suggestion was that I buy a whole new army from him. no.
If I had to get really real here, GW simply should not have stores in my opinion. I understand that they have them as way of getting new players in. However, I think WoTC does this so much better than most any company. FNM is essentially an ultimatum for the store to move magic product. The bigger your FNM the more promos you get, the more product you can order etc etc. Perhaps GW can implement a system like this. Giving out free promos cost considerably less overhead than an entire physical location. Heck Gamesworkshop stuff has a great margin for the LGS anyway, much better than Magic which by contrast usually has the worst. Most LGS are gonna want to sell lots of it anyway if they are smart.
Automatically Appended Next Post: @Peregrine if that happened as you said it did, then you should contact a regional office if you can. I doubt GW wants a manager refusing entry to someone who has spent tons on FW. I can not see completely denying someone for having FW models as one of GW's policies.
DrNo172000 wrote: If I had to get really real here, GW simply should not have stores in my opinion.
This is accurate. The problem seems to be that GW doesn't understand the US market. They treat it like the UK market, where travel times are short and independent stores are rare. But in the US if you live anywhere near a GW store you're probably within reasonable driving distance of a superior independent store, so why waste money on a GW store? You have to pay the rent and other expenses but, unlike the independent store, you can't supplement the store's income with MTG/board games/etc. GW would be better off closing all of their own stores and taking advantage of the existing independent stores to sell their products.
@Peregrine if that happened as you said it did, then you should contact a regional office if you can. I doubt GW wants a manager refusing entry to someone who has spent tons on FW. I can not see completely denying someone for having FW models as one of GW's policies.
I contacted GW, and left negative google/facebook/etc reviews about it. The employee's response was apparently to ban me from the store entirely, which is an amusing "YOU CAN'T FIRE ME I QUIT" situation. And AFAIK the "no FW armies" rule is still in effect.
(To be fair, the employee at the other store said I was welcome to bring my army in and play, they're just ~75 miles away in a city I only visit occasionally so I haven't had a good opportunity.)
If someone comes in expecting table space and they can't get it then how can the WH store manager make that a positive experience? She could suggest an alternate time, or whatever number of other things. What if those approaches don't make the customer happy? Is she supposed to kick off the people playing to accommodate the customer that just came in? But then those customers will have a negative customer experience. It's almost as if it is not possible to make every person happy in every single circumstance, right?
So you don't do any of that crap and you have a clear policy that everyone knows up front and you don't ever single people out for exclusion.
People live with limits and restrictions all the time in life. They just react bad to being singled out or a sense that things aren't fair. So you make it clear and up front and you be as fair as possible. If there is a que for a table, you don't bump people based on how much commission you make off of them. If you want to make tables available only to certain customers, you be up front about how the table space can be accessed.
But this notion that people only feel bad about being bumped out of the line because of a violated sense of entitlement is just nonsense. Expectations of fairness are not entitlement.
Another type of business that has to deal with these issues are sports bars. Some times there are conflicting games scheduled that people want to see on the TVs in sports bars. How are those resolved? Maybe certain screens would be put on certain channels. Maybe a quick show of hands or a "make some noise for the hockey game! Now for the basketball!" check. But what if what goes on the screens was up to the bartender based on who tips them the most? Then people are going to be pissed. And it's not because they were "entitled" to watch what they wanted but because a fair system was abrogated in favor of the financial interest of a single individual.
It may be ONE EXAMPLE but it is the ONE EXAMPLE you chose to illustrate the difference between what courtesy is owed to the WH store manager as opposed to among "a community of friends." I have no responsibility for you making absurd arguments and choosing examples to support them that are weak and reflect poorly on your character. I have no responsibility for your insistence on sticking with poor arguments and embarrassing examples.
You already established that you cannot demonstrate that GW even implicitly uses access to tables at WH stores as a marketing incentive. If you can now establish as much, by all means post the evidence. Otherwise, this "implicit" promise remains something you invented.
What's lunacy is insisting that apparently overlapping sales channels all serve the same customers/purpose because a sale is a sale is a sale. As a matter of record, WH stores exist to demonstrate the GW Hobby. The notion that "a sale is a sale is a sale" is nonsense. Certain sales are worth more than others, and not just in terms of dollars but also relative to the channel.
Your description of your local WH store does not match up with GW stated strategy regarding the stores. In fact, it sounds more like a LGS. Therefore, I don't think it is a good example from which to draw global points.
Similarly, I am aware of your particular experience - that's why I brought it up earlier. You indicated none of this was personal but now you're bringing it up again. Fine. Consistent with what I have already posted ITT, I think it is wrong/dumb for a WH store manager to say you can never under any circumstances play with your DKoK army on the tables in his store solely because they are FW models - and especially that he directly told you that he didn't want others to be tempted by FW products (unless that is just your own interpretation). But I am not talking about idiosyncratic "bad calls" - much less trying to defend them. That's why I said I thought it was wrong for a WH store manager to ask people playing a game to step aside in favor of some kind of "VIP customer," however you want to define that.
I also am not here to defend GW's failure to anticipate customer demand and allocate stock. At our store, a customer was at the store pre-ordering Shadow War: Armageddon. When the WH store manager clicked the Check Out button, the box had already sold out. Embarrassed by the company's failure, she decided to reserve one of the stores measly three copies for this customer. She was not even told that it would be limited. It was a feth up, plain and simple.
@frozenwastes
Even upfront, clear policies can result in negative customer experiences. To kind of riff on Peregrine's story, how about a clear, upfront policy to the effect of "no FW armies ever"?
DrNo172000 wrote: If I had to get really real here, GW simply should not have stores in my opinion.
This is accurate. The problem seems to be that GW doesn't understand the US market. They treat it like the UK market, where travel times are short and independent stores are rare. But in the US if you live anywhere near a GW store you're probably within reasonable driving distance of a superior independent store, so why waste money on a GW store? You have to pay the rent and other expenses but, unlike the independent store, you can't supplement the store's income with MTG/board games/etc. GW would be better off closing all of their own stores and taking advantage of the existing independent stores to sell their products.
@Peregrine if that happened as you said it did, then you should contact a regional office if you can. I doubt GW wants a manager refusing entry to someone who has spent tons on FW. I can not see completely denying someone for having FW models as one of GW's policies.
I contacted GW, and left negative google/facebook/etc reviews about it. The employee's response was apparently to ban me from the store entirely, which is an amusing "YOU CAN'T FIRE ME I QUIT" situation. And AFAIK the "no FW armies" rule is still in effect.
(To be fair, the employee at the other store said I was welcome to bring my army in and play, they're just ~75 miles away in a city I only visit occasionally so I haven't had a good opportunity.)
The reason I mentioned a regional office is you can usually get a better response from a direct supervisor then a customer service center sadly.
On the US market, the US market is also heavily online. I'd put money down that is the way most people shop for their hobby goods. Many believe it's certainly the reason for the explosion in the hobby industry recently.
I also am not here to defend GW's failure to anticipate customer demand and allocate stock. At our store, a customer was at the store pre-ordering Shadow War: Armageddon. When the WH store manager clicked the Check Out button, the box had already sold out. Embarrassed by the company's failure, she decided to reserve one of the stores measly three copies for this customer. She was not even told that it would be limited. It was a feth up, plain and simple.
That is a perfect example of a on the spot sales call that simply can not be made by someone not in the trenches. Your sales staff is the backbone of your brand.
I'm done arguing about your attempts to straw man what I said. If it wasn't clear when I said it I've since clarified it multiple times, and there's no excuse for continuing to insist that you have the "real" meaning of it. It's just disappointing that a moderator is allowed to continue to make thinly-veiled attacks on my character, and this isn't considered a rule #1 violation. You've openly accused me of "puffery", told me that things reflect poorly on my character, etc, that is not ok.
You already established that you cannot demonstrate that GW even implicitly uses access to tables at WH stores as a marketing incentive. If you can now establish as much, by all means post the evidence. Otherwise, this "implicit" promise remains something you invented.
I can't prove it, because I don't have recordings of in-store conversations. And the thing about implicit promises is that they don't have explicit proof to show. But even your "living retail display" argument confirms the implicit promise, because GW is encouraging games as a "look what you get when you buy GW products" display. Being part of what is being demonstrated requires access to GW's in-store tables, and the "living retail display" would be much less compelling if it instead showed someone playing alone at home because there is no in-store gaming.
Certain sales are worth more than others, and not just in terms of dollars but also relative to the channel.
Nonsense. Sales channels have no inherent value, they're only relevant as a means to an end: getting that money into the corporate bank accounts. This is why GW's approach is so insane, they treat their various sales channels as competition for each other instead of multiple complementary approaches to the problem of getting the customer's money into GW's hands. A sale going through the GW website instead of the GW store's cash register is not a loss for GW.
and especially that he directly told you that he didn't want others to be tempted by FW products (unless that is just your own interpretation)
Nope, no interpretation. He directly told me "I can't have this in here because I can't sell those models if someone is interested in them".
Nonsense. Sales channels have no inherent value, they're only relevant as a means to an end: getting that money into the corporate bank accounts. This is why GW's approach is so insane, they treat their various sales channels as competition for each other instead of multiple complementary approaches to the problem of getting the customer's money into GW's hands. A sale going through the GW website instead of the GW store's cash register is not a loss for GW.
Not quite, different channels will have different cost associated with them. It is not incredulous to assume that GW makes a greater margin on goods sold through their site, then goods sold in store, and lastly goods sold through distribution (this most likely providing the smallest margin). There are of course intangibles as well, what valuation does GW put on a face to face sales person getting a new customer? I suppose this would be based on the cost of the employee as that would factor into the cost of customer acquisition in this specific instance. And what value does each customer provide? How much is each customer worth to GW? Apparently as it stands GW believes that the value provided by new customers as brought in by a physical location is enough to have those locations so long as the location continues to convert and retain customers.
You can try to bait me for being a mod or you can complain about "thinly-veiled personal attacks" - but you can't do both without being a hypocrite. You started posting ITT specifically to contradict me, arguing that business is not about relationships. It was an absurd attack and you defended it with an awful example. If you have nothing more to say about it, by all means don't.
Implicit promises can be demonstrated. You are confusing "implicit" with "made up." But you actually already know this, as you keep insinuating that someone directly told you that you get gaming space at the store in exchange for buying the product.
The point of diversifying sales channels is broadening market access. Having direct sales in your own retail location also implies a lot more control over brand management. The point of policies like not crediting stores for online orders is to reinforce the purpose of the store channel, selling to new customers. The channels are in competition with regard to some customers - many of those customers are also being competed over by the LGS channel and the online retail channel. Those customers are not the primary demographic meant to be served by the WH store.
