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Now that I've started 40k again I went back into my shop afew times, I noticed a major difference from even a year ago is that instead of helping me and talking about armies with me they talk to me about armies then suggest things to buy and even stop mid-sentence to tell me how great it would be to buy 2 boxes of AoBR and the most expensive box in the range. The employees seem to jump on anyone that walks in and try to sell them as much as possible and it has greatly annoyed me and a lot of my friends that go.

So my question is this, are Games Workshop employees liable to get in trouble for not selling a certain amount or do you earn a bonus for selling the most? I'm just sick of this agressive selling!

Hmm... our lot in Southampton will bring new releases "enthusiastically" to your attention, but I wouldn't call it aggressive.

I had quite a long chat with one store member the other day about Imperial Guard which I'm not collecting and they aren't promoting.

That is not aggressive selling. It is enthusasism. Totally different thing.

No bonus for sales. Well, not for the grunts. If the shop hits targets there may be a bonus for the manager (very common occurence in the UK High Street).

Now, they are meant to upsell, even if it's just tagging a brush onto your sale. Again, hardly a rarity in todays high street....

The GW Employees at my local store are a bit overexcited rather than trying to get you to buy a product. I think its just a natural by product of loving the thing you are selling and the lines getting a bit blurred because of it. (That being said I don't think a time has gone by when I haven't bought something everytime I have been there, they are a hell of a lot nicer than the FLGS which isn't all that friendly in the fist place....)

I wouldn't say aggressive exactly, but high-pressure selling it can be. It varies every time I go into their shops to be fair, but sometimes they won't leave alone. When I was younger I actually had a member of staff ask how much money I had on me. I'm older now and being an adult they probably wouldn't try and mess with me in quite such an overt manner.

From everything I have heard, I'm really happy I don't have a GW store within 120 miles of me...

I find the "aggressiveness" of the salesman is usually directly tied to their level of experiance. New people tend to try much harder than the more experianced ones.

I find it extremely annoying when I drop by the GW store and whatever they have new that week is the greatest unit ever made.

I never find them aggressive.

If I go in and buy a box of something, they ask me if I need glue -- that's just good sales practice.

I don't know if it makes any difference that I'm 46 so I don't look like a junior player who could get rushed into making extra purchases.

Techboss wrote:I find the "aggressiveness" of the salesman is usually directly tied to their level of experiance. New people tend to try much harder than the more experianced ones.

I find it extremely annoying when I drop by the GW store and whatever they have new that week is the greatest unit ever made.

To me, it's fine when they talk about the aesthetics of the model, but I agree that
they shouldn't really talk about subjective judgments such as BEST unit unless they're
willing to do the numbers for you (mathhammer, if you will).

It's also less shady when they're tying purchases to things that you're already
interested in.

Sadly, I'm the guy who ends up like this:

Me: "I'm here to get some glue."
GW: "Dude you can field 3 venerable Furiosos for like 360 points!"
Me:" "What?"
GW: "You can reroll damage..."
Me: "Nah, don't care."
GW: "Dude they can get d3 extra attacks if you upgrade to Death Company!"
Me: "I'll take 2."

Then I leave without the glue.

groz wrote:Sadly, I'm the guy who ends up like this:

Me: "I'm here to get some glue."
GW: "Dude you can field 3 venerable Furiosos for like 360 points!"
Me:" "What?"
GW: "You can reroll damage..."
Me: "Nah, don't care."
GW: "Dude they can get d3 extra attacks if you upgrade to Death Company!"
Me: "I'll take 2."

Then I leave without the glue.

You're the one who ruins it for all of us!

but GW shareholders send him Christmas Cards.

I have one guy at the Local Shop (and it is only one of about 5 - about 2 more than the shop needs, now I think on it) who I quite like talking too, but I do dread it when he starts a sentence with:

"That's interesting..." or " You'll be needing..."

I generally find they are alright with me, but then i wont go anywhere close to a gamesworkshop unless i actually have things i want to get, so i tend to go in, say hello tell them what i want, pay the money walk out. Since normally when i go in to i am buying a fair bit they dont seem to push anything else on me, just happy with the sale they are getting.

And i have had plenty of chats at times when the shop is pretty much empty and its just like talking to another person into the hobby, never found them pushy

That might just be my local gamesworkshop in grimsby, and no amount of staff being friendly can make up for the smell of BO in such a small store...

Techboss wrote:I find the "aggressiveness" of the salesman is usually directly tied to their level of experiance. New people tend to try much harder than the more experianced ones.

That was pretty close to the mark when I worked retail years ago... The new employees were really aggressive, while the vets waited for people to show interest and ask questions. Of course, some of us developed the thousand-yard stare that can be the mark of real veterans of retail...

