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Here we have a US policy of Games Workshop. To stop internet stores from selling their products using an online shopping cart.
Most of these store offer a decent discount, and while we can still sell GW product from them. It is now done by phone in order to comply with GW's terms.

Now I was on Amazon the other day and came across loads of GW products being sold at a discount, and using Amazons shopping cart system. Just visit the Amazon site and type in Warhammer 40k in their search engine. Why do they get away with it? Just doesn't seem like a fair playing field for the other online sellers.

I know many of the sellers on Amazon are separate stores just using Amazon as a place to sell their stuff. Is this a loophole?

GW can't "ban" using a cart. They can set terms on what retailers can do if they want the best discounts.

The Amazon resellers are probably an example of what is referred to as 'grey market' in that they may be a bit iffy, like they're buying (at discount) from a real store or something.

If anything, it's a reason GW should probably abandon the policy, but difficult to really prosecute.

A related example: in the SCUBA diving equipment market, some manufacturers try to prevent internet sales to help local shops. The way they try to enforce this is by offering better deals on service parts on "properly purchased' equipment.

There's still a lot that end up having to either fudge the service deals or otherwise work around them.

GW is a business dinosaur stuck in the mid 90's still. I don't think the higher ups even know what a series of tubes is.

The one i'm really confounded by is dicebucket.com. they're an independent online retailer that seems to sell only gw products through an online shopping cart. They're US based, offer around a 20% discount, and only take orders through the shopping cart. What loophole did they find?

Leprousy wrote:The one i'm really confounded by is dicebucket.com. they're an independent online retailer that seems to sell only gw products through an online shopping cart. They're US based, offer around a 20% discount, and only take orders through the shopping cart. What loophole did they find?

I don't know about Dice Bucket, but it is possible that retailers strike deals with GW for various business reasons.

GW sellers on Amazon are independent folks selling through Amazon, not Amazon themselves. Amazon don't stock GW stuff themselves.

Leprousy wrote:The one i'm really confounded by is dicebucket.com. they're an independent online retailer that seems to sell only gw products through an online shopping cart. They're US based, offer around a 20% discount, and only take orders through the shopping cart. What loophole did they find?

The obvious guess would be that they're buying their stock from someone other than GW directly.

If you don't get things directly, you will have no issues unless they attempt to find you.

GW only imposes the no shopping cart rule on people that order wholesale directly from them. If you order your miniatures through a third party distributor (and there are some out there) you can use a shopping cart on your website. The downside is that you will be paying a little bit more for the product.

Brother SRM wrote:GW sellers on Amazon are independent folks selling through Amazon, not Amazon themselves. Amazon don't stock GW stuff themselves.

This, its pretty much the same deal as Ebay stores.