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Manchu wrote: Quoting your hyperbole back to you doesn't constitute a strawman.
You aren't quoting, you're misquoting me to make me look like a . Here's the exact quote:
Being respectful and reasonable would be things like not swearing at the GW employee when you return a defective product, and politely explaining the situation and letting them resolve the replacement.
Note the "things like", which clearly states that the example given is just one example, not a comprehensive list of everything you have to do to be a decent person.
Again, setting aside the threshold question - what amount of purchases is necessary to trigger this reliance?
Whatever amount is required to play the game.
- can you cite any actual, current GW marketing patter to support the inference made by you on which you say GW customers supposedly rely, namely that that GW will provide you with gaming space if you purchase GW products? Just to be clear, I'm not asking where GW makes that specific promise - I'm asking where GW says anything at all from which it could be reasonably inferred that anyone who buys GW product will be provided space by GW to play GW games.
We're posting in a thread discussing how GW employees give table access in exchange for purchases (and whether or not this is good treatment of the customer), and you're really asking for proof that GW employees give access in exchange for purchases? The only dispute here is whether the purchase needs to be from GW, or from the specific employee standing next to the tables.
Turning back to how many (or rather how few) tables you find at a WH store ... doesn't this in fact tend to militate against that very inference?
Not really. If GW wasn't offering a promise, implicit or explicit, of table access if you buy into GW games then what's the point in having tables at all outside of the single 2x2 demo game? The fact that GW stores have fewer tables than independent stores just means that GW is run by incompetent morons who don't understand the US market.
OR it could be that - GW made no promise, implicitly or otherwise, to provide play space and those tables are not there for the same reason there are tables at a LGS because the WH store is not and is not even intended to be a LGS.
And yet even a brief look at the situation tells you that GW stores are run like independent stores, just badly-run independent stores. They have open gaming space for customers, run events for people to come in and play, etc. And if you stop by a GW store you'll see a people playing games/painting/hanging out/etc just like any independent store. The only difference between the two is that the GW store only sells GW products, while the independent store sells other stuff too.
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
Manchu wrote: You're the only one talking about "a community of friends."
You didn't use those words, but that's what you're describing. In a community of friends you do things like feeling out the mood and establishing yourself as a legitimate member of the community. In a normal for-profit store you walk in and buy the thing you want, and if the store doesn't give you what you want you go elsewhere.
I wish my Wife did her clothes shopping like that....
When your own example of being polite is not swearing at a clerk when making a return, I don't need to misquote you for you "to look like a ." I have been giving you the benefit of the doubt by assuming this was just puffery - now you're telling me you were serious?
No I did not ask whether WH store managers give table access to people who make in-store purchases. What I asked could not have been clearer considering I stated it explicitly: "I'm asking where GW says anything at all from which it could be reasonably inferred that anyone who buys GW product will be provided space by GW to play GW games."
Why are there tables in the store? The stated purpose of the WH store is to "show customers how to engage with our hobby of collecting, painting and playing with our miniatures and games" (note: 'provide Peregrine with gaming space' not mentioned). I'll also refer to my earlier description of gaming in a WH store as a "living retail display" requiring discretionary management of what can be played, by whom, when, and using what kind of stuff.
My local WH is run nothing like my LGS. The LGS is a hangout where regulars buy stuff to play whatever is the new hotness as well as 40k and AoS. The WH is a store where walk-ins are sold the 40k and AoS brand experiences.
I have actually seen one LGS run more similarly to a GW store in terms of, for example, how they used their gaming space and organized events (note: not necessarily tournaments). The result was turning around a store that had been run into the ground by its ownership. Unfortunately, the management team running that LGS burnt out because the owners were (long story short) not interested in professionalism. The managers quit and the store went out of business within a year.
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2017/04/24 09:15:57
Manchu wrote: When your own example of being polite is not swearing at a clerk when making a return, I don't need to misquote you for you "to look like a ." I have been giving you the benefit of the doubt by assuming this was just puffery - now you're telling me you were serious?
I really have no idea what your point is here, saying I look like a and accusing me of "puffery". Are you disputing that not swearing at someone and being the customer from hell is part of basic politeness, or are you making some bizarre argument that mentioning one example of how to be a reasonable customer (and explicitly presenting it as just one example) means that I consider anything else to be acceptable? Because it sure seems like the second case, you're making a huge deal of the fact that I only gave one example instead of a comprehensive list of everything involved in being a polite and decent human being. And I can't see any purpose to it besides trying to find an excuse to insult me.
No I did not ask whether WH store managers give table access to people who make in-store purchases. What I asked could not have been clearer considering I stated it explicitly: "I'm asking where GW says anything at all from which it could be reasonably inferred that anyone who buys GW product will be provided space by GW to play GW games."
No, I can't find you an explicit quote for something that happens in in-person conversations with store employees.
Why are there tables in the store? The stated purpose of the WH store is to "show customers how to engage with our hobby of collecting, painting and playing with our miniatures and games" (note: 'provide Peregrine with gaming space' not mentioned).
And fulfilling that stated purpose requires providing open gaming space to customers, since GW does not hire paid employees to show customers these things. A store where I can't get gaming space is an empty store which fulfills none of these goals.
I'll also refer to my earlier description of gaming in a WH store as a "living retail display" requiring discretionary management of what can be played, by whom, when, and using what kind of stuff.
Yes, but that has nothing to do with the "which GW employee is running the cash register when you buy your stuff" argument. From the point of view of being a "living retail display" a customer that just bought something at the GW store they're playing at and a customer who bought all of their stuff from the GW website are exactly identical. The reason GW employees exclude people who bought their GW products from someone else is that those purchases don't count towards the employee's personal sales numbers, not anything to do with the goal of presenting an attractive image of GW products to new customers.
The WH is a store where walk-ins are sold the 40k and AoS brand experiences.
And both of the GW stores I have been in have had essentially zero walk-in traffic. They're both in back corners of random strip malls with very little traffic walking by. In fact, even during an all-day Apocalypse game at the height of Christmas shopping season, the only customer that came into the store that wasn't involved in the game was a family member of one of the regular players. In both stores the entire customer base was existing GW players being convinced to buy more GW products to expand their collections, the exact same kind of players that would be found at an independent store.
For this theory to be a plausible one GW would have to put their stores in high-traffic locations where they're likely to see a non-trivial amount of new customers walking in to see what it's all about. But instead GW has, over the past ~5-10 years, removed all of their stores in high-traffic locations in favor of putting them in low-traffic strip malls where the only customers are people making a specific trip to the GW store. IOW, the exact same business model and location choice that most independent stores use.
This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at 2017/04/24 09:50:05
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
What I'm "going on about" is that we appear to have vastly different worldviews when it comes to being polite. For you, the leading example of your own choosing is holding back from cussing out someone for something they didn't do. It would not even occur to me to cuss them out - for me, being reasonable and respectful is more than just not inappropriately swearing at someone. In contrast to the example you provided, my example - which you objected to as only applicable among friends was:
Last week, I went into the local WH to play a game of Shadow War. I asked if I could bring in a non-GW mat and the clerk said sure. Note: I asked before even bringing the mat in. I also bought something before asking. And I had come in several times over the last few weeks making some purchases and feeling out whether I wanted to play in her store and to introduce myself/establish that I am not a freeloader. So I acted reasonably and lo and behold so did the clerk. And if she had said no - I would not have gone off or anything. Part of realizing that you need to ask permission is realizing that the response can be no.
