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I'm not sure where GW would get a good return on their advertising dollar.

I think the best advertising was what they had before they started firing their customers with price hikes. Word of mouth. With all the Lord of the Rings cash coming in, they took their eye off their core business and got it into their heads that they can just keep raising prices and people will keep buying no matter what. Now they raise prices to keep revenue from declining. So there's less units sold which means some combination of less customers and lower volume per customer. So that's less people talking about it with their friends and whatnot.

Miniature wargaming really does have a network effect where a critical mass of players can generate revenue for you through word of mouth advertising. Drop below that and the pool of opponents and people to talk about the hobby with decline. Less people around to get others into the hobby.

I think GW stores do a good job with the demo sales process, but I too am concerned with how they are no longer in the highest traffic areas and how their hours and staffing has been slashed. And how the managers all know that they already have replacements lined up if they don't perform. Must be tough on morale to be told that.

OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:As for self contained 'introductory' games, yes it would be nice if they were more supportive.. but Dreadfleet was a bit of a disaster,

and I suspect they fear that if you bought say, Space Hulk why would you need to buy more ? It is self contained so it does not nessesarily bring in new players, and could be viewed as a bit of a dead end.

Dreadfleet was a nice introductory game .... for Man o' War ... and only if you already ARE introduced to the hobby and stand in their store.

And maybe you are to young to know: But about half the veterans were brought into the hobby by Space Hulk and Heroquest. New customers are introduced to the hobby in masses when non-GW companies do standard advertising, including TV-ads. Worked with Space Hulk, also worked with De Agostini LOTR magazines. Worked a.o. because it was sold in major toy/newspaper stores, not only in stores of the already initiated. GW itself never ever recruited that much new customers.

Backfire wrote:I'm also not sure how or where GW supposedly should advertise. Should they put ad's on magazines? Which ones? Run them on TV?

Only thing which I agree is that GW would do well to have some sort of introductory game with widespread distribution. Like they had Space Crusade long time ago. License it to FFG if they don't want to do it by themselves.

See above: Space Crusade sold like hot cakes because of TV-ads and because it was sold in normal stores.

Kingsley wrote:I'm not so sure about that advertising thing.

"It will handle the global digital strategy for Games Workshop". Not a word about advertising GW products, certainly not about their core business: Miniatures.

 frozenwastes wrote:
And how the managers all know that they already have replacements lined up if they don't perform. Must be tough on morale to be told that.

Im not sure on how true this is, as GW in both Oslo and Stockholm (if I dont remember incorrectly) does not have a store manager at the moment...
I was told, though, that GW HQ wants one store manager for both cities...

They put it right in their yearly report. So I guess we have our choice of believing that GW keeps a replacement for their managers ready to go, they lied about it in their report, or that they mean to do so, but haven't implemented it properly yet.

Every company in the world is looking to do more with less.
Managers are always the first to go.They need indians not chiefs,a really good manager can do the job of three or four.
But in regards to the value take this into account
They thought they were going to only hit 625 they are at 640 and the following has not been released yet
Starter set
Chaos
Horus Heresy line(even if only the book comes out,even still)
You will see that first quarter 2013
GW is a very good place to invest short term. 1-2. Years

KrMaH wrote:

 frozenwastes wrote:
And how the managers all know that they already have replacements lined up if they don't perform. Must be tough on morale to be told that.

Im not sure on how true this is, as GW in both Oslo and Stockholm (if I dont remember incorrectly) does not have a store manager at the moment...
I was told, though, that GW HQ wants one store manager for both cities...

The financial report says that more than half GW shops have a named successor. Guess Oslo and Stockholm are part of the smaller half.

 Kroothawk wrote:

And maybe you are to young to know: But about half the veterans were brought into the hobby by Space Hulk and Heroquest. New customers are introduced to the hobby in masses when non-GW companies do standard advertising, including TV-ads. Worked with Space Hulk, also worked with De Agostini LOTR magazines. Worked a.o. because it was sold in major toy/newspaper stores, not only in stores of the already initiated. GW itself never ever recruited that much new customers.

No I was around when Space Crusade lauched the first time (but roleplaying rather than wargaming), I started going into GW shops for stuff like Paranoia and Call of Cthulhu

I made the point because I knew friends and aquentences who bought it, really enjoyed it but never felt the need to take it further. Not of cource to say others didn't dive into 40K in a big way, but amongst those I knew it didnt happen

Good point about advertising in the general Toy market though, but the Hobbit should do that for the next few years, they just need to prepare better for the bounce ending

Closed today at 685.
Still to come
Starter
Chaos
Horus Heresy
Hobbit

The only real interesting data would be the level 2 quote data on the stock. To see how much is on the market at what price levels. If it's 100 shares here and a 100 shares there, the price could drastically spike up from even a small amount of buying and then drastically plunge from even a small amount of selling.

One of the challenges of stocks with low trading volumes is actually getting in and out at a price you want. Until you do that, the "value" of your stock according to the last trade executed is just a pipe dream.

 Eisenhorn wrote:
Closed today at 685.
Still to come
Starter
Chaos
Horus Heresy
Hobbit

Up about 240p in the last year. I'm a happy investor.

I jumped in a month ago invested $3500
I am up almost a grand

Like I said earlier for short term GW is excellent big things planned through 2013

 Eisenhorn wrote:
I jumped in a month ago invested $3500
I am up almost a grand

It's sure as heck doing better than my Citibank stock....ick.

My goal is to earn enough for the Warlord Titan

 Eisenhorn wrote:
My goal is to earn enough for the Warlord Titan

I used my dividends last year to buy my ogre army.

Pence you say?

Now I've got to figure out a way to buy some of their stock... I misunderstood the price to be in pounds when I was looking them up last week.

If you struggle with the pounds/pence thing investing in financial markets may not be you thing. Just saying

Haha I just wasn't paying attention to the currency symbol. I just looked at the number assuming it was pounds.

Like I said if that was in pounds
GW would be in billions of homes,that destroys Apple and Amazon.
It would be at $1086 a share if it were pounds

 Eisenhorn wrote:
Like I said if that was in pounds
GW would be in billions of homes,that destroys Apple and Amazon.
It would be at $1086 a share if it were pounds

Not that I wold mind the stock being that high so I could buy a new house with each dividend check...

Waiting for the day their stock plummets, I buy 51%, and now everything is Chaos Space Marines.