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The idea of a 1 size fits all hours policy is dumb. They should just say 'what days are sales not equalling costs' and go by that.

Yes I'm sure that some strip mall stores only money on the weekends but the idea that the NYC store in the middle of NYU and Greenwich Villiage can't make money 7 days a week is stupid.

They should also open on Mondays that are holidays I know I'd happily go play somewhere.

jbunny wrote:The reason I want a GW within driving distance to me.

I want to be able to buy Specialist games when ever i want to with out having to order online from GW. I also want to be able to pick up an occasional piece of Forge World that they might keep instock.

I don't mind driving 3 hours to do a little shopping and gaming in if I can make a day out of it. Right now the closest GW is about 7 hours away.

your LGS can order GW specialist ranges at no shipping cost to you and the same price as GW. Far easier to do than going to the website.

Typical British approach to business that is still stuck in the late 80's early 90's if you ask me. One person stores will potentially save you money and appear profitable but part of the hidden costs will be lost revenue.

I personally will not return to a store if it is shut when it is supposed to be open - that includes pee breaks. I don't care about your needs, my time is more valuble than yours. There are two independant stores I don't go back to in Seattle because of that happening a few times - as a customer there is nothing worse than going out of my way to go somewhere and finding it shut. Stupid "back in 30 mins sign".

Only one person in the store trying to serve customers, run intro games and develop the hobby will just not work in the long term.

You can only focus on below the line costs and efficiency savings for so long. At some point you have to focus on increase revenue through grow and not price rises.

Watch for the next set of financial results that trumpet how great GW is doing but when you look at their revenue and strip out price increase and the LOTR blip you will see stagnant revenue grow for 5 or 6 years. This isn't going to help in the LONG term.

Has Games-Workshop officially stated this is going to happen or is this conjecture?

In Australia, the stores are almost entirely located in the big shopping centres. The only ones I know of in NSW that are not is the BattleBunker in the city, the store at Parramatta, and the one at Woolengong (which I found almost by scent when I was down there for a couple of hours).

But they take their cue from the ones in the shopping centres, which mean that they are all open Mon - Sun 9-5, and open til 9pm on Thurs. So they have to have someone in every day during the dead hours - often when I was within 2 mins of a GW at work and went there to paint at lunch, I would be the only person in.

lords2001 wrote:In Australia, the stores are almost entirely located in the big shopping centres. The only ones I know of in NSW that are not is the BattleBunker in the city, the store at Parramatta, and the one at Woolengong (which I found almost by scent when I was down there for a couple of hours).

But they take their cue from the ones in the shopping centres, which mean that they are all open Mon - Sun 9-5, and open til 9pm on Thurs. So they have to have someone in every day during the dead hours - often when I was within 2 mins of a GW at work and went there to paint at lunch, I would be the only person in.

Nothing wrong with staffing your stores per your known customer flow, say early afternoon - it is efficient and saves money. However, having one person on a Saturday afternoon is not going to give the average customer the great GW customer service you normally get in their stores. It will cost you revenue - now, the 64 million dollar question is will that lost revenue (or actually marginal gross profit) be less than the savings from staff hour reductions.

Sergeant Horse wrote:

jbunny wrote:The reason I want a GW within driving distance to me.

I want to be able to buy Specialist games when ever i want to with out having to order online from GW. I also want to be able to pick up an occasional piece of Forge World that they might keep instock.

I don't mind driving 3 hours to do a little shopping and gaming in if I can make a day out of it. Right now the closest GW is about 7 hours away.

your LGS can order GW specialist ranges at no shipping cost to you and the same price as GW. Far easier to do than going to the website.

Yes they can, but sometimes it's just the impulse purchases that give me joy.


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gorgon wrote:
or close stores (which means a loss in sales that they aren't guaranteed to recoup through local FLGSs, etc.)..

This is true but in some cases closing a store, and losing those sales can result in higher profits. You figure that the only reason they are closing a store is because they are not making overhead. While they lose the sales they also "lose" the expenses that go with those sales.

I am having a hard time buying into the one staff working idea. Would it be one staff, one manager?

I think the question people should be asking themselves is where will GW look for additional cost-cutting opportunities? Kirby looks to be cutting U.S. operations down to the bone, which is interesting at a time at which corporate profits are improving, at least in some sectors.

"Gotta fix the roof while the sun is shining" is a good quote for that. My business just had one of its best winter seasons in recent times, in the middle of this recession, and we're about to use that momentum to change things up and hit the summer months(peak months for recreational equipment/vehicles ) as hard as we can with new ideas and product. Resting on your laurels is bad business and a good way to let competition catch up. My business cut hours, laid folks off, closed on mondays/sundays and came out better for it. We're back to 3/4 staffing(was 1/4) and 6 day work weeks. Seeing businesses cut jobs is not fun, but it is a fact of life in America now and we may have to get used to it for some time. Granted, my profession and GW are apples and oranges, but the retail business section themes are the same. If its not working, do what it takes to make it work. If its working well, make it work better, etc. etc.

Also, no word yet what the positive and fun things mentioned in the OPs first post could be? That interests me more then corporate shenanigans.