Emphasis added because the same chasm yawns between our worldviews with regard to what we each think we are owed at the WH store. You feel entitled to game space on demand solely based on having purchased some undefined amount of GW product whenever and from whoever. Meanwhile, I understand that I am not entitled to play space regardless of having bought stuff from that very store recently - whether I get to play there depends on the manager's decision, which will understandably be informed by how it affects her bottom line as well as whether I am pleasant and courteous, among other things.
Please don't confuse the issue of why there are tables in a WH store with the separate issue of a store manager hypothetically kicking freeloaders off of a table to make room for paying customers. The former is a matter of record, quoted above. The latter is an accusation or, at best ITT, an anecdote. Furthermore, as you yourself realized, whether the people playing are paying customers or deadbeats does not effect the "living retail display" purpose - therefore, all else equal, paying customers playing not only fulfills the purpose of the table but also simultaneously reinforces the rapport the manager has been developing with the customers on whom she actually makes commission.
Honestly, I don't think you were trying to confuse the issue. I think you are confused about the issue. For you, this is about (hypothetically? actually?) not getting preferential table access at the WH store because you couldn't buy your FW army from the WH store. Again, your whole argument is built on the nonviable, illogical, and apparently unprovable assumption that GW made you an implicit promise to provide you with a gaming venue if you got that DKoK army ... and now the manager isn't living up to that promise. But of course the promise exists only in your mind.
I just told you that both GW/WH stores that have existed where I am are in high traffic areas. 'Nuh uh' eeally isn't good enough. And again - if your WH store is run like a LGS except worse because they don't have the tables a LGS requires and yet despite this "idiotic" policy they remain open then ... well, I mean what's the point in typing it again?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/04/24 10:21:40
Whew there is some very incorrect information being peddled in this thread. Let's start with GW sells table space.
To do that we need to define what a sale is. A sale is when goods exchange hands. Here are some examples.
Spaces Marines for X dollars
Your labor for X dollars
A reservation for X dollars
These are all sales transactions. When you play on a table in a GW store their is no exchange of goods. Therefore GW does not sell table space. Just as in a restaurant a table at any gaming store is a sales tool. Imagine going to a restaurant and sitting down and not ordering a thing. That's what you are doing when you go to a GW store just to play a game and never buy from it. You are in essence what is called a 'freeloader' in economics. You are benefiting from something without having to support the business. Now all sales tools can be misused of course and I would say kicking people off a table mid game probably is a misuse.
Next let's deal with this Target example, people seem to think GW should act like a large chain like target and prop up stores that are loses if they meet other KPIs. Well no GW shouldn't because if GW is focused on cash flow management then they'll realize they can't afford to do that sort of thing because they don't have the profits to do it. It's really that simple, GW is not a huge company, they are very small compared to businesses like Target or Walmart.
Ok what about this absolutely silly quote "No, the reality is about business. This is a for-profit business we're talking about, not a community of friends." That's a very foolish thing to say in response to what Manchu said. It shows you don't understand what business is actually about. Business is about building relationships, building them with your investor, with your customers, with your vendors and whoever else. Especially because the business model for the Warhammer store is what's known as an individualized solution. In other words it's about finding out what the customer needs and providing it. Note I'm using need in the sales term, which is more an emotional thing than a physical thing. The business whose customers feel like a friend of the business should count themselves lucky. This type of business model is an excellent one for WH stores to have, but it does require deep customer relationships. Going back to target they have a completely different business model, they in fact have the same model as Walmart. Cheap everyday goods in large quantities but position themselves against the leader (that being Walmart) by providing a more "up-scale" environment. No one approaches you in a Target though and tries to find the need behind the need. WH stores have more in common with the average AT&T store than Target.
In terms of LGS stores being better run the WH stores. I don't find this true in my experience, however anecdotal that may be. They often lack even the simplest of things such as uniforms, they often do not keep books and usually have no actual business model. Try asking your LGS what their business model is, if they can't answer succinctly in a single sentence they don't have one.
What about ordering online and having it sent to a store. Is it stupid for GW to not count that as the stores sale? Well only if you don't actually understand anything about business. First of all, every store has it's own set of books or should. So from an accounting standpoint there was no change at all in the balance sheet for that store. It also from a sales standpoint the sales staff didn't make the sale, so why should they get credit?
Lastly as to whether or not a manager should kick people off a game table for paying customers I would say noooooo. People react very poorly to loss, taking the table away from someone mid game is a definitely a loss to them. There is a better way in my opinion. Here's just one example, I'm the manager and I want to try and have mostly paying customers to play on the table. So I have a escalation league. The price of entry is buying a start collecting box in store or the equivalent if your faction doesn't have starting box. Then during the week I have time slotted to the events for play space. During this time league games will be what's allowed to be played. Do enough events and you can sequester much of the table space for your paying customers. Then you have open play times, during that time you've just got to grin and bear the freeloaders in the hopes of establishing a deep relationship with them and turning them into a customer. This way nobody loses something and I'm using my tables as sales tool in an appropriate way that boost my sells. But hey that's just my two cents!
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/04/24 16:26:31
DrNo172000 wrote: These are all sales transactions. When you play on a table in a GW store their is no exchange of goods. Therefore GW does not sell table space. Just as in a restaurant a table at any gaming store is a sales tool. Imagine going to a restaurant and sitting down and not ordering a thing. That's what you are doing when you go to a GW store just to play a game and never buy from it. You are in essence what is called a 'freeloader' in economics. You are benefiting from something without having to support the business. Now all sales tools can be misused of course and I would say kicking people off a table mid game probably is a misuse.
Except you did buy from GW, just not THAT GW, money is going to GW either way. In the case of buying FW, GW made even more money from you.
It's not freeloading on GW to buy a GW product and then play on a GW table, at worst it's freeloading on that specific store manager. But that's because GW's performance assessment of a store is flawed. I personally have limited pity for store managers in that situation because they're the fools who decided to work and continue to work for GW
The fact is if a GW store is hosting gamers, painting, events, etc and has a large turnout of people then that store is an integral cog in the GW sales system even if they never sell a single item because all those people are using GW figures for which GW is making money.
Next let's deal with this Target example, people seem to think GW should act like a large chain like target and prop up stores that are loses if they meet other KPIs. Well no GW shouldn't because if GW is focused on cash flow management then they'll realize they can't afford to do that sort of thing because they don't have the profits to do it. It's really that simple, GW is not a huge company, they are very small compared to businesses like Target or Walmart.
We already know GW has a bunch of stores that don't make money and in general their stores are close to neutral profit (I can't remember if they either lose a small amount of money or make a small amount of money?). Either way, they absolutely persist with some stores that don't make money.
And it's not really all that relevant to the topic at hand anyway, we are talking about whether GW should offer support for GW products at all stores, not whether they should close loss-leading stores.
It also from a sales standpoint the sales staff didn't make the sale, so why should they get credit?
Because often it is the sales staff that is making the sale, they're just not getting credit for it.
They've made the sale by fostering a relationship with a customer, providing a gaming space and so on. But then the customer goes and buys online because the store doesn't carry the item they want, or it's a preorder item and the customer isn't able to come down to the store early saturday morning to queue up on the in store computer and risk not getting the item, or ya know the store just isn't open when they drive past because one man stores are open stupid hours.
Back in the 90's, GW stores carried a full range of stock, so if you walked in to a GW store you could 95% of the time walk out with the item you were looking for. They were also open regular hours because they weren't one man stores.
At that point I'd agree with you, for the most part if the shop staff "made a sale", the customer would buy from that store, these days it's just as likely that the shop staff do all the legwork to make the sale and the customer buys online for a plethora of reasons.
