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.

DeathGod wrote:
You don't like GW making sound business decisions? Stop supporting them. Simply stop buying their product, period. Buying it on E-Bay still gets GW their 55% of MSRP. And trust me, I can attest to this on a DAILY basis, for every "older guy" refusing to update their asstastic 2nd ed. models because the new, amazing plastic terminators are $50 there are 10 new customers who think that gak is smoking hot and can't wait until next payday when they can pick theirs up.

Except they are not. All the evidence shows that year on year, GW are selling less physical toy soldier product. Doesn't mean they are in bad financial shape right now as they have reaped short term rewards from IP franchise deals and recent dramatic US$/£UK exchange rate movements, but it is easily demonstrable from their published turnover figures (once you strip out exchange rate gains, the effect of inflation and the "LOTR bubble" impact) that their core hobbyist customer base is declining in numbers and/or appetite (it is impossible to determine whether fewer people are buying, or whether the same number of people are buying fewer models as the maths works out the same ineither case).

Once GW have discovered a way of actually increasing volume sales again and halting the decline in volume sales of 40k and WFB that has happened *every year since 2001* then you can get back to me. Until that point, do some homework on GW's actual financial perfomance, and understand the difference between improving financial efficiency and developing sustainable long term demand for the product. You may get a surprise.

DeathGod wrote:Wow, where have you been gaming? I've been in GW since 3rd was released (bought my first stuff the week after 3rd hit the stores), and in ALL THAT TIME, I've never EVER seen Epic, Warmaster, or Gothic played in a store. Sure, i knew people who had it, and played it in their garage, but those people had grey Grizzly Adams beards with permanent mustard stains, wore leather bicycle gloves and 80's mesh sleeveless t-shirts, and you could tell they were on their way to the store because the paint started peeling off your models 15 minutes before they got their from their impenetrable aura of BO.

Come to think of it, all they do when they visit the store is alment about the good ol' days too, before they truck back to their mothers' basements.

Mmm. Tell that to the CEO, Banker, VP, Lawyer, and others in my group. You might be distracted by the FW minis...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Modquisition on:

Everyone lets remember Dakka Rule #1: be polite, or risk suspension. If you cannot post in such a manner, than emply the IGNORE function or do not post.

The more friends and acquaintances I speak with at GW the worse this gets. There are people all over GW North America losing their jobs and not just in retail or at the HQ. Many jobs based out of various sites are being moved to Memphis and for those people for whom moving is not an option they will be out of a job along with the people who've had their jobs eliminated. This means that GW North America is losing many of its best, most talented long-term employees in training, retail, customer service, trade sales, management, human resources and more.

My closest GW store goes to 35 hours per week starting today.

Hulksmash wrote:Not in Cali. Unless they give them permission to leave for 30 minutes for lunch and close the store for 2 10 minute breaks a day they are going to need to have 2 employees. Dang state labor laws anyway

Thems the rules here in old Blighty too and well as a ex-employee I can safely say GW simply ignores them. My local stores are also closing now on Tuesdays, it appears it's not just your side of the pond being hit.
Though in all honesty I purchase my toys elsewhere and never go their for gaming, so I'm not too fussed.

So is GW trying to absorb a big financial problem by reducing costs ?

By purchasing your toys else where, it dosn't matter. GW gets their money one way or the other.

The only way to send GW a message is not buy any GW products at all.

So is GW trying to absorb a big financial problem by reducing costs ?

All companies try to resolve their financial problems by cutting costs. It's not the only solution, but it is a partial solution and all companies eventually hit a point where they realize they can save money by cutting costs, then they start looking everywhere for places to do so.

the worst part of all of this?
GW North America were profitable. but, they think by making all of these radical changes, and getting rid of the quality staff who were making the sales, training their staff etc. that they will increase profitability.

BrassScorpion wrote:The more friends and acquaintances I speak with at GW the worse this gets. There are people all over GW North America losing their jobs and not just in retail or at the HQ. Many jobs based out of various sites are being moved to Memphis and for those people for whom moving is not an option they will be out of a job along with the people who've had their jobs eliminated. This means that GW North America is losing many of its best, most talented long-term employees in training, retail, customer service, trade sales, management, human resources and more.

