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.

I'd say you are right on the money there malus.
Over here we seem to have an explosion or car company ads that present product as luxury, strangely the adds seem to have 3 boxes to tick and that's all that's needed.
1. A model or 3
2. the product
3. music

 Bullockist wrote:

 Adam LongWalker wrote:

Finally all of you White Knights out there. Your precious little game at one time could have been mainstream. Could have taught the values of working with your hands and creating beautiful items without be cast typed as one of those trolls that live in the basement that has no life.

I still remember fondly the days when GW was trying to do this. I can still quote the ad for heroquest that was played during saturday morning cartoons, strange thing was, so could most of the kids from my school who had no interest in the game.
It was a missed opportunity to keep it going.
"fire of wrath"
"i'll use my broadsword"

More than 20 years on I still remember this, that's good marketing. How no marketing is better I will never know. Luxury branding is one thing, not advertising a luxury brand is another thing entirely. It's slowed. How are people supposed to know your goods are luxury items if you don't tell people they are?

Well, GW and Milton Bradley together....

My girlfriend's first fantasy game was Heroquest - she and her mother used to play it together. (And we all played it on Thanksgiving - I still own two boxes.)

I... miss those days.

The Auld Grump

 Sillycybin wrote:
Does anyone think this would be a good time to become involved in GW as a job? Would someone who understands the hobby side of things turn the company around?

Normally you don't board a sinking ship (even do it may take 2 years to sink)

 Adam LongWalker wrote:

Which is why that site is shrinking in popularity.

...

Finally all of you White Knights out there. Your precious little game at one time could have been mainstream. Could have taught the values of working with your hands and creating beautiful items without be cast typed as one of those trolls that live in the basement that has no life.

But the greed of your god emperor Kirby has made this impossible now. You missed your chance to have wargaming become mainstream like D&D did in the 80's.

So true. I remember that as late as the middle 00s, around these parts GW started to be fething everywhere. Many magazine stands carried White Dwarf, the Warhammer comics were at every train station book vendor, every regular book store had some Black Library novels, a lot of toy stores had a rack of GW boxes, and when you said you played Warhammer, your chances were good you'd get something else than a blank stare.

Naturally, all of this was undesirable and is gone now.

And the local GW store moved from a large store (that was expandable for events) in Vienna's oldest compartment store to a janitor's closet on the high street that you can barely see when walking by.

Yeah, everything's fine, no need to make a fuzz over the numbers.

 Allod wrote:

 Adam LongWalker wrote:

Which is why that site is shrinking in popularity.

...

Finally all of you White Knights out there. Your precious little game at one time could have been mainstream. Could have taught the values of working with your hands and creating beautiful items without be cast typed as one of those trolls that live in the basement that has no life.

But the greed of your god emperor Kirby has made this impossible now. You missed your chance to have wargaming become mainstream like D&D did in the 80's.

So true. I remember that as late as the middle 00s, around these parts GW started to be fething everywhere. Many magazine stands carried White Dwarf, the Warhammer comics were at every train station book vendor, every regular book store had some Black Library novels, a lot of toy stores had a rack of GW boxes, and when you said you played Warhammer, your chances were good you'd get something else than a blank stare.

Naturally, all of this was undesirable and is gone now.

It's been a deliberate branding decision by the company. The company has attempted to rebrand itself into a premium direction in response to the increase in competitors over the past 5-10 years (...and yes, the company is most likely very aware of the competition, despite publicly claiming that they "don't have any" - premium brands often make such claims in an attempt to further their own "unique, high quality" image of standing out from everyone else).
This coincides with their increase in prices, far more selective availability of product (you don't find them all over the place in bookstores or magazine stands anymore), limited edition product being pumped out, etc. These are all hallmark premium branding strategies. They even say it themselves: "We consciously and deliberately pursue a niche market model [...] We know that, for a niche like ours, people who are interested in collecting fantasy miniatures will choose the best quality and be prepared to pay what they are worth. [...] We make the best fantasy miniatures in the world"

Whether any of this has been executed correctly (or if it was even a smart strategy for GW to begin with) is a good question. I have a feeling this may have caused damage to the hobby in general.

