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Ey dakkarites!
So today I signed up for a 12 month game informer subscription (only $30 for the whole year!) through my local EB games (owned by GameStop for the Americans) and they have recently introduced a loyalty program, and by doing the subscription through them, I was automatically upgraded to level 3 (of 4). This Intitles me with coupons that give me $20 when ever I trade in a game, buy 2 get one free coupons, early access to BETA's, VIP events, that sort of thing. In my opinion this is awesome, the $30 I spent on the subscription (which is nothing really, $2.50 a month!) will be made back when I trade in couple of games.
Now with everyone raging over more price hikes, and oh yes the will be more, I think it would be a great time to make a loyalty program to courage buying direct from them. For example, say your a level one, you get the basic sort of stuff. Say at level 2 you get free shipping, a couple of coupons for a 5% to 10% discount, then say at level 5 they give you advance advance orders a week before everyone else can, 20% discount days just for those members etc. You get what I'm saying? Imagine how cool your cards could be with the pictures! Level 1 = Scout Marine, Level 2 = Tac marine, or Level 1 = Boy, Level 2 = StormBoy and all the rest!
I think a reasonable loyalty program would do them a world of good, what does dakka think!

They had a program like that some years ago, the Skullz program. Every 'x' amount you spent ($50 here in Oz, from memory) earnt you a skull, and once you had enough of them you could redeem them for ltd ed minis and other swag.

Went well for a while, and then sort of petered out. Couldn't say whether it actually generated any extra sales for them, though. The fact that they canned it would seem to suggest not.

they've had two that I remember, one was Skullz, which was very popular but probably quite underused (it was popular in that people liked the idea, not necessarily that people used it) and another one from the tail end of 2nd edition 40K where you saved up stamps and could get "gubbinz bags" of things. I was a bit young to remember the details or notice how it worked exactly, but it existed

so they've had a look at them, and either decided that they were more trouble than they were worth or just unprofitable. either way they're aware of the concept.

Simple discounts wouldn't work unless it was really easy to get them deeper than online stores (20-30%), and that's unrealistic. Collecting points for limited edition models would be more attractive, but it's questionable if direct sales would increase enough to cover the costs of sculpting the models.

insaniak wrote:They had a program like that some years ago, the Skullz program. Every 'x' amount you spent ($50 here in Oz, from memory) earnt you a skull, and once you had enough of them you could redeem them for ltd ed minis and other swag.

Went well for a while, and then sort of petered out. Couldn't say whether it actually generated any extra sales for them, though. The fact that they canned it would seem to suggest not.

I believe the problem (IMO) was the threshold for obtaining a "skull" was too high, even at GW's prices approx 12 years ago. I seem to recall it being about £25 in the UK, so one would have to have spent £250 in a the relatively short amount of time it was running for just to hit the lowest level of prizes. So much so, I seem to remember at my local store people holding off buying a lot of stuff and Games Day, only to come back to the store with the program which contained a double skullz voucher and splurge there.

If it was for every £10, the incentive would be there to make further purchases to hit the next prize threshold if you're only one or two away. People will do it, I've lost count of the amount of people I've talked into spending a few more quid when on the tills at work simply to obtain a petrol voucher.

Grimtuff wrote:I believe the problem (IMO) was the threshold for obtaining a "skull" was too high.

This is how I remember it. In the Nineties as a teenager working a few hours at week in retail I managed to get very few skullz despite buying things pretty frequently.

I managed to max out my cards a few time in the skullz program.
I had a nice VIP tour around Lenton, got a preview of the new Tau army months before it was released.

The skullz program was great. It kept me spending money but I was also buying their 'pre-metal' product as well back then.

So many good programs - like real incentives to buy white dwarfs - have all gone by the wayside.

GW has a loyalty program, it is called the yearly price increase. The people who stay with the game are very loyal.

Seriously, they really do need some sort of program. The limited edition stuff sounds like a good idea. I of course would prefer discounts, but that is probably not a good business decision.

I liked Skullz. They had neat items which you couldn't simply buy. I still have the giant bolter and ork head bitz around.

I remember back then I would order bitz all the time via the trollz addendum to WD or in store and get skullz stickers all the time.

I don't think a loyalty program makes sense when they do want their product to be purchased from FLGS as well. They would need a way to reward people regardless of where it was bought, like boxed tops or something.

