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 ausYenLoWang wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Not if it was a completely different company, which by law are seperate entities.

But if your buying under your trade accound and giving to your other company that then on sells it, your company 1 will lose its trade account.

But doesn't the term specify sale?

Giving product away for free is not selling it.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 ausYenLoWang wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Not if it was a completely different company, which by law are seperate entities.

But if your buying under your trade accound and giving to your other company that then on sells it, your company 1 will lose its trade account.

But doesn't the term specify sale?

Giving product away for free is not selling it.

transfer of goods even at $0 will count or i cant wait to see how you do your tax for the business

 ausYenLoWang wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Not if it was a completely different company, which by law are seperate entities.

But if your buying under your trade accound and giving to your other company that then on sells it, your company 1 will lose its trade account.

The limit on the trade account is that you can sell to consumers only, not other companies. It keeps you from becoming a distributor. Distributors like Alliance and Southern Hobby Supply (are they even still around?) have a whole other agreement with GW, and they aren't running FLGS.
This keeps the FLGS in line and keeps them out of a secondary cash stream by adding value to those bits.

Ok, wasn't sure if it would work or not.

This is all very upsetting, as its only perceivable goal is to hurt FLGSs. With the increasingly hostile changes to trade terms, it only makes sense if GW is trying to eventually eliminate all independent stockists. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to see GW do away with all trade accounts in the next few years. Do any of the store owners on here have plans in place to deal with such a development?

 insaniak wrote:

 ausYenLoWang wrote:

Gareth if your buying as an end user you arent affected, as its limiting sales outside the US for "resale".

Nope, there are two separate statements there. They are stating that American accounts are only to sell domestically (ie: inside the US), and that they can not export to a customer who is reselling.

The second statement isn't the entirety of the rule... it's just making it painfully obvious that exporting is now verboten, whether it's to a customer or to another store.

If I can no longer buy GW products at international prices in Oz, I will cease to buy GW products. I can afford them, but I refuse to pay those outlandish prices, I also dislike supporting a company that has a philosophy is "fleece existing customers until they leave and when they do, fleece the remaining customers more to make up for it". I don't buy the "they're a company not a charity" BS, there was a time when business 101 was make your customer happy and I think GW are going to pay heavily in the long term for ignoring that.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
Selling direct to comission painting companies looks to be forbidden, as thye will then re-sell the models

But to get round it all they'll need to do is get the end user to buy the kits to provide to the painting service

(but it will impact on them buying/painting before they have a customer)

I think value-added services make the painted mini de facto another product.

 Ravenous D wrote:
Thats bs, maybe GW should lose their historical exchange rate system then, the canadian dollar has been on par with the US for nearly 10 years now and for some reason Im still paying 20% more.

As was said when the UK/EA embargo came in, if GW just normalised their prices (like Lego and a lot of other companies do), then this really wouldn't be a problem.

rogueeyes wrote:
There isn't much that GW can do to prevent resale of goods. There was just a Supreme Court case today in the US about a similar matter:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-copyright-case-supreme-court-rules-that-goods-made-overseas-can-be-resold-here/2013/03/19/9902d560-90b9-11e2-bdea-e32ad90da239_story.html

Basically someone took international text books and resold them in America and the publisher sued. I think a similar argument could be made in the case here but Games Workshop could still terminate their trade account. GW can refuse to sell to anyone but they can't go after a second part for reselling goods to another market after the original seller sold the item to the reseller of the item.

IT basically boils down to a scare tactic for trade account holders. Still if they resell to a third party (aka a secondary business) and sell the bits then the same exact business model can be preserved - except that another intermediate business would need to be created for the reselling of the bits.

Poor analogy, that was one guy buying retail and selling on. That case was to stop him parallel importing which is allowed but companies can stipulate clauses JUST LIKE THIS ONE in their trade agreements to try and limit it.

 BitWraith wrote:
GW minis aren't regulated substances like drugs where you have to "cut off the supplier"...