I think I predicted this earlier in the thread. Seen it happen before. One of the savings you get from this kind of relocation is losing the tenured employees that can't make the move. Even if those positions are deemed to be critical, now they can fill them with new hires at Tennessee wages. And yeah, lots of talent is lost in the process.

Quite honestly, I haven't seen one thing that would make me think Kirby values or has ever really valued "talent" in the organization. In my experience, some companies and CEOs do, at least much more than others. Seems like GW has never had any real issue with dumping experienced and/or talented employees, just based on my impressions from over the years.

That's not really a "GW is bad" rant, BTW. Some companies just view their employees as disposable more than others.

deitpike wrote:the worst part of all of this?
GW North America were profitable. but, they think by making all of these radical changes, and getting rid of the quality staff who were making the sales, training their staff etc. that they will increase profitability.

GW North America was/is profitable. But GW North America also includes the production facility in Memphis. The retail side is just barely pulling their weight, and barely breaking even. A buddy of mine who is a former bunker manager (and that's all I'm saying about that) was telling me a couple days ago how last year 5 stores combined for being NEGATIVE 2 million dollars against the bottom line. And that's only 5 stores. Moving the HQ to Memphis saves GW 1.75 million dollars a YEAR. Trimming the fat and redundant positions is not only a good idea, its a responsible idea.

Props to GW for proper and sound business decisions.

Ever consider that cutting the staff doesn't fix the fact that some stores aren't making any money?

There are legitimate reasons to question GW's business strategy here.

Ok, i used to work in a GW store in Northren Alberta, and my old manager is now the manager for westren canada, they are currently planning to open 3 new stores in the area including a battle bunker. I will be honest though, no idea what a battle bunker really is lol.

I am a veteran 40K converter and painter. I also enjoy playing the game. One thing that I miss is that they used to have a huge bitz selection that you can purchase through the online store. I wonder if they can smarten up and reestablish that again. I am willing to pay a premium on new sprues, and pewter parts again. I just can't wrap my head around why they never reintroduced that the past two year.

patzgcrux wrote:I am a veteran 40K converter and painter. I also enjoy playing the game. One thing that I miss is that they used to have a huge bitz selection that you can purchase through the online store. I wonder if they can smarten up and reestablish that again. I am willing to pay a premium on new sprues, and pewter parts again. I just can't wrap my head around why they never reintroduced that the past two year.

There is another thread I think in General Discussion asking where the bitz service went. The general concensus from most dakkites is that it wasn't cost effective and was in fact a financial drain. I also think one of the GW bigwigs(can't remember who) stated the same in a white dwarf when the service was scrapped.

On topic, none of the employees in my local GW store are gone yet and the one I talked to is pretty positive about the moving of the Glen Burnie bunker to a more foot traffic friendly area. The amount of demo games that their mall store does in a month compared to the Glen Burnie bunker is pretty extreme.

Davor wrote:By purchasing your toys else where, it dosn't matter. GW gets their money one way or the other.

The only way to send GW a message is not buy any GW products at all.

What I meant was that I purchase them elsewhere because they're cheaper, I play elsewhere as GW stores in the UK are overrun by pre-pubescent boys who cant play for toffee and cry when you kill their uber lord of killyness and to be honest the staff aren't much better either. Therefore as I dont use the store much the changes in the UK wont affect me much.

I can appreciate things are different in the US.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

DeathGod wrote:Wow, where have you been gaming? I've been in GW since 3rd was released (bought my first stuff the week after 3rd hit the stores), and in ALL THAT TIME, I've never EVER seen Epic, Warmaster, or Gothic played in a store. Sure, i knew people who had it, and played it in their garage, but those people had grey Grizzly Adams beards with permanent mustard stains, wore leather bicycle gloves and 80's mesh sleeveless t-shirts, and you could tell they were on their way to the store because the paint started peeling off your models 15 minutes before they got their from their impenetrable aura of BO.

Come to think of it, all they do when they visit the store is alment about the good ol' days too, before they truck back to their mothers' basements.

In the UK that may be something to do with the fact that GW banned the non-core systems from being played in the stores; a decision I believe they are reversing soon so they can get the vets back into stores.

gurslak wrote:In the UK that may be something to do with the fact that GW banned the non-core systems from being played in the stores; a decision I believe they are reversing soon so they can get the vets back into stores.