@DrNo17200
I don't disagree that FNM is a great model for MtG. I don't think it is at all suitable for the GW brands. GW sells "a hobby," rather than a game. MtG is a much, much simpler product with a far lower (apparent) barrier to entry. WotC leverages FNM to force the LGS to do fairly simple things relative to what GW would need to force the LGS to do. Honestly, this topic is distinct enough to merit its own thread - anyone who wants to talk about a FNM-style solution for GW should feel free to start a new thread on it.
DrNo172000 wrote: Not quite, different channels will have different cost associated with them. It is not incredulous to assume that GW makes a greater margin on goods sold through their site, then goods sold in store, and lastly goods sold through distribution (this most likely providing the smallest margin). There are of course intangibles as well, what valuation does GW put on a face to face sales person getting a new customer? I suppose this would be based on the cost of the employee as that would factor into the cost of customer acquisition in this specific instance. And what value does each customer provide? How much is each customer worth to GW? Apparently as it stands GW believes that the value provided by new customers as brought in by a physical location is enough to have those locations so long as the location continues to convert and retain customers.
I can't imagine that any of these things are significant in this context. We're literally talking about the difference between a customer using the store's computer to buy an item for delivery to the store, and a customer that is regularly in that store making an order from home for delivery to that store. Everything about the sale is the same except which computer the order is made from, but the online sale is treated as competition for the store. And so you get the ridiculous situation of the store employee begging people on the store's facebook page to come in and use the store's computer to make their online orders so that it will count as a sale for the store.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Manchu wrote: The point of diversifying sales channels is broadening market access. It also implies a lot more control over brand management. The point of policies like not crediting stores for online orders is to reinforce the purpose of the store channel, selling to new customers. The channels are in competition with regard to some customers - many of those customers are also being competed over by the LGS channel. Those customers are not the primary demographic meant to be served by the WH store.
None of that makes any sense. You're putting more value on the sales channel being used for the "right" purpose than on the net profit to GW for their sales channels combined. All that matters in the end is how much net profit GW makes, and a sale through a different channel is not a loss for GW. Tracking sales through a particular channel is potentially useful as market research/analysis, nothing more.
Even upfront, clear policies can result in negative customer experiences. To kind of riff on Peregrine's story, how about a clear, upfront policy to the effect of "no FW armies ever"?
To some, that's better than not knowing and then finding out when you go to participate in an event. You can actually use that rule to make purchasing decisions.
As I said, people are okay living with limitations, they do it all the time. The types of negative experiences that need to be avoided at all costs are the ones where the long term relationship between the customer and the larger company is damaged. And that comes from a sense of unfairness. Especially if it is done on an individual basis.
That said, it would be a stupid rule because it places the interests of the company as a whole and their retail locations at odds with one another. We know from GW's recent financial reports that they are very pleased by their high Forgeworld sales volumes, so a policy like that might not be the best move.
GW's approach to retailing is stupid. They should find a way not to be in competition between sales channels. Then all this crap just goes away.
The experience of ordering via the webstore in WH store is not the same experience as ordering from the webstore remotely. Maybe you have never seen it done, but in the former case you generally are being waited on by a GW employee, talking with them about your order, getting advice, maybe adding more stuff to the cart, maybe avoiding buying something "you don't need" because the GW employee is there by your side.
Diversifying sales channels is something companies do to increase net profit. Matching sales channels to actual sales is an important part of this process. DrNo17200 can probably explain this better than me but it is analogous to customer qualification. It may even be part of qualifying the customer, just at a high (strategic) level.
@fwlr and Hanabi
Yep, if you order online in the store, such that you end up checking out at that store's register, that sale will be credited to the store. You can even have the item delivered to your house, the sale will still be credited to that store.
@frozenwastes
Yes everyone here seems to agree that would be a terrible policy. I brought it up because it being terrible is not outweighed or even significantly mitigated by it hypothetically being clear and up-front. Furthermore, whether a policy is clear and up-front is a distinct issue from what level of organization should set the policy. I am not really against policies being clear and up-front, to the extent that this doesn't hamper the discretion only a ground-level employee can exercise on a case-by-case basis.
Peregrine wrote: Tracking sales through a particular channel is potentially useful as market research/analysis, nothing more.
You can do more than that. You can make return on capital based decisions.
Which is actually at the crux of the problem. GW is doing analysis on the sales targets of individual stores and not making any connection with sales through other channels. And then making the livelihood of their retail employees dependent on competing with the other sales channels GW offers. All while encouraging a link between the online store and their retail locations through store pickup.
And then store managers are putting their own interests over the larger company while people like Manchu justify it by writing off anyone who it negatively effects as feeling they are owed something they are not. and denigrating them as "entitled."
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Manchu wrote: Yes everyone here seems to agree that would be a terrible policy. I brought it up because it being terrible is not outweighed or even significantly mitigated by it hypothetically being clear and up-front.
Presentation can help, but just because it can't make a bad policy good doesn't mean it can't make a medium or good policy more widely accepted and pleasing to the customer. It is probably a logical error to assume that because something doesn't work well with situation A that it has no utility in situation B.
Furthermore, whether a policy is clear and up-front is a distinct issue from what level of organization should set the policy. I am not really against policies being clear and up-front, to the extent that this doesn't hamper the discretion only a ground-level employee can exercise on a case-by-case basis.
If it varies by location to location and case by case then it might not be sufficiently up front. Avoid negative surprise. Like someone ordering from Forgeworld and then discovering they can't bring them to a local event run by the same company that sells them Forgeworld. Avoid that kind of negative surprise. Companies should want their customers to only experience positive surprise.
Manchu wrote: The experience of ordering via the webstore in WH store is not the same experience as ordering from the webstore remotely. Maybe you have never seen it done, but in the former case you generally are being waited on by a GW employee, talking with them about your order, getting advice, maybe adding more stuff to the cart, maybe avoiding buying something "you don't need" because the GW employee is there by your side.
Again, we're talking about people that are already having those interactions with the store employee. If you're making an order on the GW website for delivery to a local GW store it's almost certainly because you're regularly at that GW store and getting all that sales support from the employee, you just happened to have an idea for buying something while you weren't at the store and want it to be there when you arrive next time. So really, this "COME IN TO MY STORE PLEASE DEAR GOD DON'T BUY AT HOME" approach is bad for GW as a company, because asking the customer to wait until they come into the store risks letting them decide that they don't really want the thing after all. It's another case of the store employee putting their own personal benefit ahead of the company they're supposed to be working for, and being encouraged to do so by idiotic sales analysis policies.
Diversifying sales channels is something companies do to increase net profit. Matching sales channels to actual sales is an important part of this process. DrNo17200 can probably explain this better than me but it is analogous to customer qualification. It may even be part of qualifying the customer, just at a high (strategic) level.
Yes, of course diversifying sales channels is important. As is understanding which sales channels are making the most money, whether directly or indirectly. The problem is when GW treats a sale through the "wrong" sales channel as a loss instead of a gain, when in the end a sale is still a sale. And it's even worse when they do it through excessively simplified analysis approaches, completely ignoring the positive indirect effect of the presence of a GW store on GW sales in that area.
Allowing for in-store pick up is smart. It brings a customer into a store when he might not otherwise come in. Until recently, the sole reason I had to go into a WH store was to pick up an online order that did not qualify for free shipping directly to my home. I went there and bought something, even despite me not being the primary demographic for the WH store. Once a customer is invested enough to be making spontaneous webstore orders from home, they are starting to transition out of that demographic.
And entitlement is the correct explanation for being sore over not getting what you want.
Again, it doesn't matter if that anti-FW policy is "sufficiently up front." No amount of upfrontedness is going to make a real difference. But here again, we are just wrongly assuming this non-existent implicit promise underlying the entitlement.
@Peregrine
No, it is not "almost certainly" the case that someone wants to pick up an item at store X because they were sold that item at store X. In my own example, I never went to a WH store but for the advantage of not paying for S&H on a small order I wanted to make. Nothing about that sale or any sale like that has anything to do with the efforts of that store. Now, getting me to that store is as mentioned above a pretty smart move.
There is no instance of GW treating a sale as a loss.
If on the off hand chance someone from the retail branch of GW above the level of a store manager sees this thread, I hope they begin to see the quandary they are putting their retail personnel in. That their sales channels are not working together as beneficially as possible. To the point where some of GW's best and most dedicated customers (those that purchase Forge World products at a much higher price) are having negative experiences.
The faster they can figure out what works in each region and reign back the autonomy of their managers and make sure all purchases through the online store, black library or Forgeworld are not getting their customers denigrated or excluded at store run events the better.
Imagine if the sales channels worked together and retail employees had clear policies to follow that are backed up by hard sales data.
Might be worth looking into.
Certainly don't dismiss any negative customer experience as being the result of entitlement. That would be pretty much the worst possible position. That's how you might lose a regular purchaser from Forgeworld, BL or your online store. Or maybe even lose a customer permanently. Negative surprise can destroy your relationship with customers.
I will try my best Manchu, but my training mostly lies with on the floor sales not higher level marketing which is what a multi-channel strategy falls under as far as i know. It is correct that a multi-channel approach is intended to increase market coverage. Now I firmly am in the camp that some channel conflict is a good thing. Because some channel conflict means that you have sufficient market coverage where as no conflict means that you probably don't. There is such a thing as border wars, and that can be destructive. Here's a snippet from a marketing strategy essay
"These occur when multiple members of the channel network compete for the same sale in the same account. A limited number of border wars should be expected and are, in fact, one indication that you have good market coverage. A soft market creates the environment for increased border wars as channels get more aggressive to deliver revenue. Generally, channels will begin to react to channel conflict when incidence of border wars exceeds 10% to 20% of that channel's total business with a manufacturer's products."
So the question is does GW's policy of having stuff bought online and sent to store not count as a sale for that store causing destructive channel conflict? Well the direct sales team (store employees) are certainly competing for the exact same sale that ultimately ends up as revenue on GW's general ledger. So it's very possible.
However, I don't think that the policy warrants change. Instead I would point to the redundancy in GW's pricing model. It cost me the same to buy online as it does in store and buying online is more convenient. This redundancy lowers value for the customer in terms of in store purchases. Rather I would think that offering a loyalty program for in store customers would be the way to go.
And low and behold GW has started their Inner Circle program. Check out this rule from their current Inner Circle competition
"7. All participating Games Workshop/ Warhammer stores will be running ‘Gathering of Storm’ events. Entrants will receive additional points for attending these events. Information regarding the dates and times of these events will be circulated by your local store’s manager once the contest is underway. You will work on your contest entry during these events."
So I would say that GW probably is trying to alleviate channel conflict via providing benefits to customers who go into the store. Now this is a soft approach (as opposed to giving points or store credit for purchases) as it relies on the sales staff to close the sale once the customer is in the store, which in my opinion isn't that difficult. People are emotional and irrational beings and love shiny stuff. The overflowing shelves in my house attest.
