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I'm not in the US, but if I was, why would anyone order direct from GW when they know about places like The War Store & Miniature Market?

Free shipping at $50? How about 25% off? And likely not paying local state sales tax?

If you're not going to support a local store, take advantage of online discounts and use the money saves on terrain or expenses related to forming a gaming club.

frozenwastes wrote:I'm not in the US, but if I was, why would anyone order direct from GW when they know about places like The War Store & Miniature Market?

Free shipping at $50? How about 25% off? And likely not paying local state sales tax?

If you're not going to support a local store, take advantage of online discounts and use the money saves on terrain or expenses related to forming a gaming club.

I tend to buy most things from my FLGS, but if I need something either for a client soon or for a tourny or a painting contest, etc, I will order direct from GW as our FLGS only does orders on Monday and I don't always get it the same week... however, I get it the same week if I order Monday, Tuesday, and usually Wednesday.

The problem I have with ordering from the warstore/ miniature market, is that unless I order plenty of items, the 25% off usually covers just the shipping anyway... sometimes it doesn't even fully cover that. Also, the 25% off tends to be on newer items a lot of times and not with the older stuff that is special-order-only.

That is the main reason this effects me and others.

Forgeworld is slowly becoming cheaper than regular GW stuff...

frozenwastes wrote:I'm not in the US, but if I was, why would anyone order direct from GW when they know about places like The War Store & Miniature Market?

Free shipping at $50? How about 25% off? And likely not paying local state sales tax?

Mainly because a large chunk of product is only available via GW. The Warstore doesn't have any Finecast products, and both it and the Miniature Market (and all other stores) don't have metal miniatures anymore. On top of that there's a decent chunk of "direct-only" product still floating around too.

Its cheaper for me just to go to my local store as they usually do a 25% off msrp, and he does custom orders for us as we need them. Can you say battleforces for under $80???

Granted his stock is always hit and miss if you are just walking in.

Also got my tyrannofex kit about 4 days prior to release day, just had to dig through his shipment to find one haha.

Vetric wrote:Heywaitaminute.... The jump for Canada went from $40 to $75. *Insert rant on Canadian/US dollar parity*

It's not so much the dollar part that's killing us, but rather the obscenely insane duties charges that you get hit with as soon as you ship stuff across the border...

Fedex tried to hit me up for almost $40 worth of 'duties & service fees' from a bitz order I'd placed. (because the monkey who entered my order at gw screwed up)
Then they had the audacity to ignore GW paying that fee after I'd called and gotten it fixed by mail order, and then sent me a bunch of nasty letters demanding I pay-up money I never owed them or else I'd answer to a credit agency.

Shipping companies are criminals far as I'm concerned...

WarOne wrote:Forgeworld is slowly becoming cheaper than regular GW stuff...

...
What?

No, really. This post makes no sense in this thread WarOne.

Yeah what does that even mean?

If GW raises the prices for Free Ship for their regular products, it will inevitably bring the price for buying Forgeworld (which is 15% cost of models until a much higher amount) closer to their regular model line.

What?

We're talking about paying nothing for shipping if you buy a certain amount. This is not a shipping cost increase. And it has nothing to do with the actual costs of models.

frozenwastes wrote:Free shipping at $50? How about 25% off? And likely not paying local state sales tax?

That sales tax pisses me off. Last time I bought direct from GW it was for the Dark Eldar megaforce (and before that I pre-ordered some of the Dark Eldar models when they first came out), and each time I asked myself why the feth I had to pay sales tax for an internet purchase from a manufacturer which, at the time, didn't even have a physical presence in my state (apparently they're opening another store in St. Louis soon, if they haven't already, but the old bunker got shut down years ago). I've never had to do that before when buying anything else online.

I'm sure there's a simple explanation for that and I'm just too stupid to understand it, but like I said it bothers me. lol

Schmapdi wrote:The Warstore doesn't have any Finecast products

No loss.

$50 to get free shipping is a bit ridiculous for a manufacturer. GW produces models and sells it to wholesalers for ~30% off, at that price they've at least doubled what it actually costs to produce the kit. So when they sell directly to the customer that 30% is pure profit... less whatever difference in cost there is packaging to ship one kit versus a pallet of kits. They are then charging $9 s&h... I ordered bitz last year the shipping as marked was only ~$2.50, so they're absorbing 60% to cover shipping materials and man hours.

