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Getting to that time again... (we need a "beating a dead horse" icon!)

Not really so much of a rumour, but I was talking to my local Grey Knight, and he indicated that his sources within GW Canada indicated to him that the price disparity (average of +50%, some as high as +75%) between GWUS/GW Canada is a perceived problem within the two "companies", and is going to result in a price adjustment probably in the new fiscal year. He was of the opinion that GW Canada would probably adjust downwards as GWUS is unlikely to survive getting hit with a 50% hike over the entire line. A terse response I got from GW Canada through contacting their Mail Order group however, suggested that while GW is exploring addressing the pricing parity problem within North America - any adjustments to fix the large price difference between regions is more likely to happen on the GWUS side, and would coincide with Q1 of the new year.

Granted, this is really no information at all - and I highly doubt that GWUS could afford to even increase prices to within 10-20% below the Canadian price, as I don't think the US market is ready for a 30-40% increase across the board... if GWUS were to institute even a blanket 20% increase (dropping the disparity to a mere 30% difference between regions), would this effectively kill all momentum in the GW hobby in the US?

With the weak American economy and the fact there is a HIGH probability of a recession a price hike would be like chopping your legs off at the knee. I know i would not buy anything from GW for a good two years if their products was hiked up by 50%. 95 dollars for a land raider crusader would be rediculous.

There is an issue right now with everyone in the world ordering from the US store as the dollar is so weak. I think I heard that the Blood knights are $15 but also £15 in the UK store!

Ozymandias, King of Kings

a Land Raider Crusader is 40 pounds vs 65 dollars for americans.

Yes that would be an excellent way to eliminate the US market from your sales portfolio.

Ideally what would be happening is happening. More sales are coming from the US side, being "exported" to Canada and the UK. Its not our fault you guys can't compete

seeing how the service industry now went from an average of 15%-20% for their tips to 5%-10% a 50% increase on GW products would be devastating to there sales.


The worse part is if i remember correctly is the interests rates for credit card are also set to rise aswell. So, yeah if they have the audacity to raise there prices to canadian standards then the Management of GW should be questioned for sheer retardation.

Heritor wrote: a Land Raider Crusader is 40 pounds vs 65 dollars for americans.

FYI. 40 GBP is approximately $78USD.

Just a qualifier on the inital post - I used the 50% markup as an average in price difference in Canadian vs US prices (bands):

$10US blisters = $14CAD ~+40%
$17US blisters = $25CAD ~+47%
$25US boxes = $40CAD ~+60%
$90US battleforces = $130CAD ~+44%

Some things have less difference - I believe that Terminators used to be cheaper in Canada:
$35US regiments = $45CAD ~+22%
$90US baneblade = $90CAD! (IIRC)

Some things have more:
$75US Manor House = $130CAD ~+73%

YMMV. But it is undeniable that the US has price advantage over most regions on most product.

jfrazell wrote:Yes that would be an excellent way to eliminate the US market from your sales portfolio.

Ideally what would be happening is happening. More sales are coming from the US side, being "exported" to Canada and the UK. Its not our fault you guys can't compete

I do realize that a US price raise would be suicide - the ones hurt most by the increased prices outside the US market are the non-US independents. They have to buy in at a percentage of regional MSRP - it is ridiculous that their discount is only fractionally better than US MSRP. On a more serious note - do you think there is any chance that the new bean-counter head of GW is percieving these 'export' sales from the lower priced US to be damaging sales in more profitable areas (read - higher markup areas) - and are there-by reducing potential profits? Is this the reason for the renewed clamp down on internet sales?

Good Point Keezus.

Here's a Q. Anyone familiar with other multinationals with internet sales? How are they handled?

GW is currently just floating in the rapids with no real direction at the moment.

Lots of changes coming, whether they are the 'correct' ones is...who knows.

Wait, the US is actually in the position to make a product for less and export it to other countries? To quote Princess Bride, "That's inconceivable!"

Wonder how many orders Neal at the warstore takes for Canadians?

Probably a bunch, that's 'lots' for you non-metric people. I know I've ordered most of my recent gaming purchases through the Warstore.

