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 ClockworkZion wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
That's a very strong assertion with not much to back it up.

Costs would drop, sure, but so would income, and it's a coin flip as to whether one would offset the other, and GW, in the form of some exec or another, are on record as stating they don't believe conventional advertising works for them, so why would that belief suddenly change?

Income wouldn't drop by much as they'd be able to mandate stock levels like they do to FLGS so that means money in their pockets every month regardless.

And GW doesn't believe in a lot of things. Like common sense.

That's a short term attitude, forcing stock into stores, as if it doesn't sell the store will go bust assuming anybody is mad enough to sign up to such a deal, which they won't as long as FLGS terms exist.

If franchises incur debt they fold. If GW's B&M losses money someone gets fired (even when it's not their fault) and GW is stuck bailing the store out.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Looky Likey wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
That's a very strong assertion with not much to back it up.

Costs would drop, sure, but so would income, and it's a coin flip as to whether one would offset the other, and GW, in the form of some exec or another, are on record as stating they don't believe conventional advertising works for them, so why would that belief suddenly change?

Income wouldn't drop by much as they'd be able to mandate stock levels like they do to FLGS so that means money in their pockets every month regardless.

And GW doesn't believe in a lot of things. Like common sense.

That's a short term attitude, forcing stock into stores, as if it doesn't sell the store will go bust assuming anybody is mad enough to sign up to such a deal, which they won't as long as FLGS terms exist.

GW's trade agreement with FLGSs come with mandatory minimum stock levels.

That's...very simplistic.

Business don't just "fold" because they're in debt, any more than people go bankrupt if they owe some money on their credit card.

Besides, that isn't the point, if a franchise does fold, owing GW money for stock, services, fees, whatever, where do you think that cash is coming from to reimburse them?

 azreal13 wrote:
That's...very simplistic.

Business don't just "fold" because they're in debt, any more than people go bankrupt if they owe some money on their credit card.

Besides, that isn't the point, if a franchise does fold, owing GW money for stock, services, fees, whatever, where do you think that cash is coming from to reimburse them?

Simplistic, but not incorrect. I apologize for my terseness as I am currently posting by phone.

If the franchise goes bankrupt they'll still owe GW the money. Things would be liquidated to help pay outstanding debts. Unsold stock can go back to GW to be sold elsewhere, it's not like this is perishable goods we're talking about.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'm not saying GW needs to go to franchises, just that it'd be better for them than the B&M stores currently are.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
GW's trade agreement with FLGSs come with mandatory minimum stock levels.

There is a difference between maintaining a stock level(which is pretty low looking at my local stores) and forcing new stock on stores every month.

I'd also add that when one local franchise goes bust nobody else with half a brain is likely to pick it up in that area, as time goes on they'll end up with a very small amount of stores and reduced revenue. I would strongly argue that without stores, either GW or FLGS, the overall player base will contract further, impacting income.

Finally you haven't addressed why anybody would want to buy a franchise when FLGS deals are still in place.

Looky Likey wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
GW's trade agreement with FLGSs come with mandatory minimum stock levels.

There is a difference between maintaining a stock level(which is pretty low looking at my local stores) and forcing new stock on stores every month.

I'd also add that when one local franchise goes bust nobody else with half a brain is likely to pick it up in that area, as time goes on they'll end up with a very small amount of stores and reduced revenue. I would strongly argue that without stores, either GW or FLGS, the overall player base will contract further, impacting income.

Finally you haven't addressed why anybody would want to buy a franchise when FLGS deals are still in place.

New products come with new required stock levels.

Frankly I don't care if all GW's stores go away. They're the biggest cause of price increases I can see on GW's books. If no one buys franchises and everyone goes FLGS no longer one loses. GW gets their money every month, and the costs go down meaning less drive to push up prices.

GW is the only company in its industry running their own stores, tells me that in this day and age the idea just doesn't make that much sense.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
That's...very simplistic.

Business don't just "fold" because they're in debt, any more than people go bankrupt if they owe some money on their credit card.

Besides, that isn't the point, if a franchise does fold, owing GW money for stock, services, fees, whatever, where do you think that cash is coming from to reimburse them?

Simplistic, but not incorrect. I apologize for my terseness as I am currently posting by phone.

If the franchise goes bankrupt they'll still owe GW the money. Things would be liquidated to help pay outstanding debts. Unsold stock can go back to GW to be sold elsewhere, it's not like this is perishable goods we're talking about.