This is my rather rudimentary analysis of GW's channel conflict. I hope this suffices Manchu.
Someone at GW above the level of store manager already knows about the anti-FW policy at that one WH store Peregrine went to - because Peregrine (rightfully) got in touch with GW to complain about it. Don't assume managers have discretion because HQ is blind to outcomes like this.
Over the past few years, GW has been a lot better about mainstreaming FW. But until the day when FW can be ordered through the GW webstore - including as an in-store purchase - it will remain a sideline boutique with an extremely limited customer base.
In other words, the problem there is not that WH store managers have discretion over table use.
@DrNo17200
Thanks for that information - the concept of "border wars" (and why there should be some amount of border wars) is extremely useful. We can't know what degree of border wars are happening but we can say that there are some reasons they might be: growing customer base (for example, because of major licensed products), customers transitioning from new to existing customers, pricing policies, etc, etc. I don't see a significant border war brewing between the webstore and the WH store unless/until local market saturation is very high. And the obvious outcome there is, the WH store closes.
Thanks for that information - the concept of "border wars" (and why there should be some amount of border wars) is extremely useful. We can't know what degree of border wars are happening but we can say that there are some reasons they might be: growing customer base (for example, because of major licensed products), customers transitioning from new to existing customers, pricing policies, etc, etc. I don't see a significant border war brewing between the webstore and the WH store unless/until local market saturation is very high. And the obvious outcome there is, the WH store closes.
I'd go a step further and say that the new MAP of 15% off and the lifting of independent online sales is also a part of GW's multi-channel marketing strategy. This gives independent stores more of a leg up, allowing them to increase sales since they don't have the market reach generally that GW is going to have. Which in turn increases that amount of revenue that GW receives through it's distribution channel. It also potentially opens up Amazon which I'm sure I don't need to go into the benefits of having access to Amazon's reach.
Don't bank on that. GW of old famously shied away from big names. It may be apocryphal, but there's a story of them landing a meeting with Walmart, only to go in all guns blazing demanding that Walmart do or not do a long list of demands, before the Walmart execs gently applied boot to ass and showed the, the door.
Either way, historically, GW haven't dealt with volume retail. All bets are off in the Rountree era, so who knows?
There was a time when GW products were sold at national chains in the US (specifically, bookstores). I expect the Vedros range is an attempt ro try that again.
Manchu wrote: Once a customer is invested enough to be making spontaneous webstore orders from home, they are starting to transition out of that demographic.
And that's a ridiculously narrow demographic. GW is already putting themselves at a huge disadvantage in the retail market by taking on rent and other expenses comparable to running an independent store, but with only GW products to provide revenue (IOW, no MTG cash cow to pay the bills). And you really think it's a good idea to focus on such a narrow customer base that "people who know enough about the game to buy online" are no longer a target?
No, it is not "almost certainly" the case that someone wants to pick up an item at store X because they were sold that item at store X. In my own example, I never went to a WH store but for the advantage of not paying for S&H on a small order I wanted to make. Nothing about that sale or any sale like that has anything to do with the efforts of that store. Now, getting me to that store is as mentioned above a pretty smart move.
Do you have no (good) independent stores in your area? Even if you want free shipping on something special-ordering it through an independent store usually means a discount over GW's full MSRP prices, and still not paying shipping. The only reason I could see to justify making that order through a GW store is if you're already going there for other reasons, and it's not worth making a special trip to some other independent store just for a 10% discount.
There is no instance of GW treating a sale as a loss.
That's exactly what they're doing, acting like a purchase made by a customer at home is a loss for the store. That's why you have GW employees begging people on facebook (IOW, people who are clearly customers at that store) to come in and use the store's computer to make their online orders.
Why do you think that some stores (mine included) do not allow any third party bits, even if it is just a single head or weapon swap? In my opinion, it makes the game seem more interesting and customizable and would attract more people to the game. GW sells just as many models because I still buy the box and then I buy an extra bit from elsewhere. In the old Third Edition Codex: Orks, they explicitly supported conversions with non-GW bits. I loved that about the game and still do. Taking a kit straight out of the box and painting it is just not as fulfilling as making something that is unique in the world: your own conversion. I know you can do conversions with 100% GW parts, but it's much more limited. For this reason, I am not allowed to game at my local store. I have my own table and terrain, but I would like to use games at the store to meet players that I get along with and could game with at home.
The demographic of potential new customers is the opposite of "ridiculously narrow."
My WH store is significantly closer to me than the LGS. The LGS does not offer a discount on GW products on the front end (they do have a rewards program). Beyond such circumstaces, which are going to be different depending on where someone lives, GW's webstore is a significant sales advantage over the LGS. It's just easier to spend money in the moment (24 hours a day, wherever you are) than making a list, driving to the LGS when its open, and placing a special order, then returning whenever it comes in; especially if you aren't a regular at the LGS to begin with. I mean, GW put the dumb "no add to cart button" policy into place in the US and Canada because even the minor inconvenience of having to call up an online retailer gives their webstore an advantage.
Arguably, WH store managers focused on getting existing GW customers into the store to place digital orders are - as they say on the internet - doing it wrong. That said, no harm in letting customers with whom you have an established relationship know that you get the credit for orders they would otherwise place online. IME managers can create value for their customers by fostering an enjoyable in-store experience but for reasons we have already extensively discussed ITT the WH store is not set up to support that LGS experience (although every WH store nonetheless has "regulars"). Ultimately, the compensation structure rewards WH mangers successfully engaging new customers,which after all is why the store exists.
@Riddle of Steel
I don't know why the manager of your local WH store doesn't allow any third-party conversion bits - maybe that is the result of wanting to head off arguments about what percentage of the model needs to be GW. But you can probably understand that GW generally does not want non-GW items displayed in its retail space.
Manchu wrote: The demographic of potential new customers is the opposite of "ridiculously narrow."
It is when independent stores are targeting those same new customers, as well as existing customers and returning customers. And it's certainly narrow when you're talking about GW stores like the ones in my area, where the store is in a random low-traffic strip mall and the only potential new customers are people who already know about GW's games and want to start playing.
My WH store is significantly closer to me than the LGS. The LGS does not offer a discount on GW products on the front end (they do have a rewards program). Beyond such circumstaces, which are going to be different depending on where someone lives, GW's webstore is a significant sales advantage over the LGS. It's just easier to spend money in the moment (24 hours a day, wherever you are) than making a list, driving to the LGS when its open, and placing a special order, then returning whenever it comes in; especially if you aren't a regular at the LGS to begin with. I mean, GW put the dumb "no add to cart button" policy into place in the US and Canada because even the minor inconvenience of having to call up an online retailer gives their webstore an advantage.
That's unfortunate. Every independent store in my area offers at least a 10% discount, and will take orders by phone. It's cheaper and more convenient than making a trip out to the GW store, unless you're already going to the GW store. But, I'll concede that there are possible reasons to make orders for delivery to a store even if you're never interacting with the employee. I am not convinced, however, that they are any kind of majority, and it's still stupid to count none of them towards a store's sales numbers.
Arguably, WH store managers focused on getting existing GW customers into the store to place digital orders are - as they say on the internet - doing it wrong.
But then you have to ask why they're doing it wrong, and the answer is that GW's analysis approach is broken in a way that encourages the employee to do the wrong thing. If online orders to a store were counted properly then there would be no incentive to do the facebook begging.
IME the LGS typically does a piss poor job of creating new GW customers. The WH store OTOH is very effective at this. This is because the WH store offers a better experience for "normies," whereas the LGS is more suited to established gamers. Diversified sales channels in action. Again, per GW's own statements, the WH stores exist to demonstrate the hobby. It is easy for guys like us to forget how overwhelming the obstacles to starting with miniatures gaming/the "GW Hobby" are. Strong brand cohesion makes barriers to entry seem less insurmountable. This is one reason why there are Citadel glues. I mean, most folks know they can buy plastic glue and super glue at a hardware store. But when it is right there already, sold in the context of "the right tool for the job," it helps.
If I lived closer to the LGS, I would no doubt take greater advantage of their backend discount scheme. But then there is the "webstore exclusive" (a.k.a. direct only) piece to consider. Yes, I know I can special order these items from a LGS. I wonder how many other people know that "webstore exclusive" doesn't literally mean you can only get that item directly through the webstore? And even in those cases, certain items go in and out of stock so fast, it's best to order them online as soon as you can, even if that means you can't get a discount or the local WH store manager will not get credit for the sale.
Regarding "FB begging," again it's a good thing that WH store managers are trying to get people in the store - all I meant was, staffers should not be (and no GW policy I know of encourages this) focusing on existing customers rather than new ones.
Manchu wrote: This is because the WH store offers a better experience for "normies," whereas the LGS is more suited to established gamers.
I don't see this, at all. The only difference between the GW stores and the independent stores is that the GW stores have a demo table set up at all times (which I have never seen used for anything). I see nothing about the GW store that would attract "normal" people more than the independent store, especially when the GW store is in a random strip mall where only typical gamers are likely to know that it exists. In fact, the independent store is probably more inviting to "normal" people because they tend to have shelves full of nice "normal" board games/comics/etc instead of just this one hardcore gaming hobby.
If I lived closer to the LGS, I would no doubt take greater advantage of their backend discount scheme. But then there is the "webstore exclusive" (a.k.a. direct only) piece to consider. Yes, I know I can special order these items from a LGS. I wonder how many other people know that "webstore exclusive" doesn't literally mean you can only get that item directly through the webstore? And even in those cases, certain items go in and out of stock so fast, it's best to order them online as soon as you can, even if that means you can't get a discount or the local WH store manager will not get credit for the sale.
Sure, but how many of those web-exclusive limited-supply items are cheap enough that you aren't already getting free shipping? I mean, if you wanted a copy of SWA you were already well over the free shipping threshold and could just let GW deliver it to your font door without having to make a trip out to the GW store (again, unless you are already going to the GW store frequently). The typical cheap order where getting free shipping isn't realistic tends to be something like needing a pot of paint or two for a project you're working on, in which case there's no need to worry about selling out or web-only statements.
Here again is where our experiences diverge. For me, the local WH store is in an affluent area next to exclusive shops. It is clean, bright, beautifully stocked, and staffed by a charismatic but easy going manager with good interpersonal and sales skills. The LGS is located in a downmarket strip mall. It is dirtyish and pretty ramshackle. Most of the space is occupied by MtG players who fulfill the usual negative stereotypes, at least superficially. The store is stocked in an amateurish fashion and staffed by grungy looking dudes that spend more time hanging out with the regulars than helping customers - not that you could even tell who works there and who doesn't at a glance. All these typical LGS foibles make the place feel sorta homey to an established gamer like myself. They are totally offputting to others. I won't even get into the issue of how women tend to feel about such places.
