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brainscan wrote:@phantom, you're probably right... what business would prioritise new customers over long term regular customers...

Sarcasm doesn't communicate itself particularly well in a written medium...

I heard a phone conversation between a GW sales rep and my FLGS owner where the GW sales rep was advocating exactly that, that the FLGS owner should do its best to "kick out" all the veteran players (because apparently we scared away newer younger players), and just focus all his efforts on targeting a younger audience and just sell them starter sets and be done with it.

But you don't even have to take my word for it, just look at all the GWs promotional photos and tell me how many people you can spot in them that are over 18 and aren't store employees...

<rant>

Vote with your wallet. Don't buy it - that is the only language business understand. Looking at the sales figures over the years, it seems most people take this approach. Anything else is waisting time and effort.

I have made 0 finecast purchases and don't intend to. I'll probably buy some metal Specialist Games stuff, mainly to finish off my BFG fleets, but thats it. I do buy the occasional FW piece, but am insistent on getting a flawless model that isn't miscasted. If you do buy finecast, insist on what they promote in their marketing material - a flawless cast. If you don't get that, return the model and keep returning it until you get what they promised or get a refund. If you are UK based, they even have a freepost address meaning that you won't have to pay return postage.

Anything less just excuses a terrible business decision to switch when they are not ready for the scale they are producing at. Also, don't fall into the "But I just need to finish my army, so I'll accept sub-standard casting" mindset - this is not the approach to take. It may feel like a hassle and you don't want to inconvenience the chap/chapess on the other end of the line/counter when you ask for an exchange or refund, but you need to think at the business level not at the individual level - insist on getting what you were promised and paid for - a flawless cast.



</rant>

I'm already voting, and its painful. There are some VC and Tyranid models I really want to buy, and would, if only they were in metal or plastic.

Even if the casts were pristine, I can't stand the finecast material itself. I've handled a few in the FLGS, and the bendy-ness really ruins it for me.

brainscan wrote:@phantom, you're probably right... what business would prioritise new customers over long term regular customers...

Many corporations like to throw out numbers like "it costs 5 times more to acquire a new customer than it does to retain an existing customer". And in some industries, this is exactly true. Due to marketing and advertising costs, new customer acquisition can be very expensive, and it is far cheaper for a company (that is, higher new profit margins) to retain and thus continue to take money from an existing customer.

However, I have never once seen any GW advertising other than White Dwarf magazine, which is an internal publication and is targeted more toward existing customers rather than new ones. That being the case, then the idea that new customers will cost the company more will obviously not apply to GW. This would imply that if a new customer is acquired, but never given any reason to stay, then the purchasing volume of that customer will decrease at a predictable rate over time until it approaches zero. Therefore, the greatest volume of purchasing would be done as a new customer. Let me give a clear example:

Timmy buys $500 of Warhammer during his first year
Timmy buys $300 of Warhammer during his second year
Timmy buys $150 of Warhammer during his third year
Timmy buys $50 of Warhammer during his fourth year
Timmy just trades for new Warhammer during each subsequent year.

Now, this is an expected outcome of Timmy's consumer purchasing habits if there is no effort at customer retention. However, if there is no up-front high overhead costs of advertising that forces GW to sell to Timmy at a deficit, then the most profitable window for the company is within the first year, when Timmy is a new customer.

So, to answer your question: many businesses will prioritize new customers over old ones. It all depends on the purchasing habits of the customer base. And sadly, while our demographic may have anecdotal examples of veterans who drop large sums of money on Warhammer; generally new wargaming players will spend more than veterans. It's just the nature of the game: almost every player will get almost 2000 points for their army, but once they do, most players will just tweak their army rather than buying another 2000 points.

I agree with all of the above who stated that they reserve the right to vote with their wallet. Best way to get GW to pay attention is to simply NOT buy any failcost. Its that simple. I dont have a single failcost in my collection, and i wont until they either begin to produce Finecast, or until some new Nurgle units come out. With those at least the bubbles are less of an issue.

Just a thought...

Anyone here own stock in Games Workshop? It is a publically held company. Having the ability to at least say that you own common stock might give your voice a smidge more oomph rather than the "I've been a customer for XXXXXXX years."

Because anyone who has worked in retail can tell you everyone has been a longtime loyal customer who has been happy up until they weren't. I had one guy telling me he had been a loyal customer for 3 years longer than the store existed. Now I am not trying to imply that anyone here would say that, but it does get said and its an impossiblility to prove/disprove to GW.


If you own shares, you do have another avenue to express concerns over the products the corporation puts out. Otherwise the bean counters look at the bottom line and discount negativity providing a profit is being made.