Probably doesn't seem worth it as rewards programs are only around for datamining customers. They do not do it to reward loyalty or give them discounts, just aggregate their buying habits across dozens of industries.

There was something similar 5-6 years ago in France. We had no GW shop or rogue traders here in Latvia, so when I was going on business trips, lads often asked me to pick up some staff in French GW shops. Since usually it involved spending some 400-500 euros instantly, I was informed that I was entitled to recieve some stamps on specific form - the stamps which I recieved instantly got me about 20-25 euros to spend as I wish, so I bough some terrain for our local group. Later I revisited that shop several times, but never encountered this offer anymore.

nkelsch wrote:
Probably doesn't seem worth it as rewards programs are only around for datamining customers. They do not do it to reward loyalty or give them discounts, just aggregate their buying habits across dozens of industries.

I disagree. Tesco's Clubcard program uses the whole datamining thing to a better end, wherein they actually give you money off vouchers for stuff you purchase regularly in your shopping anyway, not random useless vouchers encouraging you to buy other things (well, not always ).

As I already said, the Skulz program, whilst good in concept, the threshold to even meet the minimum requirements, keep in mind GW's target audience will never be able to drop loads of cash to get the required amount (I know I didn't really, with a £12 per week paper round), £10 per sticker would have been right and factoring in GW's penchant for those additional purchases (glue paints etc.) to bump up the sale to get that all important extra sticker or two I fail to see how this cannot be reimplemented.

If they just restricted it to their stores, which lets face it, they would do that. It would get people in their stores to buy the product. However the rewards for such a scheme would have to be very good, because we all know a lot of the vets will turn their nose up at some of the rewards and stick with their 10% or whatever off from their FLGS thankyouverymuch!

lord_blackfang wrote:Simple discounts wouldn't work unless it was really easy to get them deeper than online stores (20-30%), and that's unrealistic. Collecting points for limited edition models would be more attractive, but it's questionable if direct sales would increase enough to cover the costs of sculpting the models.

I actually disagree. Even a 10% discount with their free shipping and really good customer would draw a good number of purchases away from the discount online stores. I think it is a good idea.

nkelsch wrote:Probably doesn't seem worth it as rewards programs are only around for datamining customers. They do not do it to reward loyalty or give them discounts, just aggregate their buying habits across dozens of industries.

This isn't really true. A minority of companies may do this, but that majority stop data harvesting at the point of taking your email to add to their mailing list.

=I= White-Wolf wrote:Ey dakkarites!
So today I signed up for a 12 month game informer subscription (only $30 for the whole year!) through my local EB games (owned by GameStop for the Americans) and they have recently introduced a loyalty program, and by doing the subscription through them, I was automatically upgraded to level 3 (of 4). This Intitles me with coupons that give me $20 when ever I trade in a game, buy 2 get one free coupons, early access to BETA's, VIP events, that sort of thing. In my opinion this is awesome, the $30 I spent on the subscription (which is nothing really, $2.50 a month!) will be made back when I trade in couple of games.
Now with everyone raging over more price hikes, and oh yes the will be more, I think it would be a great time to make a loyalty program to courage buying direct from them. For example, say your a level one, you get the basic sort of stuff. Say at level 2 you get free shipping, a couple of coupons for a 5% to 10% discount, then say at level 5 they give you advance advance orders a week before everyone else can, 20% discount days just for those members etc. You get what I'm saying? Imagine how cool your cards could be with the pictures! Level 1 = Scout Marine, Level 2 = Tac marine, or Level 1 = Boy, Level 2 = StormBoy and all the rest!
I think a reasonable loyalty program would do them a world of good, what does dakka think!

GW has no loyalty to you. The guys that really bit in and ran with these ideas left the company and are off doing better and better things for us in other areas.

They used to do things like this for fun back in the day. NOW? We get to see how far they have fallen with the "New" edition of 40K, while you try to build an army of whatever out of halfwit finecasts.
Your loyalty program is to try to stick by them, while you hunt down respectable casts through the chaff. Your loyalty is rewarded by you eventually attaining a new finecrasp army.

Buy mooore.... stuff.

htj wrote:

nkelsch wrote:Probably doesn't seem worth it as rewards programs are only around for datamining customers. They do not do it to reward loyalty or give them discounts, just aggregate their buying habits across dozens of industries.