The web exclusives I had in mind are things like a box of LotR figs, specific SoB pose/weapon, or a special character for any of the games. Free shipping threshold is 65 USD IIRC. Ican only get there when multiple figs I want are in stock at the same time, which is rare. I ordered both copies of my SWA box online within the first five minutes before they sold out. Because you cannot trust GW to reasonably stock things like this or faction dice or anything they actually tell you is limited, you need to be ready on Sat afternoon pressing that F5 key.
Manchu wrote: Here again is where our experiences diverge. For me, the local WH store is in an affluent area next to exclusive shops. It is clean, bright, beautifully stocked, and staffed by a charismatic but easy going manager with good interpersonal and sales skills. The LGS is located in a downmarket strip mall. It is dirtyish and pretty ramshackle. Most of the space is occupied by MtG players who fulfill the usual negative stereotypes, at least superficially. The store is stocked in an amateurish fashion and staffed by grungy looking dudes that spend more time hanging out with the regulars than helping customers - not that you could even tell who works there and who doesn't at a glance. All these typical LGS foibles make the place feel sorta homey to an established gamer like myself. They are totally offputting to others. I won't even get into the issue of how women tend to feel about such places.
Yes, our experiences diverge, and the obvious conclusion from this divergence is that the "advantage" the GW store has in being appealing to new customers has more to do with coincidental facts of one particular GW store vs. one particular independent store than any corporate policies by GW. There's no superiority of business model in recruiting new customers, just one employee who is better than other employees at basic tasks like keeping the store clean.
The web exclusives I had in mind are things like a box of LotR figs, specific SoB pose/weapon, or a special character for any of the games. Free shipping threshold is 65 USD IIRC. Ican only get there when multiple figs I want are in stock at the same time, which is rare. I ordered both copies of my SWA box online within the first five minutes before they sold out. Because you cannot trust GW to reasonably stock things like this or faction dice or anything they actually tell you is limited, you need to be ready on Sat afternoon pressing that F5 key.
Ok, if you look hard enough you can come up with specific examples where you don't meet the free shipping threshold but can't reasonably order through an independent store. But those cases aren't the majority. Most of the time you're either making a significant purchase where you're getting free shipping, or a "pot of paint" order where you can just go to the independent store and buy it off the shelf. So if a customer buys, say, SWA online and has it delivered to their local GW store it's a pretty safe bet that they're doing it because they regularly play/paint/whatever at the local GW store, and just happened to buy this one thing online because they weren't at the store at that exact moment. This might not be a perfectly accurate assumption, but it's almost certainly close enough to give insight into the store's actual net gain/loss for GW in that region.
And perhaps, if you were a company that did market research instead of putting out insane rambling CEO letters about how market research is a waste of your valuable time, you might even figure out the exact percentage of online orders made for delivery to a store come from regular customers at that store vs. random people just taking advantage of the free shipping. Then you could credit each store with that percentage of the total sales delivered to the store. And you might do the same thing with online orders in general, or even products sold through independent stores (on the assumption that people often visit multiple stores, or customers that learn to play at a GW store continue buying elsewhere because the store existed to give them the demo game). So the store's total sales benefit to GW might be 100% of all in-store sales, 90% of all online orders delivered to the store, 30% of all online orders delivered within a 30-minute drive, and 5% of all GW sales through other channels within that 30-minute radius.
Or perhaps it turns out that giving the store 100% credit for all in-store sales is inaccurate, because 90% of those sales would immediately move to the local independent stores if the GW store closed, and then you close virtually all of your own retail stores. But again, this would require market research instead of just checking the state of each store's cash register at the end of the day.
Manchu wrote: Managing table use is simply not a regional-level issue. Because it depends entirely on details about who comes in, when they come in, what they have, etc, etc, all these details unique to that specific store, it is properly a store-level issue.
That sounds like a completely silly approach to take for a retail chain like GW. A sale is a sale no matter where it was made, and specifically talking about products like FW products that we were discussing is a "premium" sale.
Customers should feel REWARDED for buying premium products, not shunned.
Sales are a global concern and support (such as table use) SHOULD be a global concern as well. The only reason it isn't is because GW insists on pitting their own stores as competition. This makes zero sense as the stores aren't independent entities, they aren't even franchises, they are part of a larger picture, I doubt the store managers even know what rent GW are paying to keep the doors open.
Peregrine wrote: Yes, our experiences diverge, and the obvious conclusion from this divergence is that the "advantage" the GW store has in being appealing to new customers has more to do with coincidental facts of one particular GW store vs. one particular independent store than any corporate policies by GW. There's no superiority of business model in recruiting new customers, just one employee who is better than other employees at basic tasks like keeping the store clean.
I have this crazy idea that a company's retail stores should all meet the same standards. That a customer's experience should be uniform across the chain. And that policies that maximize revenue for the company as a whole should be basis for the practices of those stores. This person fiefdom approach makes the success or failure of a given store entirely dependent on the success or failure of one individual employee.
And if you look at survey data in the human resources industry you'll find that hiring new employees tends to result in around a 50% mutual satisfaction rate one year later. That means a year after a hire, on average only 50% of the time will both the employee and the employer both be happy about the arrangement. I believe this number is even lower for sales people.
Most retailers figure out very quickly that you need common, proven strategies and procedures that protect against an individual not working out. And the type of procedures that allow people to be their best in terms of performance in key areas. This approach of "run things how you want and just make your sales numbers or you're fired" is really opening up GW to a lot of potential problems. I'm beginning to think Kirby wasn't entirely crazy when he basically threw the sales force under the bus in the notes to the financial statements. Though he didn't seem to realize that the risk in question was something he himself created by taking Mark Wells' plan way, way too far.
Peregrine wrote: I contacted GW, and left negative google/facebook/etc reviews about it. The employee's response was apparently to ban me from the store entirely, which is an amusing "YOU CAN'T FIRE ME I QUIT" situation. And AFAIK the "no FW armies" rule is still in effect.
(To be fair, the employee at the other store said I was welcome to bring my army in and play, they're just ~75 miles away in a city I only visit occasionally so I haven't had a good opportunity.)
Leaving negative reviews on Facebook etc achieves nothing except the reviewer either being outright banned as in your case or being made so unwelcome they don't go back anyway.
Most GW managers are fine, it's the ones that get a little bit of power that goes to their heads and think that their god's gift to the hobby and the customers are just a transaction and not a community.
Having the one man stores and sales targets means most managers have no interest in running events or interacting with the regulars that have just come in for a game and aren't buying anything on that visit.
It's not just a matter of one particular WH store (mine) against another (yours). WH stores are subject to global policies fostering a uniform, reliable experience. Their model is geared toward new customers. The LGS can theoretically be totally different in each instance, though in practice many end up being dingy, poorly staffed, and focused on catering to regulars. It's so obviously wrong to equate the two experiences that I can only conclude you are arguing in bad faith, to wit from the assumption, grounded in personal animus, that everything GW does is pointless, idiotic, and terrible.
You don't need "to look hard enough" to find examples of GW products that don't meet the free shipping threshold. Any item that costs less that 65USD does not meet the free shipping threshold. People who don't want to add more items to their cart to get over that threshold are not some rare-unto-purely-theoretical category. These "most of the time you're ..." and "it's almost certainly the case that ..." and "it's a safe bet that ..." type statements are nothing more than you projecting. Free in-store delivery doesn't add value for you personally, fine. You can't universalize that to every other potential customer. Maybe the reason you have so much trouble understanding the value of multiple sales channels is that you have even more trouble understanding there are customers different from yourself.
@AllSeeingSkink
In fact, it's not the case that "a sale is a sale" for reasons already extensively discussed.
@frozenwastes
You are vastly exaggerating the extent to which WH store mangers have discretion.
My GW store is almost the same. In a nice well-to-do area, very clean. Only three tables though and is not open very late, both of which are problems, but the independent the game store which I also frequent is in a grungy and relatively bad neighborhood and yes the staff there are often more concerned with socializing then assisting customers (actually had a female friend I told about the shop point this out to me) but overall it is a good store. Literally the only reason I prefer to play at the Independence store is because they have six gaming tables available and are open late while they GW store only has three, two of which are specifically for 40K with only one for AOS, and closes at 7 in the evening, which typically means I can only play there on weekends because I do not get out of work until 5 and with rush hour traffic I would probably not be able to get there until about 6:30
Right - our local WH store is not open on Mondays or Tuesdays, has shortish hours on most days its open, and only has two tables for gaming because the third table needs to be open at all times for demonstrating hobby stuff to new customers. The LGS has many tables and it is possible to reserve them. The LGS may not look very professional - but of course it doesn't really have to if all it wants to do (and this is often the case IME) is serve existing gamers.
Manchu wrote: Right - our local WH store is not open on Mondays or Tuesdays, has shortish hours on most days its open, and only has two tables for gaming because the third table needs to be open at all times for demonstrating hobby stuff to new customers. The LGS has many tables and it is possible to reserve them. The LGS may not look very professional - but of course it doesn't really have to if all it wants to do (and this is often the case IME) is serve existing gamers.
Mine is closed Mon-Tue, open until like 7pm Wed-Sat and 6:30pm on sunday. three 8x4 tables and then two tiny (maybe 2x3?) "demo" tables (of which the GW manager, who didn't know anything about the game before managing the store, does a very half-assed demo that is basically just moving two heroes across the board and rolling some dice) that aren't for use other than demos, but two of the tables are for 40k (one is a sector imperialis board, another is an ice board but has imperial terrain) while one of the 8x4 tables are for AOS using an old realm of battle board, and a mix of old WHFB and AOS terrain. Cannot use the restroom because there's a room adjacent where he has stock wide open (instead of using a huge empty room in the back that could be locked). The FLGS is homely but a nice place (also an amazing pizza place next door hahaha).
A note on LGS, I have been in independent stores in multiple states and have never been in one where the employees looked professional or engaged the customer. In the hobby industry engaging the customer is essential. Especially if that customer is new and curious. I have in fact sat and watched in many stores specifically for bounce rate. It always appears high, with a person walking in looking around confused and if they are lucky getting a hi from the guy behind the counter wearing as t-shirt (and I have already addressed the fact that uniforms = more sales).
The fact is a hobby games store is not a grocery store in which someone walks in knowing what they want and walks out. It is a sales intensive business, staff need to find out how their customers receive enjoyment and make strong recommendations based on that. That is key to customer retention, and customer retention is fantastic because it's cheaper than customer acquisition and word of mouth is actually the number one way new customers get generated.
