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 BryllCream wrote:

So what should GW set their price at?

Higher than they are now.

GW needs to keep their revenue up, so they have to charge more to make up for the declining sales volume.

They're likely stuck on this path until they can figure out some means of actually growing unit sales to increase revenue in real terms.

 BryllCream wrote:
Also it looks like GW may have been charging above market prices

I think that's just to account for the minimum wage in Australia, which as I understand it starts at around $400 USD/hr.

I actually don't think, generally, GW should drop their prices (in the US, anyway). I think they should do a better job of marketing their product to a larger audience (actually, marketing it at all) and maybe tighten up their sculpts a little (they're pretty hit and miss as is recently), as well as making a quickstart/simplified ruleset for beginners that they give away.

 Ouze wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:
Also it looks like GW may have been charging above market prices

I think that's just to account for the minimum wage in Australia, which as I understand it starts at around $400 USD/hr.

I actually don't think, generally, GW should drop their prices (in the US, anyway). I think they should do a better job of marketing their product to a larger audience (actually, marketing it at all) and maybe tighten up their sculpts a little (they're pretty hit and miss as is recently), as well as making a quickstart/simplified ruleset for beginners that they give away.

$400/hr would be a godsend :(

I think it's like $38k/yr is our minimum, although on reddit someone worked out US minimum vs AU minimum as well as median wages and essentially we're getting screwed in all ways.

If they did drop their prices, they'd also die. No question. They're on something like a 10% net profit margin (after tax, obviously), and dropping the price as people slowly increase their volume to match (although they'd probably be pretty begrudging at this point) won't happen in time.

As for marketing, I couldn't agree more. In the USA you all talk of how busy your local clubs are and the likes, but here in Aus there may be 5 busy stores in Victoria which has a population of 3 million. I like in a metropolitan area and my nearest FLGS is 20mins, the next nearest to that (that does wargaming) would be over an hour away; nearest GW is 1h30m. Models just aren't popular here.

I had a GW near me when i was younger (which got me into the game) but they shut down within a year the sales were that abysmally low. In Australia they were making a loss here for ages until the 2011-2012FY (and their 2012-2013FY report isn't out yet AFAIK; I think it comes out late June).

Anyway, I buy models off ebay. $30 for a DP is good for me as I bloody love the model, and Land Raiders often go for $20 with a decent paintjob that I can strip down anyway, and people often sell their old armies for $30-40 that may include 5 termies a dreadnought and 3 dozen or so space marines.

This is where GW plc fail so badly.
They DO NOT HAVE A MARKETING DEPARTMENT!

They just guess at what price point is optimum.And then over reach to the point where they are forced in to over pricing to make up for falling sales volumes.
A marketing department would find out what customers want, what GW plc could do to grow interest and drive a growth in market share.

When a company has 76% gross profit , and a net profit of 12% the corperate management are not being very effective in developing the best buisness practices are they?
(Gross profit includes ALL costs apart from logistic and retail costs.And logistic costs run at less than 10%.)

Smaller companies have direct contact with their customers, and so can grow with customer support.

As already mentioned the periods of growth at GW have been when other company markets the products.(MB games, Diagnosti, etc.)

Shaozun wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:
Also it looks like GW may have been charging above market prices

I think that's just to account for the minimum wage in Australia, which as I understand it starts at around $400 USD/hr.

I actually don't think, generally, GW should drop their prices (in the US, anyway). I think they should do a better job of marketing their product to a larger audience (actually, marketing it at all) and maybe tighten up their sculpts a little (they're pretty hit and miss as is recently), as well as making a quickstart/simplified ruleset for beginners that they give away.

$400/hr would be a godsend :(

I think it's like $38k/yr is our minimum, although on reddit someone worked out US minimum vs AU minimum as well as median wages and essentially we're getting screwed in all ways.