You also have FW which a customer can't even buy through a GW store if they wanted to. When I was buying my DKOK force I specifically went to the local GW and asked if I could buy through them and it's not even an option.
The online store needs is a little option when you go through asking "do you game, paint or did you hear about GW games through a local store?" and if you answer yes they can take that in to account when judging the performance of a store/store manager.
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2017/04/25 05:03:52
There is no transaction related to table use. There is no entitlement related to table use. If a store has an event (including open tables from noon to 6pm or however they describe it) and they invite the public, then someone who comes (with models they bought from Games Workshop) and is barred from participating because they didn't buy the products through a channel the particular retail employee would prefer, excluding them is simply going to create a negative customer experience.
The GW retail store and the GW online store are both the same entity. If you buy your stuff online you are a paying customer of Games Workshop and should not be treated poorly because the retail employee dislikes your choice of sales channel. What the employee should do is figure out how to induce them to change their sales channel choice without resorting to anything negative or punitive.
Yes the retail employee has a self interest that is in conflict both with his employer and the customer. GW has created this bad situation, but we shouldn't pretend that the retail employee is doing something good or noble by making people not participate as a form of judgement on their choice of buying direct from GW.
GW wants people to have some sort of integration between their online store and their retailers. For example, they offer free pickup for web orders at their local store. If someone orders online and picks it up at the local store, barring them from gaming as a non-customer is about the stupidest thing you can do. You're going to damage the long term relationship with that customer.
My guess is that if a local GW retail employee has created a community of regulars that use the gaming space but never buy anything at that location, they've created the problem. I'm also guessing that a heart to heart explaining how their sales aren't counting for the store so it might get closed would be far better than passive aggressively shunning people from participating in events you invited them to attend.
The local GW here doesn't have that issue because the guy is really good at sales and making sure people get the product they are looking for there. He does proven sales techniques like actually putting product into people's hands and engaging every customer who walks in. He told me he always think about the kind of experience he wants the person who comes into your location to have and that experience includes leaving with something new.
GW stores had a reputation for pushy sales people who won't just let you browse. The good ones know the proper time to engage and how to create rapport. My guess is that if an employee finds himself with a store full of people who never buy there and just want to use the table space, then they've gone off course at some point.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/04/25 05:59:38
Balance in pick up games? Two people, each with their own goals for the game, design half a board game on their own without knowing the layout of the board and hope it all works out. Good luck with that. The faster you can find like minded individuals who want the same things from the game as you, the better.
DrNo172000 wrote: That's what you are doing when you go to a GW store just to play a game and never buy from it. You are in essence what is called a 'freeloader' in economics. You are benefiting from something without having to support the business. Now all sales tools can be misused of course and I would say kicking people off a table mid game probably is a misuse.
This is not true at all in the context of a GW store. You are supporting GW as a business every time you buy a GW product, because GW gets money from the sale. The fact that your money did not pass through a specific cash register on the way to GW's bank account is irrelevant. It still reaches the exact same destination, and GW gets the exact same revenue. GW's idiotic insistence on treating its own stores as competition for each other does not make that policy a reasonable analysis of the reality of the situation.
Now, this argument would be true in the case of an independent store, since the independent store gets no money at all from a transaction if you buy elsewhere. But that's not what this thread is about.
Next let's deal with this Target example, people seem to think GW should act like a large chain like target and prop up stores that are loses if they meet other KPIs. Well no GW shouldn't because if GW is focused on cash flow management then they'll realize they can't afford to do that sort of thing because they don't have the profits to do it. It's really that simple, GW is not a huge company, they are very small compared to businesses like Target or Walmart.
This is a spectacular misunderstanding of how business works. Nobody is saying that GW should prop up a store that is a net loss just for the sake of having a store, we're saying that GW should properly consider the value added by a store instead of using over-simplified sales numbers. For example, a store might make $X in direct sales at the store but also another $Y worth of sales through the GW website (often for delivery to that store), sales that wouldn't exist if the store wasn't there to give the customer a place to use their purchases. GW's idiotic analysis of the situation only considers $X in evaluating the store's net value to the company, a more reasonable analysis would consider the total of $X + $Y.
The real difference here is not the facts of the business situation, it's that Target and Walmart seem to be run by people who understand business, while GW's upper management seems to be the rejects that couldn't get a better job. Target and Walmart do complex analysis to determine the total value of a store to the company, including things like loss leaders, brand presence, etc. GW just adds up the money in the cash register at the end of each day and compares it to the cost of the store's expenses.
In terms of LGS stores being better run the WH stores. I don't find this true in my experience, however anecdotal that may be. They often lack even the simplest of things such as uniforms, they often do not keep books and usually have no actual business model. Try asking your LGS what their business model is, if they can't answer succinctly in a single sentence they don't have one.
First of all, why should I care about superficial things like uniforms? Those are not essential components of running a business.
Second, why should I care about an employee's ability to state the business model? All that matters is the end result of whether or not the store makes enough money to stay open. And the answer to that question is that I can think of two stores in the area that have been around for ~10 years, growing and upgrading to better locations over that time, and the others have been around for at least ~3-5 years (I don't know their history beyond that because I never went there). I can think of a couple others that have failed, but it's pretty clear that "independent stores are badly run" is not a good description of the situation from a purely financial point of view. And from a customer point of view those successful stores are providing better gaming space, cheaper products, much more reasonable business hours, etc, than the GW store.
What about ordering online and having it sent to a store. Is it stupid for GW to not count that as the stores sale? Well only if you don't actually understand anything about business. First of all, every store has it's own set of books or should. So from an accounting standpoint there was no change at all in the balance sheet for that store.
No, this is absolutely wrong. Every store should NOT have their own books, because the store is not an independent business. The financial information needs to be documented, of course, but it should be incorporated into the company-wide accounting and analysis. What you're saying here is like arguing that each cash register at the local Walmart should have its own books, and be evaluated on their individual performance. And that's obvious nonsense, whether a transaction goes through register 1 or register 17 the money is going to the exact same location in the end.
It also from a sales standpoint the sales staff didn't make the sale, so why should they get credit?
Because the sales staff DID make the sale. If a person is having an order delivered to a GW store it's almost certainly because that customer is regularly in the store and its existence contributes to their decision to buy. What you're essentially saying here is that if a store employee runs a good community that a customer enjoys participating in and gives advice on new purchases to the customer, but the customer decides to go home and think about it instead of buying something before they leave the employee didn't contribute to making that sale. That's an incredibly superficial and short-sighted way of looking at the situation.
So I have a escalation league. The price of entry is buying a start collecting box in store or the equivalent if your faction doesn't have starting box.
And then you get unhappy customers because they don't want to buy a new army at that point (perhaps because they recently bought a new project) or don't want to rush through construction of new stuff just to participate in the event. That customer feels excluded and pressured by the used car salesman running the league, and it completely destroys that customer relationship you're trying to build by making the event all about the buying. And that customer may decide to go elsewhere instead of putting up with the poor treatment, I know I certainly have.
The much better way to handle the situation is they way the independent stores I'm familiar with (which, again, have been in business for 5-10 years or more): treat the escalation league as an opportunity to buy stuff, but allow anyone to participate even if it isn't a good time for them to start a new army. Because, you know what? It turns out that a lot of players are looking for any excuse to justify buying a bunch of new toys, and the people who just use their existing models weren't going to buy anything from you anyway so you don't lose anything by letting them play. The only problem is if you have a limited amount of table space available but, as I've pointed out, this is a problem exclusive to GW stores. Independent stores tend to have more than enough tables to give space to everyone.
