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Blackmage if GW were overpricing to such a gross extent as you suggest then others would have risen up fast. Thing is they haven't.

One aspect I think many forget is the scale of production and initial setup costs. A lot of smaller miniature companies charge less, but then their whole company is much much smaller. Heck some are almost two or three person operations with production outsourced to a factory in china. They can often experience serious problems with having enough money to invest in growth of the company and some have even failed to expand properly (I think the best example of that in recent times would be Spartan Games - though they had a few other issues too).

Whilst larger production should mean smaller costs due to mass production; it doesn't always work out the same.

Plus lets not forget GW likely spends a LOT of money on the highstreet just paying rent and rates on shops. Granted those shops also bring in a lot of money both directly and indirectly (indirectly they are a hub of local clubs and marketing so even if the shop doesn't sell it helps generate sales form other areas of the GW system).

If anything in the short term GW could likely lower their prices just by doing away with the huge market infrastructure of their own shops; however it would be very short sighted (esp in the UK) and could fast kill them later as they'd lose their highstreet and market advertising dominance.

Blackmage if GW were overpricing to such a gross extent as you suggest then others would have risen up fast. Thing is they haven't.

No cause no one made a game barely close to warhammer 40k, most offer skirmish games not mass battle games with simple rules like gw is doing. And if you think GW prices are fine well is good, keep paying for them np.

What's interesting is almost every games shop other than gw sell their products for 10-20% off. Consumer knowledge should suggest that a person will always look to buy the cheaper item but in this case the majority of people buy from GW directly even when shops only two streets away sell the same exsact model for $20 less. It's an interesting result that i think a lot of companies dream of.

It's not that abnormal though.

Lots of retailers price things differently, if we all went for the lowest price we'd all only be buying from Wayland Games right now.

Locality, community, loyalty, convenience etc... These things all have an effect on where people shop. A lot of gamers show loyalty to their local stores and shop where they play because they know that the store only exists so long as it makes trade. If the shop closes many realise that it might not be replaced and without a store many areas will dwindle in gamers (stores often act as a gateway to new customers; whilst many clubs often require people to be interested to find them - esp if they are not school/college/uni linked clubs).



Also don't forget that miniatures are not a high volume sale product. Many 3rd party retailers make their bread and butter from games like Magic the Gathering which are far easier to sell in a larger number (and heck some game modes require purchase of cards such as booster draft). So they can afford to take less profit on GW goods because they have other products to make up the shortfall and the lower GW price does help encourage more sales of that product over others.

GW stores have to profit off GW products alone, which likely means that they have to maximise the profit per sale.

 Overread wrote:
It's not that abnormal though.

Lots of retailers price things differently, if we all went for the lowest price we'd all only be buying from Wayland Games right now.

Locality, community, loyalty, convenience etc... These things all have an effect on where people shop. A lot of gamers show loyalty to their local stores and shop where they play because they know that the store only exists so long as it makes trade. If the shop closes many realise that it might not be replaced and without a store many areas will dwindle in gamers (stores often act as a gateway to new customers; whilst many clubs often require people to be interested to find them - esp if they are not school/college/uni linked clubs).



Also don't forget that miniatures are not a high volume sale product. Many 3rd party retailers make their bread and butter from games like Magic the Gathering which are far easier to sell in a larger number (and heck some game modes require purchase of cards such as booster draft). So they can afford to take less profit on GW goods because they have other products to make up the shortfall and the lower GW price does help encourage more sales of that product over others.

GW stores have to profit off GW products alone, which likely means that they have to maximise the profit per sale.

Here in vietnam 40k is priced through the roof. It's like Australian prices but everyone gets paid half. Also there is only 1 or 2 shops that even play the game in the entire city but damn they're good shops. They have amazing terrian, tables for every game (blood bowl included) and their armies are amazing (I suppose if you can afford it you want it to look good). It does actually make me miss the 20% I get when I'm in england. Which (over here) is basically 50% off sometimes if you compare prices. But anywa, thismalso shows GW hasn't reached the Asian market as much yet but it's still here.

 lolman1c wrote:
What's interesting is almost every games shop other than gw sell their products for 10-20% off. Consumer knowledge should suggest that a person will always look to buy the cheaper item but in this case the majority of people buy from GW directly even when shops only two streets away sell the same exsact model for $20 less. It's an interesting result that i think a lot of companies dream of.

You're overthinking it. Most shops rely on peoples laziness, impatience and willingness for impulse purchases while they're in the store at that point. Bookstores are a prime example as everyone knows you can find pretty much any bookstore book at Amazon for a % off. But if it's in their hand in the store and they want it, chances are they'll swallow any extra cost involved just to buy it then despite the fact they can get it cheaper if they wait a couple of days. Direct purchases in a GW is the same, especially when you have a staff member there working as an active seller.

Well my girlfriend, who does this for a living, actually just gave me like an hour lesson on why the new GW is trying so hard and why they're actually very smart. This is all what she told me so no idea if this is correct or not but she got this after just reading an article and noticing I played that game. XD

She told me that it doesn't matter that GW owns a monopoly because a monopoly is kinda useless with a product people don't actually need to live (for example, if someone own water, something people need, they will do a lot better than someone who makes plastic toys.) People who get priced out of gw will look for it else where in games, D&D, ect... while someone who gets priced out of water will die if they don't get the money to buy it. She theoriesed because of this GW might have believed they were untouchable (having a monopoly) but soon learnt that "nerds have lots of other things they spend their money on and a lot of them are more than happy to divert money elsewhere".So gw has now spent a lot of time actually doing what a company should do and gaining trust from players to get back to selling a product we want to buy because we don't actually need it.

Then she starts telling me about the "Economy of scale" or something (she wrote her masters abiut this aparntly). She said that GW is really pushing box sets not because they're trying to get around pricing (like someone said here and I tried to tell her) but because it's cheaper to produce lotsmof models even if you don't sell them all. The example she gave me was:

When GW makes models it doesn't matter how much the people cost or how much the machines cost. It's either a 1 time payment or monthly payments that stays the same. The only thing that changes in price is the amount of plastic they have to buy.
So let's say their whole factory costs £1,000,000 then they make a single model to sell, that model will be the value of £1,000,000. But, if they made a million models then those models will only cost £1 each. Either way you're still spending the same money because you already bought the machines and people (the fixed cost she calls it). So it's economically better to make as many models as possible and sell them all together because the more models you make the cheaper the production cost of that single model is or something. I kinda get it but still a bit confused. XD
So gw is making these box sets because it's essier and cheaper to make 70 models for £70 than it is to make 1 model for £70. Either way their production will cost the same at the end of the day so they might as well make kore models they can sell more of and grab more people as they think they're getting a better deal when it costs gw basicaly nothing more to make those models.

I can't argue with her, she's the one who makes money doing this, I'm just a historian. XD she said she looks forward to your replies but I told her it was dakkadakka so she shouldn't expect a real conversation here. XD