If they did drop their prices, they'd also die. No question. They're on something like a 10% net profit margin (after tax, obviously), and dropping the price as people slowly increase their volume to match (although they'd probably be pretty begrudging at this point) won't happen in time.

As for marketing, I couldn't agree more. In the USA you all talk of how busy your local clubs are and the likes, but here in Aus there may be 5 busy stores in Victoria which has a population of 3 million. I like in a metropolitan area and my nearest FLGS is 20mins, the next nearest to that (that does wargaming) would be over an hour away; nearest GW is 1h30m. Models just aren't popular here.

I had a GW near me when i was younger (which got me into the game) but they shut down within a year the sales were that abysmally low. In Australia they were making a loss here for ages until the 2011-2012FY (and their 2012-2013FY report isn't out yet AFAIK; I think it comes out late June).

Anyway, I buy models off ebay. $30 for a DP is good for me as I bloody love the model, and Land Raiders often go for $20 with a decent paintjob that I can strip down anyway, and people often sell their old armies for $30-40 that may include 5 termies a dreadnought and 3 dozen or so space marines.

$38k a year is what you'd made on minumum wage in Oz?! That's more than tons of entry level salaried jobs in the US, including teachers. Wow.

$38k a year is what you'd made on minumum wage in Oz?! That's more than tons of entry level salaried jobs in the US, including teachers. Wow.

Not in my area where teachers make that low on entry wage scale.

Anyhow still think a buyout would save GW.

http://work.chron.com/average-beginning-teacher-salaries-1364.html

It isn't low. What I quoted is actually above the 2011 average.

aclive wrote:
What would be cool if they had a "Pick Your Starter Set" function on the website.

You would click on a "Getting Started with ___ Army".
It would show every kit available for each selection
Start with the HQ, maybe even have a bit written about each individual.
Then you pick two troops choices you like, also with some info about them (play styles for instance).
Then an elite unit.
Next would be the codex.
Maybe you even get a small discount since you're buying a "Starter Package".
Before you check out, the usual impulse buys would appear: glue, clippers, army paint sets, etc.
Wait 2-3 weeks and bam! Your army arrives on your doorstep, ready for assembly!

Maybe they even include a flyer with the addy of the nearest GW, so you can take your supplies there for a free paint lesson or demo game.


Could do the same thing for a Vets. Have a "Expand Your Forces" section. Plug in what you already have they you get suggestions as what to add.

I thought about this before, but remember how protective they're with their IPs, now think again. It's really hard to have a "build your starter set" without basically giving away some "hyper sensitive" "confidential" information. Which may also be why the starter boxes are rarely ever of a functional force*!

*Of course we now have those lolbundles to get everyone started!!

Baronyu wrote:

aclive wrote:
What would be cool if they had a "Pick Your Starter Set" function on the website.

You would click on a "Getting Started with ___ Army".
It would show every kit available for each selection
Start with the HQ, maybe even have a bit written about each individual.
Then you pick two troops choices you like, also with some info about them (play styles for instance).
Then an elite unit.
Next would be the codex.
Maybe you even get a small discount since you're buying a "Starter Package".
Before you check out, the usual impulse buys would appear: glue, clippers, army paint sets, etc.
Wait 2-3 weeks and bam! Your army arrives on your doorstep, ready for assembly!

Maybe they even include a flyer with the addy of the nearest GW, so you can take your supplies there for a free paint lesson or demo game.


Could do the same thing for a Vets. Have a "Expand Your Forces" section. Plug in what you already have they you get suggestions as what to add.

I thought about this before, but remember how protective they're with their IPs, now think again. It's really hard to have a "build your starter set" without basically giving away some "hyper sensitive" "confidential" information. Which may also be why the starter boxes are rarely ever of a functional force*!

*Of course we now have those lolbundles to get everyone started!!

I'm sorry, I really don't see how offering a link sale discount has any bearing on their IP?

Lower prices. It's gotten to the point where I can't afford most of their products. Yes they may make $5 instead of $10 on a raider but I'd at least be able to afford one. I know several peole who would love to get in if the price weren't so high.