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
Yeah, the administration cost related to accounting is really high. Having each location operate as if they are financially independent would cost a fortune. You don't want to multiply the finance department any more than is needed to avoid losing money. It's possible though that GW has cut things too far. That they might want to put in place a means of connecting the sales of "pick up at local store" with the performance of the local sales person. Not necessarily to pay them commission on it, but to learn if there's something the retail employee can do that results in higher web store purchases. GW makes more money on orders through their web site than through the local store. So they shouldn't be penalizing a retail employee if that person is actually helping them make more money. So while you might be able to argue that they didn't do the sales work to merit commission, they probably shouldn't be penalized or have the store closed if they are actually doing something that drives a lot of money into GW's pockets.
It's totally possible that if a local store has a lot of pick up orders happening and they close it, they might actually see a decline in those orders. That as people take a break or quit or whatever, they won't be replaced by new customers. Or the critical mass of word of mouth that can result from a thriving local community dries up without the store that is acting as its hub.
Balance in pick up games? Two people, each with their own goals for the game, design half a board game on their own without knowing the layout of the board and hope it all works out. Good luck with that. The faster you can find like minded individuals who want the same things from the game as you, the better.
Manchu wrote: What I'm "going on about" is that we appear to have vastly different worldviews when it comes to being polite. For you, the leading example of your own choosing is holding back from cussing out someone for something they didn't do. It would not even occur to me to cuss them out - for me, being reasonable and respectful is more than just not inappropriately swearing at someone.
Seriously? Do you honestly think it's ok to make up this kind of stuff to insult me? I never said anything about verbally abusing an employee being something I'd ever do (or feel entitled to praise if I don't do it), or that anything short of that kind of behavior is acceptable. It was merely, as I explicitly stated, ONE EXAMPLE of inappropriate behavior.
Please don't confuse the issue of why there are tables in a WH store with the separate issue of a store manager hypothetically kicking freeloaders off of a table to make room for paying customers.
This is not an accurate description of the situation. The employee is not kicking freeloaders out to make room for paying customers, because anyone who buys GW products is a paying customer. What they're doing is setting policies that favor their own personal sales numbers instead of doing what is best for the company, and using the company's resources (tables, terrain, etc) as a tool to protect their own continued employment. And TBH, if I were in charge and my employee kicked out a paying customer just because that customer bought from another of my employees I'd probably fire them for giving the customer a bad impression of my company.
For you, this is about (hypothetically? actually?) not getting preferential table access at the WH store because you couldn't buy your FW army from the WH store.
It's not personal at all. GW stores suck, and I have no reason to ever go into one. The fact that the local GW store employee declared that I wasn't allowed to play in the store because my FW models didn't count towards his sales numbers just put a very quick end to my "well, maybe I'm being unfair and I'll give the GW store another chance" attempt.
I just told you that both GW/WH stores that have existed where I am are in high traffic areas. 'Nuh uh' eeally isn't good enough.
Ok, fine, your store is the exception to what seems to be a consistent rule. Both of the GW stores in my area are in low-traffic random strip malls, and the one GW store (elsewhere in the US) I remember seeing in a high-traffic mall was closed and moved to a similar low-traffic location to save rent. And IIRCGW has even openly stated a policy of putting their stores in low-rent (which means low-traffic) areas instead of paying for a more desirable location for a "get random people to walk in" business model.
And again - if your WH store is run like a LGS except worse because they don't have the tables a LGS requires and yet despite this "idiotic" policy they remain open then ... well, I mean what's the point in typing it again?
Their continued existence doesn't really mean anything, we know GW doesn't understand the US market and continues to operate an obsolete retail chain despite it not making any sense to do so. But I won't be at all surprised if either or both of those stores closes once their leases are up for renewal.
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There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
First of all on the accounting. Number one, it is not the equivalent of every register, that's a false equivalence. Every GW store keeping books is the same as every Walmart keeping books. Now I can't say for Walmart but I can tell you 100% Walgreens another large chain keeps books at every store and I can tell you 100% that Amazon keeps separate books at it's fulfillment centers. I know this because I have seen them with my own eyes. Yes every store should have books and accounting reports. This is because their are two types of accounting a business conducts, financial and managerial. Financial accounting is what you show to outsiders, such as investors. Yes there's no need to keep these at every store, simply being able to show you have an awesome overall business is enough and any loss at an individual store will be incorporated. Managerial accounting is what is kept at each and every store and it is an essential opponent for an manager to be able to do their job properly. Managerial accounting books are therefore kept at each and every store, and no that doesn't drive up accounting cost because the cost equals the software + manager, which you are going to pay for anyway. To further drive this point home here is a question on a state CPA exam.
"The Stockholders expressly instruct the accountant to design an accounting system so that each store may keep its own set of books, pay its own bills, have its own cash account and bank account and prepare its own detailed operating financial statements at the end of each month. The accounts of the Wisconsin Hardware Co. must be so arranged as to reflect the ownership and operating profits or losses of the Badger store. Triplicate sales books are to be used at each store. These will supply the individual accounts receivable accounts, and the system designed should recognize the use of the sales book slips for other purposes."
The above question represents a very standard way to operate for chains. These are accounting facts, not my accounting "beliefs".
I will concede the ship to store should be seen as a good mark for the store manager itself some good points were raised and I can't find fault with them. Though keep in mind there is no way of knowing if people are having it shipped to the store because they like the store or to not have to pay shipping. Perhaps GW can write the software so that when someone chooses a store at checkout the sales transactions is recorded at that store instead of the online store, that's outside of my area expertise so I don't know if it's possible, but with today's cloud point of sale systems it seems feasible to me. Perhaps somebody knows more about the intricacies of writing software than me?
Me saying that Target and GW are not equivalent and GW can not afford to keep open other stores is not a misunderstanding of business. You have misunderstood business, thinking that they can all operate the same way. GW can not adsorb a single losing store no matter what it may help otherwise (on a side note this is not actually a loss leader, loss leader has a completely different definition). Now this is a major assumption on my part and it precludes that GW simply can not afford that business structure based on their public books, which yes I have looked at out of fascination. Also people are greatly over exaggerating Target's willingness to leave an under performing store open. Both Target and Walmart will open keep those stores open for a certain amount of time, they will not and I mean will not keep a store posting a lost year after year open no matter what. This is witnessed by the fact that Walmart is closed and is closing nearly all of it's small stores as the format has proven unprofitable at the local store level, contrast this with Target who is moving away from the Super store format as that format under performs for them. Then you can see how two different businesses in the exact same market have to operate completely differently. You guys act like every retail should make the same decisions. Further we do not know if GW does or does not keep open stores that post loses based on other things, closing a store is a decision made by someone much higher up than a store or regional manager. It's a managerial accounting decision generally made by someone sitting on an advisory board who has taken in many factors. We've all just been making assumptions on this one.
Uniforms are superficial? This one made me laugh out loud. JD Power, one of the largest global market research companies did a survey and found that uniforms overwhelmingly increase strength of brand and sells.
"When a consumer sees an employee in uniform, they feel that they
receive a better product and higher quality of service"
Uniforms are very far from superficial regardless of your personal opinion on them.
