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Was just poking around and am quite surprised by the prices I'm seeing for the sealed Age of Sigmar starter set. A few U.S. sellers on Amazon/eBay seem to have it for just about $70, which is getting close to 50% off! And it looks like there's tons of stock in the $80 to $90 range if those are just flukes, which is still under the ~$100 I was expecting to see them going for.

Any idea why this might be?

In some places AoS did not have a good start, so retailers want to sell them to get even a bit of money back.

This starter set is different from other starter sets in that the rules were provided separately for free. Normally, you'd have a choice... purchase the starter set for ~120 USD or purchase the hardback rules for ~75 USD. Many people were willing to kick in the extra ~45 USD and get a ton of models, even if they didn't really want the models.

Now, the choice is between the starter set for ~120 USD or download the rules for free. That's a much easier decision for people who aren't really into the models. Effectively, the current starter set only appeals to Stormcast Eternal or Khorne Bloodbound players. Previous starter sets appealed to everyone.

I think many retailers assumed this starter set would appeal to everyone and stocked up accordingly. When it didn't sell as well as they'd hoped, some of them started offloading at a discount to get their cash flow back. I know I bought two sets at ~75 USD each where the retailer was just trying to cover his costs.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Makumba wrote:
In some places AoS did not have a good start, so retailers want to sell them to get even a bit of money back.

It's important to differentiate between AoS not having a good start and the starter set not selling well. The rules are free and many people already own models. When 8th was released, every player either had to purchase the starter set or hardback just to play, regardless of whether or not they owned existing models. With AoS, if you already owned models, you didn't have to buy anything. The rules were free, so there was literally no cost of entry for existing fantasy players.

It is a fallacy to say low sell through rate for the new starter set equals AoS not having a good start. You could potentially say that a low sell through rate means that local community just didn't have a lot of Stormcast/Bloodbound players.

Or online retailers are cutting each others throats...

 Kriswall wrote:

It's important to differentiate between AoS not having a good start and the starter set not selling well. The rules are free and many people already own models. When 8th was released, every player either had to purchase the starter set or hardback just to play, regardless of whether or not they owned existing models. With AoS, if you already owned models, you didn't have to buy anything. The rules were free, so there was literally no cost of entry for existing fantasy players.

It is a fallacy to say low sell through rate for the new starter set equals AoS not having a good start. You could potentially say that a low sell through rate means that local community just didn't have a lot of Stormcast/Bloodbound players.

If the starter doesn't sell well most of the value and, ahem, effort GW put into their books goes to waste. I find it hard to believe that people that want stormcast will pass on the starter in favour of the much more expensive single kits. IMO if the starter fails it will speak very ill for the sales of the other new kits released.

On the topic on hand - online retailers often offer good offers, especially in pre-release compared to those on GW's site. They're already getting the stuff with some of price off. 25% off is an usual reduction but even 40% doesn't strike me as very odd if one wants to draw attention to the store.

A lot of people probably downloaded the rules to play with non-GW models or their existing WHFB armies.

In this way, the game can get a good start but simultaneously not sell well.

The question is whether these cheap places have got the other stuff cheap as well, which might meant they aren't selling those well either.

Based on the conversations I've had with a variety of retailers, it seems that it's more just recouping cash flow and shelf space. Buying product from the a manufacturer and letting it sit on your shelf forever is a bad investment. You're almost always better off selling the product - sometimes even at a loss - to free up the cash and buy something else that WILL sell and make you some money.

Online retailers still need to make a profit. They just tend to have less overhead and are willing to take a lower profit margin. If they stocked up big time on this product, they might be willing to take less or no profit just to move the product along.

One of the worst things you can do as a retailer is sit on product that isn't selling. At that point, you're not a retailer... you're just paying rent to store stuff.

Interesting - thanks for the thoughts everyone!

The models didn't wow me at first, but are definitely growing on me at this price point... Does the starter set include the scenarios/information about the realms/fluff, or is that only in the big book?

coelomate wrote:
Interesting - thanks for the thoughts everyone!

The models didn't wow me at first, but are definitely growing on me at this price point... Does the starter set include the scenarios/information about the realms/fluff, or is that only in the big book?