I know you can't draw a direct comparisson but several steam games make more money in a sale weekend then they do in a year of sales. Several online retailers sell for 20% off so what if every so often GW did a "faction sale" 33% off all models in a given faction / army for the weekend. EASILY still within profit range and due to the random faction & how many factions I doub it would cut too much into FLGS sales to piss them off.

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 Squigsquasher wrote:
Return of the old hands. Rick Priestly, Alan/Michael Perry, Andy Chambers, we need you! I reckon if these guys (and of course some of the others who I'm too young to remember) came back, they could do the company miracles. Andy Chambers wrote fantastic rules, Rick Priestly was a great fluff writer, and the Perry twins are brilliant sculptors.

I'm pretty sure all those guys are happy going off doing their own things...

Isn't one of the perry brother's missing a hand? It's kinda funny that he sAid "old hands..."

Honestly what GW needs to do is get rid of the faction in the company that views sales through FLGS as sales and money they lose out on. I believe that this faction is in charge of warehousing and distribution and looks at every kit not sold through their shops or website as money lost.

Newsflash GW! You are a manufacturer not a retailer! You lose money on the shops as they have as much overhead as any FLGS is likely to have. MSRP on your own site, really? Thats where you should have coupons and special deals to drive people in to the B&M stores, or web-only exclusives. Your website should have additional hobby/gaming resources. Yes, even for free! Ditch WD it is worthless, you could do better with a premium content area on your site, for a fraction of the cost.

An old preist and a young priest could save GW.

Same stuff, different day,

"GW is bad and this is why...."

etc etc

 Ouze wrote:
I actually don't think, generally, GW should drop their prices (in the US, anyway). I think they should do a better job of marketing their product to a larger audience (actually, marketing it at all) and maybe tighten up their sculpts a little (they're pretty hit and miss as is recently), as well as making a quickstart/simplified ruleset for beginners that they give away.

I think they should do all of the above, actually. But I don't think they would need to drop prices too much, it's mainly just a few items that they've clearly over-stepped the line on...$80 land raiders and all the new, ugly flyer kits being the most obvious offenders (I don't feel that the dire avengers need mentioning again but that one is also bs).

xraytango wrote:
Honestly what GW needs to do is get rid of the faction in the company that views sales through FLGS as sales and money they lose out on. I believe that this faction is in charge of warehousing and distribution and looks at every kit not sold through their shops or website as money lost.

Newsflash GW! You are a manufacturer not a retailer! You lose money on the shops as they have as much overhead as any FLGS is likely to have. MSRP on your own site, really? Thats where you should have coupons and special deals to drive people in to the B&M stores, or web-only exclusives. Your website should have additional hobby/gaming resources. Yes, even for free! Ditch WD it is worthless, you could do better with a premium content area on your site, for a fraction of the cost.

Well, I mean, except that they ARE a retailer.....

 azreal13 wrote:
I'm sorry, I really don't see how offering a link sale discount has any bearing on their IP?

Well, just saying how they don't like to give away any detail/hint from the codex, "what if people building the starter pack finds out about some 'confidential' codex information?!", etc... Though, giving it a second read, I did sound kinda silly, so never mind...

 cincydooley wrote:

xraytango wrote:
Honestly what GW needs to do is get rid of the faction in the company that views sales through FLGS as sales and money they lose out on. I believe that this faction is in charge of warehousing and distribution and looks at every kit not sold through their shops or website as money lost.

Newsflash GW! You are a manufacturer not a retailer! You lose money on the shops as they have as much overhead as any FLGS is likely to have. MSRP on your own site, really? Thats where you should have coupons and special deals to drive people in to the B&M stores, or web-only exclusives. Your website should have additional hobby/gaming resources. Yes, even for free! Ditch WD it is worthless, you could do better with a premium content area on your site, for a fraction of the cost.

