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Toastedandy wrote:Theirs a FLGS literally 5 min walk from GW Dublin and they let the products sell themselves, they will help if you need it, but they let people pick up what they want, without forcing a pitch on them, and they seem to be doing better business than GW

That's the ticket. Unlike SoloFalcon's 78%, I have worked in corporate retail for well over a decade, and one of the places I have worked was GW. I have predominantly worked in shops that supply luxury interest goods, like GW. I'm a department manager, and am responsible for training, hiring, and firing people. It's not a dream job, people treat you like scum, and you get paid way below the national average, but it's a living. Further more, I've gotten good at it, and I know what works, and what doesn't. The GW approach can work, yes, on around 2% of customers. Where they fall down is in assuming that you can upsell in this method to all customers. Most you cannot, most have come in to get something specific. Can you still upsell to them? Absolutely, but not in such a crude manner. You need to engage them to find out what they want, lead them to remind themselves of things that they 'might as well get while they're here.' Sometimes, you can say, 'have you seen this?' Normally, in GW's client base, they will have, so you can mention what you honestly think of it, emphasising only the good points and then drop it. They will buy it then if they are going to, if not you've planted the seed in their thoughts. The ones you should be trying to rinse are the parents who are, I'm afraid to say, suckers. Take 'em for all that they'll give. The key and most important things is: the customer should leave the store having enjoyed their time there, and wanting to come back. Despite what many people have claimed, the success of a shop does not ride on individual big sales, but on repeat custom. GW are losing this all over the place with their one-size fits all, pushy sales techniques.

Selling stuff is difficult. More so when under pressure and with no sales training (do they have any training?). All it takes is one bad salesman and the rest will copy him. With no training what else can they do?

Unless it's changed a lot since I was there, there's a hand-out that outlines company customer service policy. Sadly, the pushy ones are the ones who are following it.

The ones you should be trying to rinse are the parents who are, I'm afraid to say, suckers. Take 'em for all that they'll give. The key and most important things is: the customer should leave the store having enjoyed their time there, and wanting to come back.

True. I've seen this at the store and discussed it with an employee mate of mine after he had also used it to hook a parent. Go one step further and the staff are literally putting models on the lower display shelves so when the hot mums with low-cut tops are looking with their kids... well, you get the picture (hope that's not taking the post too far!)

Anyway, the stores target the young kids, however they are not the decision makers. The parents are sucked in with "how much does your child spend in front of the tv/xbox/ps3?"

From there it's just a matter of hooking the parent into how it's 'creative'. 'challenging', 'fun', and 'gets them off the xbox and out of the parents hair for an hr or two'. Helps improve quick-thinking math problems as well (rolling so many dice and tallying it all up with all the crazy modifiers of 2nd edition).

You get the point anyway...

snowman40k wrote:

The parents are sucked in with "how much does your child spend in front of the tv/xbox/ps3?"

From there it's just a matter of hooking the parent into how it's 'creative'. 'challenging', 'fun', and 'gets them off the xbox and out of the parents hair for an hr or two'. Helps improve quick-thinking math problems as well (rolling so many dice and tallying it all up with all the crazy modifiers of 2nd edition).

You get the point anyway...

Although, at the risk of going off topic, this is a good point. Never understood why tabletop gaming is seen as more geeky than computer gaming or watching TV, when it is necessarily a social, creative and mentally stimulating activity.

This thread pops up every 4-6 weeks.

The GW managers are under pressure to up-sell like crazy.

If your GW store takes that so much to heart that they do a full court press when you walk in, don't go there anymore.

Pretty simple.

doctorludo wrote:

snowman40k wrote:

The parents are sucked in with "how much does your child spend in front of the tv/xbox/ps3?"

From there it's just a matter of hooking the parent into how it's 'creative'. 'challenging', 'fun', and 'gets them off the xbox and out of the parents hair for an hr or two'. Helps improve quick-thinking math problems as well (rolling so many dice and tallying it all up with all the crazy modifiers of 2nd edition).

You get the point anyway...

Although, at the risk of going off topic, this is a good point. Never understood why tabletop gaming is seen as more geeky than computer gaming or watching TV, when it is necessarily a social, creative and mentally stimulating activity.

