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I don't know if this is rational but I feel totally different about individuals buying something at MSRP and then reselling it.

It costs a certain amount to make and distribute something, and manufacturers bake that all into the wholesale price and the MSRP so they can sell something to stores and both can make a profit. Retailers are already buying at below MSRP and marking it up for their cut. Prices, initial supply levels etc. are all decisions made well in advance of a product hitting shelves. If the manufacturer underestimates demand at MSRP it means they should have made more stuff, not that the retailer should mark up the product even more to capitalize on artificial scarcity AFTER they've already agreed to buy and sell something at a certain price.

Luciferian: So it is better to allow consumers (who are now becoming another link in the chain, the reseller) to make a profit too, rather than the store to sell it to someone who actually wants it by putting it at a price point that won't see a reseller make a profit?

But they have not agreed to sell something at a certain price (again suggested retail price). You are making an assumption that they could have made more of something (which if the case why don't they quickly resupply the market killing the second hand markup market). Either they are not able to or they have created scarcity because they decided to create a limited run. In which case why is it ok for someone to buy 10 of the limited run and double the price because they got their early, but not ok that the retailer charges 20% extra in hopes of making back money they lose on stock that doesn't sell, or curtailing people buying multiple copies. I actually have more issue with people buying 10 of some limited item, to go and mark it up over the store price, than I would with it being marked up at release to keep demand in check. Either way someone is creating scarcity. Especially in cases of small retailers, there is really no difference between them raising the price and some ebay store doing the same. Especially if the person buying at MSRP is doubling the price or similar. Like I said if you are ok with them marking down things that don't sell, and not ok with them marking up things that will sell, then you are being a hypocrite.

Now with online retail available, it is almost never a good idea to sell above MSRP, because your competition will undercut your price, and take your sales. If you price above MSRP then people will just order from GW directly, or go to another LGS, or another online retailer. Now if it gets to the point where all those other places are sold out and my options are 20% higher at my LGS, and 50% higher online (ebay looks like $192 ish is the cheapest I can find after shipping), then if I really want it I'd rather pay the 20% at my LGS.

So the OP questions the motality of a business' practice and then admits he did the same (parted out bits/portions and keeping portions, breaking even). That means he most likely would have made more than the store's $160 if he sold it all. Same practise as what the store did.

Business or civilian, you can't call out someone for doing something similar. A business isn't held to a higher standard than the OP. If anything, I feel less bad about a business doing this. He only marked it up $30 (goes for $200+ on ebay every day... you know the shop owner knows that). He also has to pay employees, keep the lights on, pay for insurance, etc. The OP just funded his personal hobby by parting out value from his set (like the rulebook, as many try to sell theirs for $50-$99 when gw will be selling it soon for far less for example).

It all comes down to supply and demand. This is why rare magic cards are pricey, or why folks thought their metal gw blisters tripled in value after finecast. Genestealer cult dice for $75 on ebay ring a bell?

I'd suggest giving a brick and mortar store a break these days, when online shopping is crushing most stores with massive discounts and free shipping. Don't want to buy the set for $160? You dont have to, someone else will at that awesome price.

I guess if I'm being honest I just don't like it because it goes against convention. You don't see that kind of behavior anywhere in retail, or even sales of limited items like event tickets. Also, I feel like you guys are looking at this as if it were some kind of commodities market instead of retail.

The MSRP is already set at a number the manufacturer thinks will be profitable for retailers and one which their customers will hopefully be willing to pay. The retailer orders as many units as they think they can sell at that price and they fully expect to make a profit from it, otherwise they wouldn't order any in the first place. Bumping up their margin a second time AFTER the item starts selling is just transparently exploitative. It's just not something any other retailer does. There's no spot price for tabletop games or any other retail unit; they're not like some publicly traded commodity where you can expect the price to fluctuate day to day based on market factors.

It would be like Ticketmaster trying to set ticket prices DURING sales. This show is going to be $40 when tickets go on sale, UNLESS they start selling out in which case we're going to raise the price.

Now, the seconhand market is what it is. Sure, scalpers are jerks but in a lot of cases they're making less than the original retail markup, and they're taking a higher risk if the item doesn't sell above MSRP. If a retailer isn't moving units at MSRP they can discount them a little bit and still make a profit most of the time.

