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 ausYenLoWang wrote:
Companies cannot sell the models to someone who is going to on sell it or lose their trade account..

Which is not possible really, otherwise every store will lose its trade account. People resell their products all the time for no other reason than they just don't want it anymore, which means the store that sold them the product is in violation - even GW stores.

It's a bs addition to their terms and conditions to scare away the bigger discount resellers, but it's not something that can be properly moderated at all.

 AntomanElven wrote:
GW can't actually legally enforce this, the only thing they can do is decide to stop selling to the FLGS, which would be a stupid move for GW

Stop selling to a couple of retailers who are known to on sell to bits retailers and all of a sudden other retailers would become much more wary of knowingly selling to bits vendors.

Of course I think it's a stupid move either way. I thought it was a stupid move when GW closed down their own bits selling, they lost a lot of my business when they did that.

The real use of the clause is if they find out that a store is supplying or running an ebay store that they can close that store's supply down and drive the bitz store out of business.

It's not for billy who needed a combi-melta and sold the rest of his sternguard kit off. It's for the big sellers.

 liturgies of blood wrote:
The real use of the clause is if they find out that a store is supplying or running an ebay store that they can close that store's supply down and drive the bitz store out of business.

It's not for billy who needed a combi-melta and sold the rest of his sternguard kit off. It's for the big sellers.

Yes, and little billy isn't a retailer, so it's fine to sell to little billy who then on sells to other people. But selling from a trade account to an actual retailer, that becomes where things get interesting. When someone comes and orders $2000 worth of miniatures every month from a retailer using a trade account, that retailer might think twice about supplying it if there's a chance they could lose their trade account by doing so.

Sure they can lean on a retailer if they sell me models at retail which I turn around and bit them out... But what will GW do if I buy them from GWs website or retail store?

Does a paradox tear apart time and space?

nkelsch wrote:
Sure they can lean on a retailer if they sell me models at retail which I turn around and bit them out... But what will GW do if I buy them from GWs website or retail store?

Does a paradox tear apart time and space?

Of course not, you're just paying 25-30% more (or even more if you previously had a deal with a retailer)

It remains to be seen if GW themselves will stop selling to people who order absurdly large amounts directly from them. Perhaps they will, perhaps they won't.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 AntomanElven wrote:
GW can't actually legally enforce this, the only thing they can do is decide to stop selling to the FLGS, which would be a stupid move for GW

Stop selling to a couple of retailers who are known to on sell to bits retailers and all of a sudden other retailers would become much more wary of knowingly selling to bits vendors.

Of course I think it's a stupid move either way. I thought it was a stupid move when GW closed down their own bits selling, they lost a lot of my business when they did that.

Assuming the stores go through a distributor instead of GW direct, then that's a stupid move as well. The most they could do is pull the distributors trade account, which would result in way too many lost sales for them to consider even trying it.

 -Loki- wrote:
Assuming the stores go through a distributor instead of GW direct, then that's a stupid move as well. The most they could do is pull the distributors trade account, which would result in way too many lost sales for them to consider even trying it.

I'm not convinced GW understand the concept of lost sales.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:
Assuming the stores go through a distributor instead of GW direct, then that's a stupid move as well. The most they could do is pull the distributors trade account, which would result in way too many lost sales for them to consider even trying it.

I'm not convinced GW understand the concept of lost sales.

Or perhaps they understand the concept of everyone simply buying from them at full retail in order to reap maximum profits.

That and yearly price increases.

This is like when GW banned online stores from selling their products!(You could see the point but it did create a lot of anxiety).

I don't understand what this achieves. GW don't offer a bits service in any form. Do they think that people needing five copies of one part will go out and buy five boxes of miniatures simply to fish out that single part? That won't happen.

GW won't supply bits themselves and try to shut down other retailers doing so, but then complain about third party manufacturers and recasters, which are the obvious consequence if them strangling off sources to get actual GW parts.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:
Or in the case of ordering from GW web site, having a Terms and Conditions which you must agree to that outline that you may not resell the component parts of their kits.

I really, really hope GW does not read these forums, because you know they will take that idea and run with it.

Anyway, GW can refuse to sell their product to anyone they wish for any reason they wish (within certain limits). I won't be surprised if GW has a database of names that are blackballed from purchasing from them (either GW stores or GW website).

They could do so, but they still had no legal backup. Anyone can write a ToS if he wants to, but you are still bound to the country's laws.

Can we have a clear Yes / No on GW completely shutting down non-GW retailers?

@nkelsch the first thing that GW would probably do if they found individuals selling large volumes of bits on eBay (even if bought retail via a GW store) would be to get the local tax authorities to look into wether you had been correctly declaring income/sales tax where appropriate. Nothing worse than having the taxman breaking out his fine tooth comb.This is probably the most punitive action they could take, also would be very simple to get your details and a photo to place in GW stores to refuse you service. There is more than one way to skin a cat.

