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A little about me first. I have been a member for a couple of years now. I was an avid 40k player, collector, and modeler for the last decade. Recently I have began to stray away from the game. I stopped buying GW at retail. Instead I chose to buy on ebay and forums like this one. Recently due to hard economic times I began selling off a very, very vast collection. Since beginning to sell off all my stuff I have become quite hooked on selling on ebay. I have began buying up large lots of WHFB, and 40k breaking them down and selling them on ebay. This has been a nice little source of income for me and my GF and I have recently started our own LLC so we can start buying items wholesale and sell on ebay.

I bought a rather large lot of Tyranids a few weeks ago and included in the lot was a GW giftcard for 88 dollars. Since selling off the rest of the lot paid for the lot and made me a bit of profit I decided that I would spend the giftcard on myself. It was either that or pay retail to resell at less than retail. Since I am no longer playing either 40k or WHFB I decided to just find something that would be fun to assemble and paint. So I hit up the GW website and spent a few hours browsing all the models they currently offer. They of course have a ton of pretty cool models but I kept coming back to the Chaos Lord on Manticore. Imo it is a great looking kit, plus it comes with both a Chaos Lord and a Chaos Sorcerer, leaving the door open for another cool model and conversion after finishing the Manticore. So the next day I was off to my local GW. I have been their one other time and don't care for it to much. It is dinky and not a lot of room for gaming.

So anyways my GF and I walk in and I start browsing around. Within a minute or 2 the employee approaches me and we begin chatting. I tell him that I am browsing atm but was pretty much decided on the Manticore. I told him I spent hours online looking at all the different models available. The next thing I know he's pulling a Zombie Dragon off the shelf and starts telling me how cool it is. I myself do not care much for the model as it looks like its squatting to take a big old dump (which is probably made from "finecast" resin). I just sort of shrug it off and get my Manticore plus some paints. Once everything was all said and done I paid .68 cents out of pocket.

On the way home it hit me. He was upselling. The Crapping Zombie Dragon was 7 dollars more than the manticore. Why must GW do this? I am all for helpful staff and promoting the hobby, but imo he was doing neither. He was just trying to get more money from me. Thank goodness it will be a long long time before I set foot in another GW.

um... it is a retail store and he is a salesperson... trying to make a profit?

Lots of people need that type of help and are not exposed to all the new models like us nerds on the internet.

I am not sure what you expect... If you walked in and the salesperson sat behind the register and ignored you and said nothing as you checked out, it would be 'customer service sucks!'

This behavior is exactly what I see at every single retail store everywhere. Seems pretty reasonable to me.

There are tons of threads about this. It seems the consensus AFAIK is that GW strategy is trying to get you to impulse buy. It doesn't really work though, since I never impulse buy something that is more than 10$

It's just what you have to do at your terrible little retail job when you work a terrible little retail job.
We might like to think that a hobby related store should be a some sort of sanctuary from that sort of thing, a conclave of like minded individuals, but really that guys just been told to sell more stuff or they'll replace him with a fourteen year old.

i was in retail in several different places for a few years and its always like that, upsell every customer it gets drilled into you, its actually what i expect when i walk into a GW store, which i never really do anymore.

If you pay close enough attention, you'll realise that most companies/retail actually use upselling. Though not so much with the "In your face, ignoring previous information you might have provided to help the upsell be sucessful" ™ and "Cram the new stuff down your throat" ™ strategies.

nkelsch wrote:um... it is a retail store and he is a salesperson... trying to make a profit?

Lots of people need that type of help and are not exposed to all the new models like us nerds on the internet.

I am not sure what you expect... If you walked in and the salesperson sat behind the register and ignored you and said nothing as you checked out, it would be 'customer service sucks!'

This behavior is exactly what I see at every single retail store everywhere. Seems pretty reasonable to me.

I agree with you if someone comes in with no idea what they are doing. I however did, and made it clear from the beginning that I did. All he managed to do was turn me off from shopping at GW again. Sometimes the best sales come from just being friendly and talkative, not reaching into my pocket. If they are so driven on sales maybe they should train them how to be effective with the different sorts of customers they deal with. Instead they are formatted to one specific strategy. Any salesman worth his salt realizes that everyone is different, and should be handled differently. I think I will just stick to paying below retail on ebay.

I’ve never been a fan of the “cram suggestions down the customer’s throat” strategy. If someone attempts this, it usually dissuades me from buying stuff in the store. If I see a “used car salesman”, I’ll usually not make eye contact and keep my distance to avoid any sort of up selling.

For what its worth, in my personal experience, when I worked at a fast food place for 3 years, I found that being friendly and honest with the customer was a more effective strategy to get the customer to buy more stuff than up selling. The trick was to be honest, talk on the same level as the customer and distance yourself from any issues with the store/company. The up selling strategy in my personal experience only ever worked on pensioners and idiots.

candy.man wrote:I’ve never been a fan of the “cram suggestions down the customer’s throat” strategy. If someone attempts this, it usually dissuades me from buying stuff in the store. If I see a “used car salesman”, I’ll usually not make eye contact and keep my distance to avoid any sort of up selling.

For what its worth, in my personal experience, when I worked at a fast food place for 3 years, I found that being friendly and honest with the customer was a more effective strategy to get the customer to buy more stuff than up selling. The trick was to be honest, talk on the same level as the customer and distance yourself from any issues with the store/company. The up selling strategy in my personal experience only ever worked on pensioners and idiots.

Well said.

To the OP, I get the impression you gave him the impression you were looking at the "coolness" factor rather then the "point/effectiveness" factor. Add to this the face this is a store I see no problem with him picking out the most temping models you may want even if it's a little extra. At least he didn't try to sell you a Baneblade.

Noting that I only got into tabletop games about a month ago, years ago well before I knew what GW was I walked into a GW store looking for a "cool" model to build (it was in a mall). Looked around, told the guy there why I was there and he pointed out their awesome balrog. Left happy with my wallet a little lighter and a balrog in hand. Though he did try to sell me a Baneblade -_-

If the guy would have been like "the manticore is a great model. Have you seen his awesome rules" I very well would have bought the army book as well. I feel like GWs sales strategies are flawed the whole way up to the corporate level.

This ties in perfectly with my other post, though I'm sure I pissed enough people off with that one so Ill give you a legitimate answer.

Up-selling and other sales strategies are common in EVERY retail store that exists, the salesmen in some stores are better than others, and large retail chains are the worst for two reasons.

A: The company does NOT and i repeat does NOT give one flying feth about you. It wouldn't give you a feth if you were hanging off the edge of a cliff and all you needed to save your self was a feth.

B: They hire uneducated unqualified idiots and don't train them beyond basic strategies that they then misuse as they are forced to make more profits or be replaced.

I can’t help but feel that the salesman in the OP had a flawed strategy, even if he was trying the up selling technique. He tried to get the person to buy a more expensive model when he should have tried is to get the person to buy more peripherals (like paints, blisters etc) to supplement the purchase. An extra $3 purchase here and there can go a long way. Fastfood places ask people if they want fries with that for a reason

If you are an educated informed shopper knowing exactly what you want and what it is worth, you never would have gone to GW's retail store. We all know you can get everything elsewhere for cheaper and can research what we want fully without seeing it in person when it comes to these figures.

So the act of stepping in the store shows you are not an educated informed shopper in most cases, especially wargaming minis. Most people who claim to be informed are shopping at GW due to impulse reasons as we want it NOW not later. I think it is very much a valid tactic to attempt to upsell an impulse shopper with more or better stuff. The impulse buy to go to a GW store deserves to be exploited by salespeople if they can... and if they offend you... who cares? They still get your money it seems.

I am unsure why everyone is dead set on saying everyone in retail or GWs stores are ignorant... Walking into a store like you are too cool for school and then want to be left alone by sales people is a ridiculous notion. If you are not there to shop, you are there to steal and hard sell is a way to keep you from stealing. If you are there to buy a specific product and you want nothing of the sales spiel, then buy your stuff and get out. Working as intended for a retail store.

Goddard wrote:There are tons of threads about this. It seems the consensus AFAIK is that GW strategy is trying to get you to impulse buy. It doesn't really work though, since I never impulse buy something that is more than 10$

Clearly you never impulse bought a baneblade before have you? Because I know a guy who did...

If you knew what you wanted, why were you loitering?

DarknessEternal wrote:If you knew what you wanted, why were you loitering?

Because my local GW is still 45 minutes away. Here in PA theres no laws against browsing.

And I think, Mr. Lewis, that therein lies the rub. By browsing, you were indicating to the salesperson a further interest in product. (Not an intention to buy, but an interest.) Now, he may have erred in the product he showed you, but you've as much as said that he could have talked you into another purchase. It wasn't his course of action that was incorrect, but his choice of tool in implementing it. It can be aggravating sometimes, I know, but it is his job. It works best if the sales rep can both upsell you and provide you with something that will make you happy, and to be fair he may have been trying to do that. He was just wrong.

We all have to do things at our jobs that are going to make other people we are dealing with feel as though they got the short end of the customer service stick. (Or whatever other kind of stick it is that you have to use at work.) I try and take a step back and blame the institution and not the person.

To be honest...

I don't have any problem with the GW salesperson's actions, and I think you're going a little hard on him.

Based on what you wrote, it seems like you were looking for a cool model to paint. You had pretty much decided on the manticore. The salesman than pulls down the zombie dragon, and shows it off to you.