To put things into perspective free shipping at $15 they make only about as much profit as if selling to a wholesaler. Free shipping at $30, GW makes 22% beyond what they get from wholesales.

Everytime I think GW's learned something, they do stupid money grubbing things like this.

Sidstyler wrote:

frozenwastes wrote:Free shipping at $50? How about 25% off? And likely not paying local state sales tax?

That sales tax pisses me off. Last time I bought direct from GW it was for the Dark Eldar megaforce (and before that I pre-ordered some of the Dark Eldar models when they first came out), and each time I asked myself why the feth I had to pay sales tax for an internet purchase from a manufacturer which, at the time, didn't even have a physical presence in my state (apparently they're opening another store in St. Louis soon, if they haven't already, but the old bunker got shut down years ago). I've never had to do that before when buying anything else online.

I'm sure there's a simple explanation for that and I'm just too stupid to understand it, but like I said it bothers me. lol

Schmapdi wrote:The Warstore doesn't have any Finecast products

You do realize that at the end of the year, you are obliged to report purchases like these on your state taxes right? So, even if you don't pay sales tax directly, you are supposed to report it and pay them anyways.

Either way, I hear a lot of complaining about something that we can't control, and frankly, is out of GW's control, too. Gas costs money. And when it goes up, expenses based on gas go up, like food and shipped items. Its called economics.

No loss.

SoloFalcon1138 wrote:You do realize that at the end of the year, you are obliged to report purchases like these on your state taxes right? So, even if you don't pay sales tax directly, you are supposed to report it and pay them anyways.

Not all states have state sales taxes (Yay Texas!), nor does every state handle things the way yours does.

Exactly. It's by jurisdiction.

Collecting sales tax outside of your state obligates the customer to pay it twice in the jurisdictions that have reporting. So GW collects sales tax for Baltimore and then you're supposed to pay it again when you report the purchase to your state on your income tax (for the jurisdictions that have that)?

I call BS on that.

Sidstyler wrote:

frozenwastes wrote:Free shipping at $50? How about 25% off? And likely not paying local state sales tax?

That sales tax pisses me off. Last time I bought direct from GW it was for the Dark Eldar megaforce (and before that I pre-ordered some of the Dark Eldar models when they first came out), and each time I asked myself why the feth I had to pay sales tax for an internet purchase from a manufacturer which, at the time, didn't even have a physical presence in my state (apparently they're opening another store in St. Louis soon, if they haven't already, but the old bunker got shut down years ago). I've never had to do that before when buying anything else online.

I'm sure there's a simple explanation for that and I'm just too stupid to understand it, but like I said it bothers me. lol

They're also opening a store in Kansas City...in the worst location possible (smack dab in the ghetto), and I'm guessing it will last as long as the lease on the space does.

On the topic of the change, it was $15.00 when the program was first introduced, which was reasonable to me, then jumped to $30.00, still semi-reasonable since most orders were above that anyway, at $50.00 they're right in that line where unless it's a Direct Only item, that even less people will keep buying direct, especially since GW has never had anything resembling reasonable shipping charges

Someone could draw up a conspiracy that they needed to do this to offset the increase shipping packages associated with the finecast problems.

"Spend an extra $20 now to get free shipping to cover our costs for shipping you another finecast model in two weeks when you get this miscast/nurgle's rot/sculpting experiment."

If one were prone to drawing up conspiracies that is...

Seeing as I just have the stuff shipped to my local GW, so it doesn't bother me.

Also, I order direct from GW for models that are hard to find.

DarknessEternal wrote:
Even further back it used to be no free shipping at all, ever.
Damn kids and their misplaced sense of entitlement.

This - as I remember the first "band" was up to $20? and the more you ordered the more shipping used to be.

McNinja wrote:

MadCowCrazy wrote:Why would you buy from GW anyway when there are discount stores out there from whom it'd be cheaper to buy, free postage or not?
Direct only is the only thing I ever buy from GW and that happens very rarely nowdays as there are cheaper options out there from other manufacturers.

This. Why buy retail when you can buy the same stuff at a 20-25% discount? It is ridiculous how GW is undercut by every single website that sells their product, yet they never think to lower their prices.

Actually, that is one thing in their favor for the independent stockists around. I think it was New Wave that started the online discount craze. They ended up being one of GW's largest buyers - along with a few big stores. In fact a lot of the rules GW USA came up with as far as online stores not being able to use shipping carts, etc. was because New Wave was hurting stores around the country, and GW's sales as well, as fewer stores wanted to "fight" the internet thing. Lots of stores (ie - places people could walk in and find out about GW) stopped carrying it or never started because of this....and with fewer doors, GW saw fewer sales to a lot of their independents.

MadCowCrazy wrote:

McNinja wrote:yet they never think to lower their prices.

---sic---- A normal manufacturer normally sells their products for 50% of RRP to retailers, GWs is based on how much product you buy from them, this determines how much you buy retail. Miniwargaming in Canada had a video about this, basically some of the biggest customers of GW can sell their stock for cheaper than MWG actually pays retail from GW. How can you compete with that?
---sic----
So in short, GW can't lower their prices because then they would have to lower the prices for independent retailers as well. GW can't hold sales either where they sell product for cheaper than RRP, I believe there are some trade laws that prevent this because GW is the manfacturer as well and this would undercut competing retailers that sell their products.

Have no idea of anything that would prevent sales of any sort or even scope (GW could sell everything in a closing store at %50 off if they chose.) Certain areas or states may have rules about always being on sale, but a few one-time sales would not be a big thing as far as I recall (in the old rules retailers were even allowed to have sales larger that %20 occaisionally because GW could not stop them under normal rules). But where it would hurt them by always having %30 off would be with retailers. Why would anyone carry the product if their price could be so easily beaten by the MANUFACTURERS website? Holding the PRICE at retail meets two goals.....helps FLGS and keeps profit higher on their web sales.....and have you ever heard of any business (let alone GW) not like profit?

Few other things about that....basically GW had/has a certain amount of the total of their sales going through places like warstore or maelstrom, etc. Eventually everyone buying GW thinks that these are the basic prices (and I'm not trying to start an argument about what they are worth.....just perception versus reality of what the actual MSRP IS). This hurts all of the GW stores, the FLGS that don't discount, etc. When I worked there we offered everything at 42% off MSRP, 45% if you paid cc or cash. In England at that time the discount was 35%! If you reach a point where the sales through the discounters are large enough that they effect the price (ie hurt the other stores), then you can cut them off, making sure that the independent stores can still carry it - which is hard legally to do (in all you can refuse to sell to anyone, but it can become a bad legal fight, a bad problem of the new store of the month as they change their names and reapply, etc.). Or you can simply say....we offer the products for the retailers to make $x on. If they don't want the extra 20%, then we'll gladly take it.....and you raise your MSRP so that 20% off is what you were going to charge for it. Unfortunately it avoids all of the "legal hubbalaboo" but it sure sucks for FLGS and customers....especially the ones not using warstore, etc.! [/color]

Sidstyler wrote: That sales tax pisses me off. Last time I bought direct from GW it was for the Dark Eldar megaforce (and before that I pre-ordered some of the Dark Eldar models when they first came out), and each time I asked myself why the feth I had to pay sales tax for an internet purchase from a manufacturer which, at the time, didn't even have a physical presence in my state (apparently they're opening another store in St. Louis soon, if they haven't already, but the old bunker got shut down years ago). I've never had to do that before when buying anything else online.
I'm sure there's a simple explanation for that and I'm just too stupid to understand it, but like I said it bothers me. lol.

If I remember correctly (and as trade sales I was not "in the meeting"), but a lot of the problem in US was Illinois. They have some of the weirdest tax laws....things like charging you percentages of your total global business if you fail to charge for internet sales taxes, etc...if you have a STORE in the state. And lots of other quirky things. the way it was expained to me at that time, was GW was forced to do a lot of reporting/paying because of the sales, etc. to Illinois. When the retail GW store opened we had to report all of the trade sales sales to the area as well as what our store did (I was sales rep for Illinois at that time(we used to do states)) and I have no idea what that meant we paid out...just that we had to report it all at the time. I think other states were heading that direction as far a internet sales (remember kids, internet was still kinda new back then) and GW just started charging for everything (Maryland may have passed a law (or TN as well) that makes them collect it - a long time ago only MD and VA customers had to pay.) U-haul now plates all of the trucks in the same state that then shares that money to the other states...before that they could be registered in any state. just another example of what was going on with interstate taxes back then.

Well, that's a shame. I guess I'll just have to continue to never buy anything directly from GW. (thanks, Canadian prices!)

I usually will order right from GW when I want figures that are on their site but Direct-only. Like the really cool Eldar Ranger that's kneeling. Every once in a while there's stuff I couldn't get at all from The Warstore, like the Eldar heavy weapons sprue that comes with Vipers; for some reason GW has it on their site for $6.50, and I want one for turning a Venom into a counts-as Viper for my Corsairs. So I usually end up buying other site-only things to fill out my order so I'm not paying shipping on less than 10 dollars of stuff.

The Warstore is just my one-stop for bitz, oh definitely.


It's a bummer, because I used to buy directly from my local hobby store, but now they only carry the boxed kits for 40K, with no metal figures whatsoever (not even Finecast- well, as if I was that desperate).

I wish I could just go to a local GW, but there isn't one within a 100 mile radius of the west side of Michigan, lol. If there is actually one somewhere in Chicago, than a 3-hour (one way) drive is the shortest I could make.

frozenwastes wrote:Exactly. It's by jurisdiction.

Collecting sales tax outside of your state obligates the customer to pay it twice in the jurisdictions that have reporting. So GW collects sales tax for Baltimore and then you're supposed to pay it again when you report the purchase to your state on your income tax (for the jurisdictions that have that)?

I call BS on that.

No. If you purchase items from a company that has a physical presence in your state, you must pay sales tax. If not, many states require you to report untaxed, out-of-state purchases at the end of the year. Try as you might, Franklin was right about the two certainties of life...

Right. What I'm talking about is when an out of state entity collects the sales tax for their state and then you are obligated to then pay your own state sales tax when you file your taxes. Double taxed on the same purchase.

Is GW really collecting sales tax for each state in the union and properly remitting it to that state or are they simply collecting Baltimore tax and remitting it to Baltimore?

I won't say it doesn't kinda suck, but in my case it's not a big deal. I've ordered once from GW, and it was when I needed something fairly quickly that wasn't in stock at my FLGS (it's usually at least a few weeks' wait to order through my FLGS).

It's kinda sad, but as has been said, $50 isn't much in GW prices. I mean, there are plenty of big kits that cost that much or more, and with virtually every kit out there, you can buy two of it and it shoots you over $50. Blisters are about the only thing that aren't $25 or more, and there are some that are.

What is all the fuzz about? In my currency "free shipping" is above 85 USD ....
It is 7 times longer to the US, then to Sweden...

frozenwastes wrote:Right. What I'm talking about is when an out of state entity collects the sales tax for their state and then you are obligated to then pay your own state sales tax when you file your taxes. Double taxed on the same purchase.

Is GW really collecting sales tax for each state in the union and properly remitting it to that state or are they simply collecting Baltimore tax and remitting it to Baltimore?

GW is taxed on their total sales in each state where they have a physical presence.

So if GW has a store in Maryland, they add up all of their sales in the state of Maryland - whether online or in store - and remit those taxes to Maryland. But if GW doesn't have a store in Maryland, they're not under any obligation to collect Maryland sales taxes (IIRC, Md. doesn't have any jurisdiction over GW for tax purposes if they don't have a physical presence there).

What he's talking about are "usage taxes" that are self-reporting. At the end of the year, if you purchased goods out-of-state and didn't pay out-of-state sales taxes, you're supposed to report what you bought and pay tax on it (usually equal to the sales tax).

But seriously, try calling your state tax office and ask them how you're supposed to pay "use tax." They'll probably have no idea what you're talking about.

WHAT IT IS £10 IN BRITAIN!!!