Same reason as why video games get no respect, whilst draining your life away watching junk on telly does. Ignorance leads to fear, fear leads to hate, hate leads to the dark... wait, gone off on a bit of a tangent here.

I think my favourite one had to be when the new 'Nids came out-the manager, completely seriously, tried to convince me I needed a Hive Tyrant and 3 Pyrovores for my Dark Angels army.

Before the store closed in my area i had recently gotten back into the hobby and i went into GW a bunch of times over the course of a month to get new paint and this same chick who worked there would come hounding me asking me the same questions from a script which got annoying because i gave the same answers everytime. It got to the point where i would give one word answers and not even look her. If the store hadn't closed down it was gonna get to the point where i was just gonna flat out tell her to stop bothering me. I hate to be a douche but it was getting out of hand.

I'd love to slam my local GW for dancing the usual GW dance as already described in varying and graphic detail, but I worked in retail for five years and know how depressing it is.

I do get pissed off that, unless I'm buying something else, I'm all but forgotten about when the transaction is finished.

I can actually watch it happening from the moment they realise I came with an agenda and they can't sell me something new.


In this case, hate the game (Aggressive/pushey retail), not the player. These guys work there. If they were paid more or if it were an independant retailer dependant on make friends of gamers and keeping them comming back, I'd be more pissed but they aren't on mega-bucks and are there to keep themselves and their families fed.


Now, if you will excuse me, I need a shower as I feel very dirty now.

Edit: Apparently, I had brain rot...

They do that sort of stuff because it works with n00bs.

I want to add support to the idea that i understand how retail works- my issue isn't with them trying to sell me things, it's trying to sell me irrelevent things. in my local GW, i went in, bought a couple of boxes of catachans and the guy said 'have you seen the new catachan command squad?'

i said i hadn't he showed me, and i bought it.

Why? because he had taken on board (ba dum tsh) that i played catachans and thought of something that i might actually want and or need, compare this to the seemingly infamous example of
'I'll have these catachan heavy weapon teams and these pots of paint'
'Do you know what would go well with that?'
*hmm, last time they said this it worked, i'll hear him out*
'WHats that?'
'A stompa. they are really nice to paint.'


its not the encouraging me to buy other stuff that puts me off as 1/ it's their job, 2/sometimes it's a good shout- what annoys me is the idea that i want the biggest and newest shiniest thing that doesn't fit with my army

this was when i shopped in gw. i don't have that kinda money these days.

Ive never been in a GW store. The closest one to me is something like 400+ miles away. However, it looks like they are opening one later this year (Aug?) about 2 1/2 hours from me. Its supposedly going to be in the same city as my favorite LGS, so guess Ill have 2 stops to make when I visit.

Kilkrazy wrote:They do that sort of stuff because it works with n00bs.

C'mon KK! You arent even trying anymore... you may as well write "+1"

A very interesting fred...

I can see where people are coming from regarding "I want this - No you want THIS" conversation but I have to be honest - in my two local stores, GW Nottingham and Warhammer World I've never had anything other than great service by people who actually care about the items they are selling. Lets face it most sales people don't give a flying hoot what they are selling, only that they sell it as fast as possible. They can be a bit jumpy when you walk in but I'm 25 so it doesn't happen to much now. The problem I see is that they are not sales minded really. They are just enthusiastic gamers who just happen to work for the company they love. They probably have hardly any retail training apart from the usual. In fact - are they on commission because that can change things a lot too.

All in all they are only doing their best as they have a lot of pressure coming from upstairs who have no idea what it's like to work in a shop (most don't, some will).

Strangely enough the best profit margins for GW (and Music shops funnily enough) comes from them to selling you behind the counter things. Glue/Paint (and guitar strings in music shops) etc. They make so much more from that than models! Hence the "do you need any glue/paint?" They don't do that out of kindness. It's another sales approach and works VERY well.

gr1m_dan wrote:A very interesting fred...

