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I have three GW stores - one near my Dad, one near my Mum (opposite sides of the county, Norfolk) and one at university (Canterbury), and they are all different. The good one is my university one, the guys are always friendly and don't bug you at all. The only sales pitch they throw is when you're at the counter they ask if you need any paints or anything, which is more helpful than anything else. Even when the Stormraven was first released I went in and looked at the one they were painting up from their Black Box and they didn't try and sell me on it or anything.
My next one is near my Mum, in Norwich. These guys can either be helpful and interesting or pushy, depending on who you talk to. Sometimes they'll try and sell you everything in the shop (I have been offered Chaos Land Raiders and Ork Boyz even after saying I collect Tau and Dwarves), and other times I've just been able to have a good chat, about all sorts, including video games and films etc.
Finally there is the shop I avoid at all costs, Kings Lynn (those of you who read the UK GW site may have seen this one a few times), although this isn't hard as it is rarely open. Unlike the other two this is a one woman store. It never seems to be open, but when it is she does all of those pushy sales tactics mentioned above appear. Also, just after it opened everybody who sold GW stuff in Kings Lynn seems to have had their GW retailer license thing revoked. Might just be a business decision on the part of the small retailers, I don't know.

So yeah, I get the full range, although I've never come across someone like the 2D6 guy.

And since I like games other than GW's, I do support my local shop!

TBH i'm not aware of a LGS other than the GW near Derby.
Does anyoen know of any?

lostlegiongames&comics wrote:
Thank you for the kind words. The LLGC Legionnaires work very hard (I'm a slave driver) for not enough money to keep it going. When you see them, thank them in person please.

Yeah, I shop there quite a bit and I am friends with most of them. I don't think I ever actually thank them though...I will rectify that this weekend.

lostlegiongames&comics wrote:
This is kind of in the works once we get the new soda coolers financed.

Oh, yeah that needs fixed. I am missing my yoohoos. :( If you do get around to making some polos, make a few t-shirts too and give them out as prizes at some tournament. I know I will wear one and that becomes a walking advertisement.

lostlegiongames&comics wrote:
For GW products there are a lot of things we are required to keep in stock whether it's selling or not. If we liquidated it we would be forced to reorder it and put it back on the shelf. It's part of the GW retailer agreement. We do some specials and events where we discount and liquidate old stock but there are several reasons we don't do the clearance liquidation hard sell but from time to time we push out some of the old stock. Some of the items sell and you don't realize it because we pull one from one of the other stores to replace it.

I didn't know that. Man GW's retail agreement makes it tough doesn't it?

lostlegiongames&comics wrote:Thank you, and feel free to send me any and all the comments or ideas you have. I am pretty set in my ways but I am still willing to consider anything try to be progressive.
Have you ever been to a GW storefront? I am curious how we compare since we are on the subject of GW employee salesmanship.

No problem. I will send you what I can. You guys are doing great. Hopefully on down the line you guys can get some more space at the Princeton store. Keep the drama out of the store and make it a fun place for everyone. Keep all the negative BS that fills people's lives up so much out of the business.

As for how you guys compare, well GW can be great and GW can be dicks. I have seen them be both. I don't like how a few of their stores are trying to curb the game scene. The last thing you want to do is talk a bunch of people into buying a warhammer game and not having a place for people to play. Your stores are pretty good in this aspect though.

I like the fact that some GW storwes have their own games rooms.

The one in Dery has a couple of tables but the store in burton has a whole upstairs room with quite a few big tables. Me and some friends once had a 15k apoc adn it only took up half the room.

Awesome.

My brother and I honestly prefer our local Games Workshops (there are two that I go to) to our LGS. Granted, I really only go to any of those stores to buy models and not actually play games or paint.

I walk into my LGS and I immediately get harassed about what I play and what I'm looking for and get involved in a 20 minute long conversation that ends up being about D&D, when really, I'm just in the store to pick up a single pot of paint. On top of that, EVERYTHING in the store is marked up even more from the GW price and their selection is really poor. The fact that deodorant seems to be banned in that store doesn't help, either.

The Games Workshop employees will ask me if I've seen the latest model they got in, but admittedly, I'm normally pretty interested in seeing it in person. I grab what I'm looking for, talk to the guy about what we're both building for 5 minutes, and leave.

One thing that absolutely drives me nuts about GW in Canada is how everything is marked up by 10 to 20% from the US price. It makes an expensive hobby even more insanely expensive when our dollars are at parity and have been for the better part of two years. But I digress.

Hey Bruno.sardine, check out a site called Heavy support, or maelstrom, if you havn't heard of them before. the costs are like 20 percent less including shipping I beleive. so give it a check!

Being that I live near the center of dallas, I have a few options in terms of where I can go to, and all within 40 or so minutes tops. The local GW is much like any other GW. You get the sales pitch, but I don't blame them for it (it's their job). Besides what they pretty much have to do, I usually enjoy going their. Usually start every discussion "complaining" that IG got nerfed and need more vehicle options, then proceed to whatever I actually want to talk about. There's a LGS I can't really say is friendly. I get the feeling when I go in their they think I'm going to steal something the way they constantly watch what I'm doing. They run tournaments ever so often, but only 400 points so I avoid them.

So I guess all in all my GW is pretty much what I expect it to be, no complaints here.

I would like to echo the positive comments about the Canterbury store. I don't go in very often, but I have never come across the pushy sales techniques described by others.

Westgate games is worth a look if you are in the area as they sell coat'd arms paints and the guy in there has been quite helpful with sculpting/painting tips etc.

I was at Best Buy today with my wife and mother-in-law. We are looking around and a new guy who doesn't recognize my mother-in-law as frequenter waks up and starts the hard sell on getting directTV or dish or some other tv service. She tells him, "I went through this last week and you guys couldn't beat my current service in price or product so I can save you some trouble." He continues to ask, "well what do you pay? is it cable? dsl? phone service included? " blah blah. So she humors him and goes through it all again but starts telling him what he's about to say as part of his sales pitch. He still went through all of it before finally saying, "wow, we can't can't beat that price or give you that many channels."
It's not just GW. Corporations are built by finding out wht works and making it policy and procedure. More revenue is generated by using sales pitches than is lost by annoying some customers with the pitches... IF you're a large corporate chain of stores sellig your own product that you produce yourself and your large sales are to fairly new customers looking to be competative with already established customers.
That style doesn't work for me personally but I do ask almost everyone, even the regulars, "what can I do for you?" or "if you need any help finding anything let me know." whenever they come in...
I have gotten complaints before that we don't insist to be helpful enough and approach the customers. I've had complaints that we bother them too much. There are just too many people in the world to have a policy that is sure not bother somebody.

doesn't it always seem that when you don't want to talk to someone, there is four of them ready to sleep with you for a sale, and when you have a question, your either standing in a lonely isle or your in line waiting for them to finish their schpeel to another customer (victim).

I haven't really had buy it now attack with this hobby yet... the guys at my FLGS are too busy playing magic to give a Sh** about a customer.

Can't say i've ever had the offer of sex for sales before...

Where do you shop we can organise a field trip

My FLGS is cool. They will show you the new goodies as they come in, but they tend to remember who plays what with their regulars.

I'm in the, "You should buy this crowd" introduced my friend to the hobby, and the manager actually convinced him to buy the hobby kit and a battleforce of orks, when i nicely stepped in and said "he has the tools, he just needs 3 pots of paint and this warboss"

There's two good people at that store, but due to the way the other 2 employees are i refuse to shop there now. Go to Sentry box or Myth, less selection but more fun.