Quite frankly I do not believe all the standing operating procedures in the world will make a person a good salesman. I was a recruiter at one point in the Marines and that product is infinitely harder to sell the a game. As you can guess the Marines took branding and standing operating procedures very very very serious. In fact while I was doing it they were in the process of having every office have the exact same layout (within the confines of how the building was built). None of this was going to close a sale though, that could only be done by the individual recruiter, and if you were to just speak like you were just talking off a script because all you know are the standard sales lines taught in school then you will sound like a idiotic robot and be really poor at your job. Which will result in you getting kicked off of recruiting for relief of cause which was a black mark on your career. Sales is an art and a skill, it can not "policied"
If people here continue to think that hobby games are a similar retail environment to a Target, Walmart, or grocery store I don't know what to tell them. That's just objectively false, it's sales intensive and that's a fact not an opinion. If it were not there would not be an explosion of Let's Plays and Unboxing media out there. No one does an unboxing of wheat bread though. And these things are true whether it is the GW store or your LGS.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And to be clear not long ago I was the Sales Manager at an LGS in which I lead it from losing money when I took over in February to it's best holiday season on record. The Marines spent 20,000 dollars on me to teach me sales, and I graduated at the top of the dean's list and continued to learn as much as I could long after Recruiter's School. This is not me talking out of my ass, it is an opinion based on excellent formal training, continuing education on my own time and a lot of hands on experience.
Yeah, sales needs training and the right candidate. Standard policy is more about customer experience and making sure things that can damage he larger business don't happen. Though I imagine the right or wrong policy will impact sales. Customer experience usually does.
Standard policies aren't just about creating a uniform experience across a company's multiple retail locations around the world. They are also about standardizing how a single shop operates over the course of various shifts. Customer-facing factors like wearing a uniform, stocking the shelves in a certain way, keeping the store tidy, staying at your post, etc, etc, are all examples of things you seldom (read: virtually never) find evidence of existing/being effectively executed at a LGS. They obviously exist at the WH store! Just as obvious - when a GW staffer is slacking. Slacking, however, is the norm at the LGS.
DrNo172000 makes a very good point that sales cannot be "policied" into success - after whatever amount of training, it is time to sink or swim. Which happens is not only a matter of who you are but also who you encounter. How many customers walk away from a bad experience wondering, what could I have done to make that go better? Please note I am assuming the salesperson in this hypothetical did their job well - the fact remains, good customer service does not always result in a good customer experience. At some point, a smart customer takes a some responsibility for getting what they want out of a transaction.
My local store has a pretty straightforward policy. First come first serve, game of the night gets preference. Wednesday is specialist, Thursday is AoS, Friday is WH40k, Saturday and Sunday are open. You can play Horus Heresy, but don't use it to undermine sales (had a bunch of hooligans that would play next to the Chaos Marine display and actively tried to talk people out of purchases in favor of the Heresy...).
Kraytirous wrote: You can play Horus Heresy, but don't use it to undermine sales.
You don't see the complete insanity of this statement from GW's perspective? Undermining sales by, err, buying more expensive products from the same company.
I can understand respecting the allotted game nights, but the idea that buying a different product from GW that can't be purchased through the store itself is undermining anything is just crazy
Manchu wrote: WH stores are subject to global policies fostering a uniform, reliable experience.
Except they aren't subject to global policies involving those "normal-people-friendly" attributes. For example, sure, your local GW store is in a nice location instead of a lower-tier strip mall like the independent store, but my local GW store is in the same kind of lower-tier strip mall. So there's clearly no corporate policy of "only put GW stores in higher-tier locations so they look appealing for new customers", it's just a coincidence that yours happened to be in a nicer spot. I'm sure GW does have a "keep the store clean" policy written somewhere, but with no supervision (due to one-person stores) it's all down to how much the single employee cares about it, just like how clean an independent store is depends on their specific employees. And how nice the customers look is certainly something that is pure coincidence and not GW policy, the people I've seen in the two GW stores in my area are no different from the average customers at the independent stores.
When we look at the actual things that are constant across all GW stores (limited table space, poor product selection, limited hours, etc) we find almost nothing that makes them good at recruiting new customers, or even better than independent stores at recruiting new customers. We certainly see some things that make GW stores terrible at serving existing customers, but being terrible at one thing does not automatically mean that you're good at something else to make up for it.
It's so obviously wrong to equate the two experiences that I can only conclude you are arguing in bad faith, to wit from the assumption, grounded in personal animus, that everything GW does is pointless, idiotic, and terrible.
Your comments about independent stores being dirty/full of awful MTG players/etc are so obviously wrong that I can only conclude that you are arguing in bad faith, to wit from the assumption, grounded in personal animus, that everything an independent store does is pointless, idiotic, and terrible.
You don't need "to look hard enough" to find examples of GW products that don't meet the free shipping threshold.
You do when you consider real orders instead of picking arbitrary products just to make a point. For normal-stock GW items you can just call up your local independent store and get them at less than MSRP (and even at full MSRP you're still paying the same price as at the GW store), and for anything over $65 you can get GW to deliver it right to your door for free. The only situation that really favors delivering to a GW store is when you need to panic-buy limited edition stuff that doesn't meet the $65 threshold AND don't want to buy anything else at the same time AND saving a bit on shipping is more important than saving the time and gas money required to get to the GW store. Are you honestly suggesting that those orders make up anywhere near a majority of GW's deliver-to-store sales? Because if they don't then the assumption that a deliver-to-store order is being made by a regular customer of that store is close enough to use it in counting a store's net financial value.
You're past the point of even superficially posting in good faith. I described the LGS as "homey" to established gamers like myself ... that hardly speaks to personal animus. Meanwhile you have used the word "idiotic" to describe GW in almost every post you have made ITT.
While no one could reasonably consider your report of conditions at any WH store to be credible and unbiased, I'll readily concede that not every WH store is necessarily located in an upmarket shopping area or staffed by a competent much less successful manager. That would be immaterial to the fact of the corporate policy - which in turn obviously would be better exemplified by newer stores like the one near me (opened 2016). The policies exist to create new customers, regardless of how well Store XYZ is doing at that.
I haven't "picked arbitrary products" - my reference was to any item that costs less than 65USD. It is imminently reasonable that someone who was online shopping and figured out that they could have an item delivered to a nearby store (for example, in an area they would be going to or past anyhow) would actually do that - because that is exactly the point of the feature in the first place and it has nothing to do with the baseless assumption you're making that this is likely if and only if that person is already a regular patron of the WH store in question.
Manchu wrote: While no one could reasonably consider your report of conditions at any WH store to be credible and unbiased, I'll readily concede that not every WH store is necessarily located in an upmarket shopping area or staffed by a competent much less successful manager. That would be immaterial to the fact of the corporate policy - which in turn obviously would be better exemplified by newer stores like the one near me (opened 2016). The policies exist to create new customers, regardless of how well Store XYZ is doing at that.
Again, those policies do not exist. You can say "GW stores exist to get new customers" all you like, but in the end all that matters is the observable results. And when we look at the things that are actually consistent across all GW stores (IOW, those things that are choices made by company policy instead of coincidental facts about a particular store or employee) we see almost nothing that a GW store has to appeal to a new customer that independent stores don't. The only thing I can think of is that GW policy is to have a demo game set up at all times, but in all the time I've been in a GW store I have never seen a single demo game played by a new customer. The only time I have ever seen the demo table used was an attempt to sell a 40k player WHFB.
I haven't "picked arbitrary products" - my reference was to any item that costs less than 65USD. It is imminently reasonable that someone who was online shopping and figured out that they could have an item delivered to a nearby store (for example, in an area they would be going to or past anyhow) would actually do that - because that is exactly the point of the feature in the first place and it has nothing to do with the baseless assumption you're making that this is likely if and only if that person is already a regular patron of the WH store in question.
People that can get an item at less than MSRP don't often pay full MSRP for it, and the only items you can't reliably get at a discount are the limited-edition ones that are often well over the $65 threshold anyway. The fact that you can save on shipping when you're buying a tactical squad (for less than $65) is irrelevant because you can save even more money by buying it elsewhere. The primary reason to give up the additional savings from buying elsewhere is if you're already expecting to be at the GW store for other reasons, so it's worth paying that extra 10-20% to avoid having to make a special trip out to some other store. So yes, it is safe to assume that "online delivery to a store orders are made by regular visitors to that store" is a good enough approximation for analyzing a store's net value to GW, even if it isn't true of literally every single customer.
I still remeber a game I did right after the 7th edition codex necrons came out and no FAQ's were made yet. My freind and I were doing a two-on-two game at a GW store and my team was Necrons and Tyrannids vs. Imperial Gaurd and Black Templars.
The GW guy was saying that I was illegally feilding my Trancendant C'tan from Warhammer 40000: Escalation. He said that the rules said I could not do it, and I pointed out that I can with all rules back up. He then said it was an overpowered unit and will be banned from the store.
Now the context, my most pwerfull unit was the C'tan, my teammate's most powerfull unit was the Diachimeron from Forge World. But the GW guy never complained about the Baneblade, Shadowsword, Plasma Obliterator, Imperial Knight Paladin, and Relic Sicarian Battle Tank on our opponent's field. That immediately turned me off to the store and only go there whenever my LGS is out of some particular model or paint.
The topic of this thread is the variety of WH store policies regarding how the store's table are used. GW has a policy of devloving some authority on this question to the store manager. Your position is that this is "idiotic." My position is that it makes perfect sense, considering the stated purpose of the WH store. The difference is a function of our premises: You begin with the assumption that virtually everything GW does is "idiotic." I begin by assuming that GW is capable of making both good and bad policies. Even if your conclusion happened to be right, it could not be demonstrated by your argument because you are simply assuming your conclusion.
Furthermore, your conclusion is incorrect. This is because you outright refuse to accept some key market realities. For example, you assume people don't pay retail when they could buy at a discount. This is obviously false. People pay retail in shops all the time, This is because an in-person experience is "value added" for some, although hardly all, types of customers. For example, people find value in being able to try on clothing in a shop. Similarly, the WH store adds value to customers starting out with the "GW Hobby." There are considerable barriers to entering this hobby that can be significantly reduced by a personal experience. Naturally, the stated purpose of WH stores is to demonstarte the GW Hobby. Existing GW customers do not require this demonstration - but new customers do. And they are willing to pay for it, especially if they do not magically know about online retailer discounts.
Considering the intended purpose of the store, it logically follows that (a) there will not be many tables at the store and (b) there will be restrictions on how those tables are used. Moreover, some of those restrictions make sense for every single store to have in place while others must be left to the discretion of the GW employee on the ground simply because they are not only the person best positioned to know what would work best but indeed probably the only GW employee who could know.
Neither of us know or could know whether a direct, physical retail channel is ultimatley driving or hindering GW's profitability. It is pointless to pretend otherwise. Even the argument that "they wouldn't do it unless it is profitable" assumes too much. What we can know is why GW operates WH stores - because GW is on the record about it. We can also see how GW policies we do know about, such as manger-level discretion about store table use and not crediting purchases not made in the store to the store, harmonize with that purpose. Therefore, it is impossible to reasonably conclude that such policies are flatly "idiotic." At most, you could argue that they are not successful - but again you lack any credible basis for that conclusion.