They banned their own game systems from their own stores? Wow. I can see banning other game systems like FoW, Firestorm Armada, etc., but their own damn games?

I personally have seen Warmaster, BFG, and BB being played in the Chicago Bunker. There is even a BB league (iirc) that plays on certain nights of the week. Now, it's not like these games don't exist, just that: A) the people that play them don't come into the store or B) they're not that popular and C) a little from column A and a little from column B.

I have always wanted to play BFG, but I just don't have the spare cash at the moment to drop on it.

Wow... This thread is out of control with speculations and assumptions.

It would seem as though everyone discussing this thinks they have a business degree.

Battle Bunkers have more room than other US GW stores and often allow customers to play "non-core" GW products there when the space is not required for events or other more urgent priorities. Bunkers generally have enough space on most days to allow customers to delve into all manner of GW's side products without hurting sales of core product. The smaller stores have much more limited gaming space than Bunkers and so core systems are generally always going to get the table space since those three core games are the only games for which product is on the shelves and immediately available for sale.

Hopefully when the current changes to store hours and staff are complete they will be allowed to stabilize for a while. Damage to the hobby community at each store is inevitable when drastic changes are made to staff and hours. I also hope GW finds itself to be on an acceptable business course so they can focus on their products and marketing. I for one would like to see new GW models and books for years to come.

oni wrote:It would seem as though everyone discussing this thinks they have a business degree.

Some of us don't just *think* we have one.

The more I think about this the more I am disappointed. Not at the action they are taken (I have long contended that it is my belief that in the internet age, their own retail stores are a drain on their resources that they do not need), but at the amount of risk they are prepared to take and the amount of resource they are prepared to expend to get their distribution methodology right.

While distribution is important (and retail is a part of that) I fear they risk taking their eye off the ball, particularly in America (where there is heavy competition from PP), and need to reprioritise gameplay, community involvement and (for me) the biggy: value for money! They surely need to address these areas with as great an urgency and with as good an appetite for risk as their distribution policy.

Until they address value for money (i.e. reverse their "charge metals prices for plastic models" policy for new releases) then they can shave costs as much as they like, but ultimately as their customers will continue to walk away from them, their long term aspirations of growth will be proved to be vapourware.

Sadly, Andy Chambers' comments about the management at GW being focussed on the benefits and problems of the distribution network to the detriment of the gaming experience they offer for sale seem to be even more relevant now than when he made them 5 or 6 years ago!

I couldn't agree more that they lack any sense whatsoever of value for money, even when I get their stuff at a discount I still feel it costs more then it should, how hard can it be to reason that if the stuff was cheaper then customers would spend more as they feel they get greater value for their money and so are happier to buy more of the same product.

I do agree with Osbad and some of us here do have a business degree and what GW has to factor in is value for the money, products the community really wants or needs and access to information about the hobby and gaming.

It all starts with GW’s 2009 Annual Report:

“Other things we have found are: better trade terms - designed to help those who make the serious commitment of having a real store where they can talk to customers and explain how our games work and teach modelling and painting; a more sustainable store opening model - smaller, cheaper stores that open when we want them to be (not mall operators) and can be run by just one member of staff if need be; higher prices - enabling us to respond when costs increase dramatically as the price of tin did last summer; and, very importantly, a better balance between the price of our plastic miniatures and our metal ones - for similar models prices ought to be similar and not less 'because they are plastic'.”

As you can see, many of the “rumors” and statements floating in this blog and others all stem from this paragraph in their Annual Report. It is a fact that they are moving to the streamlined store model but as I read it this is primarily for their new stores. It also can be said that they are trying to find further savings and increasing their revenue by streamlining some of their internal business, hence the move of the HQ in the US to Memphis. Still, as a longtime hobbyist, I both understand their issues but I am still selfish because I love this hobby. While I am in no way an expert at their “business” I do want to make some observations and suggestions and hope that there are a better business than I think and are doing their homework by reading these blogs to gain an understanding of their community.