I mean, is he trying to sell you a more expensive model?

Maybe/probably.

Is he trying to show you another cool large monster kit that you might buy?

Definitely!

From a hobby and business point of view, he did the right thing. Maybe you hadn't seen the model. Maybe you'd like it.

If you showed disinterest and he was being pushy afterwards, I'd sympathize with you more. But if you were browsing for a cool model, it is his duty to show you models you might find cool.

And maybe I'm a little biased because I think the Terrorgheist looks far cooler than the Manticore and I'd gladly pay $7 more for it.

Good gaming!

You seem to be looking for something to get offended over.

The dragon was *7* dollars more. Seven. That hardly counts as up selling. Now if you said you were here for a bottle of paint and he said "ZOMG here is this awesome dragon, you should get it!" then yeah, up selling.

I looked at both models, and they are quite similar. Could it be possible that he just thought you might like it?

If you ever supersized anything, you've been upsold.

I get your point, but I stand by mine.

The models are simply too similar to think that the GW guy was trying to induce the OP into purchasing a different model simply because it was (slightly) more expensive.

I simply tell the guys that I'm only getting *whatever product* and they shut up.

Biggest problem in retail is that sales are down, customer visits are down, and hours have been cut. In order to control whatever they can about their profit margin, they ask for greater customer service to try and drive the business of those who walk through their doors.

The biggest problem with that approach though is that aside from the "Hello" and "Here is what is new today," any additional talking aside from speaking to friendly faces or helping new people make decisions, they cannot talk up any special deals (read: GW has NONE as from online free shipping) and any overselling tends to be annoying and overbearing.

Plus many GW retail managers seem to have no idea how to impart this sort of training to their rank and file if they themselves have an inkling of what the customer expects. They expect to be greeted, possibly told about new stuff, and maybe help if they need help with a decision, especially if they are asking questions about a new product or are themselves new to the hobby.

And here I thought this was going to be a humorous comparison thread, saying why we hated used car dealers and substituting with GW. I hate car dealers when you buy ALL your cars at their lot, then they try to sell you a keyed up car with major damage at a high price, and when you mention all the other money you've spent there, they give you a blank stare...sounds like GW.
Me: "I've spent $3,478 dollars on GW stuff."
GW staffer: "Great, then you wouldn't mind adding only a tiny bit more and buying the Spear of Siccarius."

(NEVER HAPPENED-TOTALLY MADE UP!!)

I don't go into the GW in San Jose because the high pressure atmosphere is annoying. I've been to several FLGS's that have encouraged me to spend more money by being helpful and informative and showing me different products without ramming them down my throat. I don't want to be followed around by some dweeb acting like a Korean grocer in a Spike Lee movie.

I give GW store staff a break.

From annecdotal evidence here, in other threads and from other pople I know it seems that the sales techniques of a lot of staff is pretty poor.

It's not the fault of the staff if they are doing something which either doesnt come naturally to them or are having to achieve targets which may or may not be possible.

Unfortunately that's business.

"Do you need help?" is a fairly standard greeting in most places and I think the entire layout of the shop doesn't help.

It's a confined space as most GW stores are quite small and here's someone showing off stuff that YOU know you don't want (but he doesn't without mind reading ability, his job is to show off models).

It all adds up to a fairly uncomfortable minute of your life of getting rid of the guy so you can have a look at what you want but ultimately that's what he's paid to do so you can't be too harsh on them.

I can't think of a single other shop I have worked or shopped in that practices the same kind of hostile upselling that GW shops do. It is not standard retail practice, at least in the UK. It is obnoxious and poorly thought out, and has cost them sales in many places. Near everyone I know who plays no longer shops in GW stores due to their aggressive sales techniques, and have instead gone for purchasing online from third parties, not due to the discounts, but due to the poor service they recieve from GW stores.

Ok, let me first start off by acknowledging the fact that, in my perusal of this thread, many people have stated about half of my two cents on this subject. Yes, it is a retail store, and like all retail stores, the salespeople are 'programmed' to upsell. But you forget; the majority of actual Games Workshop stores are run by a single person. The mall stores, the bunkers, and some of the larger stand-alone stores do have more employees, but most don't. So its up to that one person to give out the 'freebie' models and painting lessons, solve disputes if they arise, answer various questions from people playing at their tables, stock/inventory, etc. And on top of that, they have to make sales. Yes, it comes back to it. It is a retail store. Chances are, on any given day, you're going to be upsold on something, or someone will at least attempt to do so, even if you don't go into a GW shop. But not all salespeople are like that. And I'm sure if you were to show up at the shop a little more often, and the staff began to recognize you, I'll bet you the upselling would go away. Again, just my two cents.