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We wrote:
You have to separate GW's ability to run a retail store from their ability to run a company. What I mean is, it's a miracle they operate a retail chain at all and just because they gak it up doesn't mean the "one more sign GW is going out of business." (Note: I am not saying GW is or isn't on a downward spiral - I am just saying the health of retail stores is a bad indicator of determinign this)

Most corporations stopped running their on retails stores because they figured out they don't know how go do it. Disney, who is a lot bigger and better run than GW sold off their retial stores to Children's place a few years ago because they realized they are not good at running retails stores.

One Day GW will realize this too and close their stores down. It's inevitable. There is no way a niche of a niche product can operate a profitable retail store chain when bigger more popular, higher volume selling type products can't run their own stores.

The continued attempts just show how GW stubbornly continues to try to get as many sales at MSRP as possible, they need to realize as a miniature company they are just going to have to accept they will make most of their sales through LGS, distirbutors etc. at that lower margin.

So to sum up, from my business experience and background, my belief is eventually GW will realize the retail chain is a bad, non-profitable move for them and shut them down all together A sad day for us players, but it will improve the overall health of the company.

If they were going to realize store are a bad idea, it would of happened late 80's early 90's. I grew up were people buy multi-million dollar houses in a fog bank, sure it has some of the best golf coruses in the world. No, GW store ever lasted more then a year or two in that area, it may have been becouse the great FLGS in the area. But if they didn't figure it out then, they won't do it now. It is hard to see with their heads up their own .....

Johnson & The Juice Crew wrote:
Although I don't really want to get involved, its the internet so I might as well.

We have to face the facts that gw is a corporation in the 21st century. I can see where they are coming from, keeping actual gaming to a minimum and sales at the top of the list. This is the problem with a big corporation. The guys at the top don't play warhammer and they don't read it. They only go by numbers.

Although selling figures is a little different than electronics but let's face it. Gw are purely their to sell gak. Although I would love every gw store to be like the op one, they are just an expensive storefront.

Life would be bbetter if gw just ditched stores and franchised out to independent stores. That way, they could be ran however the owner wants. The downside to that is, after the bad rep gw have got sellers will probably push other products now.

I would rather buy from and goto an independent store with an enthusiastic hobbyist who knows what we want, instead some poor gw guy bound by rules. The gw of the 90's is long gone

It doesn't make sense from any standpoint other than EXTREME cost cutting. Keeping actual gaming to a minimum will hurt sales in a store. Having foot traffic in a store, even if the gamers aren't buying regularly is a good thing. Having an empty store full of boxes doesn't lure much curiosity like it does when you have people actually enjoying themselves in a location. Think about a bar.

This isn't Verizon Wireless where people just come in, buy their phone or get it fixed and GTFO. This is a hobby store. Having at least a SMALL group of gamers there is important to potential players of the games. I mean imagine if you opened a restaurant and then months later told everyone to get up and leave after they are served the food in to go boxes..... wtf? Who would eat there?

This policy is just so abjectly absurd and self defeating that I would be hard up to find any other explanation other than the thought that the company actively wants to go out of business. They must want the managers to quit to avoid having to fire them or something. This is just terrible, terrible, business.

 inquisitorlewis wrote:
Maybe the store is about to shut down. Our local GW (Bear, Delaware) just announced they are closing at the end of August.

That store was boned the minute they picked that location. It's awful and Bear is an absolute hole. The store should've been in Newark, Hockessin, or the Christina mall. There's been a chain of decent managers in and out of there who start enthusiastically and eventually realize they're being asked to do the impossible. Pretty sure the only reason it lasted this long is because they signed a 5 year lease.

 Adam LongWalker wrote:

Glad that the young kid is okay but man if the child had got heat prostration/stroke then the corporation would be in a hefty civil suit.

No it wouldn't. Stores can close its doors at any time and ask everyone to leave the premises for any reason, regardless of age.

The store would not be liable if a negligent parent left a child unsupervised in a public place. If they were liable, that means if you are the last adult near a lone child and you walk away from them for any reason, you are liable, that opens the doors to a ton of bullcrap.

If an employee quits, or employees don't show up to work and no one can work... the store closes... People leave, and if they leave it is not the store's issue. Maybe the vising GW supervisor should have called the police on the angry mom for being a negligent monster?

All I hear is a GW store manager who put the company at risk by breaking lease terms and opening up the company to liability issues. He sounds dangerously reckless in the way he runs his store. When he shoulders the lease and liability, then he can reap the rewards of his risky actions.

nkelsch wrote:

 Adam LongWalker wrote:

Glad that the young kid is okay but man if the child had got heat prostration/stroke then the corporation would be in a hefty civil suit.

No it wouldn't. Stores can close its doors at any time and ask everyone to leave the premises for any reason, regardless of age.

The store would not be liable if a negligent parent left a child unsupervised in a public place. If they were liable, that means if you are the last adult near a lone child and you walk away from them for any reason, you are liable, that opens the doors to a ton of bullcrap.

If an employee quits, or employees don't show up to work and no one can work... the store closes... People leave, and if they leave it is not the store's issue. Maybe the vising GW supervisor should have called the police on the angry mom for being a negligent monster?

All I hear is a GW store manager who put the company at risk by breaking lease terms and opening up the company to liability issues. He sounds dangerously reckless in the way he runs his store. When he shoulders the lease and liability, then he can reap the rewards of his risky actions.

Oh, really?

And where did you read that he broke the lease terms, pray tell?

Oh, wait... you didn't - did you?

You have decided that it must be the manager's fault, because goodness knows GW can do no wrong....

Most commercial real estate leases do allow a store occupying that property to decorate - I would go so far as to say that GW had already done so.

But don't worry, with the new and exciting direction that it sounds like the store is headed, it seems unlikely that liabililty at that location will be a long term problem... since annoyed gamers tend to spread the word about places that get rid of folks that those gamers like.

No customers = no liability. A win/win situation!

The Auld Grump

 -Loki- wrote:
Welcome to gaming at a Games Workshop.

If the guy was that into the game and community, he'll resurface elsewhere, probably an an independant store, and do much more amazing things with even more games. Just keep an eye out.

QFT!!!
And you should let that guy know how you feel. That if he does set up an Indie FLGS, your groups and the players from the "GW Store" will spend their time and money at his place. This will also let you guys expand away from GW and into other games (X Wing, Magic, D&D, board games, etc...perhaps that was the reason for firing him; was he allowing ANYTHING to be played in the GW store? Or just WFB, LOTR, and 40K).

From the way things are sounding, he wasn't really "running a business" but instead was "running a clubhouse".

 Kanluwen wrote:
From the way things are sounding, he wasn't really "running a business" but instead was "running a clubhouse".

It depends, it was said at the beginning of the thread the store was making money. If what you do puts money in the till then as long as its not illegal id say its successful. Though i didnt read all of it

Running a clubhouse? really? did I miss the invite to the keg parties? From what I can tell was building a community around GW products and games. Any corporation that would deter a manager from doing that has to be the most prolific assembly of idiots ever put together.

VanHallan wrote:
Running a clubhouse? really? did I miss the invite to the keg parties? From what I can tell was building a community around GW products and games. Any corporation that would deter a manager from doing that has to be the most prolific assembly of idiots ever put together.

Yes, let's pretend that "running a clubhouse" equates to "keg parties".

Building a community around GW products and games does not necessarily require you to let people just sit around the shop, never buy anything, steer customers towards other shops to buy at a discount, or any number of things that would equate to a "clubhouse" atmosphere that might keep those people coming back at the expense of new customers/players.

Yes Kan, because all of that stuff happened didn't it?

Missed the bit where he was growing the store financially huh Kan?

"Running a clubhouse" is exactly the way this sort of business should be run, the tricky part is when hobbyists who aren't businessmen think that is all that is required and cease to run it in any way like a business.

Now, while of course we only have his own claims that he was growing the figures year in year, I'm willing to offer the benefit of the doubt on that.

It never ceases to amaze me in these threads when someone pops up and says "hey, here was a good guy who was doing a good job and it sucks that he's gone" that there always seems to be a number of people in absolutely no position to know who jump in with "ah, but there were pentagrams on the walls of the stock room and he was sacrificing chickens in his lunch hour out the back."

How's about taking this at face value, we have a guy who was doing a job well, but not in the right way, for a company that seems to desire conformity so strongly in it's employees that it would make a Stepford Wife uncomfortable and he got canned because said company has no vision?

 Grimtuff wrote:
Yes Kan, because all of that stuff happened didn't it?

Excuse me, were you there?

Did I say that it did?

No. So back off.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kanluwen wrote:

VanHallan wrote:
Running a clubhouse? really? did I miss the invite to the keg parties? From what I can tell was building a community around GW products and games. Any corporation that would deter a manager from doing that has to be the most prolific assembly of idiots ever put together.

Yes, let's pretend that "running a clubhouse" equates to "keg parties".

Building a community around GW products and games does not necessarily require you to let people just sit around the shop, never buy anything, steer customers towards other shops to buy at a discount, or any number of things that would equate to a "clubhouse" atmosphere that might keep those people coming back at the expense of new customers/players.

I'm sorry, the only clubhouses I am familiar with do exactly that. Rugby, Motorcycle club, Fraternities and fan clubs. I don't know how it is in the UK.

You're making an awful lot of assumptions about what was going on there. What makes you think people were sitting around the shop not buying anything? There is no evidence of that in the story.

And when you remove the incentive for people to congregate, play games, and basically make friends around GW's hobby, what do you think they'll do? a.) quit playing b.) go to another store.

Do you disagree? Please tell me how YOU believe reducing the function of GW stores to simply encourage the customer to buy stuff and GTFO is beneficial to the company or customers. Make up something really creative because I want to read something good.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:
Yes Kan, because all of that stuff happened didn't it?

Excuse me, were you there?

Did I say that it did?

No. So back off.

Were you there?

Take your own advice chappie.

He certainly suggested that the people playing games were hanging out and buying nothing. I don't know why he thinks he didn't say it was happening. He assumed it, typed it out, posted it, uh...... yeah, that's what I'd say he said. Even better is the rest of his post. It seems he assumes that this guy was running a GW shop, and allowing people to come in, hang out all day, buy nothing, and ** steer other customers to go to other stores to buy at a discount, and then, for some reason they come back and hang at the 'bad store' and just hang. What sense does that make to anybody? Still waiting for a rational response to how GW is doing anything beneficial for any involved party here.

Yeah. I suggested it as a possibility.

Just like I can suggest as a possibility that you have as little knowledge of the situation in question as I do--or anyone in this thread beyond the OP does.

And even then I might call the OP into question, since there is always the likelihood that there were some behind the scenes shenanigans that he was not privy to.

So again, if you could just go on with your reasoning as to why GW's opposition to having a game room in any way enhances the benefits for GW, Store managers, or, most importantly in any business, the lives of their customers.

Please give me something. You must have some explanation as to why this game room is such an undesirable liability for a store to have.

Your assumption is that "GW was opposed to having a game room". That's not necessarily true.

There might have been issues regarding supervisory capacity for unaccompanied minors, liability issues for the same in areas where they cannot be readily seen by the staff member, insurance issues for having a space that cannot be readily seen by the staff member, etc.

There is also of course the simple reasoning of the person having gotten an okay from someone who was not really empowered to give the okay.

I'm not necessarily rolling my eyes at that response.

Leave him alone - the odds of him changing his mind are nil....

Welcome to the wars of religion.

The Auld Grump

*EDIT* My suspicion is that they want to turn the store into yet another one man store with nothing interesting going on.

Your suspision?

I thinks it's reasonable to assume that it was already one. That being the case having an ancillary room out back for gamingwould be impractical.

You either have an unsupervised activity or unsupervised store.

 notprop wrote:
Your suspision?

I thinks it's reasonable to assume that it was already one. That being the case having an ancillary room out back for gamingwould be impractical.

You either have an unsupervised activity or unsupervised store.

The important line was 'Nothing interesting going on'.

Here is the thing - pretty much every local game store that I have ever been in has been a one or two man operation (that is one man handling the store at a time - not one man is all we got, he goes on vacation and we close), at least some of the time - and still had gaming going on.

