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In Denmark we have a single GW, and that one has two 4x4 tables permanently set up for demo-games.

So I am kinda cold to the complaints about GW not providing free gaming tables.

Orktavius wrote:
I'm Canadian, I don't whine about the cold like some prissy aussie

I pay more for GW stuff than Americans do and my money is worth more. Do I pay as much as Aussies? Heck no...but then I don't live on an island continent in the middle of the pacific...no matter what your paying a hefty extra fee for the difficulties of items being shipped there. Warhammer is still cheaper than a helluva lot of other hobbies and I'm sure there's more pressing pricing concerns for you to be complaining about...you know, like gas...and food and things you actually NEED.

Complaining about the price of toy soldiers sure is a 1st world problem to cry about.

Except that part where GW maintains a fully stocked warehouse in Australia, thus obliterating high shipping costs because they can ship crap tons of product at once.

And I don't know a single Aussie who couldn't kick the crap out of anyone from Canadia, other than perhaps Les Stroud.

Quit being a pretentious jerk.

Heres a thought experiment for all the people trying to tell aussies that shipping costs are the root of our price issues.

If i can pay to ship a single box from the UK and still pay less than 2/3rds the price, then why does it cost more, to ship in bulk and purchase through GW aus? Why wouldnt GW just individually package all their boxes to save on shipping? Why rent warehouse space in australia when its cheaper to do all the logistics from the UK?

GW's stated reason for the price increase is the higher wages and rental costs in australia. Which are partly true, but nowhere near the effective double prices.

If their claims were true, they would let me order from UK retailers to save them the expense of using their over costed australian logistics chain.

Unless of course they were getting an extra chunk of change out of us, in which case they might choose to leverage their retail agreements to prevent them from selling to us.

Which is what they are doing.

They are still gouging us quite a bit, and there is no excuse other than extra profit. Its not an "evil" motive, and its one we see all the time down here. Adobe even charges us more for the same direct download of their software. But it is B**lshit and no one should get annoyed at us when we call a spade a spade. I choose to vote with my wallet, and while i follow gw developments hoping that they will come to their senses i havent purchased a GW product since the embargo.


Sorry for derailing the thread.

the cost of shipping 1 item or even a handful of items is less than shipping pallets worth of items on a boat.Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there's not price gouging in Australia...I'm just not so sure that's the issue with GW. Find out the cost of shipping several tonnes of a product....see if shipping is still cheaper

Orktavius wrote:
the cost of shipping 1 item or even a handful of items is less than shipping pallets worth of items on a boat.Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there's not price gouging in Australia...I'm just not so sure that's the issue with GW. Find out the cost of shipping several tonnes of a product....see if shipping is still cheaper

You don't understand what bulk shipping is do you?

The cost to ship an entire metal container of product(which GW could fill ever square inch of since the product weighs very little) is worlds less than it would cost to send those items individually by air mail. If it was cheaper to send smaller batches, everyone would do it.

Another thing: large shipments are not made by air, they are made by sea. Shipping by sea is also cheaper because you can fit crap tons more on a large boat than you can on even the largest plane.


I could likely search the cost to send a single metal container to Australia from CA, calculate the amount of product that would fit in it, then calculate the cost to ship that amount of product by air and show that sea is worlds cheaper. Instead, I'll challenge you to prove otherwise since your idea defies logic and logistical economics.

except it's shipping from England, not California, GW's plant in Memphis only makes the most popular of plastic kits, not the full line meaning YOUR shipments and literally sailing around cape horn or the horn of Africa travelling a huge distance or failing that, being shipped by truck/train to a port in Asia and than taking a boat. I'm well aware of the concept of bulk shipping, I'm wonder if your aware where your product comes from.

It is not the customer's responsibility to prop up a failing business model. No matter what argument you put forth it comes back to that.

The whole 'shipping is expensive guys' argument made sense (despite still being wrong) to some degree back when the AUD was weak. Now that it is strong, and there was no corresponding price decrease to match, they are simply double dipping. They didn't even state shipping as one of the reasons for the current prices. All they do is cry 'high wages and rent' and 'we offer extra services like XYZ' whilst cutting back on services and staff/stores. If Maelstrom was able to provide a reasonable service without the bloat and gouging on prices, then GW could too if it revised its business model for Australia.

As an aside the FLGS protection reason is utter crap. GW inflate and set their prices so high that for the FLGSs over here to make a real profit they tend to be about $5 more than an in store GW price. Ergo GW caused this issue themselves in the cases where the FLGSs were not smart enough to look online for supply at a cheaper price, or it could be that very scenario where savvy store owners realised they could get stock from Maelstrom and all for a much better price than GW and still turn a decent profit (which would hurt GW sales in Oz). Due to how centralised the population is over here it is rare that one doesn't have a GW in reach (with the exception of country folk), and that killed a lot of potential FLGS GW product business. Majority of FLGSs I have been too over here either don't carry any GW kits, or at best a token selection. And still tend to have a GW within walking distance.

Off hand the largest amount of GW products I have seen in a FLGS is at Games Paradise in Sydney City, which is currently inundated with Dreadfleet boxes. They started at a crazy price to begin with, and even when slashed down to $90 a pop they aren't moving. This isn't surprising when one compares the price of the few DV boxes they had to the $100 Warmachine starter kit sitting right next to it. Before their Dreadfleet haul all they have a tiny corner with a veritable grab-bag of GW items from different editions and releases. I think I can still buy the foundation paint set there, the one that had White in it. On the racks, and upstairs, however is all the glorious FFG 40K RPG books you could want. At a price that is comparable to buying in the US retail.

But other posters have mentioned it already, Australia was, is and will continually be gouged for prices until retailers are smacked on the nose for their stupidity. Good example of proactive retailer is JB Hifi. Their game prices on release are crazy low compared to what they were even a year ago. Where as they once expected $100 AUD for a new title, it is now $70. Whilst still around $10-15 more expensive than online, I am happy to pay that difference because they are having a fair go and maintain a consistent service. So all I need to order online is banned games (like Mortal Kombat or Syndicate), and even now I won't have too next year thanks to Australia FINALLY getting an R-18+ rating for games.

In summary, shipping inflation stopped being a viable excuse a long time ago. Either they are incompetent at organising decent shipping rates on par with any other global business entity, or pissing on us and telling us it is raining. I realise after typing that that those aren't mutually exclusive either.

I'm not trying to have a go at you directly, but you are somewhat disconnected to the reality of the situation over here. And you are just offering up the same illogical excuses GW have been for a good while. Australia isn't a backwater island like it was back in the day. People can actually find us on a map now, despite still thinking we all have Kangaroos in our backyards.

Back to the original topic. My local GW in Canada only has one demo table (6 by 4) and 4 gaming tables. The demo table has all 3 systems (each one takes up its own tile) and a demo painting area on the table as well. Demo games don't need that much room.

I'll concede I know nothing of kangaroo's and drop bears and go back to the original topic....Necrosis....Demo games pay the bills, vets don't need that much space. In all blunt honesty from a business sense introducing new people to the hobby is a helluva lot more important to GW than having gamers playing in the store. Don't get me wrong it's not like it's not a good thing...but from a business sense every one you have come through the door and do a demo game with is a potential new hobby customer that on average is going to spend a good $400 when they start.

They already got your money and your probably going to spend more. GW is properly focusing on new players...harsh I know and as a gamer I sympathize but from a business perspective 'gamers' don't pay the bills nor do painters. Collectors and new recruits however do.

PS....It's dumbly late and I'm not caring about grammar....live with it

Orktavius wrote:
but from a business sense every one you have come through the door and do a demo game with is a potential new hobby customer that on average is going to spend a good $400 when they start.

They already got your money and your probably going to spend more. GW is properly focusing on new players...harsh I know and as a gamer I sympathize but from a business perspective 'gamers' don't pay the bills nor do painters. Collectors and new recruits however do.

How is that one time purchase of $400 more important than the $8k I've spent in 12 years with GW?

I really doubt that new players are the main income. Ask almost any business in the world, and they'll tell you that repeat customers are their primary income.

I'm not saying that new players aren't needed, but they most certainly are not more important than veterans. And if you treat veterans like crap(like taking away their gaming tables) then they'll quit buying and move on to other games.

So if every other veteran spends roughly what I do per year ($650~) then for every one they lose they need about 12 new guys to cover that income. I damn well guarantee you that it is far easier to keep 1 customer happy and buying than it is to find 12 replacements for him.

That one time purchase is more important because you've already spent your $8k over the last 12 years and now they need that new kid who'll spend that $8k over the next 12 years to. Your already in the hobby, they've gotten plenty of your money and while they surely appreciate your business, they can't focus on keeping you happy and ignoring the people walking through their door who could potentially spend $10k over the same frame of time as you. Let's face it, for one reason or another people are always disapearing from our hobby be it because they discover girls, get married, lost interest or life happens issues. GW has to continue to recruit to make up for this and that's why they opened the stores in the first place.

Sure, GW could have left it solely to the indies, but how many indy stores do you know that run fun, enthusiastic involved hobby intro's? If the answer isn't every one of them than this is why GW has it's own brick and mortar stores. Their whole purpose is to recruit new players, to talk to every single person who enters those stores and ask them that question I'm sure you hear all day long "Would you like to paint a model and play a game and see what the hobby's all about?" or something similar. I hear that question every time some lost shopper wanders into GW or some kid comes rushing in to look at the cool mini's with parent in tow.

That is what GW brick and mortar stores are for and nothing else. That GW stores are normally nice enough to provide us gamers with space to play/build/paint in the store as room permits is damn kind of them but if a manager thinks his or her store would be better served using those tables to ensure they can always run demo's I don't see a problem with that, I can always paint/build at home and same with gaming. Even if you don't have a table with GW games you can still just throw down a blanket or a battle mat and go at it on that.

Fact is, this strategy is working quite well for GW, despite some people claiming GW's a failing business model or that they are running themselves into the ground they have during a massive global recession not only posted a gain in sales profit but an increase in sales volume as well. Meaning they've not only made more money they've sold more physical product and it's not just price increases that account for the increased profit. For a niche, luxury product that by all rights should be the first thing cut when money is tight that's a damn big accomplishment....obviously the recruitment focus is working quite well for them.

 Aerethan wrote:

Orktavius wrote:
but from a business sense every one you have come through the door and do a demo game with is a potential new hobby customer that on average is going to spend a good $400 when they start.

They already got your money and your probably going to spend more. GW is properly focusing on new players...harsh I know and as a gamer I sympathize but from a business perspective 'gamers' don't pay the bills nor do painters. Collectors and new recruits however do.

How is that one time purchase of $400 more important than the $8k I've spent in 12 years with GW?

I really doubt that new players are the main income. Ask almost any business in the world, and they'll tell you that repeat customers are their primary income.

I'm not saying that new players aren't needed, but they most certainly are not more important than veterans. And if you treat veterans like crap(like taking away their gaming tables) then they'll quit buying and move on to other games.

So if every other veteran spends roughly what I do per year ($650~) then for every one they lose they need about 12 new guys to cover that income. I damn well guarantee you that it is far easier to keep 1 customer happy and buying than it is to find 12 replacements for him.

Long term versus short term investment. They make a mint from the impulse buy, as shown by their continued sales despite next to no pre-release info. Where they fall down is understanding effective cross marketing and building up net promoters (customers that actively advertise their business for them due to good service/value) and avoiding toxic customers (those who disparage sales due to poor service/value). In our group (total 5 people) alone not a single person would be considered a net promoter, and at least 2 would be considered toxic. Half of us started back in 2nd Ed.

I can attest to the effectiveness of cross marketing in practice. When Outlanders was released in store (without my prior notification) I bought the whole Spyrper faction and the supplement on 'Oh shiney' impulse. Ditto Blood Bowl on release. Now if I walk in store for whatever reason I am simply queried as to whether I collect the flavor of Marine that is released that month, and if not I am extolled the virtues of said flavor regardless of my answer. No follow up of if I like Warhammer, or LotR, or any of the Specialist range. Just Marine flavor. That being said it is hard to cross market when you don't really have anything to cross market with. You just have fantasy, future fantasy, and movie license fantasy. If you don't like that then buy paints or official Citadel (TM) hobby products or get ignored.

They get their short term dollars from the kids with summer money, who then become either neutral or toxic customers down the line and either don't contribute or disparage sales. The idea of the vet isn't cultivated regardless of how much money they might spend in the long term, just the summer impulse money for short term gain and immediate dividends. There is also a failure to realise just how savvy the average youngster can be these days, with buying second hand from ebay and online and such to save money. In Australia at least they have failed to adequately adapt to kids, and their parents who will be paying, being more internet aware.

I hear wonders about their actual customer service lines, and I don't doubt that, but in store they fail on so many levels of basic customer service and sales it isn't funny.

To get back on topic, GW Parra is now expanded into the Battle Bunker section it used to have. So there is like 2 gaming tables and the rest is store. That being said it sadly works much better this way as I don't feel like I am trapped in an elevator every time I go in there. Whether or not they still charge a fee to play I haven't bothered asking. The saddest part is that the guy that works there is a pretty decent bloke, and I will be sad to see him gone once GW 'forget to renew the lease' and close shop like they did with GW Hornsby a few months back.

Orktavius wrote:

Fact is, this strategy is working quite well for GW, despite some people claiming GW's a failing business model or that they are running themselves into the ground they have during a massive global recession not only posted a gain in sales profit but an increase in sales volume as well. Meaning they've not only made more money they've sold more physical product and it's not just price increases that account for the increased profit. For a niche, luxury product that by all rights should be the first thing cut when money is tight that's a damn big accomplishment....obviously the recruitment focus is working quite well for them.

Where have you seen this increase in sales volume? Surely you aren't counting the extra paint "sales" generated by their revamping of the entire line and that was mandatory for all stores?!

Remove those artificial paint sales and the last financial report states the continuing trend of declining sales volume in GW, even when the miniature gaming industry is reporting 10-20% yearly expansions... So much for recessions...

Orktavius wrote:That one time purchase is more important because you've already spent your $8k over the last 12 years and now they need that new kid who'll spend that $8k over the next 12 years to. Your already in the hobby, they've gotten plenty of your money and while they surely appreciate your business, they can't focus on keeping you happy and ignoring the people walking through their door who could potentially spend $10k over the same frame of time as you. Let's face it, for one reason or another people are always disapearing from our hobby be it because they discover girls, get married, lost interest or life happens issues. GW has to continue to recruit to make up for this and that's why they opened the stores in the first place.

Fact is, this strategy is working quite well for GW, despite some people claiming GW's a failing business model or that they are running themselves into the ground they have during a massive global recession not only posted a gain in sales profit but an increase in sales volume as well. Meaning they've not only made more money they've sold more physical product and it's not just price increases that account for the increased profit. For a niche, luxury product that by all rights should be the first thing cut when money is tight that's a damn big accomplishment....obviously the recruitment focus is working quite well for them.

Why would GW want to lose me as a customer who they know will spend thousands of dollars to gamble on some new kid replacement who might drop the game in a year? What on earth business makes those gambles a long term business strategy? GW isn't playing Wall Street stock broker, they are playing retail, and retail is a market where gambling is a major risk that most companies are not willing to take.

And GW's strategy doesn't work. Closing stores and reducing cost is not growth. What happens when every GW store is closed? Where will they cut costs then? Sales are what matter, and GW's sales have been slipping for some time now. And their increase in profit is ONLY because they reduced costs by closing stores and other cut backs, not from an increase in sales volume. And if they lose their lawsuit then I assure you they'll start losing sales even more as other companies make even more not-40k products.

There are of course customers who quit the game and need to be replaced, but all that does is maintain sales not increase them. If GW is already losing new customers in a year or two, AND they start losing more veterans, they will quickly learn that they can't bring in enough new blood to cover the losses.

Keeping repeat customers happy is how 99% of retail companies stay in business.



Don't get me wrong, I love GW's games and the majority of their models, but as a company they are terrible. Their business practices are awful, their attitude towards veterans is awful, and almost everything they make that isn't Polystyrene is awful.
GW would fall dead if every veteran customer up and left.

 Aerethan wrote:

GW would fall dead if every veteran customer up and left.

Not even remotely close to true. Vets have overestimated their worth as a customer for years...

nkelsch wrote:

 Aerethan wrote:

GW would fall dead if every veteran customer up and left.

Not even remotely close to true. Vets have overestimated their worth as a customer for years...

This. Who will spend more money? I'd rather bet my $ on the newcomer with shiny eyes instead of the seasoned player who went through so much crap GW decided to pull off and experienced when GW used to be a customer-friendly (relatively...) good company? The same guy who already owns a huge army...

Funny how every thread that has anything to do with GW policy eventually rounds onto their pricing.

We need more information to even be sure that this is the direction the GW stores are going in as a company. Was this store constantly empty? Why does it only have 3 tables in the first place, and not more? Is it in a high-traffic area like a mall, or is it a stand-alone store off some sidestreet? Out of X number of GW stores, how many of them are adopting this new setup? All of these could be factors that may or may not have contributed to the decision to make all the tables into demo tables. It's a big picture, and we need to take a step back to take it all in.

Orktavius wrote:
but for christs sake your in Australia, it's the ass end of nowhere EVERYTHING IS MORE EXPENSIVE THERE. Only thing GW did is what just about every manufacturer who puts on their big boy pants does and protects there individual markets. Cars are cheaper in the US than they are in Canada, if I want to pay less for a ford I have to drive my ass to America to get a cheaper car, I can't order it online and save all that wonderful money. You want to rage about the price of something imported to Australia rage about gas prices....at least than it'll make more bloody sense.

You know what's interesting? Flames of War stuff is slightly more expensive here, but really its about the same RRP once it's translated. Infinity stuff costs about the same. I've been buying tons of Fantasy Flight stuff, and again, it costs about the same. Steve Jackson Games? Mantic? Reaper? Soda Pop? All about the same. Hell, I've been buying almost all of that stuff I listed locally because the price is pretty much the same as buying from the 10% off the free shipping UK places. A little more expensive, but not that much. Like, not enough to worry about.

GW"s markup isn't actually about "Australia costs more". It's just an artificial markup. "oh but they have employees and stores" - well, those local FLGS and local Mail-order places have stores, and rent, and employees, and all that stuff, yet they survive and thrive.

But far be it from me to argue that point. After all, what would I know about living in Australia?

 scipio.au wrote:

But far be it from me to argue that point. After all, what would I know about living in Australia?

Not nearly as much as a Canadian apparently >.>

I thought us Americans were supposed to be the smug ones.

Settle down chopper. Lets not stress on this lovely long weekend and enjoy the NRL grand final.

Unless you are a Storm supporter in which case you can go to hell.

You mean the AFL grand final, right? Got to go for Hawthorn there, on principle alone.

Mods can you lock this post. Its way off topic.

Going back to the OP. It doesn't make sense to take away gaming tables due to the nature of their product. They sell a product that is meant to be social. If there aren't other people in the store playing games or painting upon first entrance, then the new person is less likely to pick up the hobby. The manager can be as friendly as he wants, it's the intangible social factor that can't be accounted for when there's a lack of gaming room.

When you can get an individual item shipped to you from the other side of the world and have it delivered to your door for less than a local store pays when buying in quantity through a whole sale account, something is very, very wrong. It's far beyond normal economic factors of shipping distances because in both cases, the product is shipped. In fact, shipping large amounts should be more affordable than shipping individual items.

j_p_chess wrote:
Mods can you lock this post. Its way off topic.

I love people with a dozen posts who desperately want to be forum police.

As it happens, the price issue is relevant in terms of Australian (and Japanese) stores and the gaming table issue. As it happens, the GW store close to me closed down/moved and changed to the one-person format, but their new location has a lot more table space. Though moving from a busy shopping centre to a suburban strip of shops would have saved them quite a bit on rent. It doesn't really work as a location for drawing in new, young players however, so I'm wondering how they'll go in the medium to longer term.

Hey Atma01! You haven't studied Marketing by any chance, have you? Cos I recently completed my degree, and my Marketing professor would've loved your post

Interesting thing (well, less interesting and more really obvious when you think about it): Consumers are -far- less likely to walk into a store if there's no one else in there apart from staff. People also need about 2-3 minutes to adjust to being inside a store, if you approach them or try to sell them something in that time they'll most likely feel intimidated and shut you out. I don't know why this is, you'd think that someone who's made the conscious decision to enter a store wouldn't need time to acclimatise, but there you go.

I feel this is relevant here because with only demo tables (and therefore, no room for people to play), there'll be nothing left to do except paint, or buy things and leave, I guess. As such, the likelihood of other people being in the store will drop, and it'll make random walk-ins less likely, as the absence of other customers will put people off.

Thanks for the official info Dr.!

 Dr. Delorean wrote:
Hey Atma01! You haven't studied Marketing by any chance, have you? Cos I recently completed my degree, and my Marketing professor would've loved your post

Interesting thing (well, less interesting and more really obvious when you think about it): Consumers are -far- less likely to walk into a store if there's no one else in there apart from staff. People also need about 2-3 minutes to adjust to being inside a store, if you approach them or try to sell them something in that time they'll most likely feel intimidated and shut you out. I don't know why this is, you'd think that someone who's made the conscious decision to enter a store wouldn't need time to acclimatise, but there you go.

I feel this is relevant here because with only demo tables (and therefore, no room for people to play), there'll be nothing left to do except paint, or buy things and leave, I guess. As such, the likelihood of other people being in the store will drop, and it'll make random walk-ins less likely, as the absence of other customers will put people off.

Very good point, and I guess, in theory, having space for gaming brings people in and those people are likely to buy stuff because, well, it's there on the shelf and requires pertty much no effort to get. I say 'in theory' because I myself go to my local GW quite regularly to play games but haven't bought anything from it in months

loads in the uk did that

Unfortunately I don't have a degree in anything, only varying areas of relevant experience. :(

But I do have experience in Customer Service in a Call Centre environment, followed by doing the analytics for said centre. So I got to drive the NPS directly whilst on calls, then analyse it, and have to explain it to others.

Did I explain my thoughts on the issue correctly, or did I manage to put my pants on my head somewhere?