Starting with value for the money, GW needs to take a hard look at their existing hobbyist, as well as targeting new gamers, especially with what is going on in the economy. Many of us in the community have scaled back what we purchase and I personally try not to purchase anything at the local GW store when I can save 20 or 30% on-line. Even though their operating profit for 2009 is up £6.5M it still appears that their discontinued operations profit/(loss) for the year only minimally went up and this tells me that further cuts externally and internally are coming. Too bad for us because that means price increases and we have certainly seen some price increases over the last year. Again, the last statement in the paragraph above from the Annual Report will give you a good indication that they are pushing to keep prices up even though they might be seeing some saving by converting to plastic models. If they continue to keep the prices where they are and the economy doesn’t pick up, their small profit from 2009 will disappear as they lose existing customers and will fail to gain new ones.

I also think that they need to start to look at what they produce and how. If they are going to create gaming rules that say I can have a certain amount of weaponry for a squad yet I have to buy three kits to get it, is absurd. Take for instance the new Killa Kans. I get one of every weapon in the codex minus the Mega Blasta and if I am going to field this unit it probably won’t be competitive out of the box. I have to buy the Deff Dread to get at least two mega-blastas and or purchase three kits to get a squadron with Shootas or Rokkits. Now I am not going out and buying three kits so they really should put their business hats on and think of how they can make their Bitz business profitable. Obviously, Bitz selling is profitable for almost anyone who does it on the Internet as long as you sell the pieces that people want. If they sold a sprue with just weapons, I would gamble that people would buy it, especially us in the community that love to do conversions. I am certain that they could make this work. They also have to sell models that people want. If they are not careful, we will end up with a hobby that is nothing but IG, SM and possibly Orks. I know that it is expensive for GW to maintain several different races but maybe they could make the less sold races an Internet and build for purchase product. In essence, they only produce what they sell and this certainly can be done with a plastic line of models.

Another area that is frustrating for me has been the decline of information that GW is letting out. What GW is missing is stated in a thread about the pending Necron release. The blog entry reads, "I would like to add that development staff are getting very frustrated by headquarters’ increasingly tyrannical policies – within and between departments – with regards to information restriction. It’s absurd, and unnecessary." This is very troubling and if they lose more of their talented internal staff that do development and other things, then I fear that that the small amount of information that we do get will die away. Just take a look at a White Dwarf from a few years ago and compare it to one from today and the amount of real information has been scaled back tremendously. I think they do ok with their website info but we are in an age when everyone has access and wants access to info instantly. GW needs to wake up and understand that their newbies are in this generation and want their information yesterday. Old timers like me still like their hardcopy WD and can wait a week or two to learn something new but again, GW doesn’t seem to be doing their homework to really understand their customers.

Anyway, I apologize for the long rant and maybe what we need to do is have someone in the community who is insanely rich buyout the company and make it private again or maybe each one of us needs to buy 100 shares of their stock and vote out the existing Board and CEO and replace them with someone who truly loves this hobby and the people like us who support it…..

I also think that they need to start to look at what they produce and how. If they are going to create gaming rules that say I can have a certain amount of weaponry for a squad yet I have to buy three kits to get it, is absurd. Take for instance the new Killa Kans. I get one of every weapon in the codex minus the Mega Blasta and if I am going to field this unit it probably won’t be competitive out of the box. I have to buy the Deff Dread to get at least two mega-blastas and or purchase three kits to get a squadron with Shootas or Rokkits. Now I am not going out and buying three kits so they really should put their business hats on and think of how they can make their Bitz business profitable. Obviously, Bitz selling is profitable for almost anyone who does it on the Internet as long as you sell the pieces that people want. If they sold a sprue with just weapons, I would gamble that people would buy it, especially us in the community that love to do conversions. I am certain that they could make this work. They also have to sell models that people want. If they are not careful, we will end up with a hobby that is nothing but IG, SM and possibly Orks. I know that it is expensive for GW to maintain several different races but maybe they could make the less sold races an Internet and build for purchase product. In essence, they only produce what they sell and this certainly can be done with a plastic line of models.

I agree with most of this, the kanz are difficult though. There isn't enough room on the sprue for three of every weapon they can take so they went with a variety. I'm not as upset with that decision as some as I don't see how (other then a seperate sprue, which they hate nowadays) they could have done the Kanz in a way that would satisfy everybody.

Having one seperate sprue with one each of a RL, BS, burna and KMB would have worked and would have meant both the deff dred and kanz could have had the exact number of required weapons in the box (with the three grotzookas filling up the kanz spures and gubbinz on the DD's sprues) but the downside is that then there would only be one style of each of those four weapons and I think it would be a shame to lose the variety of mouldings that the new kits have.