@Longshadow7
Sure, managers are not always going to make the calls we would like. This past Sunday, the manager of my local WH store informed me that she had houseruled Shadow War for the store league. She allows unspent points earned at the end of a mission to the roll over to after the end of the next mission. Her rationale was, some KTs have really expensive fighters. I really disagree with her changing this rule - I believe that it is an intended limitation on factions with very powerful individual fighters like Nid Warriors and GKs. I explained that. She replied that we only one KT in the league was using such a list.
In the moment, I considered that she might have been trying to placate that player and had calculated that doing so outweighed the amount of flak she'd take from other players in the league. So now it was in my court - do I make a fuss about it? After all, there is a solid argument against such a call - not least of all that it is explicitly contrary to the published rules! I decided to drop it. If it was a purely abstract discussion, like here on the forum, I would have pressed the point. But in the context of getting along with people IRL, it just wasn't worth stressing over.
DrNo172000 wrote: A note on LGS, I have been in independent stores in multiple states and have never been in one where the employees looked professional or engaged the customer. In the hobby industry engaging the customer is essential. Especially if that customer is new and curious. I have in fact sat and watched in many stores specifically for bounce rate. It always appears high, with a person walking in looking around confused and if they are lucky getting a hi from the guy behind the counter wearing as t-shirt (and I have already addressed the fact that uniforms = more sales).
It's funny you say you've never been to independent stores where the employees looked professional or engaged with the customer.
3 hobby stores I know around my area the staff wear uniforms, 1 of them is an FLGS the other 2 are general hobby stores.
Another local FLGS doesn't wear uniforms, but I'd say they're pretty good at engaging customers. When I've hung around there I've seen the employees engage with customers to identify why they're in and if they're new gamers try and identify which games they might be interested in and build some enthusiasm for it.
(and I have already addressed the fact that uniforms = more sales)
You cited an article.... none of the occupations on the list were "hobby store retailer". They're all occupations where having a uniform just makes sense... occupations where you come out to peoples' homes, occupations where people are putting some level of faith in your expertise (drivers, medical professionals, people who handle food).
There's no real mirror to "hobby store retailer". I'd argue "hobby store retailer" is one area the customers don't care nearly as much whether or not you're wearing a uniform.
The fact is a hobby games store is not a grocery store in which someone walks in knowing what they want and walks out.
Eh, depends on the customer, I rarely go to a grocery store knowing exactly what I'm going to walk out with, I almost always go to a hobby store knowing what I want to walk out with and if I don't it's usually because it wasn't in stock.
That is key to customer retention, and customer retention is fantastic because it's cheaper than customer acquisition and word of mouth is actually the number one way new customers get generated.
Yeah, that's why it's important to not do stupid things like making customers of your company feel bad just because they're not customers of your specific store.
Quite frankly I do not believe all the standing operating procedures in the world will make a person a good salesman.
I don't think anyone does believe that, but having some good basic policies helps protect your company as a whole from individual morons. Teaching employees that they are representing your company and that customers will view the company as they view the employee is a pretty fundamental thing to teach them. It also helps when you have to fire people for not living up to the standards of the company. I don't even work in a retail field but I still got taught when signing up for my job how I was expected to act when representing the company.
Of course it won't magically make bad salespeople good salespeople, but hopefully it'll limit the damage of the bad ones and foster an environment where more good ones can grow and learn.
If people here continue to think that hobby games are a similar retail environment to a Target, Walmart, or grocery store I don't know what to tell them.
Oh come on, it's similar in some specific aspects, we aren't pretending they're identical. GW, Target, Walmart are all large scale operations where individual stores are simply cogs in a larger machine. Obviously the actual product being sold is different and the approach has to be different, but the concept that stores are part of a larger whole instead of individuals is the same between GW and all those other large chains.
They are unique compared to independent retailers in that independent retailers absolutely should be looking out for themselves first and foremost.
This is not me talking out of my ass, it is an opinion based on excellent formal training, continuing education on my own time and a lot of hands on experience.
I was always taught that my arguments should stand in their own right without having to make an appeal to my qualifications
Manchu wrote: For example, you assume people don't pay retail when they could buy at a discount. This is obviously false. People pay retail in shops all the time,
I'll pay more than retail if it accomplishes my goal. I have had a string of bad luck of back ordered items, cancelled preorders, stores selling my special orders to other people and pretty much everything that can go wrong with buying miniatures that aren't right there in stock happening.
I value product in stock more than any other factor and will pay above retail if something I wanted was right there and I could just get it without any further hassle.
Manchu wrote: For example, you assume people don't pay retail when they could buy at a discount. This is obviously false. People pay retail in shops all the time,
I'll pay more than retail if it accomplishes my goal. I have had a string of bad luck of back ordered items, cancelled preorders, stores selling my special orders to other people and pretty much everything that can go wrong with buying miniatures that aren't right there in stock happening.
I value product in stock more than any other factor and will pay above retail if something I wanted was right there and I could just get it without any further hassle.
Yeah, if I go through my recent GW store experiences (I don't go there often, but none the less)....
- was closed for lunch - didn't have the product I wanted (out of stock) - didn't have the product I wanted (out of stock) - was closed during normal business hours - didn't have the product I wanted (was something resin) - actually had the product I wanted and I bought it, yay! - was closed for lunch - actually had the product I wanted and I bought it, yay! - didn't have the product I wanted (was a pushfit set which apparently GW stores don't carry but a lot of independents do)
That's a bloody horrible success rate in securing a purchase for someone who actually wants something I actually quite like the store manager of that GW but there's only so far I'll go out of my way to make him a sale.
CIRO wrote: They can't ban forgeworld it's owned by GW, and some codexes have FW products.
Yeah...
While I agree that a FW product should be just as valid as any other GW product when used in a GW location in theory, try going into a "no FW" GW store, insist on playing using FW models and let us know how you get on.
foostick wrote: Entered the thread looking to read about insane store managers who allow models on the table made out of toilet roll.
Leave the thread with an economics degree.
Literally this showed the difference in attitudes to creativity between two GW stores I used to frequent. Being a penniless student I built a unit of Nurgle Plagueriders (Plaguebearers riding Beasts of Nurgle) out of papier mache and green stuff being ridden by metal Plaguebearers. One store loved the scratchbuilding and creativity and was fine with them being used in the store. The other store told me to "Get those awful Mr Hankys off our tables!" and ridiculed me for not using GW models (of which there were none ).
Yes, the latter store was the one I referenced in my first post ITT....
Kriswall wrote: Yes, your all Forgeworld Heresy Era army looks amazing, but you haven't actually bought something in this store for a long time... so that other guy gets to use the table.
If you pulled that on me it's something I'd be emailing GW customer service about and hoping you get you pulled up on, and if I was in a particularly grumpy mood tell my friends to avoid your store like the plague.
Luckily the dude who works in the local GW wins people over with honey rather than vinegar. He seems to maintain a pretty good turnover while not being a dick about where you bought your models and whatnot. Of course he'll still try and sell you stuff, but it's far less obnoxious when he tries to sell you something after he's been friendly rather than abrasive.
lol... you can email GW customer service all you want. Generally never did anything. Ultimately, the stores answer to the regional managers (or whatever they're called nowadays). Things may have changed, but a few years back a complaint to customer service would filter to the regional manager who would follow up with the store as necessary. My regional manager fully supported the concept that paying customers were prioritized over non-paying people using the store as a hangout. From a store profitability standpoint, boycotting a store when you weren't really a paying customer accomplishes little to nothing. If you weren't spending money, a boycott takes away how many sales? (Protip... it takes away no sales.) Also, and don't take this the wrong way, but anyone who doesn't get their way and retaliates by trying to hurt the store is generally poison to a gaming community. They tend to be a ticking time bomb. Ok, you can game on the table today. Will you freak out and organize a boycott tomorrow if we sell out of a new product before you're able to come in?
Also, I don't know why you assume I was "abrasive" or that I only used "vinegar". I was actually pretty friendly. It was generally understood and accepted that the tables were there for paying customers of the store first and foremost. Never once got a complaint over that policy. Table space, both gaming and painting, was limited. If a seat is free, feel free to sit down. If no seats are free, I might ask someone who hasn't spent anything in a long time to give up a seat. I know this is a wildly unpopular concept with certain entitled gamers, but GW stores are profit oriented, sales driven retail stores where the managers are paid more when sales go up. Lots of people hang out there, but they aren't gaming clubs.
See, your problem is that A; a lot of us remember when they weren't any such thing, and B; the extent to which they are varies drastically from country to country and even from region to region.
The "retail-sales model" is hot garbage in general, designed explicitly to exploit workers by forcing them to work like salesmen without giving the commission that was once expected to accompany such a role, but it's particularly garbage in relation to a chain of stores which was created and is supposedly still intended to function primarily as marketing and recruitment rather than a pure sales channel. The problem is that the blinkered "corporate efficiency" attitude that took over GW a while ago can't grasp that the sales performance of an individual store in that context is pretty much irrelevant unless it's truly abysmal, all that matters i that the chain isn't a drag on the company and the company as a whole is profitable(which isn't to say that sales data or salesmanship is irrelevant, just that whether or not the Chumblybumbly Town store sold through 0.04% less value than the same day on the previous year isn't a useful indicator as to whether or not the store is attracting new customers to the brand given how many customers then go on to buy online or from third party retailers).
If you have a problem allowing people who bought GW products to play in GW stores because they didn't specifically benefit that store's targets thanks to buying online or from FW, take it up with GW, but don't pretend GW's crappy attitude to their staff is the fault or responsibility of their customers.
foostick wrote: Entered the thread looking to read about insane store managers who allow models on the table made out of toilet roll.
Leave the thread with an economics degree.
I still haven't seen anyone talk about econometry, microeconomics or public economy, so we will have to wait a bit prior to giving you the degree but will look out to validate the credits so you can finish the remaining subjects on an homologated institution.
I agree with most views on this... Does Games Workshop even audit their stores??
You would think there would be a written standard of operations with so many out there.
Having traveled to a number of locations in the states and world; some GW shops I've seem
are like a fashion boutique with nice set ups and lively staff.. while others seem like an adult day care.
As with my local.. the clerk is on you as soon as you hit the door with his sales pitch and when you explain that
you are just looking; he goes out and smokes a cigarette.. seen this happen a number of times
and I am not a regular customer.
Also the stock is very limited there. I would hope that a GW store would have everything the web site has..
But just a few weeks ago.. I went to the store looking for the reactor model to add to my SWA terrain stuff.
It was not in stock and said I could order it and have it shipped to the store...