Drawing comparisons to other industries is not helpful, though.

At the end of the day, selling one box of one release at slightly over MSRP won't make a store successful for years. Hobby shops and their clientele have a symbiotic relationship. There's a quid pro quo, you offer a place to play and a friendly environment, and we'll be patrons of your store.

Gouging the gamers flies in the face of this tacit agreement. Outside of this one very isolated case, you can get pretty much all GW products cheaper online than at a hobby shop. Is it really worth it to damage that relationship for the extra $30?

 Marmatag wrote:
Drawing comparisons to other industries is not helpful, though.

At the end of the day, selling one box of one release at slightly over MSRP won't make a store successful for years. Hobby shops and their clientele have a symbiotic relationship. There's a quid pro quo, you offer a place to play and a friendly environment, and we'll be patrons of your store.

Gouging the gamers flies in the face of this tacit agreement. Outside of this one very isolated case, you can get pretty much all GW products cheaper online than at a hobby shop. Is it really worth it to damage that relationship for the extra $30?

I agree with this. I think it's well within the rights of the FLGS to do it but I find it kind of hard to stomach. I pretty much shop exclusively at my FLGS. He provides us a place to play/game and in return we try and buy all our stuff from him. He also tries to give us discounts whenever he can. Its at least 10% but more often than not its 20% off. I know some other stores that will have occasional sales and I can also get the stuff a little cheaper on ebay but don't because of said agreement Marmatag pointed out.

If I went to get SW:A from him and he did this to me the feeling of betrayal would be over 9000.....

But in cases of tickets when they know demand is high, they do set prices higher. So like a Cavaliers V Warriors (Yankees V Red sox baseball etc) basket ball game will have higher ticket prices than Cavaliers V Sixers, because they know demand will be high. In Card Games prices go up due to sales all the time, if something is in short supply and high demand it is worth more. The same is true with used games at places like Gamestop. Scalpers in many cases are making way more than retail markup (typically 40%), and there is not a whole lot of risk involved in cases where scalping is high. They also don't have overhead costs (40% is the profit margin for the retailer, it is the money they didn't have to spend on the stock) Retailers lose money all the time on stock that doesn't sell, then they mark it down sometimes below cost just to clear space.

Things like Ticketmaster also do somewhat adjust, if one show is constantly selling out, they may up prices for future shows.

It also sounded like in the case of the OP it wasn't after sales started the owner took a risk, based on his assumption that demand would be high, and raised the price. He didn't start selling at $130 sell 5 quick and then up the price. He bought 10 and set the price at $160 under the assumption demand would be there. So he took a risk, if they didn't sell and everyone else bought elsewhere, he may well have been stuck with stock he could not off load.

The reason you don't see that behavior in most retail, is because this is a big risk. It is a risk for the store being undercut by the competition, and a risk of the reputation of the store as being exploitive.

You don't have to like it or buy when people do this, but there is nothing ethically or morally wrong with the seller deciding to take a risk for more profit.

Essentially, you don't need to like the seller for raising prices or buy from them. But if other people do, and don't care, then he made the right business decision. If he drives customers away and doesn't sell out, he likely made a mistake.

I think we're basically in agreement. I'm not trying to say that it's something that's technically wrong or that a retailer shouldn't be able to do, just that it's a dick move that I don't respect.

 Luciferian wrote:
The MSRP is already set at a number the manufacturer thinks will be profitable for retailers and one which their customers will hopefully be willing to pay. The retailer orders as many units as they think they can sell at that price and they fully expect to make a profit from it, otherwise they wouldn't order any in the first place. Bumping up their margin a second time AFTER the item starts selling is just transparently exploitative. It's just not something any other retailer does. There's no spot price for tabletop games or any other retail unit; they're not like some publicly traded commodity where you can expect the price to fluctuate day to day based on market factors.

And yet this "MSRP is fixed, you shouldn't deviate from it" argument never seems to be made when it comes to discounts. People are happy to buy at a price other than MSRP as long as it's in their favor.

 Peregrine wrote:

And yet this "MSRP is fixed, you shouldn't deviate from it" argument never seems to be made when it comes to discounts. People are happy to buy at a price other than MSRP as long as it's in their favor.