This isn't really true. A minority of companies may do this, but that majority stop data harvesting at the point of taking your email to add to their mailing list.

I think the feeling in the business world is that if you are not datamining then you are at a competitive disadvantage. I tend to agree.

As a consumer it is rather frightening. Check out this piece about Target. By mining a consumer's purchase history they deduced that she was pregnant.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/

spaceelf wrote:

htj wrote:

nkelsch wrote:Probably doesn't seem worth it as rewards programs are only around for datamining customers. They do not do it to reward loyalty or give them discounts, just aggregate their buying habits across dozens of industries.

This isn't really true. A minority of companies may do this, but that majority stop data harvesting at the point of taking your email to add to their mailing list.

I think the feeling in the business world is that if you are not datamining then you are at a competitive disadvantage. I tend to agree.

As a consumer it is rather frightening. Check out this piece about Target. By mining a consumer's purchase history they deduced that she was pregnant.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/

Absolutely some companies do this, but it requires massive infrastructure to work. That vast majority of chains who have a loyalty scheme don't datamine in this fashion. It's one of those things that consumers tend to think is more common than it actually is. Curiously, people often forget that Amazon's A9 Recommendation system is datamining. There seems to be an odd blind spot that people have for that, for some reason.

I think that GW could datamine on their release structure and what kinds of players buy what depending on how they release things. That would require some though on their part though, so no.

brettz123 wrote:

lord_blackfang wrote:Simple discounts wouldn't work unless it was really easy to get them deeper than online stores (20-30%), and that's unrealistic. Collecting points for limited edition models would be more attractive, but it's questionable if direct sales would increase enough to cover the costs of sculpting the models.

I actually disagree. Even a 10% discount with their free shipping and really good customer would draw a good number of purchases away from the discount online stores. I think it is a good idea.

And where is your evidence to support that statement? The idea that a company the size of GW hasn't already run the numbers on this and decided against it using some form of data analysis is just not realistic.

The majority of reason to run a discount/ loyalty scheme is to increase sales from existing buyers, attract new customers or take out potential buyers from the competition or drive brand recognition. Ideally the revenue streams of the campaign should exceed what you have spent on the compaign (unless revenue/ market gain isn't the aim of the promotion). It is quite simple to calculate even if based on estimates. It is what marketing people do.

Why does GW need to do that? The market is limited in size, people are relatively ineslastic in their spending habits and the GW philosphy of attracting customers isn't based around price verses say Warmachine models.

Running a program to purchase a limited edition product doesn't make any sense if the people who are going to try and get it would have spent the money anyway.

Half the battle with marketing is targetting your spend NOT at people who would have bought your product anyway. I wouldn;t mind betting that this is the issue that drives GW's lack of serious marketing.

spaceelf wrote:

htj wrote:

nkelsch wrote:Probably doesn't seem worth it as rewards programs are only around for datamining customers. They do not do it to reward loyalty or give them discounts, just aggregate their buying habits across dozens of industries.

This isn't really true. A minority of companies may do this, but that majority stop data harvesting at the point of taking your email to add to their mailing list.

I think the feeling in the business world is that if you are not datamining then you are at a competitive disadvantage. I tend to agree.

As a consumer it is rather frightening. Check out this piece about Target. By mining a consumer's purchase history they deduced that she was pregnant.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/

If they ask for your zipcode at checkout, they are datamining what area there store serves and if they are getting all their customers from the north end of a region, they can then plan to grow or relocate.

Stores like grocery stores who charge full price without a 'club' card do it to force you into a club card in order to get your data to see what you are buying, not to give you cheaper prices and coupons. They charge artificially high prices to non-members to basically make it a no brainer to have a club card. They may not be datamining you personally, but they can datamine shopping habits in general.

All those stores whos end you a 5$ coupon for buying 50$ if DVDs at best Buy, if you notice, those programs are designed to trigger impulse buys which then get tailored to your buying habits. You bought the last disney movie at best buy with your rewards card? well the next disney movie just got released on blue ray and you get triple points this weekend if you come in and buy it which will help generate that next 5$ off coupon! They have datamined you personally via your buying habits to manipulate you into buying more through focused marketing and custom coupons to give you the impression you are saving money or earning rewards.

100% of these programs only exist because they either provide info to the company which makes them make more money by selling better, or they are done in such a way they make customers spend more money.

