Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

You aren't required to pay or make a purchase at my local GW, but it is a fairly large locations with 6 gaming tables (+ 2 demo tables).

I bet their policy would change if there were only half as many tables available.

I attend a GW shop with only one gaming table.

 Lutharr101 wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Lutharr101 wrote:
its quite clear english smartarse

It's not. I read it 3 or 4 times and still could not understand what you were getting at. Try injecting a little punctuation into your posts next time.

Funny how someone else got it straight away yet you couldnt. Maybe the punctuation wasnt perfect but its easily understandable.

To be fair, I did go to college for high school English education, translating hard to read English was one of the skills I had to develop.

But regardless, of what you said and how you said it, stores will do what they need to do to make money at their business. If this means that they have to charge people to use their tables, then they have to charge people to use their tables. They're not being greedy, they're not being pricks, they're just trying to keep their doors open.

 Alfndrate wrote:

 Lutharr101 wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Lutharr101 wrote:
its quite clear english smartarse

It's not. I read it 3 or 4 times and still could not understand what you were getting at. Try injecting a little punctuation into your posts next time.

Funny how someone else got it straight away yet you couldnt. Maybe the punctuation wasnt perfect but its easily understandable.

To be fair, I did go to college for high school English education, translating hard to read English was one of the skills I had to develop.

But regardless, of what you said and how you said it, stores will do what they need to do to make money at their business. If this means that they have to charge people to use their tables, then they have to charge people to use their tables. They're not being greedy, they're not being pricks, they're just trying to keep their doors open.

And as they should. The world aint one big charity gamers can just pull the "for the love of the hobby" crap on endlessly. Its boring. Either pay ya way or jog on elsewhere. Some stores can offer free tables because their customer base is probably buying where they game from already. If people aint buying stuff from a shop then what right do they have to tell them what they can or cant charge for. Dont like it? the door is over there.

 Lutharr101 wrote:

 Alfndrate wrote:

 Lutharr101 wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Lutharr101 wrote:
its quite clear english smartarse

It's not. I read it 3 or 4 times and still could not understand what you were getting at. Try injecting a little punctuation into your posts next time.

Funny how someone else got it straight away yet you couldnt. Maybe the punctuation wasnt perfect but its easily understandable.

To be fair, I did go to college for high school English education, translating hard to read English was one of the skills I had to develop.

But regardless, of what you said and how you said it, stores will do what they need to do to make money at their business. If this means that they have to charge people to use their tables, then they have to charge people to use their tables. They're not being greedy, they're not being pricks, they're just trying to keep their doors open.

And as they should. The world aint one big charity gamers can just pull the "for the love of the hobby" crap on endlessly. Its boring. Either pay ya way or jog on elsewhere. Some stores can offer free tables because their customer base is probably buying where they game from already. If people aint buying stuff from a shop then what right do they have to tell them what they can or cant charge for. Dont like it? the door is over there.

and that's fine just don't bawl about it if your business suffers for it and you lose your customers.

Just a thought:

Most gaming clubs often charge membership for terrain, tables and rental of the place they play.

A store is charging you for a product, at the end of the day a store has no need to offer gaming tables and the profits earned should cover the shops running costs and employee fees.
When the store offers gaming space its offering that to you - rented space; terrain; tables; heck sometimes even storage space for your stuff during the week - all for typically no additional cost.

The store offers you a freebie in the hope that you'll game and spend at the shop and if you don't spend there chances are you're gaming someone who is so it helps keep the population up.

The stores tend to only remove the freebie when they are changing from providing a retail service to providing a club service because the dominant members are now treating it like a club not like a shop.

If you treat your local shop like a club then it will become a club - and because retail space is significantly more expensive than the church hall on a weekday evening chances are your shop (which is now more a club) will close.

 wowsmash wrote:

 Lutharr101 wrote:

 Alfndrate wrote:

 Lutharr101 wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Lutharr101 wrote:
its quite clear english smartarse

It's not. I read it 3 or 4 times and still could not understand what you were getting at. Try injecting a little punctuation into your posts next time.

Funny how someone else got it straight away yet you couldnt. Maybe the punctuation wasnt perfect but its easily understandable.

To be fair, I did go to college for high school English education, translating hard to read English was one of the skills I had to develop.

But regardless, of what you said and how you said it, stores will do what they need to do to make money at their business. If this means that they have to charge people to use their tables, then they have to charge people to use their tables. They're not being greedy, they're not being pricks, they're just trying to keep their doors open.