Plus, as I already noted, GW hates generic sprues taht could be used in nultiple kits, look at their drive to minimize the number of sprues in guard tanks.

I can certainly see your point about the sprues but maybe it is time that GW start listening to their customers regarding what they want.

I am not a production expert and maybe someone can comment on this thread who is but it would seem to me that if they added generic sprues with various weaponry and sold them as bitz, they would find that one, they might actually sell more regular kits because more people want to do conversions, and two, the sprues would actually sell. No overhead costs for the sprues if they are not including packaging and only sold on-line. I think I read somewhere once in some GW corporate stuff that the Russ sprues and others were streamlined to reduce the packaging requirement and thus reducing the production cost of the sprue and the packaging.

Also, the more I think about it, the more I am inclined to reiterate something you did bring up and that is that GW corporate hates almost everything that their customers want and are telling them. I am certain that many businesses fail because they don't listen to their customer and listen more to the Board members.

Completely agree, a single equipment sprue for each race with one each of common vehicle heavy weapons (but not unique ones like kill kannons/grotzookas etc) and a number of special/heavy weapons for troopers plus extra bits (ammo grots/common wargear options etc) would surely sell.

That's sort of what they did with the dark angels/black templars upgrade frames and despite not playing either I really liked the execution of those. Plus they do that battlewagon sprue for £8 and that's only good for one kit!

Hulksmash wrote:Not in Cali. Unless they give them permission to leave for 30 minutes for lunch and close the store for 2 10 minute breaks a day they are going to need to have 2 employees. Dang state labor laws anyway

A GW store near here has two employees (including the manager). So, on some Saturdays, I only see the manager in the store. Which means, he takes working breaks? He's a good manager to give his only other employee Saturdays off but how does he get arround the breaks and lunches? They are not open on Mondays already. Are they going to be closed on Tuesdays as well? We, regulars, tried supporting them by purchasing through their store only but it seems regardless of how much support the regulars give to their stores, the big shots in GW will do as they like.

Then there are stores like the one in Glendale Mall which seems to be empty everytime I visit them and yet has as much space as the LA Battle Bunker. IMO mall stores should close and the money saved should be used to support the smaller stores in their expansion.

oni wrote:Wow... This thread is out of control with speculations and assumptions.

It would seem as though everyone discussing this thinks they have a business degree.

Not only that, but some of us also have 20+ years of business experience in retail, manufacturing and warehousing.

As Osbad I think pointed out, you can only focus on below the line for so long. If you have a declining\ stagnant revenue stream in your main product lines (which you have if you strip out estimates for BL, FW, LOTR and currency fluctuations) at some point it is going to hurt and start a death spiral. I have seen a couple of death spirals in my time - not pretty. Many of us have believed that true volume of product sold has been going south/ stagnant for the last 5+ years.

I agree with the one man operation for during the week. That makes sense. However, it makes zero sense at a weekend. There will be a lot of hidden cost in the shape of lost revenue from that model as well as an increase in shrinkage. It is so basic I fail to understand why they do it - they must have analysis that shows reduction in costs is greater than estimated loss of revenue + shrinkage. I would love to go through how the analyse things to support their decisions. would be fascinating.

The Battle Bunker in Glen Burnie, MD is not immune to cost cuts even before it is moved later this year. Starting April 7 the Battle Bunker will be closed on Wednesdays. Wednesday was chosen because some of GW's other area stores are already closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, so this way not all of the stores in the area are closed on the same day.

Warlord Imp wrote:Then there are stores like the one in Glendale Mall which seems to be empty everytime I visit them and yet has as much space as the LA Battle Bunker. IMO mall stores should close and the money saved should be used to support the smaller stores in their expansion.

The site lists a new store "opening soon" at 919 South Central Ave in Glendale, which I assume is on the street itself.

Presumably the mall location will close then?

Simon

I forsee the owners of GW selling GW to another individual in the near future.

I sense they are ramping up the books for a sale.

IDK! haha

RogueMarket wrote:I forsee the owners of GW selling GW to another individual in the near future.

I sense they are ramping up the books for a sale.

IDK! haha

The owners would be all of us who hold stock.......and the price is not high enough yet for me to let go of it.