(For the record, I worked in a pet store.)

Last time I went in a GW store (years ago) I was just surprised that they marked me as a 'player' as soon as I walked in. They asked me what armies I played as opposed to trying to interest me in a demo game, etc. I guess it must have been the way I entered... I walked right to the back to look for a few things instead of hanging around at the front.

(This was long enough ago that I was looking for Citadel Journal. The sales guy thought it was a fan-publication.)

I've run into that a couple of times at GW stores. I find the FLGS' are a little less prone to it simply because they tend to sell a greater variety of stuff.

I actually had one of the GW guys use the Furioso line on me. My reply was simple.

"Dude, you can get a couple grand for your third kidney."

The guy looked at me like I had three heads and said "I only have two."

I nodded and said, "Yes and I only play Orks."

Then we had a nice talk about qualifying questions for about twenty minutes. He was a nice, if overenthusiastic kid. I actually heard him talking to his next customer on my way out. The aggressive sales pitch was gone and he was asking some nice questions of the family who came in.

The Big Mek wrote:Now that I've started 40k again I went back into my shop afew times, I noticed a major difference from even a year ago is that instead of helping me and talking about armies with me they talk to me about armies then suggest things to buy and even stop mid-sentence to tell me how great it would be to buy 2 boxes of AoBR and the most expensive box in the range. The employees seem to jump on anyone that walks in and try to sell them as much as possible and it has greatly annoyed me and a lot of my friends that go.

I also find them aggressive or enthusiastic or whatever one wants to call it. Bottom line is it's very annoying and it's the reason I stay away from GW stores whenever possible.

Aggressive? No, not in my experience. They've suggested I purchase bits and pieces before, but mostly only after I ask them a question about improving my force. If I'm just after a box or three of Cadians they'll sometimes try to talk me into getting a HW box too. I don't mind too much, since if I say no, they don't push it any further.

Once they start ringing up my stuff, I get the whole "Do you have paints/glue/WD" bit, and sometimes it'll remind me I'm running low on paints/glue/toilet paper, and occasionally they'll get the additional sale and I'll leave with paints or glue as well as whatever else I bought.

I guess it boils down to your local store and also where you draw the lines between helpful, enthusiastic and aggressive sales.

I was in my local GW talking to the manager when I started making fun of those ridiculous skull pits on the new realm of gaming board. The manager made a comment about how much he loved having his own little Auschwitz, then spent 20 minutes trying to convince me to buy the board. I wasn't sure whether I was more shocked that the manager of a retail store just made a holocaust joke, or that he was now giving me the hard sales-pitch for a product that I'd just openly mocked.

I really do love though that "They can be covered up very easily by terrain" is somehow a selling point of the board...

However, I totally understand why they're so pushy. The number of times I've popped in there to buy paint and ended up walking out with an assault on black reach boxed set, or a set of assault terminators... makes me shudder just to think about it. They all know we're hesitant to spend money, but capitulate easily to a little bit of encouragement. I mean....my army reeeeally needs it right, and its not really thaaat much money...

...:(...

Im afraid I can verify this 'aggressive sales tactics' story. Every time I go into my *airquote* 'local' GW, this one fellow attempts to sell me the AOBR box set even though Ive explained numerous times that I neither need or want it. (he then proceeds to tell me why I absolutely NEED to buy two of x unit/vehicle to make my life much better). I almost feel like Im being patronised by him.

admittedly it is only that one guy, the other is rather personable.

PirateRobotNinjaofDeath wrote:I was in my local GW talking to the manager when I started making fun of those ridiculous skull pits on the new realm of gaming board. The manager made a comment about how much he loved having his own little Auschwitz, then spent 20 minutes trying to convince me to buy the board. I wasn't sure whether I was more shocked that the manager of a retail store just made a holocaust joke, or that he was now giving me the hard sales-pitch for a product that I'd just openly mocked.

Wow. That does seem a bit tasteless. If I want to keep piles'o'skulls in at least the realm of gamer-friendly conversation topics I think I'd stick to references to Terminator 2 or something.

In games workshop there is a strick code which must be heared to.
It is called the 10 commandments and if employees don't follow these commandments they can be disiplined and even fired.
I have found that GW is concentrating more on sales numbers than the quality of the staff they have and quality of the advice.

"Oh, I'm fine, thanks. If I need you, I'll let you know..."

Techboss wrote:I find the "aggressiveness" of the salesman is usually directly tied to their level of experiance. New people tend to try much harder than the more experianced ones.

I find it extremely annoying when I drop by the GW store and whatever they have new that week is the greatest unit ever made.

As an ex-Staffer, I always found the greatest unit ever made to be the unit that a prospective customer was looking for. I'd try to back that up witha bit of information on how to use that unit in the army etc.. It's product knowledge and customer rapport really.

PirateRobotNinjaofDeath wrote:I was in my local GW talking to the manager when I started making fun of those ridiculous skull pits on the new realm of gaming board. The manager made a comment about how much he loved having his own little Auschwitz, then spent 20 minutes trying to convince me to buy the board.

Wait a minute. What?

I hope you're exaggerating, because that would just be awkward.

malfred wrote:

PirateRobotNinjaofDeath wrote:I was in my local GW talking to the manager when I started making fun of those ridiculous skull pits on the new realm of gaming board. The manager made a comment about how much he loved having his own little Auschwitz, then spent 20 minutes trying to convince me to buy the board.

Wait a minute. What?

I hope you're exaggerating, because that would just be awkward.

Nazi references in my 40K?! *Gasp* What's next? Soviet atrocities? Not like the entirety of the Imperium is a blatant parody based heavily on those two 20th century powers. I am shocked my good man.

Though from a less stupidly sarcastic viewpoint, that really is surprising to come from an employee as they're generally taught to be overly PC, and Holocaust jokes are far from, "I think that'd be okay to say." Unless of course he knew you and everyone else around, and knew that no one would be offended, and think it was amusing.

Salad_Fingers wrote:

That might just be my local gamesworkshop in grimsby, and no amount of staff being friendly can make up for the smell of BO in such a small store...

I have a female colleague who I do lunch with occasionally. She refuses to come into GW on the grounds that it smells like a locker room.

I work near a branch of GW and find all of the staff friendly tbh. If I don't want anything and just want to browse then I just say so. They have given me some handy painting tips and other advice and once when they asked if I needed any glue I actually did. To me it's not really a problem but then again no-ones made any holocaust jokes to me. If that guy had said that it was like Auschwitz rather than he 'loved' having his own little Auschwitz then it wouldn't had seemed so out of order but then again you have to be very careful what you say so he shouldn't really have said anything of the sort.

There's a game a few of my friends have started called 'The Games Workshop Game' and the idea is to go to the back of the shop, touch the wall and walk back out again without being advised to be bought something, bearing in mind my GW is literally around 6 foot wide, which will a desk in makes it very thin and takes no time at all to touch the wall.
No one has ever won this game unless there were a girl, who never seem to be even looked at.
My staff are nice people, very nice infact and are all very enthusiastic over their hobby, as I am myself, that's not the problem here.

My friend told one of them he wanted to start Chaos, the employee answered immediately with 'Why don't you buy the Assault on Black Reach set and put the Ork axes onto the space marines. I went on to say how this would be tricky for a new player and would not really be worth it to which he came out with the answer; "You can buy one each and he can give you his orks and you can give him your space marines and then you both have rules and templates with 6 dice!". This made me sick in my throat a bit. Then the whole axe idea he gave would be lost and his answer to a hobby question was more sales. He didnt even suggest ANY chaos sets at all, just because there were quite alot of AoBR sets.

Neconilis wrote:

malfred wrote:

PirateRobotNinjaofDeath wrote:I was in my local GW talking to the manager when I started making fun of those ridiculous skull pits on the new realm of gaming board. The manager made a comment about how much he loved having his own little Auschwitz, then spent 20 minutes trying to convince me to buy the board.

Wait a minute. What?

I hope you're exaggerating, because that would just be awkward.

Nazi references in my 40K?! *Gasp* What's next? Soviet atrocities? Not like the entirety of the Imperium is a blatant parody based heavily on those two 20th century powers. I am shocked my good man.

Though from a less stupidly sarcastic viewpoint, that really is surprising to come from an employee as they're generally taught to be overly PC, and Holocaust jokes are far from, "I think that'd be okay to say." Unless of course he knew you and everyone else around, and knew that no one would be offended, and think it was amusing.

I'm "surprised" as well! The Local GW near my "northern homestead" never makes cracks about the holocaust! They're too busy cashing in on stereotypes by making fun of Islam, people from the Middle East (sans Israel), and cracking lines about "molesting Jesus" as an infant.

two_heads_talking wrote:

Techboss wrote:I find the "aggressiveness" of the salesman is usually directly tied to their level of experiance. New people tend to try much harder than the more experianced ones.

I find it extremely annoying when I drop by the GW store and whatever they have new that week is the greatest unit ever made.

As an ex-Staffer, I always found the greatest unit ever made to be the unit that a prospective customer was looking for. I'd try to back that up witha bit of information on how to use that unit in the army etc.. It's product knowledge and customer rapport really.

That makes you the exception, not the rule - which is unfortunate. GW needs more of the exception.