Profits and length of time in business is not a metric for how well run a business is either. That's survivorship bias at work if you think that. I will give an example, I traveled a couple of hours to snag some great deals once at a store that was closing because the owner was retiring, the store had been in business for several decades, had remained profitable and was able to stay open until the guy got too old to keep going. First thing I noticed was that new product was sun faded from being displayed too close to a window that had no sort of shielding from UV rays. Second thing I noticed was that they had inventory on the shelf that was literally from the 90s and not just a little but a lot. The one I remember the most was Vor: The Maelstrom which was published from 99 and went debunk in 2001 sitting there still with the retail sticker that was put on when they first got the item in stock. That's some super great inventory management there! Their POS had a black screen and green borders and text on the monitor. It reminded of the system at my first job back in the day at Domino's, straight out of DOS. Are you really going to tell me that was a well run business. In truth there's myriad reasons why a business may stay open, and more often then not well run is not one of them in a market that does not have lots of competition (though B&M LGS stores are going to have to change soon because that competition is coming but that's a convo for another time).
Lastly folks I'm not arguing that the manager is right to kick people off the table, he's wrong in my opinion. If the table wasn't sequestered for an event or reservation there's no reason to do that and will only result in a net loss of customer relationships. A good salesman will sell their product do to having a high conversion rate and retention rate that table can be used as a tool and should be, but a potential customer should never get dick treatment because a converted customer exist. That's just foolish.
P.S. Peregrine the escalation example is something you would only use with new customers not someone who has lots of models already. My reasoning for this is based on when I use to run Journeyman Leagues for WM/H. New players would get wrecked the whole league by experienced players and decide not to play anymore whenever it was run without the restrictions in the packet, i.e. letting people make equivalent starting forces. Put the restrictions in place and new players would often not sign up as much giving a better retention rate. Other events should be used for people who are long time GW customers. Meaning most events will not have a purchase requirement. In my experience tournaments are really great at getting people who already have product to by things on the spot because they'll often buy builds that beat them. So yes events not only help build community but they also help make sales even if the sale wasn't a requirement. Sorry I was not clearer on that.
Automatically Appended Next Post: To go back to the topic on hand, the manager at the GW store closest to me does a really good job. She builds rapport with everyone that walk into the door. Hosts tons of events which even includes Horus Heresy events and cross promotional events with the LGS in the area. Rising tide raises all boats after all. She mostly seems to run it in such a way that she converts lots of new customers who have never played GW games before and then encourages them to play GW anywhere. But even old time players will shop with her just do to the fact she is so warm and friendly and open to listen to the customers. She's also very active on community facebook groups and will answer questions expediently. She's an outstanding salesman and leader far as I can tell. So she really doesn't have any super strict policies far as I can tell, just the standard GW please use GW models in the store only, which to her includes FW.
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Keeps books-- I see what you mean now. You may though need to consider that some super Walmart locations do the same yearly revenue as all of GW's operations worldwide. So it makes a lot of sense for them to have a full and separate financial department for each store. My guess though is that gven that GW has been so concerned about staff costs as to switch to single employee stores that adding to their financial costs on a per store basis might not be in the cards. Despite what the cpa exam says, each GW store will not have autonomy to the point of paying its own bills and having it's own bank account as the single employee simply does not have time. They struggle to cover optimal open hours as is.
Given that they can evaluate a single store in terms of sales targets and costs, I'm guessing they already have sufficient record keeping for their purposes. I just think they should invest a little more and try to get useful information about the relationship of a given store to direct orders in the same area. So they can make better decisions about a staff member or location and not fire someone or close a store that is actually making them money through a different channel.
This would also help them make better decisions about retail policy and perhaps not foce their employee's interests into conflict with the larger company.
I don't advocate for the keeping open of loss making stores, but that there may be revenue that a given store is generating that is not being credited in the decision to close a store.
Balance in pick up games? Two people, each with their own goals for the game, design half a board game on their own without knowing the layout of the board and hope it all works out. Good luck with that. The faster you can find like minded individuals who want the same things from the game as you, the better.
You did not use cussing out the clerk as an example of inappropriate behavior. You used not cussing out the clerk as an example of the upper limit of courtesy owed to someone who is not part of your "community of friends." And the reason you gave the example in the first place was to argue against my point about treating a WH store manager reasonably and respectfully. As a reminder, here are our positions:
Manchu wrote: We can argue over these things abstractly but the reality is about relationships.
Peregrine wrote: No, the reality is about business. This is a for-profit business we're talking about, not a community of friends.
As DrNo17200 pointed out, you are literally arguing that business is not about relationships.
There is no necessary conflict between the actual reason GW equips WH stores with tables and the GW policy of delegating discretionary authority to WH store managers regarding how the tables are used specifically. The notion that there is such a conflict is based on the erroneous and absurd assumption that there are tables in the WH store because GW owes anyone who has purchased its products at any time and through any sales channel space to use those products. The tables are equipment for holistic demonstration of the "GW Hobby" to new customers. GW leverages its existing customers to create a living retail display, managed by a GW employee. This is why, in (potential) contrast to a LGS, there are not many tables and why there are limitations on what can be played, by whom, when, and with what stuff. If you cannot process this fact, you might as well just recuse yourself from the discussion - especially since you admit to not spending any time at GW stores anyhow.
@DrNo17200
Your original position was correct, regarding that it makes sense not to credit a specific WH store with an online order not made in that store. Sure, a given customer might have been influenced by a WH store manager to eventually order something online - just like that customer might have been influenced by looking at Painting and Modeling Blog thread here on Dakka Dakka. But as you know, an effective salesperson manages the sale through to completion. Of course, this is not always (or even often) about landing an immediate sale. But the policy is clearly designed to encourage WH store staff to take sales to completion in the store. While every WH store salesperson is also a brand ambassador, their primary function is to complete in-store sales - hence their compensation structure. Again, the WH store manager is not working to get you to buy any GW product, at any time, through any sales channel. This is why GW does actually care about store performance, despite ignorant claims to the contrary.
One mistake that permeates this entire thread is the bad assumption that "all customers are like me" - yet we are spending spare time posting on a message board about GW store policies because we are already invested in the long term in GW's brands. In fact, we are nowhere near the demographic these stores are meant to primarily serve. We are much closer to the demographic served by the LGS. That does not mean that a WH store should be more like a LGS - again GW is not a chain of local gaming stores.
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frozenwastes wrote: Keeps books-- I see what you mean now. You may though need to consider that some super Walmart locations do the same yearly revenue as all of GW's operations worldwide. So it makes a lot of sense for them to have a full and separate financial department for each store. My guess though is that gven that GW has been so concerned about staff costs as to switch to single employee stores that adding to their financial costs on a per store basis might not be in the cards. Despite what the cpa exam says, each GW store will not have autonomy to the point of paying its own bills and having it's own bank account as the single employee simply does not have time. They struggle to cover optimal open hours as is.
No I don't think you see what I mean. You don't need a financial department in a store to keep accounting books. That would be ludicrous and inefficient. I can guarantee every store has at a minimum a Sales Journal, which is a book of original entry, that records daily sales. Now in the modern day we have fancy software that records these things for us but this use to have to be done by hand by the sales clerk, note not an accountant or anyone working in a financial department. In fact in the modern day these systems are so spectacular that local ledgers feed their data into say a regional ledger. Managerial accounting is not done by someone in a financial department. It is done by managers, it is the process of making day to day decisions. In large stores department heads for instance do managerial accounting for their departments and the overall store manager is responsible for all of it. So for instance using my electronic Sales Journal, a type of accounting book, I pull up a sales report. Here is a theoretical example I see that Space Marines are under performing based on a benchmark set by regional (which is a managerial accounting decision they made), so I must make a operating decision that will improve the sales of Space Marines. Accounting isn't simply having a balance sheet, statement of cash flows, and income sheet. In fact most large sophisticated businesses keep three sets of books, books to show potential investors, internal books for managerial accounting purposes, and books to show the government for tax purposes. Even inventory management is actually apart of accounting.
