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How well does Games Workshop know you?
By this I mean, as a customer not a person.

With the release of their mid-year statement showing continued loss in unit sales, many people are throwing out suggestions on how GW could improve. I'm curious as to how GW could possibly make any strategic decision without some form of market research, yet I've never been subject to any. By my reckoning, GW only 'knows' about the customers who buy directly from them (online or in-store), play in hobby centers, or in some of the larger tournaments. Yet there are enormous swathes of players who must slip completely under GW's radar: the ones who buy from online retailers, who play in indie tournaments, or in clubs. I know my entire club of 30 or so members probably has 5 people who shop at a GW store regularly. I personally have not bought anything from a GW store in over 5 years...

Anecdotally, it seems that the US market is comprised of older gamers than the UK, which for a variety of factors seems to be one of the reasons that US sales aren't as good as they could be. Is it just that GW simply doesn't know that US gamers are older/into different aspects of the game? Or they know and just don't care?
Has anyone here been part of a GW marketing survey any time recently, or are you all flying under the radar too?

You really need to remove concepts like 'common sense' and 'logic' when discussing Games Workshop's business operations.

What information, exactly, do you think GW can obtain through a direct sale or tournament that they can't through an indie sale?

Fafnir wrote:You really need to remove concepts like 'common sense' and 'logic' when discussing Games Workshop's business operations.

You also really need to remove "business" when discussing Games Workshop's business operations.

They had a survey in WD once.

They know what items they supply to which independent retailers and in what quantity, so they know exactly what people are buying through them, if not exactly where the customers are (as many internet retailers sell internationally for example).

In regards how well the company knows people who play GW games... I could not possibly say. A lot of what you hear on the internet is hard to measure how accurate and representetive it is as a whole, both the complaints and the praise.

They see the customers and interact with them.

You have to be a very poor marketer indeed not to get more information from direct customer interactions than you can from sales through distribution.

You can count:

1. Number of people entering the shop (footfall).
2. Number of sales and types of kits selling.
3. Value of sales.
4. Method of sale -- a card sale indicates an older customer.
5. Age groups -- more work to record this of course.
6. Timing patterns during the day, week and seasons.

Your staff can actually talk to customers and get a feel for what they are thinking.

At tournaments you have all the info from the registration process. You can talk to people, and you can get them to fill in satisfaction surveys on the event, including info like age, number of armies owned and things like that.

Web site sales give you the customer's address, which can be cross-related with a marketing database such as ACORN to find out information about their social-economic class.

The info you get from indie sales is limited to the number, type and value of kits sold during a time period. You only get that roughly, because all you actually know is what is being ordered from your distribution department.

I don't know if GW do the things I mentioned.

I seem to remember they used to run an annual survey in WD with the prize being an absolute boatload of stuff but I can't remember when the last one was. Probably a few years ago now back when GW actually bothered listening to their customers...

filbert wrote:I seem to remember they used to run an annual survey in WD with the prize being an absolute boatload of stuff but I can't remember when the last one was. Probably a few years ago now back when GW actually bothered listening to their customers...

The do the occasional "register on our website and get entered for a prize" thing though.

lord_blackfang wrote:What information, exactly, do you think GW can obtain through a direct sale or tournament that they can't through an indie sale?

Age, gender, army that you play, rough area, location you play at, what style of games you play most ... I'm not talking about volume of sales (which obviously they should be able to get easily), I'm talking about what their market is - and is that different to their target market, and how can they exploit that market.
Case in point: one of my friends travelled 200km to the nearest indie store to us, to buy 5 packs of empire flagellants to use as penal legionairres. The indie store doesn't pass on any of that information (if they get it in the first place).

According to everything GW knows about me, I stopped playing 5 or so years ago after buying 1500pts of Chaos Warriors. Sure, I contribute to the figures of indie retailers in the UK (as I order from there to Australia) but that still doesn't tell them that I'm an active player of 40k and BFG with over 8000pts of Tau....

I also remember one survey in they White Dwarf in my 10 years of the hobby. But those surveys only reach those who read White Dwarf (ie, not me anymore) and if anything, give a false picture by inflating sales for the particular month when prizes are offered.

A company needs to know its sales and revenue volumes in order to compile its annual financial reports and produce enough of each type of kit.

Without market research, though, a company has absolutely no idea why it is selling X and not Y, or why sales of Z are increasing or decreasing. That makes any planning about products nothing more than guesswork.

I filled out a survey of sorts as recently as when they were giving away WFB armies in a drawing as part of their IoB promotion. Although for all I know all they've done is use that info to spam my email with announcements announcing more announcements.

How well do they know me??

According to GW, I'm a 13 year old Girl who loves "Hello Kitty", and buys GW products when a relative dies and I can afford to buy the new Stormraven Mini.

Oh wait - I don't play BA... :(

LOL... GW's Business Plan does not include any consideration of 'customers' whatsoever...

It's all about the SHAREHOLDERS... has been since they went public

The question isnt how well do they know the customer, but do they give a flip about the customer...