...They're selling plastic toy crap (I love them folks, but lets face it, this is what they sell). They're behaving like there's a black market conspiracy and GW minis are a controllable substance.

When the consumer behaves like a drug addict, the manufacturer will behave like a drug pusher.

Can anybody name a single other company or industry that could behave the same way that GW does and still retain the majority of its market?
Big Oil? Tobacco? South American drug cartels?

azreal13 wrote:
One could argue that the phrasing doesn't disallow sales by stores to people outside of North America.

Yes, but the only ones who have to disagree with that to spoil your logic are GW. And they do disagree.

 Guildsman wrote:
This is all very upsetting, as its only perceivable goal is to hurt FLGSs. With the increasingly hostile changes to trade terms, it only makes sense if GW is trying to eventually eliminate all independent stockists. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to see GW do away with all trade accounts in the next few years. Do any of the store owners on here have plans in place to deal with such a development?

Its litterally to force people to buy from GW or GW online without a discount. I can hazard a guess and say that GWs next contract will be "no discounts or sales"


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Ravenous D wrote:
Thats bs, maybe GW should lose their historical exchange rate system then, the canadian dollar has been on par with the US for nearly 10 years now and for some reason Im still paying 20% more.

As was said when the UK/EA embargo came in, if GW just normalised their prices (like Lego and a lot of other companies do), then this really wouldn't be a problem.

No kidding GW sure is putting up alot of barriers for themselves, next they should put punji pits and bear traps in front of their stores.

 Ravenous D wrote:

 Guildsman wrote:
This is all very upsetting, as its only perceivable goal is to hurt FLGSs. With the increasingly hostile changes to trade terms, it only makes sense if GW is trying to eventually eliminate all independent stockists. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to see GW do away with all trade accounts in the next few years. Do any of the store owners on here have plans in place to deal with such a development?

Its litterally to force people to buy from GW or GW online without a discount. I can hazard a guess and say that GWs next contract will be "no discounts or sales"

i think they will lose customers in droves if they do this

Why will they lose customer in droves? Why does everything have to be 20% off for you to buy it. Thanks, we get the newsflash that hobbies are expensive.

In some places, like the US, it is actually required that sales not be permanent, hence the reason why Sears has a rotation on appliance sales and deals.

As I have said before, discounts are not an obligation of a seller to provide. Sometimes, they are a privilege we as the customers earn.

Well considering how badly they are screwing everyone now and the fact they actually made money last year is just going to encourage more bad choices.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
Why will they lose customer in droves? Why does everything have to be 20% off for you to buy it. Thanks, we get the newsflash that hobbies are expensive.

In some places, like the US, it is actually required that sales not be permanent, hence the reason why Sears has a rotation on appliance sales and deals.

As I have said before, discounts are not an obligation of a seller to provide. Sometimes, they are a privilege we as the customers earn.

They are not screwing everyone. Nothing they sell is mandatory for life. This is a hobby. Ferraris are expensive too, but my letters have gone unanswered when I asked them to make their products more affordable.

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
Why will they lose customer in droves?

Because a lot of people think the hobby is already expensive and paying closer to or less than the perceived value encourages people to buy? lol

Why does everything have to be 20% off for you to buy it.

Who ever said it does? It just encourages it. I know I've bought more at GW sales than I've bought at any other times (back when they had sales).

No need to go on a rant about how customers feel entitled to sales, it's simply a case of customers feeling less screwed if they can get things at a discount and closer to or less than what they feel the value of the product might be.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
They are not screwing everyone. Nothing they sell is mandatory for life. This is a hobby. Ferraris are expensive too, but my letters have gone unanswered when I asked them to make their products more affordable.

Yes, they are screwing people by changing policies (GW, not Ferrari, I don't want to get in to pointless analogies). If I decided to walk away from GW now I'd have 2 unfinished armies and to flog them would cost me several hundred dollars and many hours I've put in to them.

That's why we say "screwing their customers". Ravenous D was exaggerated a bit with "screwing everyone", as they can't screw people who aren't already invested. It can even just be an emotional investment, which is why we often say game/movie developers are screwing their customers/fans by releasing terrible sequels and such (you feel very screwed if you actually paid money to play/see the sequel, but as a customer/fan you can still feel screwed even if you didn't).

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
Selling direct to comission painting companies looks to be forbidden, as thye will then re-sell the models

But to get round it all they'll need to do is get the end user to buy the kits to provide to the painting service

(but it will impact on them buying/painting before they have a customer)

I think value-added services make the painted mini de facto another product.

Yes - defacto another product, but it is a violation of the business to business clause.

Like I said already, it would also be a violation if they came in to buy a bottle of paint as well...since technically the only ones who can sell GW products to another business are approved distributors or GW themselves.

One thing people have to keep in mind when they consider what they think GW might not do (shut down a distributor or major retailer) is their past history. When they put the Australia Embargo in place, they saw an increase in sales in Australia of 6% and no drop in sales in the UK (where most the sales were coming from prior to the embargo). They saw nearly a 10% jump in North America though - no doubt aided by a lot of those customers shifting purchases from the UK suppliers to US and Canadian suppliers. This new set of restrictions they probably assume will get Australia out of the red and not negatively impact North America.

Between their annual price hikes and activities like these, they are managing to keep the numbers looking positive even though it would be hard to see any real growth in the GW base or real units sold.

 Ravenous D wrote:

 Guildsman wrote:
This is all very upsetting, as its only perceivable goal is to hurt FLGSs. With the increasingly hostile changes to trade terms, it only makes sense if GW is trying to eventually eliminate all independent stockists. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to see GW do away with all trade accounts in the next few years. Do any of the store owners on here have plans in place to deal with such a development?

Its litterally to force people to buy from GW or GW online without a discount. I can hazard a guess and say that GWs next contract will be "no discounts or sales"

That's just the thing - it makes me think it is their naivete that may be driving these sorts of decisions. Instead of looking inward at the issues with the company, they keep driving a wedge between them and their customers/resellers trying to figure out the formula as to why they are seeing declining sales.

"It must be the bits sales. Let's see what we can do about shutting down the second-hand bits market. Now that that is out of the way, the next thing on the agenda is the annual price increase coming this summer. . ."

 puma713 wrote:
"It must be the bits sales. Let's see what we can do about shutting down the second-hand bits market. Now that that is out of the way, the next thing on the agenda is the annual price increase coming this summer. . ."

I think they either 1. Truly believe people are so invested that they won't leave GW AND they can still get new customers even while old customers spread bad advertising about their products, or 2. They are so interested in short term success they don't care about long term repercussions. It may be true that in the short term customers will keep purchasing to finish of whatever projects/armies they have going despite GW's policies, but in the long term instead of starting new armies people are going to leave with a bad taste in their mouth.

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
Why will they lose customer in droves? Why does everything have to be 20% off for you to buy it. Thanks, we get the newsflash that hobbies are expensive.

In some places, like the US, it is actually required that sales not be permanent, hence the reason why Sears has a rotation on appliance sales and deals.

As I have said before, discounts are not an obligation of a seller to provide. Sometimes, they are a privilege we as the customers earn.

For canadians your 20% is way way off.

In canada, if you buy it from the right US discounter it's closer to a 45-50% discount.

45-50% discount is about what this crap is worth to be honest.

It's a box of unfinished plastic. It's almost like youre not even getting anything for your money.
GW wants us to pay insane prices so you can go home and do tons of fiddly often times annoying labour. Awesome

 Ravenous D wrote:

 Guildsman wrote:
This is all very upsetting, as its only perceivable goal is to hurt FLGSs. With the increasingly hostile changes to trade terms, it only makes sense if GW is trying to eventually eliminate all independent stockists. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to see GW do away with all trade accounts in the next few years. Do any of the store owners on here have plans in place to deal with such a development?

Its litterally to force people to buy from GW or GW online without a discount. I can hazard a guess and say that GWs next contract will be "no discounts or sales"

GW's already done this.

The local FLGS used to have a buy 2 get 1 free deal on any wargaming product. Then GW said no more of that. Now its down to just a 10% discount.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Ravenous D wrote:

 Guildsman wrote:
This is all very upsetting, as its only perceivable goal is to hurt FLGSs. With the increasingly hostile changes to trade terms, it only makes sense if GW is trying to eventually eliminate all independent stockists. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to see GW do away with all trade accounts in the next few years. Do any of the store owners on here have plans in place to deal with such a development?

Its litterally to force people to buy from GW or GW online without a discount. I can hazard a guess and say that GWs next contract will be "no discounts or sales"

GW's already done this.

The local FLGS used to have a buy 2 get 1 free deal on any wargaming product. Then GW said no more of that. Now its down to just a 10% discount.

If they do it once in a while, like one weekend a month, or an email coupon to customers, GW can't do much/anything about it. I get a 25% off coupon in my email all the time-I work around that coupon, drop $150-200 at a time, and the store doesn't care that I always buy at discount, because I buy so much. I buy far more at discount than I would at full price (which wouldn't be much, if anything).

*claps*

Yay! Solo is here!

Looks like this policy wil be a further boon to the recasters abroad. I don't condone recasting; but your scofflaw gamer will only look at price point. Hell, Finecast looks like recasts anyway.

Could this all be a bit of a Knee Jerk reaction to the sales of Dark Vengeance v's The new Chaos and Dark angels Minis?
I mean who would build a Deathwing or Ravenwing army just from the £30+ box sets and who would buy one of the box sets for extra bits and a command squad and build the rest of the army from Dark Vengeance models with a few conversions along the way?

Same with the Chaos Minis. Who buys the 5 cultists for £6 as apposed to buying 10 on ebay for 7-8 quid?

Even the chosen, which in my opinion make for good single character models I knock em out all day long at £2 each. Or how much is the new plastic character from GW £12?

I am thinking this is more the case than any bits sellers. Even more so if they are due to release a new High Elves book as most folk will look to ebay for anything from the starter set again.

Also I am assuming here that the UK/EU have different trade laws to the US since we don't seem to have the no website rule over here that i know of?

discountwargames wrote:


Also I am assuming here that the UK/EU have different trade laws to the US since we don't seem to have the no website rule over here that i know of?

In many ways, I think it is easier for a producer in the EU to make their rules stick straight through the contract. Not sure about GW, but I remember hearing that DZC (Hawk Wargames) had a clause that prohibited retailers from offering more than 10% discount, must use the official copy, etc.. If you can add a clause like that, the whole round-about-approach of GW in the US becomes moot.

 Zweischneid wrote:

discountwargames wrote:


Also I am assuming here that the UK/EU have different trade laws to the US since we don't seem to have the no website rule over here that i know of?

In many ways, I think it is easier for a producer in the EU to make their rules stick straight through the contract. Not sure about GW, but I remember hearing that DZC (Hawk Wargames) had a clause that prohibited retailers from offering more than 10% discount, must use the official copy, etc.. If you can add a clause like that, the whole round-about-approach of GW in the US becomes moot.

Price Fixing is a Criminal act in most countries, including the EU.

rich1231 wrote:
Price Fixing is a Criminal act in most countries, including the EU.

Well, not completely. Book prices are fixed by law in Germany. The EU doesn't like that though.

I'll be a little surprised if GW gets back into the *bits* business. I just can't imagine them paying people to clip sprues, setting warehouse space aside, and taking on all the customer service aspects. Selling whole sprues is something I'd be more willing to believe, but of course that would be a major miscalculation for GW because that isn't what people are interested in, especially given how GW organizes its sprues these days.

 Doomsdave wrote:
Looks like this policy wil be a further boon to the recasters abroad. I don't condone recasting; but your scofflaw gamer will only look at price point. Hell, Finecast looks like recasts anyway.

I disagree. Some recasts are damn fine. Finecast, not so much.