Often the gaming was after hours - but posted on the bulletin board.

Actual, dice on the table, gaming is part of what drives sales.

Driving a manager that has good sales away is tantamount to driving those sales away.

I would love to see if GW's profits on those B&M stores that have gone to one man operations have had a proportional increase in profit... my suspicion is that they are earning less, and and that the profit margin (if any) on those stores has dropped.

Ah, well....

Soon we will know how much of a hole GW has dug themselves out of with 40K 7th edition....

The Auld Grump

This doesn't bode well for the new store thats opening in Charlotte next weekend....

Soon we will know how much of a hole GW has dug themselves out of with 40K 7th edition....

Well, I'll be very interested to see the new sales figures.

Good work will not always be rewarded.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

 notprop wrote:
Your suspision?

I thinks it's reasonable to assume that it was already one. That being the case having an ancillary room out back for gamingwould be impractical.

You either have an unsupervised activity or unsupervised store.

The important line was 'Nothing interesting going on'.

Here is the thing - pretty much every local game store that I have ever been in has been a one or two man operation (that is one man handling the store at a time - not one man is all we got, he goes on vacation and we close), at least some of the time - and still had gaming going on.

Often the gaming was after hours - but posted on the bulletin board.

Actual, dice on the table, gaming is part of what drives sales.

Driving a manager that has good sales away is tantamount to driving those sales away.

I would love to see if GW's profits on those B&M stores that have gone to one man operations have had a proportional increase in profit... my suspicion is that they are earning less, and and that the profit margin (if any) on those stores has dropped.

Ah, well....

Soon we will know how much of a hole GW has dug themselves out of with 40K 7th edition....

The Auld Grump

Ehhhhhh, Most FLGS like you describe have a store affiliated club with club leadership who has been trusted by the store owners to be 'responsible' for the store. This means damages, theft, supervision and so on. Basically the club leadership is a representative of the store often to an employee level or an actual employee. Clubs often have to provide justification and cost for the space via dues to cover the costs associated.

And you are right... it can be great for a store... It can also be a huge liability to to hand the keys to your store over to a club to make sure everything is being taken care of responsibly. When you own your store, you can make those calls. When you manage someone else's store, you can't. Clubs are a double edged sword for FLGS.

A lot of these issues are just the reality of a chain store in today's litigious corporate america. There are reasons franchises and chain stores are practically identical and prize conformity in their stores. Our GW Bunker is downsizing to 6 tables from like 20 tables and everyone immediately began railing against GW corporate and it came down to the store manager having to say 'this was my decision... I thought I could handle the extra work to keep 20 tables up, run a store and supervise gaming, but the sales don't justify multiple employees, and he was spending multiple hours cleaning, organizing and dealing with the table issues along with the supervision issue.'

We all think 'eh, can't be hard' and then it is. One-man store can't have that much. If they decide due to sales to have a 1-man store, then the liability and extra time of that extra gaming room is not a reality. In my local GW, the manager had to break it to his gamers, and it was his decision. In this store sounds like something wasn't working and someone had to make the decision for him.

Sadly both stores are probably gonna 'go away' soon... but that is the model because miniatures and miniature gaming doesn't keep the lights on *ANYWHERE* anymore. Unless they begin selling MTG at games workshop, not sure anything they do can fix that reality. (which makes WotC a good opportunity if they want to get back into the retail store model after their last failed attempt... If they made these 1-man stores half MTG/DnD they would be great I suspect.)

My local GW manager said he's required to keep the back room as a stocking area.

I personally can't fathom a game store without a gaming area or tables to play on.

 AduroT wrote:
I personally can't fathom a game store without a gaming area or tables to play on.

The store has a large gaming area in the front. The back has a stocking area. The OP's manager seemed to have used the stocking area as more gaming space.

 Wargamer24 wrote:

 AduroT wrote:
I personally can't fathom a game store without a gaming area or tables to play on.

The store has a large gaming area in the front. The back has a stocking area. The OP's manager seemed to have used the stocking area as more gaming space.

Actually you are partly right. The store originally had two stock rooms. The manager had gotten permission to combine them into one room and use the other room (the one pictured) for extra tables to game in.