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@ notprop: I did not ment this too seriously, but after reading about 5 years old being arrested for making pew pew noises while aiming their fingers as pistols at other children or being arrested for sexuall harresment for bathing naked in a pool no one can really know

I wonder what this means for Hoard'O Bits?

Hope they dont go away I buy bits from them all the time.

Fear the worst.

The worst this will mean is that bits get slightly more expensive. People will still want them so the bits store will purchase from discount retail if they cant get what they want from an existing distributor. But when most charge anything from £1-10 for a single component in a £30 box buying full retail wouldnt be hugely onerous if the number if bits stores reduced.

Since GW put a heavy onus on having a B&M location in all likelihood the online Bits stores will already be getting their supply from a distributor who will naturally be under a supply contract that allows sale to non-consumers.

 notprop wrote:


So a storm in a tea cup again it would seem.

Yes you are right perhaps, but when all those things are added up they make a pretty disgusting tasting brew..

 Kanluwen wrote:

Rotgut wrote:So basically they don't want people making a profit off of their 'used' products.

This seems to be a lot like when video game companies complain about pre owned sales, the second sell nets them nothing.

It seems though that a lot of bit sellers will be unaffected by this, but I can easily see the prices of bits going up.

Not exactly. This would be more equivalent to if shops like GameStop were taking games out of package and then selling the "Activation Codes" by themselves.

That is not a valid comparison. The game is useless without the activation code. One sprue of bits is not useless without another sprue of bits. Especially when they are sold as being bits, not as full kits.

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:

 Ravenous D wrote:

xraytango wrote:
Just ordered bits from Warstore, help Neal out as much as we can guys!

I have a strong feeling that this new move by GW is directly aimed at him.

So was the shopping cart thing a few years back, apparently the warstore was pulling in more business then GW online and they had to crush it by claiming using their pictures and product codes violated their IP

That's legal?

In the US yeah, they couldnt touch Canada or UK because of the laws but GW went above and beyond to make sure no US online store could use their images or product codes. I dont know the current state but last I checked Warstore was still beating out GW online even without the shopping cart feature.

Come to think of it, that was really what kicked off GWs war on its customers, I cant think of anything before that where they were going out of their way to screw with people.

 Ravenous D wrote:

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:

 Ravenous D wrote:

xraytango wrote:
Just ordered bits from Warstore, help Neal out as much as we can guys!

I have a strong feeling that this new move by GW is directly aimed at him.

So was the shopping cart thing a few years back, apparently the warstore was pulling in more business then GW online and they had to crush it by claiming using their pictures and product codes violated their IP

That's legal?

In the US yeah, they couldnt touch Canada or UK because of the laws but GW went above and beyond to make sure no US online store could use their images or product codes. I dont know the current state but last I checked Warstore was still beating out GW online even without the shopping cart feature.

Come to think of it, that was really what kicked off GWs war on its customers, I cant think of anything before that where they were going out of their way to screw with people.

To be more accurate, retailers were banned from using the GW stock photos that are shown on the GW site. A regular pic of the box itself would be completely separate and GW would have no ground to stand on there.


Moreover, bits sellers already charge =< the full retail of a box parted out. So if they are buying from trade accounts they could get shut down, but there is nothing about the system that prevents a bits store from buying as a regular consumer on paper.

Example:

Joe X runs www.omgwtfbitslulz.com out of his garage. He currently orders from a wholesaler under that DBA and gets the wholesale price of 35-40% off.
The wholesaler tells www.omgwtfbitslulz.com that they can no longer sell to him under the new GW terms.
So now instead of buying as the company, Joe X makes an order from ANY of the discount retailers for 25-30% off and moves on with his day. His margin may be less, but depending on how he's doing it and his prices he should be able to continue just fine. Perhaps his entire catalog of bits increases the 5-10% in price to make up the margin. At the end of the day he keeps on like nothing really happened. Instead of ordering as a business, he orders as an individual.

Companies keep customer info private, and GW has no legal grounds to request them unless something ILLEGAL were happening and a court said to release said records. Breaking GW trade terms is far from illegal.

This will impact the world just like the 2003 terms did, i.e. minimally. Smart individuals will work around it and continue on, just like they did with web stores and ebay.

GW can demand all they want, but their ability to enforce any of these terms is laughable.

The problem is some of you think bits dealers make tons of cash we don't. A lot of a box won't actually sell so you are stuck with lots of overstock. Also it can take a box upwards of a year to sell enough of it to buy a new one. So if i were to buy at msrp i would make almost no cash. I would make more by not selling stuff out of box but you do it because you love it. Bits is not a way to get rich or even get buy well but it is a way to provide a service others won't and if your like me it's one way to create your own product.

Also, GW can close down any store that sells to you if you sell bits...Even if you buy at or above MSRP.

GW can not close down a store.

They can cease a supply contract but that does not prevent said store approaching an independent distributor.

 notprop wrote:
GW can not close down a store.

They can cease a supply contract but that does not prevent said store approaching an independent distributor.

The new terms also target distributors and retailers who sell to bits dealers...

As far as GW having no grounds to obtain sales records...they actually do. Unlike the government, there is no need for a court order, and distributor/retail privacy policies normally have a clause that allows them to share information with trade partners. I would not be surprised if GW didnt already have a clause in their distributor contract which specifically called for that under the grounds of collecting market data.

How much effort they want to put into actual enforcement remains to be seen...but I see there as being much more significant of a move than the previous web cart policy.

 Empchild wrote:
The problem is some of you think bits dealers make tons of cash we don't. A lot of a box won't actually sell so you are stuck with lots of overstock. Also it can take a box upwards of a year to sell enough of it to buy a new one. So if i were to buy at msrp i would make almost no cash. I would make more by not selling stuff out of box but you do it because you love it. Bits is not a way to get rich or even get buy well but it is a way to provide a service others won't and if your like me it's one way to create your own product.

Funnily enough, ths is a problem that is largely the result of the success of the bits market in general.

Back when I started out on eBay, before anyone else had thought of selling plastic bits, prices were set entirely by the buyers and even buying my stock at discounted Oz retail profit was good.

When others started getting in on the act, while still confined to eBay, prices remained pretty good.

Then when people like Battlewagon Bits started getting in on the act and setting up actual websites selling bits, prices overall came down. Which was fine for those with trade accounts (and for customers, obviously), not so good for the others. So it will be interesting to see what, if any, impact this has on bits prices.


I'm betting on 'minimal' since people will find ways around it.

Oh i already have back up plans as any busy should it will just be added hassle.

 Aerethan wrote:
GW can demand all they want, but their ability to enforce any of these terms is laughable.

Can't they simply enforce it by not selling to a retailer who they suspect of on selling to bits sellers? I thought the right to refuse service was a pretty world wide one with only a few exceptions.

Iirc, as a trader, you enter into an agreement with GW that has lots of restrictions.

One of these is secrecy on the upcoming releases.
They have a warning and suspension of new releases and then they stop selling to you.

It is a common trade agreement that you do not sell individual parts of products to customers. If Coke find out you're splitting the multi-packs of coke cans they stop selling or stop selling multi-packs to you.

It is done by LOTS of companies to protect their margins.

 liturgies of blood wrote:
Iirc, as a trader, you enter into an agreement with GW that has lots of restrictions.

It is a common trade agreement that you do not sell individual parts of products to customers. If Coke find out you're splitting the multi-packs of coke cans they stop selling or stop selling multi-packs to you.

It is done by LOTS of companies to protect their margins.

So vending machines and corner stores that sell individual cans violate Coke's trade agreement? What is this nonsense? Do you have knowledge of this trade agreement between Coke and every Coke retailer?

What a joke this company has become. It's like they enjoy finding new ways to piss off their customers.

 judgedoug wrote:

 liturgies of blood wrote:
Iirc, as a trader, you enter into an agreement with GW that has lots of restrictions.

It is a common trade agreement that you do not sell individual parts of products to customers. If Coke find out you're splitting the multi-packs of coke cans they stop selling or stop selling multi-packs to you.

It is done by LOTS of companies to protect their margins.

So vending machines and corner stores that sell individual cans violate Coke's trade agreement? What is this nonsense? Do you have knowledge of this trade agreement between Coke and every Coke retailer?

No, you misread me.
You know the 6 pack of coke cans? They say not to be sold individually with a yellow label on them.
Coke or the suppliers to franchise chains will revoke selling to you if you do that.

Don't call it nonsense when you didn't even read what I said.

so I am confused. GW terms of trade says you can only use a website to say you have GW inventory in your B&M store. So does this stop the whole emailing thing - like the warstore says, email your order etc

Can a company restrict a whole distribution stream like internet sales to only their website? is that actually legal - what above restraint of trade and stifling competition rules.

If GW stops selling to every distributor and retailer they suspect is selling to someone who sells bits they will lose a lot of sales. I can't imagine strict enforcement of this would be a good business decision by them once the dust settled in the end.

And does this require distributors to know exactly what retailers do with the product after they sell it to them. It just sounds so incredibly rediculous. It's as if GW corporate found Kim Jong Il's guide on how to run a country and is applying it to their business dealings. This is just the latest chapter.