Then I thought a watch master.. nope..out of stock... Looking around I noticed that a lot of models
on the shelves was months old except for new releases..like a reorder gap....
Do GW force stores to keep a low stock also?
On top of that it was the 5th anniversary of the store.. so the shop was crazy..
They had the Eldar Art book.. the clerk pointed it out but never said the price...
I was told by a buddy afterwards .. "You don't want to know" and after seeing the prices
on eBay.. I imagine it was another one of the "Spend this much money to be able to buy this"...
One other thing is a follow the shop on Facebook and it seem like the guy is always "sorry we are closed today"
or "we are closing early today" I know the shops are a one man operation. but you would think they
would have a better plan like part time help to cover such a thing.
Genoside07 wrote: Having traveled to a number of locations in the states and world; some GW shops I've seem are like a fashion boutique with nice set ups and lively staff.. while others seem like an adult day care.
That's awesome.
The best GW store I was ever in had a separate gaming alcove with 3 tables in it. The main store area had 2 tables set up for demo games at all times. And then a nice painting area sort of near the alcove. So the adult day care was relegated to the one side.
It was closed and replaced with a much smaller single employee store with one table for demos only when they decided that was a better idea. Given that the word of the day was cost cutting, I'm guessing the larger square footage was the main issue that caused that.
Genoside07 wrote: I agree with most views on this... Does Games Workshop even audit their stores??
You would think there would be a written standard of operations with so many out there.
Having traveled to a number of locations in the states and world; some GW shops I've seem
are like a fashion boutique with nice set ups and lively staff.. while others seem like an adult day care.
They are absolutely audited, in typical GW style of course. I'm not sure if they still do this, but many years in the past GW upper management would routinely "Virus bomb" problem stores and clear out the offending staff members in one fell swoop.
Popped into the WH store yesterday afternoon to pick up some Inq models I had ordered. Bunch of Shadow War being played. New customers wandering around looking at the games and the products. Kids I hadn't ever met were excited to show me their KT lists and ask what I had ordered. Very fun atmosphere. I feel sorry for folks stuck with dysfunctional WH stores.
Manchu wrote: Popped into the WH store yesterday afternoon to pick up some Inq models I had ordered. Bunch of Shadow War being played. New customers wandering around looking at the games and the products. Kids I hadn't ever met were excited to show me their KT lists and ask what I had ordered. Very fun atmosphere. I feel sorry for folks stuck with dysfunctional WH stores.
Popped into the independent store yesterday afternoon to pick up some Inq models I had ordered. Bunch of Shadow War being played. New customers wandering around looking at the games and the products. Kids I hadn't ever met were excited to show me their KT lists and ask what I had ordered. Very fun atmosphere. I feel sorry for folks stuck with dysfunctional independent stores.
Automatically Appended Next Post: The point I'm highlighting here is that when a GW store does something that's better than an independent store you credit it to GW's policies about recruiting new customers and the weakness of the independent store business model at doing the same, but when a GW store does something worse than an independent store it's just an isolated incident and how unfortunate that some people have dysfunctional GW stores. It's great that you have a GW store that you like in your area, but the good things about it are not the consistent result of GW policies or any kind of inherent advantage over independent stores.
Genoside07 wrote: I agree with most views on this... Does Games Workshop even audit their stores??
You would think there would be a written standard of operations with so many out there.
Having traveled to a number of locations in the states and world; some GW shops I've seem
are like a fashion boutique with nice set ups and lively staff.. while others seem like an adult day care.
They are absolutely audited, in typical GW style of course. I'm not sure if they still do this, but many years in the past GW upper management would routinely "Virus bomb" problem stores and clear out the offending staff members in one fell swoop.
Doesn't happen any more. No regional managers, so if a store is hitting its targets it's left alone. If it isn't a trainer goes in to help support the manager. If it still isn't then it might be suggested that they choose to step aside.
A WH store where established players cannot enjoy a game because the manager is relentlessly prying every cent out of their bank accounts is dysfunctional. As for what is dysfunctional at a LGS - you have to have SOPs before you can even talk about failing to effectively implement them.
For example, I drove across town yesterday to buy some terrain for Shadow War from the LGS. Three employees were working that day. Not one of them spoke to me when I came in or while I was browsing. When I got up to the register, only one was in sight and he was waiting on a MtG player buying cheap singles from a dozen different set binders. I stood there for five minutes - clerk did not even acknowledge me, much less summon one of the two other people on payroll present that day to take my money. Some friends were playing Bolt Action nearby so I wandered off to hang out with them while the clerk showed that kid every card WotC had printed in the last three years. Thirty minutes later, I went back to the register. No one was there. I waited around, chatting with a friend for about 15 more minutes. Still none of the three employees came to the counter. Finally I just stared right at one of them, off at the painting table working on his models, until he clued in and waddled over to do his actual job. By this time, I had dropped the idea of buying anything from them other than the cheapest item, and then only to spend my credit from their back end discount program. This would be an example of "value subtracted" in contrast to the "value added" concept retailers need to establish in an era of online discounts.
Already done. Response was: "sorry" - the end. Problem is, LGS has co-op model, all employees are owners. So this is how the owners run their business ...
My local GW is a 30-45 minute bus ride away. I don't mind making this 1-2 times a month. Most of the stuff I'd be buying is online only (inquisitors, basilisks, special characters) so I used to order it to the store and go to pick it up. Until I learned that this doesn't count towards the sales stores. I can't really justify 90 minutes on the bus just to order something and then another 90 to pick it up. Therefore I haven't really ordered anything recently. I like the store but all of what I order is either forgeworld or collection items (I really can't help fell guilty collecting that stuff).
There's a really easy fix to this. Just make collections count towards sales and let people do the same with forgeworld.
That's a good demonstration of why the policy is what it is. If the sole reason you have to visit the WH store is to pick up web orders then that store is not serving you - which is exactly why the store doesn't get credit for the sale. But if the free shipping to the store gets you through the door, that store manager now has an opportunity to create a positive customer experience for you - to add some value to your experience such that you want to visit regularly and can therefore make in-store orders ... in which case, the store is actually serving you and gets credit for doing so.
The real problem with this in-store/webstore order dichotomy is that the webstore has advantages (e.g., inventory volatility) over the reatil locations - however, this only applies to existing customers, who are not the focus of WH stores anyhow.
As for the whole great GW vs crappy independent store thing, I think that's entirely idiosyncratic to the individual stores and managers. Like 100%.
GW's "hands off as long as you hit your sales numbers" approach is pretty much creating the same variance as the independent stores being all owned by different people. Seems to me that the experience at a given store for GW is now as varied as for locally owned game stores.
I travel across Canada for work and when I check out local stores, I find no real consistency anymore. I've been to about half of the GW stores in Canada over the last couple of years.
They tend to be in higher visibility areas than I hear about in the US though. Edmonton's for example, is still in a huge shopping centre (West Edmonton Mall). Winnipeg is in a strip mall facing the parking lot of one of the most popular malls in that city (St Vitale or something?). Victoria is in a corner spot on one of the highest foot traffic streets near downtown. The vast majority are still in high visibility mall locations. Eaton Centre in Montreal, Halifax Mall in Halifax, Chinook Centre in Calgary and so on. There are a handful in Ontario though that are trying out the middle of nowhere strip mall approach like they do in the US in many areas. The nature of being in a mall does offer some consistency but the ones I've visited in little strip mall locations seem to have the highest variance in local policies. Some have no gaming in the store at all, some have open tables all the time, some only have gaming and painting space for those who enroll in their getting started classes (and those seem to be scheduled right after school ends). Some have branded GW tables clad with professional looking side walls, others have grey costco folding tables. Some are painted only, some are filled with grey hordes.
GW does not have a 100% or 50% or 25% hands off policy. The only thing the WH store manager appears to have any discretion over is day-to-day table use, after accounting for the universal rules for table use (X number of tables, hobby demo space required, GW games only, etc). So it's more like GW has a 1% hands off policy.
I have played in a handful of FLGS stores, but only one GW store.
It was during today's era of the one man store. I arranged for a game from a Dakka Dakka player. I was new to the area and wanted a game. The player was friendly enough. I only took my painted gak, including a Forge World Contemptor and some old school rhinos. My opponent was playing all Sisters of Battle, models at the time that were direct only. Obviously, neither of us had offered much to the GW Store's bottom line in recent history with these specific armies.
There were 2 tables you could game on. One 40k and 1 AoS. There were 4 guys around a hobby table shooting the gak and painting. I asked if we could play, the manager said go ahead, and we played. Customers passed through, along with the hobby guys, we BS'ed a bit during the game. About 1.5 hours in, the manager says "Ok boys, time for lunch"".
Everyone stopped what they were doing and headed for the door. "Wha?" "It's his lunch break. We have to leave for 30 minutes." I had heard on the interwebs at this was a thing that existed; however, I had never seen this during any of my CCG days where I was in an LGS nearly every weekend in college. So I filed out with everyone else, walked over to subway, and then watched the store for it to open. My models have never been that out of my control before. Some kid walks in before I get there and breaks something? Takes something? feth that. Never again.
We finished the game after the break, I bought the new tactical squad box that had the grav guns, and I haven't been back. The manager could have looked at our armies, been a prick and told us we couldn't play, but he didn't. No one was using them, and we didn't come in demanding anything. +1 in my book.
Their stupid "everyone out, I need to take a dump/eat/call my side chick?" -5 in my book. Would not feth.
Manchu wrote: Just putting your hyperbole into perspective.
Doubling down on a reading comprehension error is hilarious. I added a line break so no one else well get as easily confused.
And yeah, if a store manager can put folding plastic grey tables from costco in a corporate owned retail location, they have a high degree of freedom. Decor in a chain store is usually one of the most controlled aspects of retail.
I get it though. You are a believer that every GW store is a grand place of clean people and great staff and non-GW stores are full of rude stinky people who hate you or won't even speak to you. My apologies for challenging your religious beliefs.
And yes, I should have just unscubscribed from this thread after saying later. My apologies.
You have consistently exaggerated the amount of discretion WH store managers have as the premise for absurdly equating WH stores with LGS in terms of variety of experience. This isn't even the first time I have called you out on it ITT.
And now you are pretending I am arguing from a"reading comprehension error" (a reference to percentages in a post you edited after I responded to it) while at the same time acknowledging that you know there is no reading comprehension error by responding to my actual argument.
Just going to ignore the rest of your bad faith post.
@Kronk
Agree with your assessment. The LGS is far better suited to hosting existing gamers. Best and rarest of all is privately hosted local gaming club of friends.
Bookwrack wrote: Yes. Ordering from the in-store kiosk online counts as a sale for the store. That's why you can pay for what you order online at the register in store. I do it frequently because my local GW is an awesome store with an amazing manager so I want to support it.