Is Alliance Games distributing GW products now illegal?

 Kroothawk wrote:
Is Alliance Games distributing GW products now illegal?

No. The no B2B clause is for retailers. Neal may no longer be able to supply GW goods to retailers though, as I am not sure if the wholesale channel he has set up is a proper distributor, or just takes advantage of wholesale discounts.

I am really confused, especially now with the other threa closed...is this still about bitz only? The other thread mentioned sth. about GW completely shutting down selling to resellers.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

nkelsch wrote:
Sure they can lean on a retailer if they sell me models at retail which I turn around and bit them out... But what will GW do if I buy them from GWs website or retail store?

Does a paradox tear apart time and space?

Of course not, you're just paying 25-30% more (or even more if you previously had a deal with a retailer)

It remains to be seen if GW themselves will stop selling to people who order absurdly large amounts directly from them. Perhaps they will, perhaps they won't.

Likely they will...

The reasoning is that if you order 5 boxes of something like Devastators each month, it makes them $175. However, if you are parting those out it costs them $1255 from the people who buy one multi-melta gun or other weapon instead of a full box from them.

Now, a frequent refrain is that that is crazy...no way would anyone buy a full box for one weapon, but if you look at their calculous, they need less than 20% of the bits customers to buy the whole box to make up the difference in the loss to the high volume 'bits dealer customer'. Each box will have its own number, but I would not be surprised at all if they blacklisted retail customers who purchased more than a certain amount of an item through their retail arm as well.


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 Sigvatr wrote:
I am really confused, especially now with the other threa closed...is this still about bitz only? The other thread mentioned sth. about GW completely shutting down selling to resellers.

Bits is a primary concern...but not the only one. The new terms prohibit online sales in North America. Retailers can not sell online, and distributors can not supply retailers who sell online. This is new for Canada AFAIK, and will shut off the supply for a few US dealers who operated cart based stores but were supplied through distributors.

Retailers can also not part out kits. That is the bits ban.

Retailers can also not sell to other businesses. This impacts some bits dealers, as well as a few painting services who use their high volume purchasing position to buy goods at a higher discount and sell them as part of their package. Technically, it would also prevent said paibting services from buying a pot of paint from the local store as well.


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 -Loki- wrote:

 ausYenLoWang wrote:
Companies cannot sell the models to someone who is going to on sell it or lose their trade account..

Which is not possible really, otherwise every store will lose its trade account. People resell their products all the time for no other reason than they just don't want it anymore, which means the store that sold them the product is in violation - even GW stores.

It's a bs addition to their terms and conditions to scare away the bigger discount resellers, but it's not something that can be properly moderated at all.

It isnt for someone who sells off stuff they dont need/want anymore...so that is taking it abit too far, though it does provide grounds for cancelling an account that is problematic for them. I would imagine they might even have a hit list of retailers who they hope slip up.

Remember, we have seen already from the CHS case that GW will go to certain lengths to gather the evidence they want, even posing as a regular consumer. In particular, there they purchased one of the Tau walkers to gather evidence under the guise of being a regular customer. Dont be surprised to hear of stores being cut off after they use the various geographic filters and email communications pretending to be a customer asking about 'which stores offer good deals, since I am new to this area'. Between casual messages and a few purchasesvthat get them return addresses (or finecast with batch codes) they can identify retail suppliers without much head scratching.

The more obvious justification will be starter set splitting.

If you currently want the rules you have 3 choices: buy the BRB, the box set, or the rules from the box set. If you eliminate the option for people to buy the rules from the box set for $20, they are forced to buy the BRB ($75?) or the box set ($100?).

Of course the reality is that people will either just not bother, or get the box set rules from an end customer on ebay who just wanted the figures.

Well, I only bought the small rule books so far, from ebay, because neither starter set could satisfy me. If they want to somehow stop users from selling their stuff, I'll just .pdf my way through.

Herzlos wrote:
The more obvious justification will be starter set splitting.

If you currently want the rules you have 3 choices: buy the BRB, the box set, or the rules from the box set. If you eliminate the option for people to buy the rules from the box set for $20, they are forced to buy the BRB ($75?) or the box set ($100?).

Of course the reality is that people will either just not bother, or get the box set rules from an end customer on ebay who just wanted the figures.

So GW actually allows and promotes starter box splitting in-store. They had events for the first few weeks when 6th came out where you could buy a box and they would match you up with someone who wanted the other half.

So two people could buy their own copy and then trade the half they didn't want, or you could sell the half you didn't want to someone else who would 'pay' you via store credit.

And they still do Bitz Bazaars in GWs as long as instead of cash, you buy stuff in store credit.

I am still not worried at my ability to get the bitz that I want.

 Kroothawk wrote:
Is Alliance Games distributing GW products now illegal?