Well, I mean, except that they ARE a retailer.....

Thats just the thing Cincy, they have a chain of outlet stores, but they have no need of them. It is a dinosaur that they won't let die even as it eats into their bottom line. Indies have been selling more GW in the last 30 years than their chain stores ever did and the tije has passed for GW to have their own stores.

GW doesn't even know if they are a retailer or manufacturer. If they are a retailer then lets see some other products on the shelves, if they are a manufacturer then get out of the B&M stores.

 SalamanderMarine wrote:
Same stuff, different day,

"GW is bad and this is why...."

etc etc

And the fact that these threads constantly pop up is quite telling about GWs relationship with their customer base, ain't it

xraytango wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:

xraytango wrote:
Honestly what GW needs to do is get rid of the faction in the company that views sales through FLGS as sales and money they lose out on. I believe that this faction is in charge of warehousing and distribution and looks at every kit not sold through their shops or website as money lost.

Newsflash GW! You are a manufacturer not a retailer! You lose money on the shops as they have as much overhead as any FLGS is likely to have. MSRP on your own site, really? Thats where you should have coupons and special deals to drive people in to the B&M stores, or web-only exclusives. Your website should have additional hobby/gaming resources. Yes, even for free! Ditch WD it is worthless, you could do better with a premium content area on your site, for a fraction of the cost.

Well, I mean, except that they ARE a retailer.....

Thats just the thing Cincy, they have a chain of outlet stores, but they have no need of them. It is a dinosaur that they won't let die even as it eats into their bottom line. Indies have been selling more GW in the last 30 years than their chain stores ever did and the tije has passed for GW to have their own stores.

GW doesn't even know if they are a retailer or manufacturer. If they are a retailer then lets see some other products on the shelves, if they are a manufacturer then get out of the B&M stores.

Well, their retail outlets aren't "eating into their bottom line". Quite the opposite, in fact - where they sell the most through independents e.g. the US they earn much lower profits. It is also questionable whether your comment about indie revenues exceeding direct revenues is accurate - I'd say it is less than half if you include FW/BL but that is off the top of my head. That said, it is an issue to be both supplier and competitor to your channel partners and it remains to be seen if they can recreate the "UK model" in the US over the long term.

 jonolikespie wrote:

 SalamanderMarine wrote:
Same stuff, different day,

"GW is bad and this is why...."

etc etc

And the fact that these threads constantly pop up is quite telling about GWs relationship with their customer base, ain't it

There should be just one GW hate thread since they all are the same or end up repeating the same things.

JWhex wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

 SalamanderMarine wrote:
Same stuff, different day,

"GW is bad and this is why...."

etc etc

And the fact that these threads constantly pop up is quite telling about GWs relationship with their customer base, ain't it

There should be just one GW hate thread since they all are the same or end up repeating the same things.

There is definitely crossover but 'Prices are too high' and 'I had a horribly experience in a GW store' do deserve to be separate threads, they are not started with the intention of being an all encompassing hate thread, they are started over specific things.

xraytango wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:

xraytango wrote:
Honestly what GW needs to do is get rid of the faction in the company that views sales through FLGS as sales and money they lose out on. I believe that this faction is in charge of warehousing and distribution and looks at every kit not sold through their shops or website as money lost.

Newsflash GW! You are a manufacturer not a retailer! You lose money on the shops as they have as much overhead as any FLGS is likely to have. MSRP on your own site, really? Thats where you should have coupons and special deals to drive people in to the B&M stores, or web-only exclusives. Your website should have additional hobby/gaming resources. Yes, even for free! Ditch WD it is worthless, you could do better with a premium content area on your site, for a fraction of the cost.

Well, I mean, except that they ARE a retailer.....

Thats just the thing Cincy, they have a chain of outlet stores, but they have no need of them. It is a dinosaur that they won't let die even as it eats into their bottom line. Indies have been selling more GW in the last 30 years than their chain stores ever did and the tije has passed for GW to have their own stores.