Well, how is that surprising? These days, every SKU out there is meticulously priced to include costs of manufacturing, shipping, distribution, retailer overhead, incidental losses, margins of profit etc. The idea being that if you have retail space and the capability of selling someone a thing they wanted when they walked through the door, then you can make money by purchasing retail units wholesale and selling them at MSRP. With competition these days most retailers are offering various incentives and discounts to get people in their doors or on their webstores as opposed to going to the competition. When a retailer sells above MSRP, they are in essence saying that they know you can go elsewhere or simply not buy the item, but they're betting you won't because they have no respect for you as a customer. It just adds a personal level of ickiness that's hard for people to get past. Discounting units below MSRP is a normal part of the retail cycle.

This is all about the feeling the customer leaves with. Give someone a discount and yes, they feel like they've won something over on you. But the important thing is that they're more likely to come back because they feel you've treated them fairly. Go the other way around and the customer feels like you're exploiting them.

I think someone mentioned this earlier, but this IS the exact kind of complaint that most GW critics have. If they slashed the price of everything they sell by $10 and released a free or cheap unified ruleset with digital access, their customer base would blow up. Instead they've been steadily hiking up prices and neglecting the game aspect of their product because they know us hardcore collectors will cough up anyway, so they try to wring every sale for what it's worth even at the expense of new blood. I mean they add $20 to the price of a set with the same amount of plastic and level of detail as any other based on how easy it is to field in an army. I think there are plenty of people who have suggested over the year that might not be the best business plan,

 Luciferian wrote:
These days, every SKU out there is meticulously priced to include costs of manufacturing, shipping, distribution, retailer overhead, incidental losses, margins of profit etc. The idea being that if you have retail space and the capability of selling someone a thing they wanted when they walked through the door, then you can make money by purchasing retail units wholesale and selling them at MSRP.

Exactly. It's all carefully planned, and so you should just pay MSRP instead of expecting a discount. But oh wait, suddenly that careful planning that goes into setting a price can be discarded as soon as it saves you a bit of money.

When a retailer sells above MSRP, they are in essence saying that they know you can go elsewhere or simply not buy the item, but they're betting you won't because they have no respect for you as a customer.

That same argument is true about a store selling at MSRP when another store is selling at a 10% discount. By selling at a higher price they're in essence saying that they know you can go to the store with a 10% discount, but they're betting you won't because they have no respect for you as a customer. When you get rid of this ridiculous situational respect for MSRP for the sake of MSRP it all comes down to "any store that doesn't offer the lowest price is disrespecting me". And that's an incredibly entitled attitude to have.

Go the other way around and the customer feels like you're exploiting them.

And, again, this is an incredibly entitled attitude to have. You aren't entitled to buy a product at MSRP, so you aren't being exploited if a store sells at higher than MSRP.

If they slashed the price of everything they sell by $10 and released a free or cheap unified ruleset with digital access, their customer base would blow up.

Well yes, of course it would. But that has more to do with the fact that GW's greatest weakness is the terrible rules, and releasing free rules that don't suck would be a massive improvement. The price cuts might be a nice bonus, but the main factor would be that the game would finally be playable again. Because let's be realistic here, weird obsessions with what is "fair" pricing aside, 40k is still a pretty cheap hobby by the standards of adult hobbies. Saving an extra $10 here and there has very little practical effect.

I think the issue with MSRP is it isn't carefully considered for the seller to make money. It is based on a certain percentage markup where the retailer makes that percentage over what they paid for the product.

IT doesn't take into account that a store might be in an area with high rent, or high minimum wage, or cost of living. More expensive utilities etc. So in this case it is possible that the seller is making less selling MSRP than he might if he were simply an online store.

For instance I might not fault a retailer that said, I'm going to sell everything for a 10% mark-up because I have a big store in NYC with 20 tables, with beautiful terrain, and 5 employees staffing at all time to help with everything you might need. Now that might not end up being a sustainable business model, but selling minis in a brick and mortar store is a dying business model anyway that is almost entirely supported by other games.

 Peregrine wrote:

Exactly. It's all carefully planned, and so you should just pay MSRP instead of expecting a discount. But oh wait, suddenly that careful planning that goes into setting a price can be discarded as soon as it saves you a bit of money.