Heritor wrote: With the weak American economy and the fact there is a HIGH probability of a recession a price hike would be like chopping your legs off at the knee. I know i would not buy anything from GW for a good two years if their products was hiked up by 50%. 95 dollars for a land raider crusader would be rediculous.

Bro, uh... The Baneblade costs that much now. The landraider is only a few dollers off. If they charge it, people will buy it.


GW might want to rethink this one if they want to stay in business, doing thier usual antics is only going to peeve off more of the less and less fans that they have left.

I give them this time next year on the conversation about who will be picking up the company.

jfrazell wrote:Good Point Keezus.

Here's a Q. Anyone familiar with other multinationals with internet sales? How are they handled?

I work for an eCommerce company. GW could restrict a purchaser from buying from a set list of countries. Many of my clients do this, we call it siloing. If we create a silo for US and one for Canada, a Canadian customer can only order from the Canadian store and vice-versa.

This doesn't just affect GW obviously, we've seen a significant increase in many of our clients as Europeans are buying more from the US.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Price hikes would be not wise.

GW raising their prices would be likewise.

Par for the course.

I think it unlikely for GW Canada to lower prices without irking their retailers even more. They would be stuck with a lot of product at a higher price which wont sell until the retailers slash them as well.

Its easier for GW to simply raise prices.

Steady on, GW! You're going to make so many other game companies happy that you disenfranchise your consumers so that they jump ship to them.

Ozymandias wrote:Many of my clients do this, we call it siloing. If we create a silo for US and one for Canada, a Canadian customer can only order from the Canadian store and vice-versa.

This only works for GW's web store correct? I can't imagine that they'd have much success requesting independents to follow suit, and this would appear to have no ability to stop product from flowing through secondary channels such as E-Bay.

Most Dakkaites have thousands of points worth of armies. We can say "Scew GW I don't need the shiny new whatever is new this month" and keep playing just fine. It's the poor college kids just getting started (got alot of those here) who will be forced out of the game. GW needs new blood, and raising prices is the best way to run them off.

keezus wrote:

Heritor wrote: a Land Raider Crusader is 40 pounds vs 65 dollars for americans.

FYI. 40 GBP is approximately $78USD.

Just a qualifier on the inital post - I used the 50% markup as an average in price difference in Canadian vs US prices (bands):

$10US blisters = $14CAD ~+40%
$17US blisters = $25CAD ~+47%
$25US boxes = $40CAD ~+60%
$90US battleforces = $130CAD ~+44%

Some things have less difference - I believe that Terminators used to be cheaper in Canada:
$35US regiments = $45CAD ~+22%
$90US baneblade = $90CAD! (IIRC)

Some things have more:
$75US Manor House = $130CAD ~+73%

YMMV. But it is undeniable that the US has price advantage over most regions on most product.

40 pounds should be roughly 80 american as the british pound is like 2 point somthing dollars.

I am well aware that 40 british pounds is more then 65 american. :p

Grot 6 wrote:

Heritor wrote: With the weak American economy and the fact there is a HIGH probability of a recession a price hike would be like chopping your legs off at the knee. I know i would not buy anything from GW for a good two years if their products was hiked up by 50%. 95 dollars for a land raider crusader would be rediculous.

Bro, uh... The Baneblade costs that much now. The landraider is only a few dollers off. If they charge it, people will buy it.


GW might want to rethink this one if they want to stay in business, doing thier usual antics is only going to peeve off more of the less and less fans that they have left.

I give them this time next year on the conversation about who will be picking up the company.

The baneblade costs that amount and are bought by a different client. Nobody getting into 40k is gonna buy a Baneblade because its an Apocalypse item. There is a huge difference between a Land Raider which is in my codex and i can use in a 2000pt game and a baneblade thats for Apocalypse a game marketed for Veteran players many of whom aren't building armies, don't really need anything new for their armies, and can say "hey my army is done so i think instead of buying a Chaos battleforce i will a Baneblade.".

If someone is going to get into a hobby playing marines and sees that buying a Land Raider will cost him 90 bucks he will rethink his purchase. Why buy a sing Land Raider that will cost him 90 dollars when he can get into warmachines and pretty much buy an army for less?

Would it be within GW US's power to force US retailers to stop selling to non-US customers? How could they even enforce such a policy?