I can see where people are coming from regarding "I want this - No you want THIS" conversation but I have to be honest - in my two local stores, GW Nottingham and Warhammer World I've never had anything other than great service by people who actually care about the items they are selling. Lets face it most sales people don't give a flying hoot what they are selling, only that they sell it as fast as possible. They can be a bit jumpy when you walk in but I'm 25 so it doesn't happen to much now. The problem I see is that they are not sales minded really. They are just enthusiastic gamers who just happen to work for the company they love. They probably have hardly any retail training apart from the usual. In fact - are they on commission because that can change things a lot too.

All in all they are only doing their best as they have a lot of pressure coming from upstairs who have no idea what it's like to work in a shop (most don't, some will).

Strangely enough the best profit margins for GW (and Music shops funnily enough) comes from them to selling you behind the counter things. Glue/Paint (and guitar strings in music shops) etc. They make so much more from that than models! Hence the "do you need any glue/paint?" They don't do that out of kindness. It's another sales approach and works VERY well.

I would be very surprised if GW HQ stores were anything less than perfect.

The conversation usually goes like this.

Salesman: You should also get...
Me: I dislike being hard-sold. If you try to hard-sell me again, I will find a location where I can shop in peace.

At which point, they can see if I'm bluffing, or they leave me alone. It's not like there aren't plenty of on-line locations where I can shop from the comfort of my own chair.

Mordiggian wrote:

It's not like there aren't plenty of on-line locations where I can shop from the comfort of my own chair.

Not for long

hlaine.larkin wrote:

Mordiggian wrote:

It's not like there aren't plenty of on-line locations where I can shop from the comfort of my own chair.

Not for long

Actually, the USA is not as deeply affected as the true Southern hemisphere/ROW, so he an still do so, confident that he will not be paying double what you lucky EU residents are paying.

I get the same hard sell every time i pop into a GW as well. Its annoying because normally the only time i can manage to get to the effing shop is when im out shopping with someone else (usually my mum so she can buy me clothes for uni ) so i dont get very long to browse and see what i like (and if i can afford to buy anything anymore).

Thankfully, i have been practising 'the look' (as my friends at uni call it, you know the one, when you are really drunk and talking to a girl who doesnt want to talk to you and she tells her mate and he gives you a look that says 'RUN!', yeah, thats me. In my defence, im very protective of my friends and most guys at uni are when they are drunk, myself included ).
They usually get the idea and stop trying to sell me stuff without even asking what army i play.

I used to have this problem at my local GW, i would go in to buy someting small like a single metal model (eldar farseer) and i would walk away with a whole new army (Dark eldar), now i just dont buy annything as ive got so much to paint.

I've not had much hassle at the GW shop where I am. I've just had the manager try to convince me to come back in two days to look at Finecast, as well as the usual 'got glue/paint?' just before paying. They talk up their store events a lot, but not so much the product. It was kind of interesting in comparison to all the hardselling others are reporting. I even overheard the manager talking to a guy looking to start a new army, and was just asking him what kind of army he wanted, and whether he had considered faction x. Not even really mentioning a specific model/set that he should TOTALLY ZOMG GET RIGHT NAO.

I worked for GW in Nashville and I shop infrequently at the Memphis Bunker and I've never felt hassled. I know retail and if your salesmen are as good as they should be you will never feel pressured untill you realise you have an arm full of stuff. I don't think I've ever pressured a sale and Nashville sales were mostly up.

So it all just depends on how good a salesperson you have.

Still voted yes because I hate car salesmen, realtors, and Sears salepeople and the question just asked if you've ever had "Something" sold to you you didn't want.

Mr.Church13 wrote:I worked for GW in Nashville and I shop infrequently at the Memphis Bunker and I've never felt hassled. I know retail and if your salesmen are as good as they should be you will never feel pressured untill you realise you have an arm full of stuff.

Yes to this.
Thats how it should happen, but often doesnt unfortunately.

With me, the conversation usually goes

GW Employee: Hey, what are you looking at?
Me: Tyranids
GW Employee: They're awesome. You can bring so many in a game. How long have you been playing? (this was actually a response I got)
Me: About 20 years.
GW Employee: ...

Then he goes off and talks to some kids who just got into the hobby.

I don't really mind, there's two guys at my local GW that I don't mind talking to, and they just ask me how my Tyranid army is going, and occaisonally if I need paint.