And as they should. The world aint one big charity gamers can just pull the "for the love of the hobby" crap on endlessly. Its boring. Either pay ya way or jog on elsewhere. Some stores can offer free tables because their customer base is probably buying where they game from already. If people aint buying stuff from a shop then what right do they have to tell them what they can or cant charge for. Dont like it? the door is over there.

and that's fine just don't bawl about it if your business suffers for it and you lose your customers.

if ya not spending money then ya not a customer. So nothing to lose is there.

My favorite store back in the UK charged for tables. They had something like 28 of them, great terrain, open and clean venue, toilets, coffee, painting stations, snacks and a great atmosphere with no screaming kids.

I was very happy to pay a minor amount for the use of a good store with good amenities.

 Lutharr101 wrote:

if ya not spending money then ya not a customer. So nothing to lose is there.

Well you have a very odd idea of what a customer is. You'll go far in retail!

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Lutharr101 wrote:

if ya not spending money then ya not a customer. So nothing to lose is there.

Well you have a very odd idea of what a customer is. You'll go far in retail!

Wouldnt care to. Ive a proper job that earns real money. Why would i wanna waste my time with that crap. Especially one that has people who want gak for free.

 Lutharr101 wrote:
Wouldnt care to. Ive a proper job that earns real money. Why would i wanna waste my time with that crap. Especially one that has people who want gak for free.

Of course you don't want to work in retail, no sane person would want to if they have better opportunities available. But that doesn't change your ignorance of how retail works in this situation. Let's make it nice and simple:

A is in your store for gaming, but does not buy anything. However, A might buy something in the future because they enjoy the gaming space but just don't have any thing to buy right now. Or A might ignore you and buy from that online discount store, but because A plays every week B also comes in to play and buys stuff. If you drive A away because you're only looking at their immediate purchases then you give up those potential future purchases, and B stays home and plays video games instead of buying something from you. Just like GW you've failed to understand the concept of taking a loss on one thing so that you can get better profits elsewhere.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Lutharr101 wrote:
Wouldnt care to. Ive a proper job that earns real money. Why would i wanna waste my time with that crap. Especially one that has people who want gak for free.

Of course you don't want to work in retail, no sane person would want to if they have better opportunities available. But that doesn't change your ignorance of how retail works in this situation. Let's make it nice and simple:

A is in your store for gaming, but does not buy anything. However, A might buy something in the future because they enjoy the gaming space but just don't have any thing to buy right now. Or A might ignore you and buy from that online discount store, but because A plays every week B also comes in to play and buys stuff. If you drive A away because you're only looking at their immediate purchases then you give up those potential future purchases, and B stays home and plays video games instead of buying something from you. Just like GW you've failed to understand the concept of taking a loss on one thing so that you can get better profits elsewhere.

bingo, we have a winner

I don't pay to game - but I always buy something when I go to the store, be it paint, a model, dice... Anything, I like to support the store.

We started the game club in an old store room above our FLGS.
We just paid £1 each every Saturday to pay for tables chairs terrain ,and a eventualy fridge.

This seems much fairer IMO, than a company charging an extra 100% on all products to cover the cost of running game space less than 20% of their customers use.

The FLGS closed down quite a few years ago and the nearest one now is roughly an hour away. Most of my purchases are done online for this reason.

We have a gaming club set up instead where we pay £3 for 3 hours gaming.

My local store is awesome - but I still won't play there.

I play in clubs that are not store based. There is a distinct difference in attitudes between the two groups. There is a more casual vibe in the non-store club. Not that the store 'club' has a "buy stuff or get out" vibe - far beyond it - it's just that I've been gaming outside of a store for 26 of my 27 (gaming) years and it's too hard to change.

The group who played in the last store I visited (which closed down) used to boast about using the stuff for free and getting their armies online through OS dealers. Boast. To the owner. Many of them moved to the new store when it opened. Then that owner banned them. I buy stuff from him, club members go to tourneys in his store, buy stuff and are on good terms.

One club is a haven for Infinity and FoW and Bolt Action and Distopian Wars and blood bowl. The other is mainly a WHFB club where some of us also play infinity.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Lutharr101 wrote:
Wouldnt care to. Ive a proper job that earns real money. Why would i wanna waste my time with that crap. Especially one that has people who want gak for free.

Of course you don't want to work in retail, no sane person would want to if they have better opportunities available. But that doesn't change your ignorance of how retail works in this situation. Let's make it nice and simple:

A is in your store for gaming, but does not buy anything. However, A might buy something in the future because they enjoy the gaming space but just don't have any thing to buy right now. Or A might ignore you and buy from that online discount store, but because A plays every week B also comes in to play and buys stuff. If you drive A away because you're only looking at their immediate purchases then you give up those potential future purchases, and B stays home and plays video games instead of buying something from you. Just like GW you've failed to understand the concept of taking a loss on one thing so that you can get better profits elsewhere.

so in essence your saying stores should pay for people to just hang around incase they may buy something at a later date? I dont see this trend in other retail stores where they offer free stuff so why are hobbystores any different.

 Lutharr101 wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Lutharr101 wrote:

if ya not spending money then ya not a customer. So nothing to lose is there.

Well you have a very odd idea of what a customer is. You'll go far in retail!

Wouldnt care to. Ive a proper job that earns real money. Why would i wanna waste my time with that crap. Especially one that has people who want gak for free.

So are you saying people who work in retail dont have a proper job? If people didnt work in retail you wouldn't be able to spend that "Real Money" of yours.

 Lutharr101 wrote:
so in essence your saying stores should pay for people to just hang around incase they may buy something at a later date? I dont see this trend in other retail stores where they offer free stuff so why are hobbystores any different.

In business you have a thing called "loss leaders" it is a pricing strategy in which a company will take a hit on one product in order to get more sales on a related product. To use a thing we're all familiar with, video games. Video Game Consoles are often sold at a lower price a few years after the launch. While the company that sells them is going to take a hit in their profit margins, the eventual hope is that by buying that console, the customer will buy more than that price cut's share in games and accessories. So if I run a gamestop and we get notification that the Xbox One is dropping from 500 to 400 dollars, then we're going to be making less on each individual Xbox One, but the hope is that we will then sell more consoles to players and in turn they will buy games they might not have purchased if the Xbox One was still at its normal price.

So in Peregrine's example, Player A (the one that doesn't buy anything) is your "loss leader", he doesn't buy stuff from you, so you're not making money off of him, but he does bring in Player B on a regular basis, and Player B buys stuff from you. If you ban Player A, then Player B will stop showing up, and you'll lose out on Player B's sales and have no sales.

Now if both Player A and Player B don't buy anything in your store, and you start to lose money because they buy online, that's when you take them out back and break their kneecaps mafioso style start charging people a few bucks to play on your tables.

 Lutharr101 wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Lutharr101 wrote:
Wouldnt care to. Ive a proper job that earns real money. Why would i wanna waste my time with that crap. Especially one that has people who want gak for free.

Of course you don't want to work in retail, no sane person would want to if they have better opportunities available. But that doesn't change your ignorance of how retail works in this situation. Let's make it nice and simple:

A is in your store for gaming, but does not buy anything. However, A might buy something in the future because they enjoy the gaming space but just don't have any thing to buy right now. Or A might ignore you and buy from that online discount store, but because A plays every week B also comes in to play and buys stuff. If you drive A away because you're only looking at their immediate purchases then you give up those potential future purchases, and B stays home and plays video games instead of buying something from you. Just like GW you've failed to understand the concept of taking a loss on one thing so that you can get better profits elsewhere.

so in essence your saying stores should pay for people to just hang around incase they may buy something at a later date? I dont see this trend in other retail stores where they offer free stuff so why are hobbystores any different.

Actually, it happens in major retailers all the time. During the holidays, if you go to a department store, the women's section is handing out samples of perfume and doing makeup tutorials for free regardless of whether or not you're buying anything. At Bestbuy, they have demos of various video games going on, and I've never seen a Bestbuy employee walk over and tell someone using the demo to buy something or leave. If you go to Super H-Mart (a national Korean grocery chain) on a weekend, there will be a dozen or more women at various areas around the store handing out free samples of all kinds of items, and you're never asked if you're buying anything (heck, I'll sometimes go on a weekend specifically to try out the samples; sometimes I buy, but not all the time).

Those are just a few examples.

Both my stores are free to play at.
(Rent is not cheap at either, at 7000.00 and 9000.00 per month. )
Charging for table space would lose money.

I do mentoring for new store owners as part of a website set up by GAMA, and am very convinced that charging customers to play at your store is bad for business. It puts a barrier between the customer and the store, and the store will get far more sales from the players if they are in the store longer. It works for both sides. Having to collect fees puts the store in an adversarial relationship where you have to act as a tax collector and chase people down.

If a store is having a problem with players who do not support the store tying up the tables, there are other ways to deal with that. I know of a couple of stores that had problems with Yugioh players coming in and buying nothing but tying up the tables 5 nights a week. It was an easy solution: Tell them NO. Ask them to leave. Explain that the tables are not for yugioh, they are for Warhammer, events, or other things the store intends them to be used for.

Some store owners feel this is confrontational, and they don't like confrontation. So they hesitate to confront people causing problems. This results in turning over control of your store to those non customers. Never a good thing. It can lead to things getting so bad that they feel they need some rule to fix things, and thus pay to play pops up.

I don't think it works, as i said above. At best you drive off the problem along with a lot of good customers. At worse the problem people pat a measly couple of bucks to rent tables, buy nothing, and feel justified now to not buy anything, and they are playing by your rules.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lutharr101 wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Lutharr101 wrote:
Wouldnt care to. Ive a proper job that earns real money. Why would i wanna waste my time with that crap. Especially one that has people who want gak for free.

Of course you don't want to work in retail, no sane person would want to if they have better opportunities available. But that doesn't change your ignorance of how retail works in this situation. Let's make it nice and simple:

A is in your store for gaming, but does not buy anything. However, A might buy something in the future because they enjoy the gaming space but just don't have any thing to buy right now. Or A might ignore you and buy from that online discount store, but because A plays every week B also comes in to play and buys stuff. If you drive A away because you're only looking at their immediate purchases then you give up those potential future purchases, and B stays home and plays video games instead of buying something from you. Just like GW you've failed to understand the concept of taking a loss on one thing so that you can get better profits elsewhere.

so in essence your saying stores should pay for people to just hang around incase they may buy something at a later date? I dont see this trend in other retail stores where they offer free stuff so why are hobbystores any different.

Sure, 'just in case they may buy something later". And if I do my job right, they always will be buying something later. What gamer buys something everytime they come into a store? What type of retail expects you to?

The effect of being in a store a lot is that the player spends more money in the store. Or has other people buy things from the store for him. There is a very direct relationship between time in the store and money spent. The example given above for customers A and B is very accurate. (as is the statement pertaining to the sanity of opening a game store.).

The common logic of our group is that if were playing at a flg, the non verbal agreement is that at least one person in the party should buy something. Whether it's a land raider or the more common dice cube, glue, paint brush or pot, if you want to even have a place to play you should have the decency to support it.

Saldiven wrote:


Actually, it happens in major retailers all the time. During the holidays, if you go to a department store, the women's section is handing out samples of perfume and doing makeup tutorials for free regardless of whether or not you're buying anything. At Bestbuy, they have demos of various video games going on, and I've never seen a Bestbuy employee walk over and tell someone using the demo to buy something or leave. If you go to Super H-Mart (a national Korean grocery chain) on a weekend, there will be a dozen or more women at various areas around the store handing out free samples of all kinds of items, and you're never asked if you're buying anything (heck, I'll sometimes go on a weekend specifically to try out the samples; sometimes I buy, but not all the time).

Those are just a few examples.

Free samples and a service which take up a significant SQfootage of your store are not the same thing. A better example is the in-store fishing pond in bass pro where people can Demo reels and casting or the Playground at McDonalds. Both are free to use for customers and attempt to draw you in the store, and if people were just hanging at the mcDonalds and not eating there, eventually they tear those playgrounds as there is no profit in having them.

And I *HAVE* seen Best buy throw unsupervised kids off the gaming consoles. parents use the demo consoles as babysitters when in the store. I very much have seen best buy employees tell kids to stop using the demo and the 'can I help you? what You are not buying anything? ok' And then are proceeded to be hounded by security for the rest of their visit. Those Demos are designed to help sell product, not keep people entertained. If they are failing to help sell product or are nto accessible by actual customers because NON-customers are overusing them, then there is a problem.

That almost happened to me at a best buy >_<

Guitar Hero had just come out and I was extremely interested in the game and was monopolizing the demo for a good 15 minutes while my parents were wandering the store. I had gathered a group of people that were looking at what I was doing. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw an employee look my way and start to walk over. I finished the song, and turned to this like 6 year old kid and asked if he wanted to try it. Held the guitar for him and told him to hit the buttons as they passed the screen and I'd strum for him... employee walks away without saying a word. I think I bought a cd from them.

 carlos13th wrote:

So are you saying people who work in retail dont have a proper job? If people didnt work in retail you wouldn't be able to spend that "Real Money" of yours.

Maybe that came across wrong. Didnt mean to belittle people working in retail. It just pays poop and for way to much hassle for my liking.

The only non-retail thing my shop in Wixom charges for is out long-term storage lockers. Tables, terrain, etc are all free for use. If you want to be able to lock up your armies and keep them in the store for days/weeks/months then yes, there is a nominal fee.

If we could return to the topic please.

Further posts on this unwanted tangent will be treated as spam.