The problem is that plastic toys are not premium brands however they try to spin it, most premium brands have a(n implied) status to it.
So if i wear ray-bans, Rolex's, expensive clothing, it may give of a status in the normal community. But in the gaming community GW has not that status
they think themselves of.

Yeah they could at least start doing characters in a real resin or back in metal rather than put more and more in plastic if they want to be taken seriously in the quality department.

 Baragash wrote:
... but any forum posts by Mr Mystery are bound to be.....irrelevant.

That kinda goes without saying, but I am interested to know how he might try and defend this. I mean, how does one spin a report like this and make it sound good (outside of Kirky double-speak and playing the victim).

It could have been worse. They pulled it back a bit in the second half, with 7th edition and so on.

Though like you I thought it was going to be better than it turned out.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
The problem is that plastic toys are not premium brands however they try to spin it, most premium brands have a(n implied) status to it.
So if i wear ray-bans, Rolex's, expensive clothing, it may give of a status in the normal community. But in the gaming community GW has not that status
they think themselves of.

I get what you mean, but in practice a premium brand doesn't necessarily refer to a product or service that adds social status. It's really just marketing lingo for a brand that adds more perceived value for a proportionately higher consumer cost. In pretty much every product and service field you can and do have competing "value flanking" and "premium" brands. Even in things like ice cream, or diapers. It's really just a differentiation strategy in marketing, but it's more heavily emphasized in brands that actually deliver increased social status as part of the value offering.

The issue with GW is not that it has attempted to become a premium brand. The issue is that GW executed it horribly. Too many price hikes, too fast. Cutting communication with consumers. Turning GW stores from real hobby centres to one-man sales points. Etc, etc.

I would not be surprised if most of GW's disgruntled ex-consumers would not have a problem with high product prices (within reason; I'm not talking about a £500 tactical squad) if the value was there: constant engagement with the community, balanced and playtested rules, WD mag with great content, a website with hobby articles & batreps that made you excited about the games, Gamesdays that worthy of their name, etc. Prices become a problem to the consumer when they don't feel like they are getting adequate value from the product (and also when they can simply no longer afford them). When you look at it from that perspective, GW isn't actually a premium brand at all; it's an expensive mediocre brand.

As someone who happily spends $100 on single 56 or 75mm metal and resin models just cos they are pretty I still have a problem with that. I'm happy to spend more if I see the value there, and being a good (or even just not gakky) company is part of that, but GW do need to step up the quality of their sculpts and get a 'premium' material to reach the point of being a 'premium' brand.

 chochky wrote:


The issue with GW is not that it has attempted to become a premium brand. The issue is that GW executed it horribly. Too many price hikes, too fast. Cutting communication with consumers. Turning GW stores from real hobby centres to one-man sales points. Etc, etc.
.

The biggest problem with establishing themselves as a premium brand is that the products are not good enough.
the do not make 'the best miniatures in the world' , and never have. In the '90's Confrontation eclipsed them as a range, now Corvus Belli produce models of consitantly higher quality, and I would suggest, having seen them now, that the Malifaux plastics are technically better use of the material than GWs production are capable of, even if the aesthetics of those are not nevessarily to my taste.

Perrys produce better line infantry at cheaper prices, McVey produce better quality, in sculpt and material, character models than GW do, I can buy a full limited edition resin character for £13 from McVey, or a plastic space marine for £18.

And then we come to the other part of the equation, rules. GWs rules are the worst Ive ever come across when it comes to actually playing a game. I've used homebrew concoctions from some guy at a club that offered a better and easier to follow gaming process and required less 'discussion' about what something means between players. And yet the rules are the most expensive in the entire industry.

Being a premium brand is not just putting the price up, you need a tangible lead over everything else, GW are just putting the prices up whilst there products slip further behind the leaders of the industry for quality.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It could have been worse. They pulled it back a bit in the second half, with 7th edition and so on.

Though like you I thought it was going to be better than it turned out.

Considering the sheer volume of releases in the last FY - about the only way it could have been worse is for GW to burn to the ground...though at least there, they are insured (Kirby told us as much...).

Seriously, they released a new edition of their flagship game...released a new edition of their flagship army (and 5 or 6 other Codices)...released dozens of supplements...new kits...and did some stuff with WFB and the Hobbit (though to be perfectly honest with those...I really don't know what). After all of that, the best they could do is manage not to go into debt.

Based off the sales data that was leaked from the CHS case, GW's sales are front loaded at roughly 50% of the total sales for the lifespan of the product. Most people who will ever buy it - but it within a month of its release (exceptions of course for exceptionally long lived core figures of course). GW knew this which is why they were releasing new products at a break neck speed. If they want to have anything like this year next year, they will need to continue to do those releases at that rate. To improve, they will need to increase the speed (though I do believe a big issue is they have tapped out most their consumers).

Of course, they could change their modus operandi to grow their customer base again...but there isn't any indication of that happening (either in actions...or in the management statements from the FY report). You also wouldn't see a quick return on that change, as they have managed to burn a lot of bridges over the past few years.

Sure, it is possible that their new webstore will pay for itself (unlikely - as since their first annual reports direct sales have gone from 9% to 13% with 4 different webstore designs). The cuts in manufacturing from the US might save them significantly (I would guess large portions of any savings will be eaten by increased shipping costs...not to mention labor rates in the UK versus Memphis - Memphis is cheap for labor). The shutting down of regional HQs will save a bit, but they will also need to spend more on oversight for their far flung operations and by their own estimations it will only save £2 million per year - not nearly enough to make up what they are down (and that is their own estimations...which based on what I have seen of estimates of cost savings - will likely not reflect reality). They might manage to have a blockbuster release in their licensed products - though from what I have seen of those...nothing really says DoW to me (the THQ royalties used to amount to 20-40% of their profits).

Just had a Facebook argument with someone that said GW is "too big to fail" and that bacause they are showing profit, there is no sign of them going down that road. I was about to fire back, then found out he works for GW. No point in arguing, he has his head in the sand. Also, I don't remember who said it but someone said that GW is tough because it survived the Regan years: sorry guy, economically the Regan years rocked.

NoggintheNog wrote:

 chochky wrote:


The issue with GW is not that it has attempted to become a premium brand. The issue is that GW executed it horribly. Too many price hikes, too fast. Cutting communication with consumers. Turning GW stores from real hobby centres to one-man sales points. Etc, etc.
.

The biggest problem with establishing themselves as a premium brand is that the products are not good enough.
the do not make 'the best miniatures in the world' , and never have. In the '90's Confrontation eclipsed them as a range, now Corvus Belli produce models of consitantly higher quality, and I would suggest, having seen them now, that the Malifaux plastics are technically better use of the material than GWs production are capable of, even if the aesthetics of those are not nevessarily to my taste.

Perrys produce better line infantry at cheaper prices, McVey produce better quality, in sculpt and material, character models than GW do, I can buy a full limited edition resin character for £13 from McVey, or a plastic space marine for £18.

And then we come to the other part of the equation, rules. GWs rules are the worst Ive ever come across when it comes to actually playing a game. I've used homebrew concoctions from some guy at a club that offered a better and easier to follow gaming process and required less 'discussion' about what something means between players. And yet the rules are the most expensive in the entire industry.

Being a premium brand is not just putting the price up, you need a tangible lead over everything else, GW are just putting the prices up whilst there products slip further behind the leaders of the industry for quality.

I agree with everything. They just don't deliver enough for the prices they charge and it's finally starting to bite them in the ass now.

 chochky wrote:

NoggintheNog wrote:

 chochky wrote:


The issue with GW is not that it has attempted to become a premium brand. The issue is that GW executed it horribly. Too many price hikes, too fast. Cutting communication with consumers. Turning GW stores from real hobby centres to one-man sales points. Etc, etc.
.

The biggest problem with establishing themselves as a premium brand is that the products are not good enough.
the do not make 'the best miniatures in the world' , and never have. In the '90's Confrontation eclipsed them as a range, now Corvus Belli produce models of consitantly higher quality, and I would suggest, having seen them now, that the Malifaux plastics are technically better use of the material than GWs production are capable of, even if the aesthetics of those are not nevessarily to my taste.

Perrys produce better line infantry at cheaper prices, McVey produce better quality, in sculpt and material, character models than GW do, I can buy a full limited edition resin character for £13 from McVey, or a plastic space marine for £18.

And then we come to the other part of the equation, rules. GWs rules are the worst Ive ever come across when it comes to actually playing a game. I've used homebrew concoctions from some guy at a club that offered a better and easier to follow gaming process and required less 'discussion' about what something means between players. And yet the rules are the most expensive in the entire industry.

Being a premium brand is not just putting the price up, you need a tangible lead over everything else, GW are just putting the prices up whilst there products slip further behind the leaders of the industry for quality.

I agree with everything. They just don't deliver enough for the prices they charge and it's finally starting to bite them in the ass now.

That's been the case for the past 10/15 years though. What changed in the past twelve months, when prices afaik barely rose at all?

Even if the price stays the same, the value can decreases if the quality of the product goes down. Poor(er) rules, less balance (Taudar was fun!) and the DLC flood all decrease the value of every product in the game for many people. Decreased value works similarly to a price increase in peoples purchasing decisions so yeah... less sales is the result.

GW seem to be confusing themselves with Forge World. It's Forge World that makes the premium models not GW. How can you call plastic production models "premium"? If that's the case people had better hang on to their "premium" Airfix and Tamiya models

Increased release pace is certainly a good thing, but they still need to seriously expand their customer base. Even if the product was perfect (which it exactly isn't), there still is a limit how much money the existing customers can spend, no matter how much GW releases. Their absolute refusal to market their product is bizarre. If you already aren't a GW customer, how you're even going to learn their games exist? Randomly walking into a GW store may work in UK, but not in the rest of the world they're much scarcer. A gateway boxed game (in style of Hero Quest or Space Crusade) sold in big chain stores, attending industry events such as Gen Con, and trying to maintain some online presence outside their own website arel all things that would surely yield results with relatively little cost.

Even their idea of premium is delusional. They claim premium/luxury products, but it's a cheap material (plastic) that's mass produced and mass fielded.

Basically the opposite of premium and luxury. As many people have said in the past, the only thing luxury is the price tag. Warmahordes is technically more luxury than GW since a lot of their figures are a better quality (i.e. metal), tend to cost more for the same amount (see: Iron Fang Pikemen @ $85 for 10) and you tend to not run duplicates. Compare that to 40k where you tend to run mostly the same type of units with slight variation (e.g. 10 Marines w/Flamer + Missile Launcher here, 10 Marines w/Meltagun + Heavy Bolter there).

GW do have Eternal Crusade and Warhammer Total War coming out in a year or three.

Could they be pinning their base growing hopes on thst , maybe?

 Compel wrote:
GW do have Eternal Crusade and Warhammer Total War coming out in a year or three.

Could they be pinning their base growing hopes on thst , maybe?

I doubt either of those will be enough to make up for anything. Remember their biggest seller (7th edition) only helped to balance things out so they didn't go into debt, it didn't increase revenue nor sales. As cool as Warhammer Total War might be, I doubt it'll be anywhere near the magnitude of a new edition of their flagship game.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
... H.B.M.C et al will still be predicting the end of GW...

For months I've been predicting that this report would be good, and see a big turn-around in sales compared to the half-year statement. But no no, continue to put words into my mouth.

 tyrannosaurus wrote:
Or maybe we just have a 'toxic' community who seek to inflate any negativity?

Or maybe we don't have our heads in the clouds drinking the GW cool-aid. And you're the one who entered the thread calling this discussion a "circle jerk", so maybe look carefully at the glass house you're in before you start throwing rocks.

 Daedleh wrote:
Business and Data Analyst for a major UK bank here.

No you're not. You're just a hater participating in circle jerk inside a toxic community! If you don't like GW, then stop playing 40K. How can you criticise a business for wanting to make money?

There. Now I've summed up the (so-called) "counter-arguments" to everything you've said, we can get back on track.

In my defence, I mentioned your name because it was one of the few that sprung to mind. It was wayshuba's name that I meant to use. I didn't have time to think it out properly because I had something on the cooker, golden eagles were attacking me, a running bath was in danger of overflowing...anybody buying this?

It could have been worse. Before I edited the post, I misspelt your name H M B C


Anyway, back on topic.

Some of the solutions to GW's woes that have been discussed, don't sound as though they would turn the ship around. Didn't they have to shut down their FB page, forums etc because they were getting to much abuse/legal problems?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wolfstan wrote:
GW seem to be confusing themselves with Forge World. It's Forge World that makes the premium models not GW. How can you call plastic production models "premium"? If that's the case people had better hang on to their "premium" Airfix and Tamiya models

You dare disrespect Airfix?

I'm willing to bet Airfix will probably outlive GW. Any takers?

When you have complaints from your customers, you don't run away from them. You answer them.

GW shut down their FB page, IIRC, because they had people insulting them over the Spots the Space Marine debacle (and rightly so). And I assume the typical prices are too high, balance your game type of complaints as well. But mostly because they were exposed for trying to bully a smalltime author writing a book for charity.

I think the core things that people are missing are:

- There is more legitimate competition now for miniature games that in previous years. Warmahordes, X-wing, Attack Wing and many other games now give people options for playing miniature games.

- The barrier to entry is extremely steep. More so when compared to the competition.

- GW has a contentiousness relationship with most of their independent retailers. This means retailers are unlikely to push GW product over other products unless they are devoted fans.

- Rules are pathetic, meaning people may drop the game or not even pick it up if it's confusing for them to play without hand holding.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

You dare disrespect Airfix?

I'm willing to bet Airfix will probably outlive GW. Any takers?

Airfix has been bankrupt, what, twice? I don't think the present "Airfix" has anything to do with the old, except the molds which were moved to China.

Model kit hobby as a whole is, unfortunately, doing even worse than GW. Shame, because nowadays there are more and better models available than ever.

KommissarKarl wrote:

Spoiler:

 chochky wrote:

NoggintheNog wrote:

 chochky wrote:


The issue with GW is not that it has attempted to become a premium brand. The issue is that GW executed it horribly. Too many price hikes, too fast. Cutting communication with consumers. Turning GW stores from real hobby centres to one-man sales points. Etc, etc.
.

The biggest problem with establishing themselves as a premium brand is that the products are not good enough.
the do not make 'the best miniatures in the world' , and never have. In the '90's Confrontation eclipsed them as a range, now Corvus Belli produce models of consitantly higher quality, and I would suggest, having seen them now, that the Malifaux plastics are technically better use of the material than GWs production are capable of, even if the aesthetics of those are not nevessarily to my taste.

Perrys produce better line infantry at cheaper prices, McVey produce better quality, in sculpt and material, character models than GW do, I can buy a full limited edition resin character for £13 from McVey, or a plastic space marine for £18.

And then we come to the other part of the equation, rules. GWs rules are the worst Ive ever come across when it comes to actually playing a game. I've used homebrew concoctions from some guy at a club that offered a better and easier to follow gaming process and required less 'discussion' about what something means between players. And yet the rules are the most expensive in the entire industry.

Being a premium brand is not just putting the price up, you need a tangible lead over everything else, GW are just putting the prices up whilst there products slip further behind the leaders of the industry for quality.

I agree with everything. They just don't deliver enough for the prices they charge and it's finally starting to bite them in the ass now.

That's been the case for the past 10/15 years though. What changed in the past twelve months, when prices afaik barely rose at all?

The rules prices were jacked up. In the past 12 months, they went from putting out a single $50 codex in a wave to putting out a $50 codex, an additional $50 sub-codex, and other additional data slates and DLC they're also charging for. 12 months before that (roughly), they went from charging $33 for a codex to $50 for a codex. Also in that timeframe, they've also charged $75 for a rulebook at was made obsolete and replaced by a not-so-different $85 rulebook, and blatantly broke up the content in a way that they could have sold just the rules at to all their existing players for a lower price, but instead they flipped their customers the bird and attempted to force them to re-buy fluff content they knew damn well wouldn't sell on its own.

It's pretty obvious to most consumers what they're doing. If the content in the rules and codices was fantastic, fun, and well written, a lot of people probably still wouldn't bat an eye. The issue is that, from a gaming perspective, the content is lousy. Codices aren't balanced internally or with each other. The rules are unclear, a fact that's even more blindingly obvious if you branch out from GW and try a different game. And the game takes forever to play and yet doesn't really feel like it comes down to much more that what army list you took and what dice rolls you made; rarely does it feel like your tactical decisions have a solid impact on the game.

So, to answer your question, I contend that the attempted cash grab of hundreds of dollars from every player for lousy rules is what's escalated over the past 12-24 months and consequently what's escalated their decline in player base and sales.

KommissarKarl wrote:

 chochky wrote:

NoggintheNog wrote:

 chochky wrote:


The issue with GW is not that it has attempted to become a premium brand. The issue is that GW executed it horribly. Too many price hikes, too fast. Cutting communication with consumers. Turning GW stores from real hobby centres to one-man sales points. Etc, etc.
.

The biggest problem with establishing themselves as a premium brand is that the products are not good enough.
the do not make 'the best miniatures in the world' , and never have. In the '90's Confrontation eclipsed them as a range, now Corvus Belli produce models of consitantly higher quality, and I would suggest, having seen them now, that the Malifaux plastics are technically better use of the material than GWs production are capable of, even if the aesthetics of those are not nevessarily to my taste.

Perrys produce better line infantry at cheaper prices, McVey produce better quality, in sculpt and material, character models than GW do, I can buy a full limited edition resin character for £13 from McVey, or a plastic space marine for £18.

And then we come to the other part of the equation, rules. GWs rules are the worst Ive ever come across when it comes to actually playing a game. I've used homebrew concoctions from some guy at a club that offered a better and easier to follow gaming process and required less 'discussion' about what something means between players. And yet the rules are the most expensive in the entire industry.

Being a premium brand is not just putting the price up, you need a tangible lead over everything else, GW are just putting the prices up whilst there products slip further behind the leaders of the industry for quality.

I agree with everything. They just don't deliver enough for the prices they charge and it's finally starting to bite them in the ass now.

That's been the case for the past 10/15 years though. What changed in the past twelve months, when prices afaik barely rose at all?

Prices have risen quite dramatically in the last year or so, but it's less obvious because it's no longer the old June price rise where already existing units get a price bump. Now it's big kits at unprecedented price levels, like the Wraithknight and Imperial Knight, as well as other new, smaller, units with very high prices, such as SM Librarians, Flash Gitz and Mek Gunz. In addition, 6th introduced a 50% price increase on codexes with hardbacks.

Without even taking the prices of new units into account, the pricing structure makes the barrier to entry very high. If you're looking to get into 40k, you'll need the rules book (£50), a codex (£30), a battleforce (£70), and a hobby starter kit (£45), and you've reached almost £200 and you can just about scrape together a 300 point force for some introductory games to learn the ropes. This isn't super good for recruiting new customers. Especially when combined with two other factors:

1. GW shops are located 'off the beaten track.' That's a quote from the report, btw. How are new potential customers supposed to find out about GW products? It's not like they advertise.

2. Competitors are starting to get organized. Warmachine is growing, and has reached the point where they have a presence in most independent retailers across the globe. So, if you're introduced to GW at your local comic book shop, you'll also be introduced to Warmachine, and will be able to compare value between the two. You'll be able to see the Warmachine guys pushing a couple hundred bucks around the table, and the 40k guys pushing closer to a thousand. The latter is pretty daunting for someone who's just seen some cool models that might make for a good hobby.

Up until about five years ago or so, GW was very dominant in most of the places where you would get introduced to the hobby. Other games were usually fringe. Now, it's often an even choice, or sometimes GW might even be the weird fringe game where oddballs with more money than sense sometimes occupy a corner in the gaming area.

In addition to all this, GW's pricing strategy is also problematic with their own customers. Not only because people moan about it being too expensive, but mostly because they have very few products available in shops that are good for impulse buys. Back in the day, I'd rarely leave my local shop without a new blister pack. What now? I'm obviously not picking up a Stompa on a whim every couple of weeks, and not glue either, despite how quick those blasted things dry up. So, my impulse purchases have pretty much dried up. And they haven't been replaced by more spending on planned purchases either.

Now, obviously, this is just anecdotal to me, and and isn't proof of GW's inevitable downfall. But it shows that their business and pricing strategies are not driving up sales. After all, there is a reason why other businesses have sales, have potential impulse buys taking up shelf space, try to retain old customers and recruit new, and why they base their prices on their direct competition.

KommissarKarl wrote:I agree with everything. They just don't deliver enough for the prices they charge and it's finally starting to bite them in the ass now.

That's been the case for the past 10/15 years though. What changed in the past twelve months, when prices afaik barely rose at all?