But what I found insulting about it was the fact that because I am a long term customer, I wasn't worth talking to. He just figured he didn't have anything to say, and walked off. If he stuck around, I'd have also mentioned that I've been out of the hobby since the tail end of 4th edition and a lot of the stuff on the shelves was completely new to me.

Another staffer, one of the guys I don't mind talking to, showed a bit of enthusiasm, asked why I wanted Tyanids, and when he saw me looking at the Trygon box, got out the store model from storage so I could hold the actual built model, and had a laugh with me at how impressed I was at the model.

He didn't try to push anything on me, just showe some enthusiasm and showed me some of the new models, and as a result I walked out with stuff. When one of their pushy staffers gets a hold of me, I leave quickly because I'm sick of them trying to make me buy things.

The sales patter is what I dislike about the company most.

Its what stopped me for so long taking up the hobby, all I wanted to do was have a look at the shelves or go and grab a new book and instead you have a bloke jabbering you to get the latest product.
They also aren't the sharpest tools in the box when it comes to the hobby, the other week I over heard an employee telling some kids how great necrons were because he had come 4th in some tournament with them, he went on to say how nothing could take down a monolith because you don't get 2d6 armour pen from melta and it ignores the plus one on the damage roll. I really wanted to challenge him but didn't want to get sucked in to a conversation.

The worse things I've seen are employees telling kids to go and get their parents to bring their money to buy them things.

I used to go to this great FLGS, can't remember the name, where I could hang out with the guys who worked there, check out all the latest models/books in peace, and check out some professionally-painted models. One guy there even sold me a Baneblade for $80, instead of the $120 it was going for at retail.... and this was before he was technically allowed to sell them off. Another gave me half a box of spare parts. Great store.

Unfortunately, they went out of business a while ago (although in the closing down sale, I went apeshit, and ended up with the beginnings of my IG army). Since then, I've bought nearly all my stuff from Wayland Games (f*ck you GW). Got an entire Valkyrie off Ebay for $40, around a month ago.
Still, online shopping just doesn't compare to in-store shopping... at least, when the store you go to isn't staffed by pea-brained parasites.

Over the years where to start

I remember we went to the GW that opened in our town years back, salesman came up, me and my friend were tired, he came across VERY friendly saying hello our first words were "Don't try to hard sell us something, we will hurt you." It was actually the beginning of a good friendship lol. Never had any hard sell from that place and always had good concersations about gaming, painting modelling etc.

More recently things that have irked me in my travels round a few GW's depending on where I've been since I've been wandering lately:

GW Oxford Street:
Being hassled to buy the new GK stuff, this guy wouldn't take no for an answer despite me saying I wasn't interested an army of them goes against how I always saw them from RT day being individual squads for specific targets. The new models while pretty overpriced for what you get, and I was just in to look at their cabinets out of professional curiosity for inspriation and blatant idea stealing.

GW Romford:
Worst of the bunch. The pushy guy at Oxford Street has nothing on this. Went in as I wanted a couple of paints I had left at home when at my girlfriends. So we wander to Romford (Land of Orange skinned women who for some reason think it's a natural colour to be). We walk in and pounced on by a guy who despite me saying exactly what I was in for keeps going on about the new stuff. Following me round the store annoyed the hell out of me, now I was thinking this guy just wont quit, he's like a vulture.
It wasn't that though, read above, I went with my girlfriend. Only woman in the store. Guy wont take his eyes off her chest, we wander out and she turns to me and says "You could tell I was the only woman in the store he was like "boooooooooooooooooooobs!" and I so felt uncomfortable!"
This wasn't the manager luckily just some peon in a blue shirt apparently she wandered in out of boredoms sake when someone else was in and had a decent conversation, the guy even backing off when she got it across she wasn't interested in buying stuff (after a while) as if she wanted stuff she knows people with enough spare to hand her models to start off with .

Best two GW's I've been in lately are Bedford and Oxford both places there's been no hard sell and people happy to talk and understand you aren't there to buy you're there to look plus they're willing to take criticism.
All this said I've noticed some staff they do it a sneakier way these days, find out if you play, what you play, what you're working on etc in a conversation and then take it from there

I don't like having the upsell, I only go into GW to moan about their prices and tell other customers about Wayland games... That's really evil isn't it?

