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No, not on their website.

Mr. Bigbossogryn from Warseer wrote:Today I was talking with a close friend who is an independent stockist of GW goods and something very interesting was raised during our conversation. Apparently, GW have confirmed an initiative will go active sometime in June that has been two years in the making (mainly due to legal issues). This initiative involves the use of a tier system to rate indies and then adjust how much discount their trade account is liable for.

Sounds interesting so far, right?

There will be four tiers (one to four funnily enough) with one being the best and four being the worst in terms of trade discount and 'other' perks which I am not at liberty to discuss. Which tier an indie factors into will be determined by a point system with the maximum being twenty four (I'm guessing six points to a tier) and the indie will score points by basically being a mini GW store. By this I mean having GW product advertised clearly and having it on display, running gaming clubs and intro games to name a few.

By the sounds of it, 99% of dedicated online stores will be tier four, meaning that they will clear less on GW products unless they start selling a shed load more. Here's an example:

Space Marine Bike - £10 to us general public
Tier 4 store trade price - £7.77 excluding tax
Tier 1 store trade price - £5.77 excluding tax

So, is this GW finally plugging the hole that is online stores? Discuss

and later on in the same thread after the usual cries of despair, rage, pig[....] thick ignorance and worries "for the children"

rich1231 wrote:
Its not a rumour.

foolish to comment fully until we have the new trade terms documents and I have had them scrutinized.

I still fully believe this will lead to consolidation of online retailers. And that B&M retail is non viable in most areas of the UK and europe in this climate.

The last poster can be regarded as very reliable in this regard.

So, in summary, in the UK at least-- the exact area not yet specified but I'd imagine mainland Europe won't be that far behind if not involved when this starts-- GW will be charging higher prices for only online stores and, seemingly , less for actual bricks and mortar stores.

[Edited by moderator for swearing]

Don't bother reading the rest of this thread. Just logout and start placing orders for whatever you're going to need.

I suspect that'll mean more indies will close. I know the main independent game store I go to simply doesnt have the space to have gaming facilities anymore, and if they're punished for that, they're likely just going to stock more anime instead of GW stuff.

When I saw the title of the thread I was hoping GW would change that crap site of theirs to something more decent...

Now it's just going to fight the indies. Bla...there are other companies out there...

It's kind of amusing that this story comes out on the same day that the US government announces that it's going to be more aggressive in pursuing antitrust cases. I don't know whether the details of GW's plans raise US anti-trust concerns, but if discounts were tied to not offering competing products, than that would certainly raise some potential anti-trust issues. (Intel is currently in hot water for tying discounts to pledges not to sell non-Intel products.)

Hopefully American and continental European stores will be unaffected. I'm currently trying to buy products exclusivley from my FLGS, but I spent some time without a good local store in my area, and online retailers were the only thing maintaining my participation in the hobby.

It is NOT a coincidence that prices will be changed in June as well. You may note this time the price increase didn't follow the pattern of the others.

This isn't new. GW has been aware of discounts for a long time. You really didn't think they wouldn't eventually go after them? They've taken this long because they want to be sure their strategy works.

Edit: It's bold. From an economic viewpoint, it's a good move. It makes sense from a business view. If someone buys from me more and is similar to a GW store, I will gladly sell to them at a lower price. However, I can oppositely use the tier system to indirectly make life difficult for the buyers I don't like.

You know, back in the day, when they first experienced financial difficulty and were hiring, I felt they had the capacity for change. I was right, but instead of changing to become a company with superior product, they've evolved into a public conglomerate interested only in dominating the market.
To their credit, they've improved their product in little ways. Offereing plastics where there wasn't plastic before. Codecies over 100 pages thick. Hardcover rule books with indexes.

However, they've become a lot like Chrysler. Too big to properly do things. Too arrogant to actually evolve. While they have market share, it's okay. Nintendo made the same mistake back when they had the dominant market share.

We'll always have eBay.

Anti-trust things won't matter for the most part. No one wants to spend the money to take them to court.

I can tell you they have a similar attitude in California.
The managers have this thing called "store profitability", a number that garners how profitable a store is. As a result, managers are not above changing hours, not paying split shift, not giving mandatory breaks, etc.

The thing is, the people they hire usually turn around quickly and/or are straight from high school or the military. I imagine very few employees are willing to take GW to court over the things they deliberately don't take care of.

Heck, I thought about taking them to court myself. I would win because I had direct evidence of not being paid, but I decided against it. It just wasn't worth the money involved, and it would screw over a lot of people I know that still work for GW.

but isnt the future in online selling these days? the online sotres are cheaper to run and easier to find. Look at the Scale Model world. in the UK hobby shops are shutting left right and centre. (theres only one left in my town and hes a grumpy cigarette!)
If GW hammer the online stores to death what are thye proving? that we will prefer to travel four an hour or so to find a local store which ends up spending more money of fuel and food for the day than the postage from online and the price of a cup of tea while you fill in your details?
Sounds like a childish slap to the face IMO. they need to embrace everybody equally and say "its cool to buy online but you will get a better experience going to your local shop"
Altough they have improved thier product and i enjoy the games and the models i don't think thats justification for trying to bully the market they pretty much formed.

Nah, GW are kind of like the big record (music) companies who fail to realise we are living in different times now and that these new methods could be used in their benefit.

Oh well...it will (hopefully) kick them in the ass eventually!

IMO, this isnt the big bad GW playing hero hammer and smashing these people, after all GW make money off them anyway, this is no increase profit and advertise the best of the indies. Yes it maybe slightly unfair for some but to those that are good at what they do, then it wont effect them.

Afterall, we are in hard time, and GW like most of the worlds companies is run for profit and every cent counts.

Im sitting on the fence for this one and will continue to support both my local and my favourite online store.

GW are quite clear that in their new strategy the purpose of bricks and mortar stores is primarily for marketing and only secondarily for actual sales.

They cannot afford the amount of high street presence they would like to have, so this tiered discount for shops who make mini-GW outlets is very logical.

Some of the most successful online retailers of model kits, wargames and other such hobby related stuff have a shop (or chain) and a well run website which allows sales online.

I'm not surprised about any of this. If GW think it'll help them avoid the financial disaster that their accounts seem to be predicting, good luck to 'em!

To me, and to anyone that thinks like me, the higher they stuff their prices and the harder they make their product to get hold of, the more incentive they create for gamers to try other products and avenues for gaming.

As a fan of many games systems, I see this as good news - it will be easier to recruit players for alternative games. The following conversation may become more typical:

Joe Punter: "Gah, I can't afford that £50 for a new land raider, that's 10 weeks' pocket money for just one model, but I can't find a decent discount anywhere. I'm getting bored with my army, and I want to change it. What shall I do?"

Me: "Well have you considered a different game? For the price of one model you could buy an whole force for a different game."

Joe Punter "What do you mean? Aren't they hard to get hold of and expensive."

Me "No. Consider Spartan Games' Uncharted Seas. You could have a full Dwarf ship flotilla for £10! And order online and it will be with you in a couple of days, post free! Come round to my house one Thursday night and I'll give you a game if you like!"

Joe Punter "Wow! That's amazing! Thanks for setting me free from GW's nefarious, money-grubbing tightwadness!"

Over-dramatised for comedic effect, but you get my drift!

From my point of view GW priced their metals out of my reach a couple of years back, and now plastics (even after 20% discount) are going beyond my reach. As far as I am concerned, the more mind-numbingly greedy tricks they pull on their formerly loyal customers the better. The closer they nudge towards the ad-absurdam case of one solitary customer prepared to pay £100,000,000 for a model, the better the market for their competitors. All the more disgruntled ex-GW gamers to convince to play alternative games and patronise other manufacturers. Set your minds free people!

Malika2 wrote:Nah, GW are kind of like the big record (music) companies who fail to realise we are living in different times now and that these new methods could be used in their benefit

I have some minis. If anyone is interested, I could make a torrent to share them.

Elric of Grans wrote:

Malika2 wrote:Nah, GW are kind of like the big record (music) companies who fail to realise we are living in different times now and that these new methods could be used in their benefit

I have some minis. If anyone is interested, I could make a torrent to share them.

Well in a way yes! With the internet there are tons of independents selling GW stuff and also smaller companies making stuff as bits for GW material (Max Mini and Pig Iron come to mind here), now...these companies don't really compete with GW, neither do the independent sites selling the stuff. What they do is basically bringing GW extra money by promoting their material, giving ideas, filling the gaps and so on. If all, GW should actually encourage this and try to regulate it perhaps rather than try to destroy it.

It doensn't matter what GW does, because it will always be seen as the big bad Dragon Well, look at it from the B&M guys point of view. Finally they are not getting shafted because they have higher overheads than 'net sellers, and well done to them if they do both. B&M stores like the GW and Indy shops are more likely to pull poeple into the hobby in the long run, as there is something to catch your eye as you walk past Ok there are going to be instances of people getting into the system on line, or through clubs, especially where B&M shops of any type are not local.

In the Dark Ages when I started, the nearest shop was an hour away before the mighty internet was as usable as today. I did ok, not saying the progress isn't great but maybe there is an element of wanting everything served on a plate and spoon fed. I'd rather see customer facing people who enthuse the public into starting given extra discount over internet sellers selling cheap crack.

Just my oppinion

Osbad wrote:
To me, and to anyone that thinks like me, the higher they stuff their prices and the harder they make their product to get hold of, the more incentive they create for gamers to try other products and avenues for gaming.

That's a lovely idea Osbad, however I suspect we will more likely see the following:

Joepublic "Wow, those models are so insanely priced I cannot afford them"

Gamerofothertabletopgames "Hey, why not try this (well written, beautiful model range, very affordable) game instead!"

Joepublic "Because noone I know in several hundred miles plays them, I know several guys that have older GW armies that are no longer playable or they hate GW so much they no longer play, but you know what, we can all get together online and play WoW... that hobby occupies massive amounts of time for a fraction of the cost and I know lots of other folks playing it."

Gamerofothertabletopgames "But you could open a wargame club nearby and invite folks"

Joepublic "Or I could get home, switch on my computer and play... Instant gratification FTW!"

With this attitude GW are hammering nails into their own coffin.

Elric of Grans wrote:

Malika2 wrote:Nah, GW are kind of like the big record (music) companies who fail to realise we are living in different times now and that these new methods could be used in their benefit

I have some minis. If anyone is interested, I could make a torrent to share them.

Lol

MeanGreenStompa wrote:

Osbad wrote:
To me, and to anyone that thinks like me, the higher they stuff their prices and the harder they make their product to get hold of, the more incentive they create for gamers to try other products and avenues for gaming.

That's a lovely idea Osbad, however I suspect we will more likely see the following:

Joepublic "Wow, those models are so insanely priced I cannot afford them"

Gamerofothertabletopgames "Hey, why not try this (well written, beautiful model range, very affordable) game instead!"

Joepublic "Because noone I know in several hundred miles plays them, I know several guys that have older GW armies that are no longer playable or they hate GW so much they no longer play, but you know what, we can all get together online and play WoW... that hobby occupies massive amounts of time for a fraction of the cost and I know lots of other folks playing it."

Gamerofothertabletopgames "But you could open a wargame club nearby and invite folks"

Joepublic "Or I could get home, switch on my computer and play... Instant gratification FTW!"

With this attitude GW are hammering nails into their own coffin.

Oh I agree. In general I believe GW will lose many customers to more forms of competition than simply the producers of other games.

However, from where I'm standing, as a member of a club playing non-GW games (and therefore have a retail-free environment to play games in) and as a gamer who has largely broken away from the GW mould (and therefore more restricted in my choice of opponents than GW gamers are) my pool of potential fellow gamers is about to increase. In penny numbers of course, but you can only play one opponent at once, right!

Its easier to convince someone to join you in playing something else than 40k/WFB when the price of continuing 40k/WFB has just gone up by between 25 and 67%!

If I find one or two more like-minded gamers willing to try new things as a result of this I'll be happy, and this will counteract the gloom I feel that my ventures into 5th edition and WotR have been prematurely terminated!

I used to be an independant stockist, i packed it in when ebay brought in the search engine changes and at the same time games workshop put a clause in their trade agreement to prevent people from selling parts.

At the time people didnt seem to want to buy complete sprues from me and selling boxed sets wasnt an option as the profit margins are so tiny and you're risking big money just to make that tiny profit.

When you're buying from an independant stockist you folks should be grateful and realise that in the vast majority of cases the independant stockist is making around £1-£2 per item.

I dont know how some of them stay afloat.

I'm still paying off debts that i built up back when i was an independant stockist :(

Oh and sorry to comment twice but the games workshop webstore is the WORST and slowest running gw website on the entire internet.

Sometimes i go on it and the search engine doesnt return any results also.

Really, I think GW doesn't understand why their game is popular. I probably don't fully either, but it seems to me that it is two part:

1. Cool fluff.
2. Simplicity of finding opponants.

1 is what it is, but the second, they don't seem to understand how to support that. The answer isn't "shut down small shops and online retailers", but rather "get as much GW product into people's hands as possible". One would think they would support online retailers, and support gaming clubs (perhaps with a web site service like "Schedule a game" here on Dakka). Making GW games less attractive to stores who can't afford space for tables, and more difficult to sell online simply means there will be fewer players, which leads to fewer new players.

Maybe I still have a bad taste in my mouth from Games Day, but I am really beginning to think that GW's marketing team needs to be drug out into the street and shot. Command and control does not work as a strategy for products like miniatures, or really anything simpler than computers or cars.

What you are missing is that GW's primary concern is (and always has been) control. All other factors are secondary.

One thing I have not seen mentioned is; the Online retailers are directly affecting GW's website sales. This will bring the online guys prices very close to GW's online prices since they won't really be able to discount GW stuff.

Wehrkind wrote:
Maybe I still have a bad taste in my mouth from Games Day, but I am really beginning to think that GW's marketing team needs to be drug out into the street and shot. Command and control does not work as a strategy for products like miniatures, or really anything simpler than computers or cars.

You and me both. Games Day was sub-subpar. I'm guessing their budget was slashed all to hell, and they had the massive loss of manpower as well (GW retail staffers in the area). Still, that being said, they could have tried to make it something other than a wake.

Narlix wrote:One thing I have not seen mentioned is; the Online retailers are directly affecting GW's website sales. This will bring the online guys prices very close to GW's online prices since they won't really be able to discount GW stuff.

Online retailer's prices will still have better shipping costs. A five dollar bitz pack costs 8 dollars shipping? What the hell?

Valhallan42nd wrote:You and me both. Games Day was sub-subpar. I'm guessing their budget was slashed all to hell, and they had the massive loss of manpower as well (GW retail staffers in the area). Still, that being said, they could have tried to make it something other than a wake.

Fix the lack of open gaming and the lack of promotion of upcoming releases and it would have been a perfectly good event. The first could have been remedied by US staffers. But as I alluded to earlier, the second was supposedly on GW HQ. For them to black out PS at their biggest marketing event in the US...well, I still say there's some smoke there. They're not that dumb.

Back on topic. As someone said earlier, GW behaves very much like the music industry did, although the situations are different. The music industry is only now beginning to figure out how to treat the internet as their friend instead something dangerous to be tightly controlled. The adult entertainment industry used to openly mock the record companies for being unable to figure how how to make money on the internet.

GW obviously has some capable business managers, or they wouldn't have grown to their current size. But some fresh thinking and innovation appears to be badly needed.

I have a stupid question: What's to stop the online retailers from meeting the requirements for Tier 1 status? All it takes is one such retailer, and there will still be grist for the mill. I thought the Warstore, for example, had a full gaming store.

Unless there's some clause in the new retail contracts prohibiting any sort of mail order (online, phone, etc), than the status quo will be maintained, it'll just be far more diffuclt for a new store to enter.

Another stupid question: won't this make it harder to actually stock GW product as a full gaming store? If you have to jump through hoops to get the full discount, won't the smart stores just finally stop stocking the stuff? I mean, maybe GW thinks that chocking off product to stores that don't support the product is a good idea, and it might be, but I think it's going to be a great barrier of entry for new physical shops.

reds8n wrote:No, not on their website.

Mr. Bigbossogryn from Warseer wrote:Today I was talking with a close friend who is an independent stockist of GW goods and something very interesting was raised during our conversation. Apparently, GW have confirmed an initiative will go active sometime in June that has been two years in the making (mainly due to legal issues). This initiative involves the use of a tier system to rate indies and then adjust how much discount their trade account is liable for.

Sounds interesting so far, right?

There will be four tiers (one to four funnily enough) with one being the best and four being the worst in terms of trade discount and 'other' perks which I am not at liberty to discuss. Which tier an indie factors into will be determined by a point system with the maximum being twenty four (I'm guessing six points to a tier) and the indie will score points by basically being a mini GW store. By this I mean having GW product advertised clearly and having it on display, running gaming clubs and intro games to name a few.

By the sounds of it, 99% of dedicated online stores will be tier four, meaning that they will clear less on GW products unless they start selling a shed load more. Here's an example:

Space Marine Bike - £10 to us general public
Tier 4 store trade price - £7.77 excluding tax
Tier 1 store trade price - £5.77 excluding tax

So, is this GW finally plugging the hole that is online stores? Discuss

and later on in the same thread after the usual cries of despair, rage, gak thick ignorance and worries "for the children"

rich1231 wrote:
Its not a rumour.

foolish to comment fully until we have the new trade terms documents and I have had them scrutinized.

I still fully believe this will lead to consolidation of online retailers. And that B&M retail is non viable in most areas of the UK and europe in this climate.

The last poster can be regarded as very reliable in this regard.

So, in summary, in the UK at least-- the exact area not yet specified but I'd imagine mainland Europe won't be that far behind if not involved when this starts-- GW will be charging higher prices for only online stores and, seemingly , less for actual bricks and mortar stores.

We need to know what market practice is for dealer discounts. Is this normal for the industry, or some GW creation?

Tiered discounts aren't particularly uncommon. Alliance improves your discount based on your quarterly purchase numbers from them. The more you buy the better the discount. It encourages you, the retailer, to use them as your primary distributor to increase your profit margin. Really the only unique thing about this is if they have some sort of "display" or demo requirement.

Edit: actually now that I think about it this is similar to Wizards "Premier" (I think that's what it's called) Retailer Program. You get better discounts from them if you stock x amount of product and run specific events. In addition to the improved discount they also kick you extra prize packages and promotional materials. So really this isn't a radical, "the sky is falling", approach at all by GW.

gorgon wrote: For them to black out PS at their biggest marketing event in the US...well, I still say there's some smoke there. They're not that dumb.

what's PS? i read plenty of disappointing forum posts about the recent games day but nothing about blacking out stuff (although i did read that the presentation had technical difficulties that ultimately canned it).