Now I don't know what the manager at GW is responsible for, I can guarantee they keep a Sales Journal via the POS, whether they realize that's what it is or not. Now whether or not they are responsible for their own purchase book and things like accounts receivables and accounts payable I really don't know. It would seem extremely odd to me if they did not handle their own accounts payable via revenue generated by that particular store. I'll see if my local manager will divulge that information. But honestly I'm not going to go into accounting anymore or post about business practices because it's starting to get way off topic. Take care.
Having worked for a multi site retailer of a similar level of revenue to GW (slightly smaller at £80-90m) I can say that it isn't how it works.
You will have one central accounts office, they will pay for and negotiate things like rent, utilities etc.
There will be a method of allocating costs to a store, but there will be no "books" (which is just a euphemism for accounts, any company, whatever the size, only maintains one set of accounts.) simply a record of sales made, and a record of what stock is held (as a value, in these days, almost certainly right down to a live stock level of each SKU.)
Stores will not be responsible for making purchases, they will be made centrally and stock distributed, they will not be responsible for paying bills. The only bookkeeping necessary will be sales (which any modern EPOS system will do automatically) and stock in (which will quite possibly be as simple as scanning a barcode on the box.)
GW (or any comparable company) will have the ability to interrogate this data by location to assess an individual stores performance, but this is not the same as each store maintaining its own accounts.
We find comfort among those who agree with us - growth among those who don't. - Frank Howard Clark
The wise man doubts often, and changes his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubts not; he knows all things but his own ignorance.
The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense!” Professor Brian Cox
You did not use cussing out the clerk as an example of inappropriate behavior. You used not cussing out the clerk as an example of the upper limit of courtesy owed to someone who is not part of your "community of friends."
Why are you reading so much into one example but then not listening to Peregrine when he tells you he's not that rude? Why take his words so seriously in one case but then ignore his clarifying statements about it just being an example?
The notion that there is such a conflict is based on the erroneous and absurd assumption that there are tables in the WH store because GW owes anyone who has purchased its products at any time and through any sales channel space to use those products.
Stop this "owe" and "entitlement" talk. Saying that a GW store should allow participation regardless of the sales channel their models come from are not saying the person has a right to them Or is owed it Or is entitled to it. It is simply saying it's a awful customer experience to be made a 2nd class citizen because a retail employee doesn't like your choice of sales channel. And that the person buying from GW online store is a GW customer and should be treated as a GW customer just like any GW customer who shows up to an event they are invited to show up to. In fact they may even be a better customer in terms of revenue generated than someone who recently made a purchase in that store.
From there, the retail employee can work to modify which sales channel the person uses, but to do it in a way that alienates people or conflicts with the larger company goals is stupid. Even if it is a result of GW's policy of how they evaluate store performance and employee compensation.
Balance in pick up games? Two people, each with their own goals for the game, design half a board game on their own without knowing the layout of the board and hope it all works out. Good luck with that. The faster you can find like minded individuals who want the same things from the game as you, the better.
Azreal13 wrote: Having worked for a multi site retailer of a similar level of revenue to GW (slightly smaller at £80-90m) I can say that it isn't how it works.
You will have one central accounts office, they will pay for and negotiate things like rent, utilities etc.
There will be a method of allocating costs to a store, but there will be no "books" (which is just a euphemism for accounts, any company, whatever the size, only maintains one set of accounts.) simply a record of sales made, and a record of what stock is held (as a value, in these days, almost certainly right down to a live stock level of each SKU.)
Stores will not be responsible for making purchases, they will be made centrally and stock distributed, they will not be responsible for paying bills. The only bookkeeping necessary will be sales (which any modern EPOS system will do automatically) and stock in (which will quite possibly be as simple as scanning a barcode on the box.)
GW (or any comparable company) will have the ability to interrogate this data by location to assess an individual stores performance, but this is not the same as each store maintaining its own accounts.
Yeah again you are talking about financial accounting and not managerial accounting. Perhaps it works different in the UK but I have both worked for Amazon and Walgreens. Walgreens they kept books and the manager was responsible for the purchase book at that store. At Amazon each department manager is feed a constant live stream of data in order to manage labor. Those are managerial accounting practices by the very definition. Also from Professor Kay Stice who I promise knows more than me and you about accounting.
"Now, here's a question that you…may not have not thought of before.…How many sets of books does a large company keep?…And the answer is not one.…A large company keeps three sets of books.…First, there are the records that are used…to prepare the summary reports to outsiders,…the financial reports.…Second, are the detailed internal information sources…that are used to make detailed decisions…that's not revealed to outsiders.…That's the second set of books.…The third set of books prepared based…on a different set of rules are the tax books…for tax reporting to governments.…
Three sets of books.…In fact, it's a sign of a sophisticated economy…and a sophisticated company…that they have three sets of books.…A simple company often has only one set of books,…the books they used to report their income taxes.…But as a company gets more sophisticated and develops,…it develops these three sets of records.…And they're not necessarily the same.…The financial reports reported to outsiders,…the managerial accounting reports used internally,…"
By the way a record of sales transactions is a type of book in accounting, it's a sales book. As I said each individual store will have at a minimum a sales book. Now no one calls it that anymore in this day and age of technology, the indivdual book names such as Purchase Book, Sales Book, and etc fell out of use with automated systems. They still exist though.
Automatically Appended Next Post: A really long time ago when I worked for Domino's they did actually keep physical books, but it was also a franchise store. That was probably the last time I saw a physical accounting book.
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So the more you're talking about "accounting" in the sense of monitoring information, accounting for this, accounting for the other.
By referring to them as "books" it is misleading, as that's a colloquial cover all term for a company's financial records, at least in the UK.
"Ledger" may be somewhat more accurate. At least from this side of the Atlantic.
We find comfort among those who agree with us - growth among those who don't. - Frank Howard Clark
The wise man doubts often, and changes his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubts not; he knows all things but his own ignorance.
The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense!” Professor Brian Cox
No I don't think you see what I mean. You don't need a financial department in a store to keep accounting books. That would be ludicrous and inefficient.
As would be asking a single store employee to add the duties of an accounting clerk to their job when they already don't have time to keep the store open enough hours not to negatively impact revenue (according to GW's own financials, the switch to reduced hours did exactly that).
Spoiler:
Managerial accounting is not done by someone in a financial department. It is done by managers, it is the process of making day to day decisions.
I disagree. It is the process of getting those managers the necessary information to make those decisions.
"Management accounting includes identifying the information needs of management and developing the systems required to meet those needs, such as planning, forecasting, budgeting, cost and revenue management, and performance measurement." CPA Canada
An HR person who makes a decision based on information generated by managerial accounting doesn't suddenly become part of managerial accounting any more than they become part of IT when they access the internet or company network.
Though i do know the blurring of these lines has become popular for larger corporate culture reasons.
Now I don't know what the manager at GW is responsible for ... It would seem extremely odd to me if they did not handle their own accounts payable via revenue generated by that particular store.
Odd to you, but the real world doesn't always look like the things you learn in the class room.
Yeah again you are talking about financial accounting and not managerial accounting.
One of the first things I learned when I was a corporate accountant is that people I worked with did not care about technical distinctions like that. If I went to a meeting and someone said "have that clerk in the finance department prepare the report for the next meeting" they were talking about a person doing managerial accounting but calling it financial. They don't care. Don't correct them. In fact, get on their way of talking and use terms incorrectly as long as communication happens. Non accountant managers often hate being corrected on pedantic details and it will alienate you from the team.