Not at all. They are a distributor for GW, and now have to abide by the terms of sale here. If GW finds that a retailer is selling bitz and getting profuct from Alliance, they will ask Alliance to not sell GW product to that store. Other manufacturers already have terms of sale that block distributors from selling to stores that violate them. This is nothing new as far as as distributors are concerned.


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 Sigvatr wrote:
I am really confused, especially now with the other threa closed...is this still about bitz only? The other thread mentioned sth. about GW completely shutting down selling to resellers.

The part about not selling to retailers is total BS.

 insaniak wrote:

 Aerethan wrote:
I didn't say he wouldn't have to work for it, but assuming he was willing to go thru it all...

It's not a matter of 'working' for it. Unless you mean on the chain gang, when he goes to prison for tax fraud on account of running half of his business outside the actual business...

(RTRP here.) Wouldn't be tax fraud. A person can have as many businesses as they want. What matters is that it is reported correctly and everything is reported. Would require filing multiple schedule C's assuming that he is doing each as a sole proprietorship. Could be done as partnerships/corporations also, which require their own tax forms.

The resources necessary to police the system to stop distributors from selling to "customers" who are actually laundering the product to ebay shops is prohibitive.

This is the sort of thing that will be enforced once or twice a year in a high profile manner. Your local shop probably has nothing to worry about.

Anyone know if this affects the UK as well? Judging by the latest post from Waylands facebook page, I suspect there may be some nasty surprises in for UK GW retail partners as well.

Hi everyone, as you are aware, we have since our opening in 2008 made millions of pounds for some manufacturers of wargame products. We spend a huge amount of effort to always focus on improving our services and technology. We are reasonably lucky being based in the UK as it offers lots of protection for businesses that operate in a market where a single entity appears to be dominant.

It is however impossible to ignore certain recent events and so we would like to offer out our hand to any entities out there that would like to co-operate with us on representing retailers interests to suppliers.

It would assist us greatly if all of you can share this as many places as possible and any retailers that would like to talk with us can contact us via any of the multitude of contact methods we have on our sites.

There are laws in the US to protect consumers on the resale of products they have purchased. Games Workshop does not license miniatures to people – you don’t have to sign a contract to purchase them. So, you own the plastic pieces once bought and you can do with them what you see fit. There are no laws that protect the seller when it comes to your own property. For example – if I wanted to purchase a whole stores worth of space marines, and burn all or part of the contents for my own amusement, Games Workshop has no actionable recourse because it’s not their property anymore. They may be able to not sell their products to stores they know sell bits, but they can’t stop people from selling bits in the US. Those terms are not actionable.

Someone mentioned phone hacking as being illegal in the US: they can do this because the Operating System installed on the phone is licensed. You don't own any part of that intelectual property, so it's illegal to change the way it operates. The actual phone itself? You can alter it however you wish as long as you don't change the way the software operates.

Sining wrote:
Anyone know if this affects the UK as well? Judging by the latest post from Waylands facebook page, I suspect there may be some nasty surprises in for UK GW retail partners as well.

Hi everyone, as you are aware, we have since our opening in 2008 made millions of pounds for some manufacturers of wargame products. We spend a huge amount of effort to always focus on improving our services and technology. We are reasonably lucky being based in the UK as it offers lots of protection for businesses that operate in a market where a single entity appears to be dominant.

It is however impossible to ignore certain recent events and so we would like to offer out our hand to any entities out there that would like to co-operate with us on representing retailers interests to suppliers.

It would assist us greatly if all of you can share this as many places as possible and any retailers that would like to talk with us can contact us via any of the multitude of contact methods we have on our sites.

Not that we are aware of. But we thought it was time there was some representation for retailers.

 BitWraith wrote:
There are laws in the US to protect consumers on the resale of products they have purchased. Games Workshop does not license miniatures to people – you don’t have to sign a contract to purchase them. So, you own the plastic pieces once bought and you can do with them what you see fit. There are no laws that protect the seller when it comes to your own property. For example – if I wanted to purchase a whole stores worth of space marines, and burn all or part of the contents for my own amusement, Games Workshop has no actionable recourse because it’s not their property anymore. They may be able to not sell their products to stores they know sell bits, but they can’t stop people from selling bits in the US. Those terms are not actionable.

Please read the thread. The terms only say that they can take away your sales contract. Meaning they will stop filling your direct orders. There is nothing in the US that stops them from terminating an ordering contract.

I mentioned that in my post. There's several people that seem to think GW can halt all bits sales.

 BitWraith wrote:
Here's a link to the law in question BTW:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine

Not actually relevant. They are not claiming that you can't sell it, just that they will stop doing business with you if you do.


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 BitWraith wrote:
I mentioned that in my post. There's several people that seem to think GW can halt all bits sales.

Instead of getting hyperbolic and using phrases like "not actionable" which are patently incorrect here, you should have stuck to the point you wanted to make and kept it clean and simple.

Meh fine, another reason not buy GW stuff or a full kit for those extra bits you want for conversions and instead go to a 3rd party seller or just move onto a different game.