Ozymandias wrote:GW could restrict a purchaser from buying from a set list of countries. Many of my clients do this, we call it siloing. If we create a silo for US and one for Canada, a Canadian customer can only order from the Canadian store and vice-versa.

And that is precisely why the "grey market" exists. For those who don't deal with international trade, the grey market is composed almost entirely of shell buyers who arbitrage the relative price of goods purchased on one country versus another.

This is why all-region / region-free DVDs and players are so important.

I mean, nobody with even half a brain actually thinks that "siloing" works in the real world, do they?

Ozymandias wrote:

jfrazell wrote:Good Point Keezus.

Here's a Q. Anyone familiar with other multinationals with internet sales? How are they handled?

I work for an eCommerce company. GW could restrict a purchaser from buying from a set list of countries. Many of my clients do this, we call it siloing. If we create a silo for US and one for Canada, a Canadian customer can only order from the Canadian store and vice-versa.

This doesn't just affect GW obviously, we've seen a significant increase in many of our clients as Europeans are buying more from the US.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Thanks.

GW attempt to "silo", but its pretty difficult. They aren't the only ones in the gaming industry - FFG do it too for instance.

But in the "internet age" its pretty much a waste of time unless you make you have absolute control over all your distribution channels. Which GW simply do not have and never will if they ever want to grow again!

Its yet another example of how GW (along with much "big business") simply do not "get" the internet.

Instead of producing a high quality product at a reasonable price which would get the "internet buzz" driving sales in their direction, they waste effort trying to manipulate and price-restrict and con people into paying way more for their goods than they are worth.

Unless and until they stop these shenanigans and actually try and recover some integrity then I simply hope they crash and burn. They certainly don't deserve any love from me as a company if they do anything other than try as best as possible to match prices downwards to the US price, taking into account local taxation and distribution costs. Anything else is simply trying to rip off the consumer and line their own pockets - by which I mean taking unfair advantage of their consumers.

keezus wrote:

Not really so much of a rumour, but I was talking to my local Grey Knight, and he indicated that his sources within GW Canada indicated to him that the price disparity (average of +50%, some as high as +75%) between GWUS/GW Canada is a perceived problem within the two "companies", and is going to result in a price adjustment probably in the new fiscal year. He was of the opinion that GW Canada would probably adjust downwards as GWUS is unlikely to survive getting hit with a 50% hike over the entire line. A terse response I got from GW Canada through contacting their Mail Order group however, suggested that while GW is exploring addressing the pricing parity problem within North America - any adjustments to fix the large price difference between regions is more likely to happen on the GWUS side, and would coincide with Q1 of the new year.

Granted, this is really no information at all - and I highly doubt that GWUS could afford to even increase prices to within 10-20% below the Canadian price, as I don't think the US market is ready for a 30-40% increase across the board... if GWUS were to institute even a blanket 20% increase (dropping the disparity to a mere 30% difference between regions), would this effectively kill all momentum in the GW hobby in the US?

GW Canada needs to be going doward.

There is no way GW US can survive another price increase. Thats business suicide.

GW is not a US company. The US dollar is weak. It's not weak because of anything GW has done, it's weak because of what the US government has done.

While it's unfortunate that a side effect of US Financial policy may make the cost of miniatures go up, the blame here lies squarely with the US Government, not GW. If you really must blame GW, at least blame GW Bush.

But, honestly now, it's not just miniatures that cost more. My electric bill, heating bill, water bill, public transportation pass, and gasoline prices have all gone up in the last year. But that's ok, because your loving government is going to cut you a $600 check and encourage you to be irresponsible with it in another last-ditch effort to salvage the US economy - at a cost of "only" borrowing another 660 billion dollars, weakening the currency even further.

This mess isn't GW's fault, and asking them to lower (in international terms) their prices across the board in response to the US economy is rather ludicrous. Live in the US and don't like it? Don't bitch at GW, get off your ass and vote for a candidate that supports a balanced budget in November.

Tetchy wrote:

Its yet another example of how GW (along with much "big business") simply do not "get" the internet.

Instead of producing a high quality product at a reasonable price which would get the "internet buzz" driving sales in their direction, they waste effort trying to manipulate and price-restrict and con people into paying way more for their goods than they are worth.