What you're missing is, in the real world, owing money, especially one business to another, means nothing if there isn't money there to pay for it. In this hypothetical franchise situation, GW might not even be first call on any funds that do occur from liquidation, as others, such as landlords, may also have a claim on funds.

Phone or no, you're still oversimplifying things, a business' financial death is a hugely messy affair if it owes money anywhere, and, like I said, for a company as notoriously controlling as GW, with no clear financial benefits, despite your assertions, just wouldn't go down this route.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
New products come with new required stock levels.

Frankly I don't care if all GW's stores go away. They're the biggest cause of price increases I can see on GW's books. If no one buys franchises and everyone goes FLGS no longer one loses. GW gets their money every month, and the costs go down meaning less drive to push up prices.

GW is the only company in its industry running their own stores, tells me that in this day and age the idea just doesn't make that much sense.

The new product wouldn't match the overall sales lost.

Setting up to be able to offer a franchise would cost a fair amount of money, so if nobody took it up it would be a huge waste of money, and who would when FLGS offers far better terms.

GW are still significantly larger than any of their rivals, it would make little sense for any of the other large players to open their own stores so its not valid to compare them. Looking at Apple who GW seem to be trying to copy, Apple (and Samsung and Microsoft) uses its stores as flagships offering somewhere for people new to the brand to dip their toe in. GW has a product at least as complicated as an iPhone, I think it would be suicide to drop profitable stores, GW needs somewhere to educate and indoctrinate new players. Poorly treated FLGS that can and do offer other product are not motivated to always offer GW product to new players...

It is the unprofitable stores, that GW are locked into keeping via their lease, that are impacting bottom line, these will go anyway. However the real problem is falling sales volume, GW have been trying to disguise that with increasing prices, and we know how that loop ends.

And honestly if GW won't go down that road they should just drop B&Ms. They don't work as well as they used too.

EDIT: I see no proof that GW is copying Apple (for one, GW had had stores for a lot longer than Apple has). I think they're throwing things at a wall and seeing what sticks without letting go of their old ways.

You'll get no argument from me, I definitely believe GW should drop retail.

There's no real doubt that the way people shop is changing, and most people who I'd trust to have a clue are advocating a change in approach for traditional physical stores - specifically by emphasising offering goods and services which just can't be offered by online companies.

Given those criteria, for GW it is a no brainer, focus on developing your stores as a community hub, where people can go to play, pain and interact one another.

The very thing they appear to be moving away from.

 azreal13 wrote:
You'll get no argument from me, I definitely believe GW should drop retail.

There's no real doubt that the way people shop is changing, and most people who I'd trust to have a clue are advocating a change in approach for traditional physical stores - specifically by emphasising offering goods and services which just can't be offered by online companies.

Given those criteria, for GW it is a no brainer, focus on developing your stores as a community hub, where people can go to play, pain and interact one another.

The very thing they appear to be moving away from.

Basically make the stores into mini Warhammer Worlds...

Oh wait, they had that with the Battle Bunkers.

Unfortunately this is what happens when you only look at the numbers and not at anything else the store is giving you. Also selling food and snacks would help those places make money on the side (I don't know about anyone else but I get thirsty while gaming).

I'll just repost something I wrote over a year ago..

 azreal13 wrote:
1) Reorganise the retail operation. Close the pokey one man stores and centralise the operation into larger multi staff destination stores open 7 days a week and well into the evening. Incorporate staff bonus schemes to include community growth as well as sales growth, linked to tournament entries, game night attendances etc. The staff would be responsible for organising these. Move to stock Forge World and FFG materials in store.

2) Produce a genuine one per faction starter that included a small but balanced force and codex for an appreciable discount.

3) Instruct the studio to produce a small, squad based skirmish game, using the core rules from the main games as their inspiration, with a two step structure allowing for a very basic intro game but with a more advanced level, a la Infinity. Box it with absolutely everything needed to play, get it into non specialist retailers and advertise it in mainstream media. Use this system as both a bridging game and a means to stimulate sales on some under performing lines. Imagine how good a DE Mandrake could be at skirmish level with rules allowing it to redeploy all over the table, make sneak attacks etc, as opposed to their decidedly mediocre 40k showing.

4) Accept the internet exists

5) Acknowledge that indys, employed correctly, are a valuable asset and not an irritation

6) Give the studio more control, only intervening if their ideas were genuinely too costly.

7) Realise that the demographic I was alienating (vets) had more money and were more likely to continue to stick around and adjust the company output to at least reflect the older players interests.

Recoloured for emphasis. Personally, I find this obvious, but I've never run a business the size of GW, so I'm sure there's a very good reason for the copious amount of stuff they do which totally defies conventional business practice. [/sarcasm]

I think a lot of what GW does currently is because it worked in the past so they feel that it should still work, the problem is that things have changed and you can't rely as much on historical practices as much as you used too. The way we buy products has changed and they need to catch up already.

Thing is, I suspect the way that GW operated in the past wasn't all that effective either, but when your opposition is as fragmented, disorganised and amateurish as GW's has been historically, it isn't such an issue, "in the valley of the blind.." Etc.

Now, the market is maturing, there are some real competitors for GW's market share, what 'always worked' is being exposed as inadequate and nobody in Lenton seems equipped to deal with the situation.

 azreal13 wrote:
Thing is, I suspect the way that GW operated in the past wasn't all that effective either, but when your opposition is as fragmented, disorganised and amateurish as GW's has been historically, it isn't such an issue, "in the valley of the blind.." Etc.

Now, the market is maturing, there are some real competitors for GW's market share, what 'always worked' is being exposed as inadequate and nobody in Lenton seems equipped to deal with the situation.

Quite possible. Basically I think everyone can basically agree that the board doesn't seem equipped to handle the emerging problem and push beyond it to grow the company past this.

My mom lives near a Games Workshop store. I was semi-excited when I found out about it. I even dragged my (non-gamer) wife. I thought it would be like a tiny Disney World for warhammer gamers.

What did I find? A store about 1/5th the size of my flgs, crammed with kids playing (no problem there) with absolutely no room to maneuver, and almost 80% of the product stocked required you to interrupt a game so you could browse, and you felt like you hadto do it very quick so the gamers could get back to it.

The sales staff were extremely pushy, to the poiunt where I had to say, in polite terms, "leave me alone or I won't buy anything from you" (which I didn't).

From 1 store visit, it was clear thay my fgls did things many times better than the GW store...perhaps it was just the one I visited.

They also had about 1/2 of the actual models for sale than my flgs.

Maybe I'm one of very few but I started my warhammer / 40k playing in a gw shop. I live in nyc and their isn't a huge community and many stores in the city can't afford the real estate required to have more than a couple of tables. Also many other games are much more profitable for these small shops (card games really) as they can run event and have higher margins with much less space. so to have a shop where I can play any day of the week and is not to crowded is kind of godsend. Personally in the nyc area there would only one place to play 40k if their wasn't a gw. (complete strategist if anyone cares to know) Tbh I buy things from the store even though I could get them for less elsewhere sometimes because I know the rent gw pays for the store must be insanely high and already gw is changing the store dynamics (went from a 3 employee run store to a single man store in November). I would hate not to have a place to play.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I think a lot of what GW does currently is because it worked in the past so they feel that it should still work, the problem is that things have changed and you can't rely as much on historical practices as much as you used too. The way we buy products has changed and they need to catch up already.

I agree 100%.

We have a store here in AZ; I drove to it one time and one time was more than enough. The store consisted of 4 half tables and about 350 sq feet; it made you wonder "why is this store even here?"

I'm not sure why GW ever thought stores were the way to go. Local game Stores have done more for them in the last 30 years than they ever could do for themselves. Especially here in the US. Their fans and retailers carrying their product made them great, not their employees.

 Njal Stormpuppy wrote:
I see some people talking about how spread out the stores are. Gw has been launching plans to make more stores in America. They won't always be so spread out, and Gw isn't actually stupid enough to underestimate the American market

GW is never going to take over the US market, for simple population density reasons. Let's look at my area as a representative example: it's far from the biggest city ever, but there are still at least 3-4 independent stores within reasonable driving distance, along with one GW store. So, to take the whole market, GW needs to have five stores in the area. Anything less and the closest store for many people will still be an independent store. But here's the problem: the total amount spent on GW products in the area is $X, and that money is spread between five stores. That's fine right now because each store gets $X/5 from GW and $Y/4 from MTG, $Z/4 from roleplaying games, etc, and the total amount is enough to stay in business. But if you replace those stores with GW stores you get rid of all the non-GW sales, and you're trying to pay the rent on just $X/5. And there's no way that's going to be a sensible business decision, GW would be losing money on every new store they opened.

And of course the reality is even worse, since MTG/roleplaying/board games/etc are so popular here. Non-GW sales alone will keep stores in business, so what you'd really have is five separate GW stores and a few independent stores. Independent stores would see their share of GW sales drop to $X/10 and may or may not feel that continuing to stock GW is worth it, but the GW stores would see the same drop with no non-GW products to make up for it. This would be a disaster for GW, their own stores can't pay the rent, and every independent store that drops GW's products means fewer new customers (since all the D&D/MTG/etc players are no longer tempted by those GW boxes on the shelf).

Of course GW seems to think that the US doesn't work this way, and opening more stores is the path to amazing profits. They're wrong, and they're stupid, but they'll probably continue their insane approach until they run the company into the ground.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I'm not sure why GW ever thought stores were the way to go. Local game Stores have done more for them in the last 30 years than they ever could do for themselves. Especially here in the US. Their fans and retailers carrying their product made them great, not their employees.

Because they were able to build a near-monopoly in the UK with this strategy. The higher population density and lower willingness to drive to a distant store allowed them to drive the independent stores out of business and take most of the wargaming market into their own stores. They're just too stupid to realize that the US isn't the UK and hire someone with a better understanding of non-UK markets to run their operations in those countries.

Ah, Compleate Strategist, I remember it fondly, glad to hear its still around,, is it still on 33rd?

With CS why would you go to GW?

It's hard to imagine that GW cares about how the US market versus their stores, as I only have one in my state, and it's a 4-hour drive away. So right now one single LGS (that's all there is, even though I am far from being in the backwoods) is the sole promoter of GW product. So far I have bought more product online from New York than from a GW store.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Jaceevoke wrote:
Based on what I have read, with the bunkers being urned into 1-man stores and then being shut down, it looks like GW is starting to pull back from brick and mortar stores in the US.

Most of the stores they're "closing" are just being relocated to cheaper parts of town, regardless of how good or bad the location they're moving into is for business. Not too many of the stores are being closed permanently.

Ah, I did not know that, thank you for correcting me.

Jaceevoke wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Jaceevoke wrote:
Based on what I have read, with the bunkers being urned into 1-man stores and then being shut down, it looks like GW is starting to pull back from brick and mortar stores in the US.

Most of the stores they're "closing" are just being relocated to cheaper parts of town, regardless of how good or bad the location they're moving into is for business. Not too many of the stores are being closed permanently.

Ah, I did not know that, thank you for correcting me.

It's part of why GW is "opening" so many stores. Heck they're opening more than their closing, so at worst their just shifting inventory around like a game of cups!

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Jaceevoke wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Jaceevoke wrote:
Based on what I have read, with the bunkers being urned into 1-man stores and then being shut down, it looks like GW is starting to pull back from brick and mortar stores in the US.

Most of the stores they're "closing" are just being relocated to cheaper parts of town, regardless of how good or bad the location they're moving into is for business. Not too many of the stores are being closed permanently.

Ah, I did not know that, thank you for correcting me.

It's part of why GW is "opening" so many stores. Heck they're opening more than their closing, so at worst their just shifting inventory around like a game of cups!

Interesting, now are any of those stores bunkers, or are they all the one man variants?

Jaceevoke wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Jaceevoke wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Jaceevoke wrote:
Based on what I have read, with the bunkers being urned into 1-man stores and then being shut down, it looks like GW is starting to pull back from brick and mortar stores in the US.

Most of the stores they're "closing" are just being relocated to cheaper parts of town, regardless of how good or bad the location they're moving into is for business. Not too many of the stores are being closed permanently.

Ah, I did not know that, thank you for correcting me.

It's part of why GW is "opening" so many stores. Heck they're opening more than their closing, so at worst their just shifting inventory around like a game of cups!

Interesting, now are any of those stores bunkers, or are they all the one man variants?

Bunkers have largely been replaced with 1 man stores last I've heard. If we have any bunkers left I'd expect them to be downgraded, or closed and a new, smaller store pop up elsewhere in the area where it's cheaper to run the place from.

 jonolikespie wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
one advantage to a GW store is going in there, being able to ask questions pertaining to their games and getting helpful answers instead of "...... I dunno, hey wanna buy some magic cards?"

My experience with GW stores has been an unhelpful answer and "hey, wanna buy the latest shiney?'

Incorrect, its "so what do you need to finish that today?" and things aren't bad they just "Provide a different hobby challenge"