GW doesn't even know if they are a retailer or manufacturer. If they are a retailer then lets see some other products on the shelves, if they are a manufacturer then get out of the B&M stores.

Do you have any proof that they sell more through their distribution channels than through their direct channels (webstore, GW B&M)?

To be a retailer, you don't need 'other' products on your shelf. There are numerous examples of this, but the fact that they continue to open more stores in the US would indicate that the retail locations are working like they'd like them to.

 cincydooley wrote:
There are numerous examples of this, but the fact that they continue to open more stores in the US would indicate that the retail locations are working like they'd like them to.

Or it could indicate that things are not working how they'd like them to in the US and GW's management is blaming their failure to run things in the US like they do in the UK, with "do it like we do in the UK" the only acceptable solution even if the stores are a bad idea in a very different market.

 Peregrine wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:
There are numerous examples of this, but the fact that they continue to open more stores in the US would indicate that the retail locations are working like they'd like them to.

Or it could indicate that things are not working how they'd like them to in the US and GW's management is blaming their failure to run things in the US like they do in the UK, with "do it like we do in the UK" the only acceptable solution even if the stores are a bad idea in a very different market.

You're going to have to explain, because that makes very little sense to me.

If the stores weren't "successful" by whatever metric that GW is using, they wouldn't open more.

 cincydooley wrote:
You're going to have to explain, because that makes very little sense to me.

GW's management seems to be very UK-focused. Their strategies are based on what works in the UK, and don't necessarily reflect the differences between countries (for example, the huge geographical difference between the US and the UK). So it's not really hard to imagine GW management seeing sales problems in the US and reflexively applying the UK solution of opening more stores even if opening more stores isn't the right answer for the US market.

If the stores weren't "successful" by whatever metric that GW is using, they wouldn't open more.

Unless of course GW thinks that the reason their US retail division isn't successful enough is because it doesn't have enough stores (the UK answer), not because a combination of high prices and competition from other games.

Let's look at the store in my area as an example: it's in a middle of nowhere location instead of at one of the major malls, it's not visible from the road, it's not open during regular business hours, and it only sells GW products. I was there in the middle of christmas shopping season and not a single customer came in, other than 1-2 existing players. This tells us that the store is doing a terrible job of generating new customers and is doing little more than diverting a few sales away from the independent stores in the area. Meanwhile those independent stores have a constant supply of new customers across a diverse range of products. GW could probably close this store entirely and not lose anything, and the only reason not to is a UK-focused strategy where stores are assumed to be vitally important.

If the store wasn't making profit it probably wouldn't be open. GW don't just throw darts at a map and put a store there.

 BryllCream wrote:
If the store wasn't making profit it probably wouldn't be open. GW don't just throw darts at a map and put a store there.

Agreed, the dart-throwing is actually how they determine their prices.

However, in this particular case, they probably look at that GW store, and look at their sales to FLGSs for that area, and assume that most, if not all, of those sales are because of the GW store in that area.

 BryllCream wrote:
If the store wasn't making profit it probably wouldn't be open. GW don't just throw darts at a map and put a store there.

If you were familiar with the local areas in the US where they have put some stores you would not be so quick to come to that conclusion, cliche that it may be.

 BryllCream wrote:
If the store wasn't making profit it probably wouldn't be open. GW don't just throw darts at a map and put a store there.

Let me expand on what Peregrine was saying here, in the UK GW have (had?) effectively put their own stores next to every FLGS and ran them out of business, meaning that if anyone wanted to go to their local store it would be a GW no matter what.

This tactic worked out pretty well for them in the UK, and since GW's management is UK based they seem to think it will work out for them in the US, to the point of Kirby actually stating in an investors report he wanted to open 700 more stores in the US.

At this point GW seem to be determined to try to make every store in the US a GW store, which is pretty much impossible at this point, but they seem happy to leave unprofitable stores open in an attempt to flood the market.