ProtoClone wrote:I am having a hard time buying into the one staff working idea. Would it be one staff, one manager?

Small game stores really can work with one staffer... It just means they need to be set up right. My old FLGS rarely had two people on except on weekends, and made out OK until the owners made some bad decisions.

At my store, the hours ave been reduced by an hour so 12-7pm on weekdays and 12-8pm on saturday.

Every store in the area are also making massive layoffs and each store will be only ran by one person, technically every employee is getting layed off and they have to reapply for the new position (wage not salary). These are not manager, but "store operators". Every store close for lunch and dinner breaks as well as regular breaks. If the one store employee is sick, the the store will not open that day.

Liquidice281 wrote:At my store, the hours ave been reduced by an hour so 12-7pm on weekdays and 12-8pm on saturday.

Every store in the area are also making massive layoffs and each store will be only ran by one person, technically every employee is getting layed off and they have to reapply for the new position (wage not salary). These are not manager, but "store operators". Every store close for lunch and dinner breaks as well as regular breaks. If the one store employee is sick, the the store will not open that day.

I doubt that the store won't open, that's lost revenue and if it's in a mall, a big fine.

I doubt that the store won't open, that's lost revenue and if it's in a mall, a big fine.

Mall stores will still have more than one employee because of their long operating hours.

As for what happens for single employee stores when that single person is sick or has to be out for other emergencies, the stores will in most circumstances be closed. I asked this question directly of a trusted GW manager yesterday and that was the answer. This is apparently how things are handled in existing single employee stores when the one employee needs to be off work unexpectedly.

Wait, I can see one employee at a time but one employee period?

That's dumber than I thought.

Who's going to be managing these folks? Roaming managers covering an area?

Wow, if this is true it's a recipie for disaster.

GW doing something stupid and short-sighted? I refuse to believe it.

Well, I've never lived in an area that had a GW store, so I'm not really bothered by this news. The South has never been well received for GW stores , so I've supported my FLGS.

I feel bad for some folks who've grown accustomed to playing in a GW store where the employees build all the tables and great looking terrain. When I've visited these shops in the Virginia/Blatimore area, that is what really stuck out with me. I guess I was a bit green with envy.

I wish my local GW was open as much as the rest of yours. Sure I live in Chicago, the Mecca of GW. But the store that's closest to my train riding butt, is the one in Oak Park.

Mon-Tue: Closed
Wed, Thur, Friday: 12-7
Sat: 10-7
Sun: 12-5

It's a small store with 2 employees. With the Academy Courses, as demo games, running the register, etc... I can't imagine how 1 employee would manage it.

If they go down, I'd have to rely on a FLGS... oh, wait, there aren't any here.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Wait, I can see one employee at a time but one employee period?

That's dumber than I thought.

Who's going to be managing these folks? Roaming managers covering an area?

Wow, if this is true it's a recipie for disaster.

My thoughts exactly.

It would be one thing to have the manager work by himself. He has the authorization to handle all situations that could arise as apposed to a regular non-management staffer. Also, if you are a manager, or owned the store, then that would be different because you are the one to set your own schedule and if you didn't arrange for someone to come in a fill in for your break/lunch, too bad. But just a regular wage slave grunt would not be authorized to do certain things. If it is one employee, non-management, then there might be potential OSHA violations that are being over looked. That is why I am having a hard time buying this one employee idea.

Managers that run stores by themselves will still be managers, single "redshirt" employees that run stores solo will be referred to as store "operators". Store profitability will affect bonuses, so those stores that do very well have the potential to pay off well for their operators.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Wait, I can see one employee at a time but one employee period?

That's dumber than I thought.

Who's going to be managing these folks? Roaming managers covering an area?

Wow, if this is true it's a recipie for disaster.

I'm guessing this "roving manager" has the dubious honor of filling in should one of the employees be absent? Or will they just leave the store closed that day?

Regional Managers already fill in sometimes when an employee needs a break, so it's certainly possible, but I wouldn't count on it all the time. There will likely be times where a store is just closed when the single employee doesn't make it in to work.

Checking around, my GW - seemingly - won't be changed by the store hour modifications. Most likely because it's in a very crowded area that gets a lot of traffic, and shutting down earlier / opening later would mean a lot of lost business. It should still, after this, operate from 10am-9pm non-Sundays.

This is not to say other GW's in my area aren't changing, though: At least one's cut 10+ hours (I can't find its Sunday hours, if it indeed has them) of operation by going from 10am-9pm to 12pm-9pm on weekdays. The staff I've had a hunch about for some time, because suddenly a store that - for the last nine years - had been keeping staff for almost a year (if not slightly longer / shorter) on average is now blowing through employees at a rate of about one a month. "Oh, he got fired." "He moved to a different GW." "He quit." I might be a bit more believing if it was just one or two staff, but we've essentially gone through a dozen staff members in the last three months.

To what purposes do these stores serve then?

I am seeing a serious , how would you say it... SNAFU? Conflict of interests? Outright mismanagement?