That same argument is true about a store selling at MSRP when another store is selling at a 10% discount. By selling at a higher price they're in essence saying that they know you can go to the store with a 10% discount, but they're betting you won't because they have no respect for you as a customer. When you get rid of this ridiculous situational respect for MSRP for the sake of MSRP it all comes down to "any store that doesn't offer the lowest price is disrespecting me". And that's an incredibly entitled attitude to have.

I feel like all you're doing is applying the same double standard in the other direction. Retailers aren't entitled to sales, either. In any case, simply throwing around accusations of entitlement isn't very informative - people will try to sell things at the highest price they can and buy them at the lowest price they can. Additionally, consumers have a choice where to spend their money and decisions like marking up product solely to opportunistically pad your margins on a handful of sales is the kind of thing that generates ill-will and dampens repeat business. It's not a question of entitlement, it's just how it goes. "LGS - We charge 10% above MSRP, and if you don't like it you're an entitled brat," just isn't a great marketing scheme. Sorry.

Well yes, of course it would. But that has more to do with the fact that GW's greatest weakness is the terrible rules, and releasing free rules that don't suck would be a massive improvement. The price cuts might be a nice bonus, but the main factor would be that the game would finally be playable again. Because let's be realistic here, weird obsessions with what is "fair" pricing aside, 40k is still a pretty cheap hobby by the standards of adult hobbies. Saving an extra $10 here and there has very little practical effect.

No offense, but I think you might be the one with weird obsessions over issues of fairness and entitlement. I agree with you about the rules and I think many others share the sentiment, which is why we're all eagerly awaiting 8th edition. But I'm not talking about what's "fair" or what I'm entitled to personally, I'm talking about what is practical and sustainable from a business perspective. It's true that none of us are entitled to buy GW products at a cheaper price, and that they can set the price however they want. However, the fact is that someone else WILL satisfy that demand, and GW isn't entitled to actually sell their products at any price they choose.

 Luciferian wrote:
It's true that none of us are entitled to buy GW products at a cheaper price, and that they can set the price however they want. However, the fact is that someone else WILL satisfy that demand, and GW isn't entitled to actually sell their products at any price they choose.

GW or a store can sell product at any price they choose, they are entitled to it.
The risk, is someone may sell something shiny that is comparatively more of a deal and GW may lose that sale.

The ONLY time I see all this fall apart is when a company has a monopoly on the market or it is a mandatory purchase.

SWA however is a luxury / disposable income item and I would be hard pressed to get angry is someone is selling SWA for $300: best of luck to them if they manage it.
We do see various status items that go to ridiculous costs where it is only the brand-name not manufacture cost that adds to the expense.

I bought SWA for $120 Canadian.

Looking at GW site if I were to try to buy the contents:
Magnavent = $90
Alchomite Stack = $60
Furnace = $60
Both Scout kits = $60
Ork boyz = $34
Typical codex: ~$50
Universal Templates = $16
Scatter die = $1

Grand Total: $371

Well, that is scary.
I wonder if my FLGS has more of those SWA boxes...

The thing about MSRP is you can order it from GW at MSRP as long as they have it in stock.

Once GW runs out of stock, it's out of print (effectively). Ask any collector of basically anything how this works once something is out of print. The price goes up.

Now, it's IMO stupid of a retailer to jack the price of a just released product - you risk alienating your customers which is bad in the long run, but there's nothing inherently immoral about raising the price on an item that's selling off quickly. All it's doing is putting the profit in the retailer's pocket as opposed to the reseller's pocket, and it's probably those resellers speculating that created the shortage in the first place.

For the record, SWA is still available at the Canadian GW webstore, both in english and french.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Talizvar wrote:


Looking at GW site if I were to try to buy the contents:

Grand Total: $371

Well, that is scary.
I wonder if my FLGS has more of those SWA boxes...

I suspect GW overstocked on the terrain (low sales?) and this is their way of getting rid of it without reducing the MSRP on the individual pieces.

 John Prins wrote:
For the record, SWA is still available at the Canadian GW webstore, both in english and french.

No it's not. Its missing one crucial element and that's the button that allows you to add it to your cart.

 Marmatag wrote:
I find it humorous that people complain about GW pricing, but when hobby shops charge well above that pricing, people jump to defend the LGS.

Nobody is 'defending' the LGS. They're just pointing out the reality of the situation, which is that stores can charge what they want. That's how retail works.

 Luciferian wrote:
... they made an agreement with the distributor and bought them with the expectation that they were going to be sold at a certain price. .

That's not how retail works.

The manufacturer or distributor recommends a retail price. The retailer sets their price based on what works for their business model. Aside from situations where there is a specific price limitation built into the contract with the manufacturer (which isn't common, as it can lead to allegations of price fixing, which is illegal in many countries) there is no 'expectation' that the product will sell for any given price.

 Luciferian wrote:
I guess if I'm being honest I just don't like it because it goes against convention. You don't see that kind of behavior anywhere in retail, ...

I can only assume you don't spend much time in shops... because you see this all the time in retail.

the whole issue about this is, we don't know what the store paid for the game? he may have had to buy it from GW online and not their business order form since he would have had to buy a bunch of other stuff from them, so he could have ended up paying $130 per set.

 Luciferian wrote:
Retailers aren't entitled to sales, either.

They aren't, and I never said they are. If you don't like the price that a store is selling a product at then you're free to decline to buy. I'm simply objecting to this entitled attitude that the store is doing something morally wrong and insulting the customer by selling at anything other than MSRP, but suddenly the importance of MSRP is discarded if it means getting a discount on something.

I'm talking about what is practical and sustainable from a business perspective.

And "what is sustainable from a business perspective" has far more to do with GW's rules than their prices. Again, 40k even at GW's highest prices is still a relatively cheap hobby by the standard of adult hobbies. If the product is good people will find a way to afford it. GW's problem is that people look at the bloated mess of rules and nonexistent balance, and they decide that 40k isn't much fun and they'd rather spend their money on something else no matter what price GW sets.

 Ghaz wrote:

 John Prins wrote:
For the record, SWA is still available at the Canadian GW webstore, both in english and french.

No it's not. Its missing one crucial element and that's the button that allows you to add it to your cart.

Ah, my bad. Normally GW grays out stuff that's no longer available. So it's out of stock and assuming they don't do new runs of it, it's effectively out of print and it's a "what the market will bear" situation, price wise.

 insaniak wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
I find it humorous that people complain about GW pricing, but when hobby shops charge well above that pricing, people jump to defend the LGS.

Nobody is 'defending' the LGS. They're just pointing out the reality of the situation, which is that stores can charge what they want. That's how retail works.

"That's how retail works," is presented as a defense of the right to charge what you please, on behalf of the LGS.

In one breath you say no one is defending them, and close your snide post with a defense of the LGS.

Totes funny, bruh

TIL pointing out facts is taking sides.

 Marmatag wrote:

"That's how retail works," is presented as a defense of the right to charge what you please, on behalf of the LGS.

In one breath you say no one is defending them, and close your snide post with a defense of the LGS.

Totes funny, bruh

There was nothing snide about my post.

Pointing out a fact is not the same as defending that fact. If I point out that angry people with guns sometimes kill people, that's not a defense of said angry people. It's just pointing out something that happens.

Similarly, pointing out that the retail industry is set up in such a way as to allow retailers to set their own prices on products they sell is not a defense of the retail industry... it's simply pointing out how retail works.

There is no need to 'defend' the store in this case any more than there is a need to defend any of the countless other stores out there right now selling various products for a price higher than the manufacturer's recommendation. This is not some shady business practice only followed by dingy little game stores looking to make a quick buck... It's simply retail.

Elevated pricing due to demand happens all the time. It's not so common in retail but that's only because genuinely limited items are fairly rare in retail.

Airlines increase the price of tickets as flights fill up, car dealers will charge well over msrp for high demand low production models (when Ford revealed just how small the GT production run was some dealers were holding auctions.)

As soon as something is generally unavailable (as is the case with SWA) expect prices to go up if there is still demand for it.

There is a positive side - the reason that this store has some available is because he's charging 120%. As a result OP was able to get one, albeit at a premium. If he'd been charging 90% then they would almost certainly have been gone. Instead of complaining about the price OP would have been complaining that he couldn't get a copy.

 Scott-S6 wrote:
Elevated pricing due to demand happens all the time. It's not so common in retail but that's only because genuinely limited items are fairly rare in retail.

Airlines increase the price of tickets as flights fill up, car dealers will charge well over msrp for high demand low production models (when Ford revealed just how small the GT production run was some dealers were holding auctions.)

As soon as something is generally unavailable (as is the case with SWA) expect prices to go up if there is still demand for it.

There is a positive side - the reason that this store has some available is because he's charging 120%. As a result OP was able to get one, albeit at a premium. If he'd been charging 90% then they would almost certainly have been gone. Instead of complaining about the price OP would have been complaining that he couldn't get a copy.

So the OP got an item he wanted for a price he was willing to pay instead of nothing at all?

Sounds like the systems works! Grats op!

 insaniak wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

"That's how retail works," is presented as a defense of the right to charge what you please, on behalf of the LGS.

In one breath you say no one is defending them, and close your snide post with a defense of the LGS.

Totes funny, bruh

There was nothing snide about my post.

Pointing out a fact is not the same as defending that fact. If I point out that angry people with guns sometimes kill people, that's not a defense of said angry people. It's just pointing out something that happens.

Similarly, pointing out that the retail industry is set up in such a way as to allow retailers to set their own prices on products they sell is not a defense of the retail industry... it's simply pointing out how retail works.

There is no need to 'defend' the store in this case any more than there is a need to defend any of the countless other stores out there right now selling various products for a price higher than the manufacturer's recommendation. This is not some shady business practice only followed by dingy little game stores looking to make a quick buck... It's simply retail.

There is obviously no need to point out how retail works; doing so makes your posts snide.

If the entire process boils down to "simply retail," then logically no one should ever buy from a LGS when the internet is cheaper, except for isolated cases such as this. Right?

But we both know "simply retail" is an oversimplification of the relationship between the store and its patrons.

 Marmatag wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

"That's how retail works," is presented as a defense of the right to charge what you please, on behalf of the LGS.

In one breath you say no one is defending them, and close your snide post with a defense of the LGS.

Totes funny, bruh

There was nothing snide about my post.

Pointing out a fact is not the same as defending that fact. If I point out that angry people with guns sometimes kill people, that's not a defense of said angry people. It's just pointing out something that happens.

Similarly, pointing out that the retail industry is set up in such a way as to allow retailers to set their own prices on products they sell is not a defense of the retail industry... it's simply pointing out how retail works.

There is no need to 'defend' the store in this case any more than there is a need to defend any of the countless other stores out there right now selling various products for a price higher than the manufacturer's recommendation. This is not some shady business practice only followed by dingy little game stores looking to make a quick buck... It's simply retail.

There is obviously no need to point out how retail works; doing so makes your posts snide.

If the entire process boils down to "simply retail," then logically no one should ever buy from a LGS when the internet is cheaper, except for isolated cases such as this. Right?

But we both know "simply retail" is an oversimplification of the relationship between the store and its patrons.

There was obviously a need to point out how retail works, as several people in this thread didn't seem to know (as evidenced by their posts) - it was not snide to do so.

If anything, your posts skirt a line of patronization that seems ever-present.

Why is there 'obviously' no need to pint out how retail works, reading some of the above posts it seems like some don't know how it works. So saying 'simply retail' is not explaining anything about why someone disagrees.

Just simple supply and demand can still leave me buying something more expensive from GW rather than cheaper on the internet. I have no 'relationship' nor loyalty to any store, but I still spend money there because I sometimes 'demand' a product now and not in 5 days time and GW (or whomever) can supply that demand. Then there is the shipping, the internet stores i use charge shipping if you don't buy over a certain amount, so unless I want to buy a certain amount it is cheaper to pay more for the product itself at a store, as shipping can be more than the 10-20% discount at smaller amounts (assuming it is not 'bulky'. and subject to shipping cost no matter what).

I've found plenty of stuff (usually X-Wing) sold at increased prices beyond MSRP. Sadly, it happens. You can let the store know what MSRP is (sometimes it IS an honest mistake; I've had that happen at my local once and he never upcharges). If they refuse, you can refuse to do business. But that's all you can do. Make them aware and either pay or not have your stuff if they refuse to budge.