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So, during a conversation with a friend today, he told me that GWs distributor cost is 40% of retail. Can anyone verify that statement as accurate or inaccurate? I've been mulling a few things over since he mentioned it, but I don't have a great familiarity with the intricacies of retail business practices in general, or GWs retail practices in particular.

Retailers get 45% off but have to maintain certain stock.

 Ravenous D wrote:
Retailers get 45% off but have to maintain certain stock.

There probably needs to be a caveat there that it's going to vary from country to country...

I don't know if it's changed in the decade and a bit since, but when I had my GW account it was only 30% here in Oz. I suspect that may have changed simply from the number of retailers here offering 20% off the retail price, but that's just a guess.

Do they have to charge a certain retail price, or are they free to let something go for cheaper? If someone were to go to a retailer and say 'hey, I want to buy an entire army all at once, would you give me a discount if I bought X amount of kits?' would the retailer be able to accept, or are they bound by some kind of obligation not to do that?

There is no requirement to not offer one-off discounts, although GW have at times, in some countries, had rules against having a set 'across the board' discount.

They are, of course, bound by the need to make a profit. The independent store has to pay rent/salaries/etc out of that 60% and still have money left over to make a profit. So that's going to limit their ability to sell at a discount, even the 20% discount offered by online stores is painful to match (and this is the main reason for GW's restrictions on online stores).

 Peregrine wrote:
They are, of course, bound by the need to make a profit. The independent store has to pay rent/salaries/etc out of that 60% and still have money left over to make a profit. So that's going to limit their ability to sell at a discount, even the 20% discount offered by online stores is painful to match (and this is the main reason for GW's restrictions on online stores).

Out of that 45%, GW gets 55% vs 45% for the store. SO a %20 discount is 40% of their (store) profit margin.

Distributor price is totally dependent on location - the distributor price when I was in Canada was actually higher than the retail price on some items in the States. Ergo if you want to be competitive with stores just over the border your margins were 0 on those items, and you were still at a price disadvantage.

 Ravenous D wrote:
Retailers get 45% off but have to maintain certain stock.

In the US, from my understanding it was around 40% for regular items and up to 30% for direct only items.

 Jimsolo wrote:
Do they have to charge a certain retail price, or are they free to let something go for cheaper? If someone were to go to a retailer and say 'hey, I want to buy an entire army all at once, would you give me a discount if I bought X amount of kits?' would the retailer be able to accept, or are they bound by some kind of obligation not to do that?

You know I don't think it would hurt to ask them. Especially if you are talking to the owner. I wouldn't try to ask that of just an employee.

 Icculus wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:
Do they have to charge a certain retail price, or are they free to let something go for cheaper? If someone were to go to a retailer and say 'hey, I want to buy an entire army all at once, would you give me a discount if I bought X amount of kits?' would the retailer be able to accept, or are they bound by some kind of obligation not to do that?

You know I don't think it would hurt to ask them. Especially if you are talking to the owner. I wouldn't try to ask that of just an employee.

As far as I'm aware, no (there are B&M FLGS with 10-20% off from what I've seen) the flip side is that going to low may make it hard to pay your bills.

A fair amount of information you are probably looking for should be here:

http://trade.games-workshop.com/?page_id=921