You can really only be upsold if you walk into a shop without any idea what you want to buy and with a certain wad of cash to buy it. That very rarely happens, especially with men. Men stereotypically know exactly what they want to buy before they even get on their bike and cycle down to GW. When you go clothes shopping or food shopping it'd be different, you tend not to know what you want in such detail so a good butcher or sales person (not that you ever get one of those in clothes shops) can make you spend more than perhaps you intended to.

It completely frustrates me when some guy gets all crazy about selling things and especially when they keep bigging up GW products too. The manager yesterday was spouting about how great finecast was... Does he really believe it or is it some spiel he's forced to repeat? Obviously finecast miniatures aren't the best miniatures in the world as GW claim, or there wouldn't have been noticeable miscasts all over the shop. And yet the staff continue to push it like it's amazing; I wish they'd accept the flaws in their own shop.

In my experience it's much easier to sell something when you make the customer think you think like them. If they wanna moan, moan with them. If they're all eager, be really eager. I would be much more likely to spend my cash in GW if the staff their accepted their product flaws and overpricing!

And here comes The Kan again - telling us what armies we can and cannot have, even when it's 'Counts As'.

hehe, still waiting for him to drop in and furiously defend GW in the leaving GW thread:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/371587.page

That statement comes from the most detailed accounts we have now of the Custodes, from "The First Heretic". You know, where the Word Bearers come to the realization that the Custodes while being amazing fighters--don't really have good synergy or a good grasp of fighting as a group in ranked fighting.

First: That is not canon fluff.

Second: Visions fluff contradicts this to 100%.

Both are equally valid fluff sources.

It's a case of "every Custodes is a hero, not a soldier". The 'closest fit' for a Custodes force would be a Draigowing force, where pretty much every individual Terminator is a hero in their own right.
That's far from "infantry heavy"--which really is counterintuitive to the whole idea of Custodes.

Funny, Dragio-paladins = terminators.
Terminators = infantry!

Please stop telling people hot to interpret their GK-custodian armies since you cant just take one fluff source and/or claim terminators are far from infantry.
Alpharius tought me how to view other peoples army projects with his gk-alpha legion ideas, maybe you should try to be as tolerant as him too.

Yeah, I know--but with the Grey Knights book--anything's possible. I can't really think of any feasible way to do a 'fluffy' Custodes force that just doesn't toss the most recently introduced fluff aside. Best way would be the Draigowing with Paladins though.

Since most custodians in all custodian fluff are portraited wearing fancy power armour (and since there were zero custodian terminators mentione in your fluff example) I assume squads with artificer armour would be suitable for this purpose.
Calgar and 30 2+ save power armoured honour guards with power weapons, relic blades and bolter upgrades are IMO what I would use if I would do a custodian squad.
For support some terminators and ven dreadnoughts.

But this is my opinion and in no way meant to be "the absolute truth".

The use of shiny objects is an easy method to startle or even distract the feeble minded. One's house/car keys are often the closest at hand when such a situation arises.

lol
That has to be the funniest thing I read this year

For what it's worth, I have worked in corporate retail. For quite a long time. And the fastest way to persuade me to leave your shop without buying anything is to keep talking to me when I've just said that I'm fine having a browse.

Weird thing is my local GW store is and has always been 100% perfect in regards to a decent customer approach.
Every time I pass the store I feel the need to step inside, have a look at the things and a chat with the manager whomever he is at the time, the experience has always been perfect with no hassling, no awkward moments and I always get the urge to actually buy stuff because I enjoy my visit to the store and the way the staff handles themselves so much.
I must be in the minority or we have the best GW store in the world here, dunno.

Pyriel- wrote:
Weird thing is my local GW store is and has always been 100% perfect in regards to a decent customer approach.
Every time I pass the store I feel the need to step inside, have a look at the things and a chat with the manager whomever he is at the time, the experience has always been perfect with no hassling, no awkward moments and I always get the urge to actually buy stuff because I enjoy my visit to the store and the way the staff handles themselves so much.
I must be in the minority or we have the best GW store in the world here, dunno.

Your in the minority i think, my local GW is pretty much like that haha.