And you would be surprised how almost all these companies share your data across their partner companies. Ever wonder why every big-box stripmall has the same 5 stores in them? Why kohls, Home Depot, best buy and Target are always right next to each other in every city in america? They totally share your data.

The only programs that were not datamining driven are old boxed-tops from the 80s where if you bought 10 jars of welchers jam, or 10 packets of kool-aid you can mail away and get cool toy. Even those were designed to get kids to be brand aware and bug mom to buy specific foods so they could get a purple dinosaur doll or a Kool-aid watch.

I guess if GW had a program, it would need to be one which had a model to reward GW and make them more money either by refined business practices via datamining, or customized marketing. Not sure that I can think of a reason GW needs this information or how it would make them more money.

Edit: Actually the last time GW datamined, was probably the summer campaigns where they divided up all the countries and regions up into game aspects of the map and took game results from actual players to form how the tide of battle was going. It was a way for players to voluntarily notify GW they were playing their game and in what parts of which countries they are playing them in. And in turn, it promoted people playing the games and doing battle result submissions.

If anything, I think that is more useful for GW since they pretty much have a good handle probably on sales via their distributors.

@nkelsch.

I'm not disagreeing with you that some companies do that, but I've worked in the industry, and I can tell you that most companies do not.

100% of these programs only exist because they either provide info to the company which makes them make more money by selling better,

This is not true in most cases.

or they are done in such a way they make customers spend more money.

Whereas this is. The motivator behind having a loyalty scheme is that people will select your company for purchases due to the promise of a reward in future. An added bonus is applied when you have a minimum spend - say £10 - so you will upsell to people who want to make that stamp, as it were.

Some companies, like target, worked out that they can use these things to analyse sales patterns and customer buying trends, and so began to harvest data in the fashion you describe. However, the huge resources required in successfully processing that information, even the cost of outsourcing it, is such that it is truly limited to the really big companies. Your average loyalty card is nothing more sinister than an attempt to convince you to favour one brand over another through delayed returns.

While I do think GW should look at doing a good loyalty program, I hate the idea of limited edition minis. This is for two reasons:

First, if the minis in question aren't to your interest, then the loyalty program is not worth it to you.

Second, a person who might simply wish to buy that mini (but doesn't earn enough loyalty points) is prevented from getting GW minis they want, in exchange for the cash GW wants. It already drives me crazy that GW has stuff at Store Openings, Birthday Stores, Games Days, and Grand Openings that I would just give them money to get, but I have to drive hours to another state if I want it. Sell models when people want to buy them. This is a good business model.

A good loyalty program, for GW, also has to compete with discount sellers (which is hard) and can't undermine local game stores, ideally. One idea might be coupons/vouchers printed on/inserted in boxes/blisters. I know, clipping coupons? However, this would give people a reason to buy whole boxes, rather than bits or opened boxes, and could be applied to all GW product, whether sold in their store, or in a FLGS. Those coupons could be redeemed in GW stores for merchandise at some rate.

Another idea might be to have some actual benefit for subscribing to White Dwarf other than being able to buy a model. Seriously? Make models people want to buy and sell them! I remember back when White Dwarf subscriptions came with a free box of models. I got a squad box of Catachans one year, which was great, because I wanted to try them out, and it was a nice way to try something different. I'm not saying a free box set, but White Dwarf subscriptions could come with some flexible benefit, so you weren't left out if you didn't want a particular 'dwarf in costume' which you still have to buy.


OK, so clearly I have a particular mindset. For a company that makes things and sells them, GW sure manages to screw this up. They make stuff you can only buy if you buy something else (White Dwarf figures). They make things you can only buy if you go somewhere (Games Day Model). They have merchandise which ADVERTISE their products that you can't easily buy (Store event merchandise). I'm much less concerned with their loyalty programs than with their reluctance to actually sell stuff that people want to buy.

htj wrote:
... However, the huge resources required in successfully processing that information, even the cost of outsourcing it, is such that it is truly limited to the really big companies.

I would love for you to put me in contact with all of these companies that think that datamining is too expensive. I would be glad to do some for them.

spaceelf wrote:

htj wrote:
... However, the huge resources required in successfully processing that information, even the cost of outsourcing it, is such that it is truly limited to the really big companies.

I would love for you to put me in contact with all of these companies that think that datamining is too expensive. I would be glad to do some for them.

For a knock-down price? Maybe even for free? I'm sure I could drum you up some business.

htj wrote:

spaceelf wrote:

htj wrote:

nkelsch wrote:Probably doesn't seem worth it as rewards programs are only around for datamining customers. They do not do it to reward loyalty or give them discounts, just aggregate their buying habits across dozens of industries.

This isn't really true. A minority of companies may do this, but that majority stop data harvesting at the point of taking your email to add to their mailing list.

I think the feeling in the business world is that if you are not datamining then you are at a competitive disadvantage. I tend to agree.

As a consumer it is rather frightening. Check out this piece about Target. By mining a consumer's purchase history they deduced that she was pregnant.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/

Absolutely some companies do this, but it requires massive infrastructure to work. That vast majority of chains who have a loyalty scheme don't datamine in this fashion. It's one of those things that consumers tend to think is more common than it actually is. Curiously, people often forget that Amazon's A9 Recommendation system is datamining. There seems to be an odd blind spot that people have for that, for some reason.

Actually it doesn't take a massive infrastructure at all. You already have the data collected you just need the software to mine it. Not complicated or infrastructure intensive at all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

fullheadofhair wrote:

brettz123 wrote:

lord_blackfang wrote:Simple discounts wouldn't work unless it was really easy to get them deeper than online stores (20-30%), and that's unrealistic. Collecting points for limited edition models would be more attractive, but it's questionable if direct sales would increase enough to cover the costs of sculpting the models.

I actually disagree. Even a 10% discount with their free shipping and really good customer would draw a good number of purchases away from the discount online stores. I think it is a good idea.

And where is your evidence to support that statement? The idea that a company the size of GW hasn't already run the numbers on this and decided against it using some form of data analysis is just not realistic.

The majority of reason to run a discount/ loyalty scheme is to increase sales from existing buyers, attract new customers or take out potential buyers from the competition or drive brand recognition. Ideally the revenue streams of the campaign should exceed what you have spent on the compaign (unless revenue/ market gain isn't the aim of the promotion). It is quite simple to calculate even if based on estimates. It is what marketing people do.

Why does GW need to do that? The market is limited in size, people are relatively ineslastic in their spending habits and the GW philosphy of attracting customers isn't based around price verses say Warmachine models.

Running a program to purchase a limited edition product doesn't make any sense if the people who are going to try and get it would have spent the money anyway.

Half the battle with marketing is targetting your spend NOT at people who would have bought your product anyway. I wouldn;t mind betting that this is the issue that drives GW's lack of serious marketing.

Well obviously JUST LIKE YOU I have no concrete evidence just some common sense and an ability to look at numbers. People are not inelastic in their spending habits (the large drop in GW overall sales wshows you are incorrect). GW is losing customers every year and a loyalty program would help this situation.

If the incentive was far better, it could work. Nintendo does this with all their products, you get X amount of coins per purchase at Club Nintendo. And the prizes start out at incredibly low coin totals, and range all the way up to pretty high lvls. They keep track of your total, even if you spend them, and at the end of the year when they start over, they have 2 brackets they will lump you in starting at 300 coins, Gold and Platinum, and you get something at the end of the year for it. A couple years ago we hit Platinum and received a cool MArio Characters statue in a ? gold box (like the coins/flower boxes in Mario) just for being that high, ontop of what we bought with the coins.

Its an easy way to get you to want to spend that extra couple bucks on a game or system or something. GW should learn from them TBH, and not make it ridiculous like with the skullz

brettz123 wrote:Actually it doesn't take a massive infrastructure at all. You already have the data collected you just need the software to mine it. Not complicated or infrastructure intensive at all.

It's not that simple. There's a lot more that goes into successful and useful datamining for a retail organisation than that. But I'm hardly going to go into the whole process involved, so if you disagree then that's cool. It's just been my experience from my work in the field that this is not something most companies can afford to successfully implement. Your experiences may differ.

GW don't do discounts, and probably never will. End of.

GW does not need loyalty programs, because they already have loyal players and customers.

abaddonsdrummer wrote:GW don't do discounts, and probably never will. End of.

You couldn't be more wrong. The Battleforces/Army boxes are a glaring example of this. GW used to do 3 for 2 from Mail Order, BOGOF at store openings, etc. Don't go making statements like that without evidence to back it up, otherwise, well, I'm not going to call a spade a spade here as it will get me into trouble.