Unless and until they stop these shenanigans and actually try and recover some integrity then I simply hope they crash and burn. They certainly don't deserve any love from me as a company if they do anything other than try as best as possible to match prices downwards to the US price, taking into account local taxation and distribution costs. Anything else is simply trying to rip off the consumer and line their own pockets - by which I mean taking unfair advantage of their consumers.

You can't con people into paying more than what said customer thinks the product is worth, unless you have some manner of forcing them to purchase it. If the customer doesn't think your price is worth it, they simply won't buy. That's the real problem for GW, not that they can't "con" someone, but rather that customers will simply walk away. (Though some might decide that 90$ for a landraider is fine with them.)
I agree that GW does have an integrity problem, and I agree it is largely a function of their structure, different stores in different countries. Part of the big issue though is that it costs a great deal more money to opperate in Canada than it does the US. Is the answer to not have a Canadian store and ship all products from the US or UK? Maybe, I don't know. It is perhaps something GW should consider.

I also agree with you that most companies just don't get the internet. The concept that someone can store product in their basement and sell it to people anywhere for just the cost of postage, the product and feeding themselves doesn't seem to sink in well. Personally, were I a gaming company like GW, I would have my own web site with a slight discount (at least enough that shipping would be "free" compared to buying in a retail store) and let anyone who wanted to sell my product do so at whatever price they could bear, the reasoning being that more people playing my game is good, whether I get the full retail mark up or just the whole sale price in my pocket. Then again, I don't have my own game company to run, so I could of course be very wrong here.

Redbeard wrote:GW is not a US company. The US dollar is weak. It's not weak because of anything GW has done, it's weak because of what the US government has done.

While it's unfortunate that a side effect of US Financial policy may make the cost of miniatures go up, the blame here lies squarely with the US Government, not GW. If you really must blame GW, at least blame GW Bush.

But, honestly now, it's not just miniatures that cost more. My electric bill, heating bill, water bill, public transportation pass, and gasoline prices have all gone up in the last year. But that's ok, because your loving government is going to cut you a $600 check and encourage you to be irresponsible with it in another last-ditch effort to salvage the US economy - at a cost of "only" borrowing another 660 billion dollars, weakening the currency even further.

This mess isn't GW's fault, and asking them to lower (in international terms) their prices across the board in response to the US economy is rather ludicrous. Live in the US and don't like it? Don't bitch at GW, get off your ass and vote for a candidate that supports a balanced budget in November.

Another good point. I don't know that your fix will do it, but the weak American dollar is part of the reason that the cost of many things is rising seemingly out of proportion. Gasoline is expensive in America not because world prices are high, but because the dollar just isn't worth as much as it was. Gas just seems high to us because domestic goods are not affected by the changes is currency rates as much.

Redbeard wrote:This mess isn't GW's fault, and asking them to lower (in international terms) their prices across the board in response to the US economy is rather ludicrous. Live in the US and don't like it? Don't bitch at GW, get off your ass and vote for a candidate that supports a balanced budget in November.

Interestingly enough, the prices of many other consumer goods have been adjusted to reflect the fluctuations in currency. TVs, ipods, game consoles, toys and small appliances have comparable prices both sides of the border. Even print media - comics and books, the last bastion of ridiculous Canadian markup (almost 100% in the past) has come down to within 10-20%.

I thought GWUS had its own metal and plastic miniatures production facilities? Then they could keep the "low" (compared to Pound/Euro) prices, as GWUS's suppliers also have "low" prices. It would be logical to lower the GW Canada prices, as they probably are supplied from the US and not from the UK.

I am from The Netherlands (that's in Europe for those not good in geography) and my gaming buddies who play Warmachine/Hordes don't buy in the local stores, but order from US ebay stores, as even with postage it is half or two-third the price. Same goes for Flames of War miniatures and others I presume.

From the perspective of being one of their largest independent accounts, I've heard nothing at all about a US price increase.

Which, of course, doesn't mean anything, as many times the UK tells the US nothing whatsoever until about 2 days before the poop hits the fan.

I think it would be suicide to do a large increase right now. And it would be stupid to do it just to fix a 'price discrepancy'.