People are using the terms colloquially here. In the broad sense of financial accounting being the accounting of all transactions, not in contrast to managerial accounting.
In the real world there are loads of reasons why a store manager isn't doing accounts payable and receivable, doesn't have access to certain information, isn't depositing or withdrawing from a store specific bank account, etc.,. GW store managers don't do those things. An example of why not:
Spoiler:
A friend of mine owns some commercial real estate and had a tenant that was part of a national chain. Suddenly the rent payments stopped. And then again. To the point that the tenant had violated their rental agreement and my friend had to change the locks and sell off the contents of the unit to recoup the lost rent. And then find a new tenant. The national company was shocked and outraged and made legal threats. Until they learned that the local manager had simply dropped the ball and not taken care of accounts payable and ignored all the notices about late payment and the reminder of what their contract required. Had the manager not had those accounting duties they would not have lost a location and thousands in equipment because of the incompetence of one individual.
This is also a reason why it's sort of strange that the store managers have such differing policies. They are free to try a lot of different things and set a lot of different rules, but they don't have access to the information they need to make those decisions. They can't sit down with the financial information (see what I'm doing there, being intentionally technically incorrect so I'm understood by a larger audience ) to make decisions based on it. Like correlating certain policies with sales numbers across the whole chain.
In actuality GW should probably revoke a lot of their customer facing autonomy after doing what they need to in order to figure out the optimal policies by region. My guess is that the approach of GW stores in the mid 90s and the policies there might actually be optimal for growth. No unpainted models in play. Set schedules of events and table availability. Lots of hobby supplies available for customer use on models they just purchased.
Their retail employee autonomy is likely a result of their flailing about trying to make their retail model fit in different regions they don't quite understand. As people have pointed out, they are largely still trying to jam a UK based high street retail model into side street strip mall locations in suburban America.
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Balance in pick up games? Two people, each with their own goals for the game, design half a board game on their own without knowing the layout of the board and hope it all works out. Good luck with that. The faster you can find like minded individuals who want the same things from the game as you, the better.
I twice dismissed Peregrine's example as mere puffery for the sake of argument, as opposed to an accurate portrayal of his IRL manners. He's the one who keeps defending that example. If you want to know why he keeps defending it, consider that he gave the example in support of his ludicrous assertion that business is not about relationships and what I described as being reasonable and respectful is behavior due only among a "community of friends."
We can't drop the argument that "GW owes it to me" because that is precisely the argument being made. This is because the whole issue is being framed incorrectly, starting from the viewpoint that the tables are just gaming space and therefore every "GW customer" (defined as anyone who has ever spent any money, directly or indirectly, on a GW product) should have "equal access" to them, which in practice seems to be "I get to use the table when I want to." The potential negative customer experience of not getting what amounts to preferential treatment is 100% the consequence of an entitled attitude. We have also been discussing the similar but distinct negative customer experience of the WH store not having "sufficient" tables, where again "sufficient" really means "not enough so that I could use one when I wanted to."
These "negative customer experiences" are unavoidable given that the actual purpose of a WH store, unlike a LGS, is NOT to cultivate some existing customer base. I feel pretty confident that GW knows that the WH stores do not have enough tables to accommodate more than a few games - in fact, I am pretty confident that this is why there are so few tables. GW is willing to risk existing customers having a negative experience in favor of using the WH store to pursue new customers.
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Azreal13 wrote: So the more you're talking about "accounting" in the sense of monitoring information, accounting for this, accounting for the other.
By referring to them as "books" it is misleading, as that's a colloquial cover all term for a company's financial records, at least in the UK.
"Ledger" may be somewhat more accurate. At least from this side of the Atlantic.
Ah Ledger and Books are interchangeable in the US as far as I know. At least that's how I learned it when I learned about accounting. That is after all how the term books came up.
@Frozenwastes
Yes sorry I misspoke, when I said managers are responsible for managerial accounting what I meant was that the manager is responsible for making the decisions based on the information provided. Usually that info is fed to them via automated sales reports obviously. I know some large companies do indeed have managerial accountants who along with software engineers will develop custom system per the needs of the business. So my apologies for misspeaking there.
"One of the first things I learned when I was a corporate accountant is that people I worked with did not care about technical distinctions like that. If I went to a meeting and someone said "have that clerk in the finance department prepare the report for the next meeting" they were talking about a person doing managerial accounting but calling it financial. They don't care. Don't correct them. In fact, get on their way of talking and use terms incorrectly as long as communication happens. Non accountant managers often hate being corrected on pedantic details and it will alienate you from the team."
This is actually very true and my apologies for being so pedantic. It's something of a character flaw, when I was a personal trainer I had to break the habit of using scientific terms and similar because clients just don't want to hear that. Comes out as blah blah blah. I will admit it has been over a decade since I worked for any large chain, so I will fully admit that any real world knowledge I have of what a manager does in a retail chain is based on that and could be outdated (probably is, since tech and efficiency increase exponentially). Since you are a corporate accountant I will take your word for it and adjust my knowledge, it would be remiss of me not too.
Automatically Appended Next Post: "This is also a reason why it's sort of strange that the store managers have such differing policies"
Beyond that it also affects brand image. People should be able to expect the same thing from every location, it makes them comfortable and more likely to be retained as customers.
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WH store managers should have discretion over how the tables are used. They are in the best position to make that call seeing as how that entirely depends on local circumstances. It's a simple principle of managerial subsidiarity. This is also a matter of developing rapport with those existing GW customers the WH store manager is leveraging to demonstrate the GW Hobby to new customers. Store-by-store discretion does not risk brand experience because the global guidelines are already very restrictive: you can only play GW games using GW models. The discretionary part comes down to managing the relationships rather than brand ID.
P.S. @Frozenwastes as a corporate accountant you probably know waayy more than me. To be honest I didn't even learn in a class room. I learned via reading books, I read constantly. Right now I'm reading the Art of the Start 2.0 by Guy Kawasaki, cool guy. My actual formal in class training when it pertains to business is sales and some brand management. So if I say something wrong definitely correct me. One never learns if one is unwilling to be corrected.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Manchu wrote: WH store managers should have discretion over how the tables are used. They are in the best position to make that call seeing as how that entirely depends on local circumstances. It's a simple principle of managerial subsidiarity. This is also a matter of developing rapport with those existing GW customers the WH store manager is leveraging to demonstrate the GW Hobby to new customers. Store-by-store discretion does not risk brand experience because the global guidelines are already very restrictive: you can only play GW games using GW models. The discretionary part comes down to managing the relationships rather than brand ID.
I would argue that kicking someone off a table because they bought their GW models at their LGS or wherever else negatively impacts GW's brand for that customer. As Jeff Bezo's says "Your brand is what people say about you when you aren't in the room". What will a customer who is playing a GW game with GW miniatures (this includes FW as far as I'm concerned) who then gets kicked off a table going to say about GW when they aren't in the room. A customer simply does not care about the idiosyncrasies of how that manager keeps their job via in store sales. I'm not saying managers shouldn't have discretion but if that discretion includes the above mentioned kicking off when there is not a reason such as an event or table reservation than GW needs to give better guidelines imo.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/04/25 21:09:45
Manchu wrote: I have not been arguing in favor of WH store managers kicking people off tables. Quite the opposite:
Manchu wrote: I don't think the manager should ever say 'step aside' barring some specific circumstances where that would actually be reasonable.