They only need to catch a few. If you hear that they did act on some guys in the next city over, you might not want to risk that large revenue stream that your store has for a smaller one in bitz.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 fullheadofhair wrote:
so I am confused. GW terms of trade says you can only use a website to say you have GW inventory in your B&M store. So does this stop the whole emailing thing - like the warstore says, email your order etc

Can a company restrict a whole distribution stream like internet sales to only their website? is that actually legal - what above restraint of trade and stifling competition rules.

It;s their product.
I can sell you a car and it's yours to do with as you want. If you want to buy another car every week and we make a contract that says 1 car a week but don't sell it to bill, if you sell to bill I am perfectly entitled to not sell to you.
It's the same with every company that is international, they don't want parallel sales going on. Within the EU you cannot restrict that as a company but they can restrict you from selling outside the EU and to other territories.

If somebody's ordering $1000 of dollars of kits every month a distributor can be pretty sure it's a reseller even if it's going to a civilian address rather than 'bobs game store'

so they'd presumably need to ask the buyer to sign an agreement not to split the boxes to sell as bits to cover their ass with GW.

It's not clear whether they'd need to check to see whether the buyer complied......

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
If somebody's ordering $1000 of dollars of kits every month a distributor can be pretty sure it's a reseller even if it's going to a civilian address rather than 'bobs game store'

so they'd presumably need to ask the buyer to sign an agreement not to split the boxes to sell as bits to cover their ass with GW.q

It's not clear whether they'd need to check to see whether the buyer complied......

I know several a bunch of stores who order way more then that and they are not bitsing.

 liturgies of blood wrote:
I can sell you a car and it's yours to do with as you want. If you want to buy another car every week and we make a contract that says 1 car a week but don't sell it to bill, if you sell to bill I am perfectly entitled to not sell to you.

And what if I sell it to someone who sells it to Bill? What if the only reason I sold it to this other person was so they could sell it to Bill, but you don't know that?

That's what I meant, if a distributor knows it's a store they're selling to, they can cover themselves and require no bitzing (even if they don't actually ever check)

I was trying to respond to they 'how would they know if they were supplying a bitzer' breaking an order down into smaller chunks is still going to be noticible (unless the orders are very small, and that's would be a major pain)

I'd imagine most distributors will go with 'don't ask, and PLEASE don't tell us' as a policy

 judgedoug wrote:

So vending machines and corner stores that sell individual cans violate Coke's trade agreement? What is this nonsense? Do you have knowledge of this trade agreement between Coke and every Coke retailer?

Cans produced for individual sale are fine. Product made specifically to go into multi-packs though is often lacking certain legally required information, like nutritional panels, as this information is on the carton instead of printing it on each item. Breaking these up and selling them can therefore be a legal issue as well as contractual one.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 liturgies of blood wrote:
I can sell you a car and it's yours to do with as you want. If you want to buy another car every week and we make a contract that says 1 car a week but don't sell it to bill, if you sell to bill I am perfectly entitled to not sell to you.

And what if I sell it to someone who sells it to Bill? What if the only reason I sold it to this other person was so they could sell it to Bill, but you don't know that?

Well that's hard to prove. If they suspect it strong enough they can just stop supplying to you.

This is not a new thing.

 liturgies of blood wrote:
No, you misread me.
You know the 6 pack of coke cans? They say not to be sold individually with a yellow label on them.
Coke or the suppliers to franchise chains will revoke selling to you if you do that.

Don't call it nonsense when you didn't even read what I said.

They say "not labeled for individual resale", because they don't have a label on them. As Sean O Brien succintly put it earlier:

"The vast majority of goods you can. Most soft drinks can be split and sold as single cans or bottles. Many things like crisps and chocolates are available in single serving sizes from vending machines or gas stations. They frown on opening up a big bag of chips and selling those by the handful, but even there...you can find delis that do as much with anything from chips to pickles to drinks from large containers. "

Have you never eaten at a deli and gotten a pickle that they got from a jar?

How many game stores have snacks and drinks that come from 24-packs that are "not labeled for individual retail sale"?

I hope all the White Knights who blindly support this policy also turn in their local game stores to The Coca Cola Company.

I don't support the policy, I just know where it comes from.

You don't usually have an agreement with how you sell pickles from your deli supplier but you do have merchandisers come into your store to ensure that products are being sold right in retail. Maybe in the US it's different but over here it's like that. Some products come with conditions if you want to sell them, others don't. It depends on who you buy from and what quantity you buy them in. Just because pickles doesn't have it doesn't mean that GW, big name brands, cars, electronics, drugs and a world of other companies that want to kill resale markets or parallel trade don't have clauses in their merchant agreements that limit how they sell the products.

Games stores are not grocery stores so they don't have the same agreements they buy from a wholesalers.

Similarly the guy that buys 200 tactile marine boxes from his local GW isn't subject to the same rules as my FLGS when they buy stock in from GW.