For one, Honestly, What kind of profit are we really talking about with the cheesey runnings of these stores? Do they honestly THINK that these sorts of stores can actually run efficiently with 1 person in them?

WHO made that decision, and where did they get thier information as to how that kind of a buisness runs? It might work great over in Europe, or other places, MARS for example, but in the real world, you are talking about serious logistic issues that seem to have not even been taken into account.

One person in a shop? How big is the shop going to be then? Has someone seen what rent runs ANYWHERE these days? Does that mean that GW is getting into the realestate business then? How do they see thier insurance rates going when they start seeing more health issues come up with these so called one man shops?

What about emergencies, such as cutting your hand on a hobby knife? Glue in the eye sort of issues, or issues having to do with sexual harrasment?
I know it is a "Hobby " store, but there is a heck of a spectrum of issues that can and do come up in the real world that seem to have been left out of the equasion, and I am quite frankly stunned that the upper management seems to think that the golden streets flow with milk and honey, when in the grand scheme, we are dealing with a weak economy, a degrading workforce, and a whole situation where the hobbby itself is going to a second and even sometimes third tier activity.

NOW we see Darth Tom, coming over here with his high hat ideas, seemingly to "Save Money" when in the long run, it is appearing that he doesn't even know the first thing about the game, let alone how to market, promote, and relate to the customer base.

IF they arn't his ideas, then WHO's? and as seeing as he is in "Charge", what is that going to mean when the shops are closing left right and center, the whole Idea of having GW shops is lost somewhere in the sauce, and the general consensus is that they care more about pritty pictures, haphazard suport, and padding thier own pockets, AL LA
robber barons mentality.

What sort of profit do these stores make?

How much exactly does it cost to train the GW employees?

How much will these employees be paid?


Seeing as you are going to be asking someone to work three times as hard...

Seeing as someone hasn't done thier homework on the way real life american buisnesses run, and how people really go into these shops, see the price, laugh a little and walk on out...

What are the "Improvements?" Why do they think that these changes are even going to work?




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jbunny wrote:The reason I want a GW within driving distance to me.

I want to be able to buy Specialist games when ever i want to with out having to order online from GW. I also want to be able to pick up an occasional piece of Forge World that they might keep instock.

I don't mind driving 3 hours to do a little shopping and gaming in if I can make a day out of it. Right now the closest GW is about 7 hours away.

Honestly, they do not support or carry Specialist games gear in the GW stores. You have to special order it from them.

Forgeworld items are special order, as well. They do not generally stock FW stuff.

Who made that decision

Most likely, Mr. T. Kirby.

What I'm looking forward to is seeing one person on a busy Saturday try to simultaneously teach Academy classes, answer the phone, greet every walk-in customer and assist them in finding and making the purchase that's right for them, answer rules questions and hobby questions from customers already in the store, and run the cash register for every purchase. Some Saturdays that's currently a challenge with two people, with only one it should require a Herculean effort and the ability to be in multiple places within the store simultaneously.

OH I want to see the loss from theft numbers that occur with one person running a store..

Nevermind outside theft, internal theft will be nuts as well.

To be fair, there are plenty of small businesses that operate with a staff of one. Yeah, I think it's problematic for a GW store at certain times in the week. But then again, perhaps the bar will be set lower in terms of expectations for the store and operator.

Note however, that this does appear to be a contradiction in their business plan. For a long time we've heard that their model was to have their stores operate as their advertising and for new customer cultivation rather than solely be a sales outlet. With only one employee, cultivating new customers would appear to take a back seat at times to basic tasks like ringing up customers, stocking shelves, checking inventory, placing orders, etc. Certainly a lot of mundane tasks can be done during slower hours, but this plan isn't an all-out press on customer cultivation, that's for sure.

As I said before, I think it's likely there are more changes on the way and maybe some real surprises.

My local GW manager relayed this same story... really sad. Supposedly this is how the shops are run in the U.K.. Is that true? Can a fellow UK gamer who visits GW stores be able to comment on that?

I really like the people in the store. What's sad is this news has them all bummed which in turn has dampened their enthusiasm for the company and the products they sell. Image being told that one day soon only one of you will be left.....

It does seem at first glance that GW/Kirby is still insisting that US stores can operate as they do in the UK. To me, the idea that a GW store here doesn't carry their entire line shows they don't understand the environment in the US. I'm sure there have been frustrated customers who drove 50+ miles to a GW store only to find it's not so much a factory/specialty store as a storefront carrying the basics.

Perhaps there's more going on here than it seems, or perhaps Kirby will find his time in the US illuminating. However, my experience with executives is that most of them got where they are by being hardheaded to an unearthly degree, and they tend to see things through their personal prism.

Not even counting things like state labor laws which they are pretty much throwing out. How likely is it going to be that they are cool with people closing for 30 minutes for lunch on a saturday.....

Chapterhouse wrote:OH I want to see the loss from theft numbers that occur with one person running a store..

Nevermind outside theft, internal theft will be nuts as well.

Internal theft would be easy to identify...

I'm guessing this would have to be part of a program to reduce the store to little more than pure stores, removing the 'community' aspects.