Ah my apologies. Still as a prior Marine my brain says every failing is a failing of leadership. GW should probably set better guidelines as to how manager discretion of table use is used. Of course it's possible that they do and that manager is simply doing whatever he wants, which in that case a complaint should be filed, so his supervisor can take action. The world is not the Marine Corps though.
DrNo172000 wrote: Since you are a corporate accountant I will take your word for it and adjust my knowledge, it would be remiss of me not too.
I'm a former corporate accountant. And it's been over a decade for me so I'm sure my take is outdated as well. In fact, pretty much every take is as the ways companies structure themselves internally is so inconsistent and ever changing. Don't take my word for it. Things change rather rapidly and for stupid reasons. One of the reasons I left the industry was the misunderstanding of management of what accounting could and could not do for them and how to best assign their staff to different tasks. We had departments appealing to the board for transferring of staff across departmental lines in really awful ways. To the point that tons of staff had to work unpaid overtime to meet the demands of both their own department heads and the claims on their time made by their new temporary bosses. Many people left that company. I left the industry entirely and got into business to business sales and now am semi retired. I'm thinking I might go to culinary school. It's probably what I should have done 20 years ago
Automatically Appended Next Post: "This is also a reason why it's sort of strange that the store managers have such differing policies"
Beyond that it also affects brand image. People should be able to expect the same thing from every location, it makes them comfortable and more likely to be retained as customers.
I totally agree.
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Manchu wrote: WH store managers should have discretion over how the tables are used.
There should probably be regional or company wide policies that maximize revenue and make for the best customer experience.
They are in the best position to make that call seeing as how that entirely depends on local circumstances.
I think they lack access to the information needed about what approaches produce what kind of sales numbers and probably can't be universally relied upon to make the right call.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2017/04/25 21:23:29
Balance in pick up games? Two people, each with their own goals for the game, design half a board game on their own without knowing the layout of the board and hope it all works out. Good luck with that. The faster you can find like minded individuals who want the same things from the game as you, the better.
I doubt that corporate policies can ever turn a bad salesperson into a good one. Some WH store managers are going to be awkward people with poor interpersonal skills who offend customers - whereas a more charismatic person can handle the same situations with charm. Training obviously helps but I don't think the issue ITT is that GW employees have insufficient training. Certainly, my local WH store manager seems to have good training and a good personality for sales. Whoever hired her made a good decision.
Than again, this is why i said that talking about this in the abstract is not really suitable precisely because we are talking about discretionary call made on a case-by-case basis. That's what I meant when I said this is really all about relationships.
@frozenwastes
It is a mistake to make a regional-level policy for a store-level issue. WH store managers have sufficient information to figure out how to manage their tables. In fact, they are the GW employee best positioned to know and may be the only GW employee in the world who does possess that info. They know who tends to come in and when. They know who has what kind of forces. They know who is good about doing demos and has a positive attitude, etc. Again - we're talking about the level of personal relationships.
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2017/04/25 21:29:54
We can't drop the argument that "GW owes it to me" because that is precisely the argument being made.
No, it's not.
This is because the whole issue is being framed incorrectly
Probably because people see things differently. I think you are framing it incorrectly in order to paint people as "entitled" or "freeloaders." Even people who might spend hundreds and hundreds in GW's online store. Despite the fact that GW is intentionally linking their online stores to their retails via the pick up at a local store method.
is 100% the consequence of an entitled attitude.
Like this.
These "negative customer experiences" are unavoidable given that the actual purpose of a WH store
And yet many people seem to have great local GW stores they enjoy without having the supposedly unavoidable experiences. It's almost like the managers who do things in a negative way give their customers negative experiences and those who do not, don't give their customers those experiences.
At the very least GW should develop universal policies to stop those managers from alienating their customers because they can't seem to sell well or induce the GW online store customers to change their sales channel of choice.
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Manchu wrote: It is a mistake to make a regional-level policy for a store-level issue. WH store managers have sufficient information to figure out how to manage their tables. In fact, they are the GW employee best positioned to know and may be the only GW employee in the world who does possess that info. They know who tends to come in and when. They know who has what kind of forces. They know who is good about doing demos and has a positive attitude, etc. Again - we're talking about the level of personal relationships.
I disagree because I think a chain store should have a consistent customer experience in a given region. This individual approach store by store is just flailing about hoping to stumble onto what works for a given location when what works might actually be far more about larger regional and human norms.
I don't think that approach should include open table use for anyone who shows up. I think the stores should concentrate on events and open gaming should be limited. I actually think there might be something to a universal policy of earning tickets (or something like that) to use tables by purchasing in that store (or delivered to that store). People on the internet might hate it for all sorts of reasons, but I think it might work wonders for making the local stores give the maximum inducement possible to local customers (regardless of their sales channel choice).
So you can always show up to the 500 point bring and battle, or the group hobby time, but for the windows that open gaming is available, you have to pay where you play and it needs to be a clear and upfront policy that applies to everyone so it doesn't make customers feel like they are being singled out for exclusion. Or penalized because they got excited about a preorder link on the warhammer community site and didn't wait to preorder through the store. It is not at all that because they bought something they are owed table space, but that table space is being offered and how people are being selected to use the table space in some stores is being done for the financial interest of the employee and not the larger company or the customers.
It's not "I put in some much money into the GW online store so I should get to cut in line in front of this other guy" but people being taken out of the que because the manager didn't personally benefit from their purchase. A situation created by how GW evaluates the success of their store to create this conflict of employee and company interests intersecting with managers who can't seem to find a way to make it work for everyone. And no universal or regional policy to make sure it does.
There is a huge difference between politely explaining how table space is for customers who buy from the store and how the store could close if no one does (in a conciliatory manner) and having people que up to wait for a table and then individually kicking people to the back of the line based on what sales channel they use and how it personally impacts the manager's pay and job security.
This message was edited 7 times. Last update was at 2017/04/25 21:53:47
Balance in pick up games? Two people, each with their own goals for the game, design half a board game on their own without knowing the layout of the board and hope it all works out. Good luck with that. The faster you can find like minded individuals who want the same things from the game as you, the better.
I doubt that corporate policies can ever turn a bad salesperson into a good one. Some WH store managers are going to be awkward people with poor interpersonal skills who offend customers - whereas a more charismatic person can handle the same situations with charm. Training obviously helps but I don't think the issue ITT is that GW employees have insufficient training. Certainly, my local WH store manager seems to have good training and a good personality for sales. Whoever hired her made a good decision.
Than again, this is why i said that talking about this in the abstract is not really suitable precisely because we are talking about discretionary call made on a case-by-case basis. That's what I meant when I said this is really all about relationships.
@frozenwastes
It is a mistake to make a regional-level policy for a store-level issue. WH store managers have sufficient information to figure out how to manage their tables. In fact, they are the GW employee best positioned to know and may be the only GW employee in the world who does possess that info. They know who tends to come in win and who has what kind of forces and who is good with doing demos and has a positive attitude, etc. Again - we're talking about the level of personal relationships.
Indeed sales is 100% about establishing relationships. Believe it or not but people sell every day, you sale yourself to a new person to become friends with them. You sell your friends on that new 8th edition you are excited about. There are lot and lots of these "life" sales, as I like to call them. Essentially the art of salesmanship is the art of making friends. Now are there some psychological tricks that can be taught, yeah of course there are, but that's what separates professional sales people from an everyday person. The term finding the need behind the need will be meaningless to most people but it's something I was taught to do for instance. Or an effects question, which is not something I particularly like doing when it comes to sales.
One would hope when it comes to GW they would spend ample money on professional sales training.
. Here's the exact quote:
