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.

If they are unable to have a sustainable business in Australia without price gouging while other miniature wargame companies can, then somewhere along the line they have failed.

Perhaps the failure is in their marketing strategy, or their game design, or their model design. You are the one who brought up their business model as the reason they have to raise the prices, so I made the inference that the business model is the problem.

 44Ronin wrote:

 Yonan wrote:

 44Ronin wrote:
Privateer Press isn't running an Import company, warehouse and national chain of retail stores.

Think before posting eh? But then again, rage is irrational

/facepalm

If none of those things result in a better product/service, GW should cancel them. To not do so is incompetence and to think otherwise is irrational.

It does, that's why GW rose to be on top.
Can say for a fact that GW staff have helped thousands of people learn to paint for FREE.

1. I'll give them credit for the odd good piece of advice here and there and setting people off on the path to learn, but they simply do not have the time nor workforce to teach people more than the very basics. Even less now with the one man stores, if they can still manage to that's actually pretty great.

2. Its easy to climb to the top of a hill in a race you are basically the only person in. They got where they were here because of their stores because it gave them presence; they have to adapt to realise they now have competition or they could just fall off.

Now these two things, they cost GW quite a lot more than they need to pay to run over here. They could easily cut their costs by supporting the FLGS and even some advertising, but why do they then stay with what is an inefficient model for business? Having the overcosts for your own stores (apparently) jacking your prices up significantly while only relying on word of mouth to keep going is not sustainable anywhere; cutting to one man stores probably shows that since there's less wages for them to bother with right? Because I can't see any other reason cutting a store down to 5 days a week with an hour or so taken out of each day; the store sometimes remaining closed if that staff member is sick, as a good idea. You're pushing away potential sales for no real reason. What they are doing was good for racing to the top of the hill, but they're already at the top. So it'd make more sense to focus on staying up there rather than rolling off the side as they seem to be teetering to.

As for the "irrational rage". I didn't see it myself, but you must be just that much more sensitive at picking that stuff up.

 PrinceRaven wrote:
If they are unable to have a sustainable business in Australia without price gouging while other miniature wargame companies can, then somewhere along the line they have failed.

It would help if you knew what "price gouging" actually was.

Perhaps the failure is in their marketing strategy, or their game design, or their model design. You are the one who brought up their business model as the reason they have to raise the prices, so I made the inference that the business model is the problem.

When did they raise prices? The price is localised, but ...open your eyes... and wake up to reality. Most things are cheaper in other markets than Australia and other backwaters of the world.

The issue is you expect something to occur without thinking about how it can be possible, you expect something to occur without having any actual internal information about the company's overheads.

Restructuring to cut your overheads is a large overhead in itself.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 n0t_u wrote:

 44Ronin wrote:

 Yonan wrote:

 44Ronin wrote:
Privateer Press isn't running an Import company, warehouse and national chain of retail stores.

Think before posting eh? But then again, rage is irrational

/facepalm

If none of those things result in a better product/service, GW should cancel them. To not do so is incompetence and to think otherwise is irrational.

It does, that's why GW rose to be on top.
Can say for a fact that GW staff have helped thousands of people learn to paint for FREE.

1. I'll give them credit for the odd good piece of advice here and there and setting people off on the path to learn, but they simply do not have the time nor workforce to teach people more than the very basics. Even less now with the one man stores, if they can still manage to that's actually pretty great.

They pioneered so many things, but now they are in the middle of market restructure. The ragers scream and cry "GW is stupppoood", but anyone who has worked in business will tell you that corporate restructure takes time and is painful. We are in the pain period. They will either restructure or die., simple as that.

2. Its easy to climb to the top of a hill in a race you are basically the only person in. They got where they were here because of their stores because it gave them presence; they have to adapt to realise they now have competition or they could just fall off.

There always was competition for GW, even in the nineties. It's just that the competition had little appeal in comparison as you say. The stores pushed them above all else. Things changed. They need time to restructure from a clear identity crisis.

Have we found the white knight?

44Ronin wrote:The issue is you expect something to occur without thinking about how it can be possible, you expect something to occur without having any actual internal information about the company's overheads

Which brings up the questions:
- Is there overhead legitimately high enough to warrant the inflated prices?
- If so, why is there overhead that high when their competition's overhead clearly isn't?
- What incentive, as a consumer, do I have to support their business in Australia when it is more efficient to buy overseas and have it shipped here?
- What are they doing to fix this problem?

 captain bloody fists wrote:
Have we found the white knight?

I have my suspicions...

 PrinceRaven wrote:

 captain bloody fists wrote:
Have we found the white knight?

I have my suspicions...

Ad hominem in lieu of dealing with realities.

Lets compare living wages U.S vs Australia? No you're not interested in that!

Let's talk about overheads. Nope.

Let's talk about market restructure. Nope.

I did notice that despite all the wailing and gnashing of teeth, that aus was the only territory to sell out of the ltd edition rulebook.

Obviously prices were to low so expect further adjustments shortly

How many limited editions were allocated to Australia?

 PrinceRaven wrote:
How many limited editions were allocated to Australia?

I wouldn't think that many actually. What is there "1000" copies worldwide? So maybe 100-200?

SeanDrake wrote:
I did notice that despite all the wailing and gnashing of teeth, that aus was the only territory to sell out of the ltd edition rulebook.

Obviously prices were to low so expect further adjustments shortly

That entirely depends how many they released here, other limited editions I've seen linger on the Australian site long after they've vanished from the US and UK ones. I think it was Dark Vengeance limited that was still on the Oz store for a long time? Since then they probably don't give Australia too many limited editions any more, it's not great marketing to have a stack of limited editions you can't sell because there's not enough people crazy enough to pay the absurd amounts for them.

 44Ronin wrote:

 n0t_u wrote:
1. I'll give them credit for the odd good piece of advice here and there and setting people off on the path to learn, but they simply do not have the time nor workforce to teach people more than the very basics. Even less now with the one man stores, if they can still manage to that's actually pretty great.

They pioneered so many things, but now they are in the middle of market restructure. The ragers scream and cry "GW is stupppoood", but anyone who has worked in business will tell you that corporate restructure takes time and is painful. We are in the pain period. They will either restructure or die., simple as that.

2. Its easy to climb to the top of a hill in a race you are basically the only person in. They got where they were here because of their stores because it gave them presence; they have to adapt to realise they now have competition or they could just fall off.

There always was competition for GW, even in the nineties. It's just that the competition had little appeal in comparison as you say. The stores pushed them above all else. Things changed. They need time to restructure from a clear identity crisis.

And this is something they can't drag their feet with, with the current way their competitors are moving fast they seem to be moving a bit too slow to adjust to them. Maybe pride kept them the way they were for a while; who knows but it certainly isn't doing them many favours at the moment if it did.

-Loki- wrote:You see, the great thing about any other wargame company over here is we don't need to resort to back alley deals with people on facebook to get a reasonable price.

We just buy the stuff from our FLGS or online retailer of choice.

I hear you, but I want to paint space marines and relive my wasted youth, as cheap as possible

 ruprecht wrote:
I got the following reply from my store today:

Hi
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. I passed on your concerns and have received the following response:

Good morning Andrew
Thank you for passing on your customers concerns.
Pricing for all countries are given to us by our UK parent company.
They take into consideration many factors such as,
Cost of labour in every country
Cost of shop rentals and outgoings in every company
Cost of services in every country eg electricity water etc
Cost of insurances in every country
Costs of living in every country
It should be noted that for 2 years in a row now the rest of the world have had significant price rises where as oz and NZ have had 2 years of zero increases
These are some of the variables that go into cost of goods decided on for every country from the UK
Cheers
Ken'


Having been in the Hobby for 30 yrs and seen what it was like without GW presence; Having worked for GW for more than 11 years on my last tour and following a 6 year break returned in January to run the store; I can say that without our current price structure for Australia, the reality would be that store's like [store] and people like myself wouldn't be part of providing Hobby Support here in Australia.

I also remember the days when there was no GW presence in the country, and we had to order everything from the UK, so I do appreciate having the stores. And while I appreciate the response, all of the above costs are operating expenses, with the exception of "cost of living" which is as far as I can see shorthand for "they are used to paying high prices, so let's charge high prices too". And it doesn't explain the gouging on digital products, which are a separate division and involve none of those operating expenses.

Anyone able to fact check the "no price increases in 2 years" claim?

To the annual report, to see what I can see.

Australia is not in a Recession. The rest of the world is suffering, and the AU and NZ are not. They are actually expanding their markets.

But Tony Abbott told me our economy is DOOMED! And I believed him despite all evidence to the contrary.

I would develop contacts in other countries and just abuse the cost of of money transfers as much as possible myself to save yourselves some cash. Kick the guy a few bills as thanks and you walk away with a better deal and in the current pricing I would say a bloody fine bargain.

 44Ronin wrote:

 PrinceRaven wrote:
If they are unable to have a sustainable business in Australia without price gouging while other miniature wargame companies can, then somewhere along the line they have failed.

It would help if you knew what "price gouging" actually was.

"Price gouging is a pejorative term referring to a situation in which a seller prices goods or commodities at a level much higher than is considered reasonable or fair." That is the exact term to describe the situation.

 Yonan wrote:

 44Ronin wrote:

 PrinceRaven wrote:
If they are unable to have a sustainable business in Australia without price gouging while other miniature wargame companies can, then somewhere along the line they have failed.

It would help if you knew what "price gouging" actually was.

"Price gouging is a pejorative term referring to a situation in which a seller prices goods or commodities at a level much higher than is considered reasonable or fair." That is the exact term to describe the situation.

In your (irrational) opinion.,....

Do you have all the facts?

GW does not have a monopoly on miniatures does it now?

Apart from illegal Chinese recasts, they do, in fact, have the monopoly on Citadel miniatures.

 44Ronin wrote:

Lets compare living wages U.S vs Australia? No you're not interested in that!
Let's talk about overheads. Nope.
Let's talk about market restructure. Nope.

Actually we addressed the costs earlier in the thread using data from the 2012/13 annual report. The cost of operating a store is not substantially different from AU to US. But US sales are going up, and AU sales are going down, so the stores are less profitable in AU. And the more they drive prices up to compensate, the more we avail ourselves of import options. Which is imho the reason sales keep going down.

Also while the comparisons to other gaming companies are interesting, it's worth remembering that GW is the only one that is publicly listed (afaik) and in the iron grip of institutional shareholders.

 PrinceRaven wrote:
Apart from illegal Chinese recasts, they do, in fact, have the monopoly on Citadel miniatures.

We get it dude, you don't have enough money for an expensive habit.

No need to make silly posts.

 PrinceRaven wrote:

Which brings up the questions:
- Is there overhead legitimately high enough to warrant the inflated prices?
- If so, why is there overhead that high when their competition's overhead clearly isn't?
- What incentive, as a consumer, do I have to support their business in Australia when it is more efficient to buy overseas and have it shipped here?
- What are they doing to fix this problem?

Good questions. As far as I can see:
- the problem is not overheads/costs, but revenues. AU stores barely make a profit because of low sales per store compared to US.
- as above, overhead isn't the issue. Cost to operate an AU store is roughly the same as a US store. But maintaining 30+ storefronts costs more than simply shipping stock to FLGSes. No doubt this is a conscious decision to expand their customer base and continue to be the only tg timmies ever hear about.
- Unless you game at a store, or have one nearby for emergency purchases, none. This is the core of the Australian GW customer's dilemma.
- Visibly, not much. My local store is very proactive with events and such, but GW needs to do a lot more to up its local customer base. Right now they depend on walk-by traffic and word of mouth.

44Ronin wrote:No need to make silly posts.

I agree, so why are you making silly posts claiming GW doesn't have a monopoly when it clearly does?

ruprecht wrote:Good questions. As far as I can see:
- the problem is not overheads/costs, but revenues. AU stores barely make a profit because of low sales per store compared to US.
- as above, overhead isn't the issue. Cost to operate an AU store is roughly the same as a US store. But maintaining 30+ storefronts costs more than simply shipping stock to FLGSes. No doubt this is a conscious decision to expand their customer base and continue to be the only tg timmies ever hear about.
- Unless you game at a store, or have one nearby for emergency purchases, none. This is the core of the Australian GW customer's dilemma.
- Visibly, not much. My local store is very proactive with events and such, but GW needs to do a lot more to up its local customer base. Right now they depend on walk-by traffic and word of mouth.

So as I've stated previosuly in this thread, the reason why they raise the prices so high is because people aren't buying because the prices are too high.

It would prob be cheaper in the long run to just move honestly. Once you add up ALL cost of living items, and compare it to the rest of the world that is.

The discussion should be framed around the initial reason prices being high here was because they were set that way back when it was $AU0.6 to $1US, and when the $AU gained ground (at max 1.1-1, now 0.92-1)... the price didn't change at all. Prices being sticky downwards and all that.

Initially when people didn't really realize it was no doubt a huge bounty for GW, making an extra 40% on each sale as they took the entire currency gain as extra profit over their usual margin with no loss in sales. People eventually wised up, thanks largely to the internet I imagine and so obviously people aren't that happy about the arrangement. The result is declining sales compared to other regions and a larger increase in the use of recasts and pirated products in Australia compared to elsewhere, which mirrors the effect in other industries where regional pricing is implemented.

Edit: From what I gather. I started near the end of fifth, after GW had locked down the EU exporting to Aus.

^ This here makes sense.

 PrinceRaven wrote:

44Ronin wrote:No need to make silly posts.

I agree, so why are you making silly posts claiming GW doesn't have a monopoly when it clearly does?

Talk about beating your head into the wall.

GW does not have a monopoly on miniatures.

Branding =/= monopoly. You clearly have zero understanding of business to even understand what is a monopoly.

I'm starting to think the average of IQ will go up when all the rage quitters actually quit as they so profusely promise and threaten..

 44Ronin wrote:
You clearly have zero understanding of business

If you honestly believe GW is pricing their product for the reasons given in their response emails, you don't either.

 PrinceRaven wrote:
So as I've stated previosuly in this thread, the reason why they raise the prices so high is because people aren't buying because the prices are too high.

This seems to be the crux of it. Up to a point, the revenues gained outweigh the sales lost. I would think that it's approaching the tipping point though.

I'll be very interested to read the 2013/14 annual report. GW turned a small AU loss in 2011/12 into a small AU profit in 2012/13 on reduced sales.

 Yonan wrote:

Orktavius wrote:
it's obvious there's some over markup but your not going to try and tell me there's no additional cost of business in Australia over America or Europe without eliciting a great deal of laughter. I believe the Adobe lawsuit was regarding a digital product was it not? Digital products should obviously be priced similarly to exchange rates....but physical product is obviously going to be marked up to higher shipping costs, overhead (IE paying employees in Australia and what not) and doubtless other factors like taxes or tarriffs on imported goods.

Is 50% to high? No doubt....but I'm betting not by as much as you think.

We can import items from overseas discounters, pay courier shipping and pay less than items are wholesaled for here by GW. You want laughter? It's directed exclusively at you for that ridiculous statement as the additional cost is so far below the current additional cost that it's hilarious you think otherwise. Other companies that aren't trying to price gouge manage to do it just fine.

Thanks. Now I don't need to type that very same post out.

 -Loki- wrote:

 44Ronin wrote:
You clearly have zero understanding of business

If you honestly believe GW is pricing their product for the reasons given in their response emails, you don't either.

Where did I ever claim this?

But please do enlighten us, why a publicly listed company would intentionally devalue it's stock, and for what benefit?