The fact that you can't order from home and ship to the store and have that count is a dumb policy, but fits into the thinking for Kirby-era GW. 'If they have to go to the store to do it....' It'd be nice if it changed.
I'd prefer the other way round tbh. I rarely visit my nearest GW except when I'm going to that town anyway on other business. It'd be more convenient if I could order something in-store (so it registers as a sale and helps them out) on the rare occasions that I visit and have it shipped to my home. Can you do that currently? Can't recall, it's been at least a year since I visited.
Having to visit the store a second time to collect my order is inconvenient.
Games Workshop stores could be so much more.. But if the local FLGS has a better stock than the actual GW store
there is a problem. There is to much competition for them to have the same product as everyone else and expect to compete.
If I walk into a GW looking to buy a certain item that was released in the past few months and they don't have it in stock
that is a major problem.
They also do the limited edition models for new stores where you have to buy so much product or
participate in events to gain points to just buy the model..Just make it available and sale as many as you can...
Plus making Forge World more acceptable to the stores, just something to draw in customers.
Maybe come up with a small printer in your stores that can print names on the side of bases... I would pay
a dollar a base to be able to go to the store put the miniature in and it prints on the side of the base.
Just something special, right now they have only the personality of the clerk to bring in business to the store.. not much else
Hence this thread.. people see how each shop tends to have its own methods of dealing with things.
kronk wrote: I have played in a handful of FLGS stores, but only one GW store.
It was during today's era of the one man store. I arranged for a game from a Dakka Dakka player. I was new to the area and wanted a game. The player was friendly enough. I only took my painted gak, including a Forge World Contemptor and some old school rhinos. My opponent was playing all Sisters of Battle, models at the time that were direct only. Obviously, neither of us had offered much to the GW Store's bottom line in recent history with these specific armies.
There were 2 tables you could game on. One 40k and 1 AoS. There were 4 guys around a hobby table shooting the gak and painting. I asked if we could play, the manager said go ahead, and we played. Customers passed through, along with the hobby guys, we BS'ed a bit during the game. About 1.5 hours in, the manager says "Ok boys, time for lunch"".
Everyone stopped what they were doing and headed for the door. "Wha?" "It's his lunch break. We have to leave for 30 minutes." I had heard on the interwebs at this was a thing that existed; however, I had never seen this during any of my CCG days where I was in an LGS nearly every weekend in college. So I filed out with everyone else, walked over to subway, and then watched the store for it to open. My models have never been that out of my control before. Some kid walks in before I get there and breaks something? Takes something? feth that. Never again.
We finished the game after the break, I bought the new tactical squad box that had the grav guns, and I haven't been back. The manager could have looked at our armies, been a prick and told us we couldn't play, but he didn't. No one was using them, and we didn't come in demanding anything. +1 in my book.
Their stupid "everyone out, I need to take a dump/eat/call my side chick?" -5 in my book. Would not feth.
I've been to two GWs that do this. Didn't really care a whole lot because I was always the first one back in the door and I trusted the managers.
The manager at the GW I go to now orders Thai food and has it delivered and almost always has his back-up guy in store if he has to leave for a couple minutes.
You have consistently exaggerated the amount of discretion WH store managers have as the premise for absurdly equating WH stores with LGS in terms of variety of experience. This isn't even the first time I have called you out on it ITT.
And now you are pretending I am arguing from a"reading comprehension error" (a reference to percentages in a post you edited after I responded to it) while at the same time acknowledging that you know there is no reading comprehension error by responding to my actual argument.
Just going to ignore the rest of your bad faith post.
@Kronk
Agree with your assessment. The LGS is far better suited to hosting existing gamers. Best and rarest of all is privately hosted local gaming club of friends.
When I was a GW store manager, we had an incredible amount of freedom... so long as we were hitting our numbers. If we weren't hitting our numbers, the expectation was that our store had better be exactly run per policy.
Essentially, if I put out a small fold up table to highlight the "Army of the Month" in an effort to sell more models and it worked, my boss would just give me a thumbs up and spend his time at other stores that weren't hitting numbers. If I put out a small fold up table and didn't hit my numbers... well, it was probably because I wasn't following policy. Policy compliance was very inconsistently enforced and it was almost entirely dependent on your sales numbers.
My store, incidentally, had 3x 4'x6' gaming tables and a single 4'x4' demo table. There was also a paint bar that could easily seat 6 people... 8-10 if they squished in. The demo table was for me to show off the games and was divided into three 2'x2' demo stations as well as one demo paint station. The store was open 5 days a week with two days dedicated to veterans, two days dedicated to new players and one day dedicated to store events. Anybody could come in on any day, but setting a clear expectation worked well for me.
What that all means is that I believe my store catered well to both new and veteran hobbyists and gamers. Our local gaming store has a dirty game room with too narrow tables around the corner from the actual store. There is no terrain on hand for player use.
In my little world, the GW store was infinitely better at supporting both new and veteran players than the LGS was. That's not going to be the case everywhere.
I must admit I was really spoilt for choice in my old home town - the LGS actually opened up a new store just a few doors down from the local GW.
It was a shame that the local GW seemed to have an odd policy towards new players, I arranged to come in to demo a game of 40k when I wanted to get back into the game. I expected to maybe do a short game but using the models they had out on display on a real of battle board from the starter kits.
Instead I got a 10 minute demo using a bunch of barely painted models the manager got out from some random box, plus every time a customer came in he had to go see if they needed help so we stopped and started every few minutes.
Put me off 40k sadly, never went back to the GW especially as I just walked down the road to the LGS and got a demo of infinity from one of the local players after having a nice chat with the manager. Walked out with an entire 300pt Nomad army so paid off for them too
I think you also referenced this as 6-7 years ago. In that same timeframe, there was a GW store local to me very similar to what you describe. GW closed it down. The WH store opened last summer. The WH store is only equipped with two 4x6 tables as well as three 2x4 tables, which are generally configured as a 4x6 (although we disassemble it to play SWA on a 4x4). Two of the 4x6 tables are set up for gaming and the third must remain clear for hobby demonstrations (building and/or painting a free SM or Stormcast). The shelves are stocked strictly according to central policy. On a weekly basis, the manager receives instructions on what goes where (regular stock separated by brand, new release areas, last chance to buy area, etc). There is a demo display at the front of the store, along the front of the register.
There simply is not enough space to support a community of existing gamers on the level of the LGS. The LGS may not be good for engaging with customers but it does provide about 8-10 4x6 tables for miniatures gaming in addition to even more space for hobby work and other types of games.
Manchu wrote: I think you also referenced this as 6-7 years ago. In that same timeframe, there was a GW store local to me very similar to what you describe. GW closed it down. The WH store opened last summer. The WH store is only equipped with two 4x6 tables as well as three 2x4 tables, which are generally configured as a 4x6 (although we disassemble it to play SWA on a 4x4). Two of the 4x6 tables are set up for gaming and the third must remain clear for hobby demonstrations (building and/or painting a free SM or Stormcast). The shelves are stocked strictly according to central policy. On a weekly basis, the manager receives instructions on what goes where (regular stock separated by brand, new release areas, last chance to buy area, etc). There is a demo display at the front of the store, along the front of the register.
There simply is not enough space to support a community of existing gamers on the level of the LGS. The LGS may not be good for engaging with customers but it does provide about 8-10 4x6 tables for miniatures gaming in addition to even more space for hobby work and other types of games.
My local LGS has zero 4'x6' tables. In my microcosm, the LGS is horrible for supporting anyone.
We have one like that, too. In the days of yore, it had plenty of space for miniatures gaming - but the owner felt betrayed when the first local GW store opened and gradually phased out all miniatures gaming stock. The store now has skinny tables suitable for MtG and board gaming but zero space for miniatures gaming.
That said, even if it was our only LGS the WH store would still be no better than it currently is at supporting established gamers. Very little space is better than no space but that does not make it adequate.
Manchu wrote: We have one like that, too. In the days of yore, it had plenty of space for miniatures gaming - but the owner felt betrayed when the first local GW store opened and gradually phased out all miniatures gaming stock. The store now has skinny tables suitable for MtG and board gaming but zero space for miniatures gaming.
That said, even if it was our only LGS the WH store would still be no better than it currently is at supporting established gamers. Very little space is better than no space but that does not make it adequate.
Still makes it better. If the alternative to 'very little space' is 'no space', you pick the store with very little space or you deal with not having a local community. Playing at home is always an option, but then you tend to lock your group down to a handful of people you know well.
I think we're just talking across each other - as I said, I don't dispute that some is better than none when it comes to public-ish gaming space. Full stop. We agree. Next thought: the WH store is not designed to support a community of existing gamers, which is often (but not always) where the LGS comes in.
Manchu wrote: I think we're just talking across each other - as I said, I don't dispute that some is better than none when it comes to public-ish gaming space. Full stop. We agree. Next thought: the WH store is not designed to support a community of existing gamers, which is often (but not always) where the LGS comes in.
Depends on the community. Three tables can easily support a small local community.
I think this will really depend on individual experience. My thoughts...
1. GW stores can usually support small local communities.
2. GW stores generally can't support large local communities due to limited table space.
3. GW stores generally can't afford to properly support existing players who rarely spend money because limited space needs to be alloted to people who DO spend money or else the rent doesn't get paid.
4. LGS's come in all shapes and sizes. Some can support large local communities. Some can't support gaming communities at all.
5. LGS's can usually support existing players who rarely spend money due to having alternate income streams (usually Magic the Gathering).
This is very much a YMMV situation. I think an LGS has a higher potential, but less consistency. GW stores have a lower potential, but if you see a sign for one, you generally know what you're gonna get. With an LGS, you might walk into to MtG tables, or a wall of Warmachine and no Warhammer, or a box of Pokemon cards next to a really big baseball card display. Totally variable.
Sure, that is consistent at a high level with what I have been saying throughout the thread.* Of course, it makes sense for the purposes of this conversation to narrow the definition of "LGS" down to "LGS with table space for miniatures gaming" because that is what we are really interested in comparing to WH stores. I find that such LGS generally caters to existing gamers - the theory is providing a place to game translates into sales of stock of that game. Some ITT have been saying the same theory applies to the WH store.
I am sure it does just as an incidental matter - however, my main point is that this is not the actual purpose of the WH store. If it was, then yes it would make sense to criticize GW on the basis of equipping their stores with only 2-3 dedicated gaming tables. But that criticism misses the point that WH stores are not designed to support a community of existing gamers (regardless of whether they are incidentally capable of supporting an extremely small community). That, in turn, gets us back to why WH store managers require and are given discretion to manage how the day-to-day details tables in their stores are used.
* Exception being your Point 3. I think I would prefer friendly, positive customers with nicely painted armies and terrain, even if they rarely purchased anything, because they would offer the strongest customer-to-customer sales pitch.
. Here's the exact quote:
