GW responds to our complaints via Facebook

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**Akaelus**

Our CEO Mark Wells has written a letter in response to people who have contacted him to express their concerns over our decision to restrict European trade accounts from selling outside the EU. We asked him nicely if we could also post it here for all of you who have been letting us know how you feel on Facebook and so here you have his personal reply.

Sincerely,

The Web Team

Dear Hobbyists,

Thanks for contacting Games Workshop about the change in our trading terms for European accounts. I know this has frustrated you and for that I am truly sorry. As a long standing customer, you deserve to know why we made this decision.

As you know, we introduce people to the Games Workshop hobby of collecting, painting and gaming with Citadel miniatures through our Hobby Centres and local independent trade accounts. Games Workshop Hobby Centres run introductory games and painting sessions, beginner lessons, hobby activities and events. We provide all these services free of charge. We only recover this investment if customers then buy products from us.

Where we don't have a Games Workshop Hobby Centre, we support local independent trade accounts. These businesses provide a convenient place for customers to buy our products close to where they live. We support these businesses with local customer service teams and warehouses to ensure customers have immediate access to our best selling products and new releases. Many customers discover the hobby this way.

In addition we invest millions of pounds every year in our design studio and factory to ensure that each month we release more new products. This makes the Games Workshop Hobby more exciting for existing customers, helping them stay in the hobby longer. We can only afford to do this because of the volume of customers we have recruited and developed through our local Hobby Centres and trade accounts.

It is for this reason that we have changed our European Trade terms. Over recent years, a number of currencies have moved a long way from their historical relative values, and this has opened the door for some traders to try to take advantage of these currency movements and offer deep discounts to overseas hobbyists. This has been the case with European internet traders selling to some of our customers overseas.

While this may seem great in the short term, the simple fact is that European internet traders will not invest any money in growing the hobby in your country. Their model is to minimise their costs and free-ride on the investment of Games Workshop and local independent shops in creating a customer base.

The inevitable consequence if this was allowed to continue is that Games Workshop would not be able to operate Hobby Centres, nor to support local trade accounts. And if this happened in more territories outside Europe, the loss of volume would leave Games Workshop no choice but to scale back our investment in new product development, further eroding our customer base. Not something that we or our customers would want us to do.

That is why we took the decision to take legitimate action to restrict European trade accounts from selling the goods they purchase from Games Workshop outside Europe.

While I understand that you may still be unhappy with our decision, it was taken to ensure we can continue to support the Games Workshop hobby communities around the world through our Games Workshop Hobby Centres and local trade accounts. And to ensure we continue to invest in developing the best possible new product releases every month. I hope therefore that over time you will see the benefits of this decision for you and your hobby.

Yours sincerely,

Mark Wells

Chief Executive

18 May 2011

AKA "we don't care what you have to say, now feth off"
*sigh I really wanted to get the new Dark Eldar

PP here i come

**Swordwind**

Like how he doesn't mention the price disparities.

**Thrax**

I'm waiting for his real explanation as to why they're raising prices while cutting costs. You know, the one where he tries to tell us his greed is good for our hobby. That sort of thing. Should be entertainment, unfortunately at our great expense.

EDIT: grammar

**Akaelus**

"I'm only doing this because i love you" Hmmm, where have I heard that line before

**Hollo**

Tries to make out like the legit and amazing online stores who typically give great customer service consistently as the bad guys.

What the F.

I feel like no response would have been less of a faceslap than this "letter".

**RandyMcStab**

All very reasonable sounding except the 'so just shut up and pay double you convicts' he seemed to miss off the bottom......

**Thrax**

One thing good that has come of this, however, is people can now see that they can make waves that get the attention of these guys. People need to stop acting like they're helpless and use their money to move the hobby in a positive direction.

It's pretty arrogant though that we only "get to see this letter" because thewebguys "asked permission" to show us proof that the emperor had spoken. heh. My god.

Sometimes I think Wells seriously believes we're all a bunch of peasants huddling in dark corners gaking ourselves every time he threatens us.

**LegendJRG**

Oh well, maybe we should just play with what we have or move on to new stuff say feth off to GW wait for the inevitable failure and hopefully someone competent picks up the IP because if 40k and fantasy were run by monkeys it would be doing better than GW right now.

**CX316**

What an absolute bunch of horseplop.

I haven't felt like my intelligence was being insulted so bad since the last time I saw an episode of smallville...

**Wolfstan**

Is this the same hobby investmet that seen a big chunk of their stores drop down to a size not much bigger than a cardboard box? Where you have just one table and that's it, and that table looks to less than 6ft in length? Does he have a list of all these places that are due to open now that the market has been brought back under control? With all this naughty undercutters wiped out they must now be free to expand, expand, expand in your area

While this may seem great in the short term, the simple fact is that European internet traders will not invest any money in growing the hobby in your country. Their model is to minimise their costs and free-ride on the investment of Games Workshop and local independent shops in creating a customer base.

Greed, greed, greed, basically. Basically their markup to an Aus indie is better than the mark up when selling to a UK indie. I love the fact that these people think we are idiots.

Just a theory, but in the UK alot of Indies sell other systems as there is the support for them over here. it's fairly easy to find someone to play against. From what I've seen posted here over the years, the US and Aus are a harder market for other systems to take hold. This means that a lot of Indies rely on the selling of GW stock to keep them going. GW needs these Indeis because it can't afford to open stores itself. This then means if the Indies go under they don't sell so much stock. Nothing to do with a "hobby community spirit", just profit. As I keep say gamers should simply say "stuff you" and stop buying. Don't go to any of the shows or tournaments they arrange either. Stop acting like 14year old boys who've just seen a naked lady, when it comes to rushing to the Forge World stand to buy stuff.

Remind GW that it takes two to tango. You want them to be there and you love their stuff, but, and it's a big BUT, "stop shafting us." As much as it's scoffed at, getting GW to behave is in the consumers hands, punish them by withholding your purchases.

**Capt. Rex**

If I were to write what I am thinking write now...

Pig Iron Productions, you shall be receiving large orders from me from now on.
I think I speak for everyone when I say I am honestly sick off GW's

.

Yes, I am rage-quitting.

**Kilkrazy**

The GW open letter is reasonable as far as it goes, but it doesn't address the reason why people where buying from the EU, which is the insane price differential caused by GW being greedy.

It might be feasible to finance a trip to Australia by taking a suitcase full of kits bought from Maelstrom. Organise it with a local club in one of the big cities.

**CX316**

Wolfstan wrote:Is this the same hobby investmet that seen a big chunk of their stores drop down to a size not much bigger than a cardboard box? Where you have just one table and that's it, and that table looks to less than 6ft in length? Does he have a list of all these places that are due to open now that the market has been brought back under control? With all this naughty undercutters wiped out they must now be free to expand, expand, expand in your area

While this may seem great in the short term, the simple fact is that European internet traders will not invest any money in growing the hobby in your country. Their model is to minimise their costs and free-ride on the investment of Games Workshop and local independent shops in creating a customer base.

Greed, greed, greed, basically. Basically their markup to an Aus indie is better than the mark up when selling to a UK indie. I love the fact that these people think we are idiots.

Just a theory, but in the UK alot of Indies sell other systems as there is the support for them over here. it's fairly easy to find someone to play against. From what I've seen posted here over the years, the US and Aus are a harder market for other systems to take hold. This means that a lot of Indies rely on the selling of GW stock to keep them going. GW needs these Indeis because it can't afford to open stores itself. This then means if the Indies go under they don't sell so much stock. Nothing to do with a "hobby community spirit", just profit. As I keep say gamers should simply say "stuff you" and stop buying. Don't go to any of the shows or tournaments they arrange either. Stop acting like 14year old boys who've just seen a naked lady, when it comes to rushing to the Forge World stand to buy stuff.

Remind GW that it takes two to tango. You want them to be there and you love their stuff, but, and it's a big BUT, "stop shafting us." As much as it's scoffed at, getting GW to behave is in the consumers hands, punish them by withholding your purchases.

Basically the issue here in Aus, or at least here in Adelaide is a near total lack of stores that sell wargaming minis other than GW. The same issue happens with D&D, where there aren't many retailers selling the books, and the trading card market is down to about 3 main retailers in the CBD. Only store I can think of that sells...um... Warmaster I think it's called? is Infinity Games, who for personal reasons I refuse to shop at (long story). We have about 3 GW stores in the state, and the only major Rogue Trader I knew of back in the days when I played in high school shut down (long story involving a murder-suicide happening outside while the victim and killer's kids were playing inside)

But I digress. Basically things other than GW have a hard time taking off here because no stores with a decently accessible location sells them. (GW is set up at the three main shopping hubs here, Marion in the southern suburbs, Tea Tree Plaza in the northern suburbs, and Adelaide City in the CBD. All in high traffic malls and in fairly high traffic or well placed areas (ie, the Marion store is right next to a cinema, so lots of foot traffic, the City store is in the same arcade as one of the main TCG stores and a decent sized comicbook store, so lots of geek foottraffic) whereas the independant stockists are either generic modeling stores (and thus don't advertise the wargames much) or are out in the suburbs in random locations that you'd only find by looking them up in the yellow pages, if even then.

BTW, does this cut-off effect our ability to order Forgeworld from the UK? I still need me some forgeworld Broadsides

**Pacific**

It is for this reason that we have changed our European Trade terms. Over recent years, a number of currencies have moved a long way from their historical relative values, and this has opened the door for some traders to try to take advantage of these currency movements and offer deep discounts to overseas hobbyists. This has been the case with European internet traders selling to some of our customers overseas.

I am laughing, but somewhat sardonically at how ridiculous this statement is.

If the prices Australians (or anyone else in that neck of the woods) was even close to what those in Europe/the US enjoy, there would not be this massive conflagration taking place now. His comment needs to be changed to,

"a number of currencies have moved a long way from their historical relative values, we have decided to try to take advantage of this by just ignoring international exchange rates, and thereby forcing customers in these territories to pay massively inflated prices."

At least he has replied, more than has happened in the past! We need to keep up the momentum..

**Capt. Rex**

Kilkrazy wrote:It might be feasible to finance a trip to Australia by taking a suitcase full of kits bought from Maelstrom. Organise it with a local club in one of the big cities.

Please come to Sydney, you could set up your own store and you would be flying new stock in everyday.

**Mr Hyena**

I don't think there is an easy answer to this. If they drop the embargo and don't lower prices...they won't see much money back. If they drop the embargo and do lower prices...they won't be able to justify keeping the hobby stores open or independent retailers stocked. If they keep the embargo they lose alot of customers.

Either way; bad stuff happens.

**spaceelf**

Pacific wrote:
If the prices Australians (or anyone else in that neck of the woods) was even close to what those in Europe/the US enjoy, there would not be this massive conflagration taking place now. His comment needs to be changed to,

"a number of currencies have moved a long way from their historical relative values, we have decided to try to take advantage of this by just ignoring international exchange rates, and thereby forcing customers in these territories to pay massively inflated prices."

At least he has replied, more than has happened in the past! We need to keep up the momentum..

It is funny how Wells failed to address the discrepancy in prices. We do indeed need to keep up the pressure.

**Regnak**

So what about the price rises? What do they have to say for themselves about that?!

**nosferatu1001**

Except you would then be a business, and subject to the EU export / import laws which are what allows GW to restrict in-EU from selling to outside-EU in the first place.

I imagine the import duties would also be enough to offset any profit, as well - while you can reclaim the VAT in the UK (eventually - theyre not quick at refunding) you would then have import duty to pay when you got to Aus.

The response was as expected, and is similar to what the instruments business did. PP et al know fully well that, if GW closes retail stores, they're in trouble - the only thing that gets people into the hobby in the numbers needed to even sustain it are the GW stores. Indies just arent numerous enough, or can all have the dedicated support (well, the intro / painting / etc) thats needed.

**pixxpixx**

Working in a relatively small franchise that sells video games, I sort of sympathise with GW. And I figured I'd thrown in my two cents and try to explain why I sort of agree with their decision and understand with what they're saying.

The easiest way I can explain it is showing my stores predicament...the disparity of the australian dollar is so big right now its ludicrous to buy video games anywhere else other than overseas retailers. This pretty much strangles smaller buisness's like ours that are doing the right thing by charging as little as we can for items but because of the massive cost difference for local as opposed to imported items it puts us between a rock and a hard place. Whats the REALLY frustrating part is that everyone thinks that because things are $30AUS from the states or UK is normal, and that us charging retail of $59 or $79 makes us ripoff merchants that deserve to go out of business. People need to understand this very basic fact.....most stores DON'T OVERCHARGE. We put the margins (sometimes less) on items because we are getting CHARGED more as retailers. Not only is it illegal for most retail chains and stores to sell things from overseas (esp. difficult for my sector as there is region coding to contend with) but we also have to deal with store costs, staff costs, and various other things.

GW is in the exact same boat as most small franchises, even though they are a global company. They are a very small niche product (in the grand scheme of things) where their intellectual property is their only assest. They have to pay for stores, staff and everything else like the rest of us small fry's, except they have a tiny minority of the community to capture. They don't do price hikes to pad thier pockets and fill their vaults, they raise prices because most people are biting the hand that feeds them and accuse them of being money hungry corporate types. Fact is, most companies don't do things like this unless its absolutely necessary, and I for one applaud them on at least being upfront and honest about their reasoning about it.

People rage quitting because of this I respect your reasoning and understand completely with your thinking. I wish you well. Just have a bit of foresight next time when the next big company rolls around and they start raising prices due to the amount of people trying to undermine their own products.

**yakface**

FYI, he sent a slightly different version of the letter specifically to Australians who were complaining. It has this bit added:

While this may seem great in the short term, the simple fact is that European internet traders will not invest any money in growing the hobby in your country. Their model is to minimise their costs and free-ride on the investment of Games Workshop and local independent shops in creating a customer base.

We on the other hand have to keep paying our Australian staff, rents and utilities in Australian dollars. While some customers have suggested we halve our prices, the only way we could do that is if we halve our Australian staff's salaries, default on our rents and not pay our suppliers until exchange rates move back into alignment. That's the reality of what a price reduction of this scale means. And we both know that customers who are motivated by price are not going to change their behaviour if it was any less than that.

The inevitable consequence if this was allowed to continue is that Games Workshop would not be able to operate Hobby Centres, nor to support local trade accounts. And if this happened in more territories outside Europe, the loss of volume would leave Games Workshop no choice but to scale back our investment in new product development, further eroding our customer base. Not something that we or our customers would want us to do.

If I can try to wrap my head around what is being said, I *think* they're trying to say that they built an Australian infrastructure and put that money back into improving their production facility under the idea that sales from the region would be generating a set amount which was based on the relative currency rates on the time. And now if they were to adjust their prices to make them relatively equal, they would not be able to maintain their infrastructure because they would be losing too much money.

That just seems crazy to me. I'm very curious if there are any other international companies out there that have their own retail chain and whether they are forced to do the same thing (keep their prices locked in at a certain exchange rate in order to maintain their business plan)?

I've never heard of it. It seems crazy. If it is the truth it seems terrible and if its not the truth then its terrible.

**Grubsnik**

They seem to have failed to understand how this 'capitalism' malarky works.

If you piss off the customers, they leave. If they leave you get no money. If you get no money, you end up living in an old Walker's Crisps box out the back of an Oxfam shop.

**Waaagh_Gonads**

The addition you highlighted is as you pointed out just pain crazy yakface.

If they lowered prices here in Oz, the vast majority of gamers who order from overseas (myself included) would switch back to Australian stores for purchasing product.
There are online discounters here to, offering 20% off GW retail. I'd be buying from them.

The rebound of slaes both GW stores and independents would certainly ensure that GWOZ would be sucking down a hell of alot better return than it currently is.

I don't expect there to be exact price parity with the US or UK, 10% difference to cover transport is entirely justifiable.
But since I got into the hobby in 1990 GW have always charged at least a 30% premium on us poor Australians compared to the UK.

If GW is crazy enough to give Oz the price rises the rest of the world is getting, shenanigans on an epic scale will ensue.

**Padre**

yakface wrote:It seems crazy. If it is the truth it seems terrible and if its not the truth then its terrible.

Yep, that seems to sum up this entire week...

One of the posters on BOLS made a very good point - I wonder if this Wells realises how HUGE Australia actually is, and that by attacking the European suppliers, he's actually shutting down supply of GW hobby products to a lot of Aussies who live nowhere near one of his vaunted "hobby centers".

My State, Queensland, has, to my knowledge 4 GW stores. To put Queensland in perspective, it’s more than seven times the size of the United Kingdom, more than four and half time the size of Japan, around six and half times the size of New Zealand, and more than five times the size of Texas.

That's ONE State in Australia. That's a hell of a lot of hobbyists who may have been buying from Maelstrom etc. over the net, who live nowhere near a GW store...who now will probably buy NOTHING.

Mr. Wells, sorry, but any sale is better than no sale at all. Please don't insult our intelligence again.

Padre^.

**Howard A Treesong**

Over recent years, a number of currencies have moved a long way from their historical relative values, and this has opened the door for some traders to try to take advantage of these currency movements and offer deep discounts to overseas hobbyists.

Hang on, they crack down on internet traders because they take advantage of currency movements to offer discounts. But if GW hadn't adjusted things for the currency movements then there wouldn't be a huge discrepancy to take advantage of. They basically blame the customer for finding an alternative to their own greed.

I'll be most interested to see their explanation for a huge price increase to pay for switching over to a cheaper casting material.

**Waaagh_Gonads**

Also for the first time in 21 years and 5 months in purchasing GW games/models I have decided to stop new armies and sell off EVERYTHING I don't need as I'll never be able to get new armies to a playable level at GWOZ prices

I'll still buy, but at a snails pace.

No more $1500 spurges on chimeras.
No more $2500 SM army buy in one go
No more spontaneous 'yes I'll get that'
No more special edition miniatures

A heap of WHFB players left for Warmahordes last year and sold everything they had.
At least 15 of the top 30 tournament players in Oz just left.
I am sorely tempted to follow.
I'll still play WHFB and 40K but most of the money will sink to other companies.

**yakface**

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:The addition you highlighted is as you pointed out just pain crazy yakface.

If they lowered prices here in Oz, the vast majority of gamers who order from overseas (myself included) would switch back to Australian stores for purchasing product.
There are online discounters here to, offering 20% off GW retail. I'd be buying from them.
The rebound of slaes both GW stores and independents would certainly ensure that GWOZ would be sucking down a hell of alot better return than it currently is.

I don't expect there to be exact price parity with the US or UK, 10% difference to cover transport is entirely justifiable.
But since I got into the hobby in 1990 GW have always charged at least a 30% premium on us poor Australians compared to the UK.

If GW is crazy enough to give Oz the price rises the rest of the world is getting, shenanigans on an epic scale will ensue.

Well obviously GW does make a certain amount of sales from the actual region of Australia, and were they to slash the costs of their current prices to make them closer to their global counterparts they're saying this will result in a massive decline in the amount of money they're making, even if it would result in people stopping purchasing stuff online and getting it shipped.

And I do think that makes sense in that when you lower prices, you're still having to pay the same cost to produce and ship the miniatures so even if your sales increase because you lower prices you're getting less of a margin on those increased sales, so in order to net the same amount of money (or more) you have to dramatically increase sales, and clearly GW doesn't think that slashing the prices would do that (whether that's right or wrong, I have no idea).

The other thing to consider is that all the independent retailers in Australia have paid for their product already. They have them sitting on their shelves and they paid X amount of money for those products to GW under the expectation of being able to sell them for Y. If GW were to suddenly slash their Australian prices, all that stock would instantly devalue in half, putting a gigantic strain on anyone with a decent sized inventory, including the Australian distributors.

Basically, GW seems to have gotten themselves in this predicament by setting Australian prices outrageously high when the currencies were way different and keeping it there when the currencies fluctuated instead of shifting with the fluctuation.

Now to make that change suddenly would be too detrimental to the company to contemplate.

All of this is actually making sense to me, except that what GW *should* be doing, is to announce a SLIGHT price reduction in Australia, with promises that the prices will continue to drop over time until they are closer to the true global exchange rate....but then again, I have no idea how any of this really works!

**Reaper Man 2020**

I have a similar gripe with the way that lots of products in the UK are priced higher here than in the states even though our currency is stronger than the dollar. My big hate is apple with the Ipod, Ipad etc or PCs and Macs. It annoys me, so for once I am glad that I'm in Britain and that GW is a British company. Even here I am not impressed with their pricing but they do turn out some lovely models that give me lots of enjoyment, I buy most of my GW stuff from an independent who bring the prices down a bit. I confess I have a lot of unpainted models and I am trying to resolve to finish them all before buying more which means that I wouldn't have to buy anything for quite some time!

**CX316**

Urgh, I'm just gonna have to start buying from the same online store I buy my MTG cards from, they have discounts off the local prices and I've known the owner for ages so they treat me well

**Aspiring Champion**

Wells talks about loss of volume impacting on R&D etc. Maybe I'm misunderstanding something, but if I buy from Maelstrom isn't that a sale of GW product, and hence "volume"? Now they'll sell nothing instead. There's their loss of volume.

Hey Mark. I found them for you.