That's in the big book. The starter includes the core rules, war scrolls for all of the included models and some Battle Plans (scenarios) exclusive to the starter set. The Battle Plans are designed to work with the included models. The two big books each have more rules for playing games in the different Realms and additional Battle Plans. The big books are more campaign related and have Battle Plans relating to the described battles and include rules for playing in different realms. There is not yet (and may never be) one comprehensive "big book" with all of the rules and background lore for every faction. I think we're more likely to see Battle Tomes for each army (sort of like an optional army book) and Campaign Books with extra battle plans and what not that feature a handful of factions.

 Kriswall wrote:
Based on the conversations I've had with a variety of retailers, it seems that it's more just recouping cash flow and shelf space. Buying product from the a manufacturer and letting it sit on your shelf forever is a bad investment. You're almost always better off selling the product - sometimes even at a loss - to free up the cash and buy something else that WILL sell and make you some money.

Online retailers still need to make a profit. They just tend to have less overhead and are willing to take a lower profit margin. If they stocked up big time on this product, they might be willing to take less or no profit just to move the product along.

One of the worst things you can do as a retailer is sit on product that isn't selling. At that point, you're not a retailer... you're just paying rent to store stuff.

Exactly this. I was speaking to one of the vendors at NOVA this year, as he was selling the starter for only $90 (which blew my mind, that's what, almost 60% off?). Well, turns out he had purchased nearly 100 of the boxes from GW, so with that discount they were practically flying off the shelves (he brought 5 to NOVA itself and I believe there was only 1 left after my buddy grabbed one on day 2) so the high volume made up for the low profit.

I'm curious how many stores are actually restocking their AoS starters and what kind of sales the non starters are seeing. I know locally none of the stores, not even my local GW store from the looks of it, have had to restock the core book and I haven't seen anything else sell.

My LGS usually has at least 3-4 always in stock, but I think that some people waited to see what else was going to be released and then choked when they saw what GW was charging for the boxed sets of 5 models.

Personally, I bought the starter because I like the Stormcast Eternal models and it was a heck of a deal. I will not buy the $50-$60 ranged box sets for any other models - if I really want to flesh out the Stormcast more, I'll just buy more starter models on ebay. However, because I can field my Bretonnians with the Stormcast Eternals, I con't see ever needing to buy more models from GW.

GW really dropped the ball here - if they had only priced those 5 man Stormcast Eternal boxes at around $35 each, then I think they'd be flying off the shelves and AoS would have redeemed the fantasy line, as it is, I feel like GW just pulled themselves out of one toilet only to be flushed down the next.

Azeroth wrote:
My LGS usually has at least 3-4 always in stock, but I think that some people waited to see what else was going to be released and then choked when they saw what GW was charging for the boxed sets of 5 models.

Personally, I bought the starter because I like the Stormcast Eternal models and it was a heck of a deal. I will not buy the $50-$60 ranged box sets for any other models - if I really want to flesh out the Stormcast more, I'll just buy more starter models on ebay. However, because I can field my Bretonnians with the Stormcast Eternals, I con't see ever needing to buy more models from GW.

GW really dropped the ball here - if they had only priced those 5 man Stormcast Eternal boxes at around $35 each, then I think they'd be flying off the shelves and AoS would have redeemed the fantasy line, as it is, I feel like GW just pulled themselves out of one toilet only to be flushed down the next.

It all comes down to math and basic economics. For any given price point, there will be an equilibrium demand quantity. Let's pretend like you can sell 1,000 units at $50 OR 2,000 units at $35. Let's further say that the set costs $25 to manufacture.

$50 price point... you sell 1,000 units and make $25,000 dollars. ($50,000 revenue from selling 1,000 units at $50 each less 25,000 cost of goods sold from producing 1,000 units at $25 each)

$35 price point... you sell 2,000 units and make $20,000 dollars. ($70,000 revenue from selling 2,000 units at $35 each less 50,000 cost of goods sold from producing 2,000 units at $25 each)

This is a pretty generalized example, but as a company, which scenario would you rather have? I'd rather raise the prices and make more money by selling fewer units at a higher profit margin. Sometimes you can have lower revenue (declining sales) but improved profit. The rent man doesn't care about your revenue. He does care about your profit since you pay your bills with your profit.

The guessing game comes into play in that you generally don't know how many units you'll sell at different price points. Sometimes reducing prices increase overall profit. Sometimes increasing prices increase overall profit. There is a sweet spot, but it tends to change based on a number of factors... including what other competitors are doing, where in the world you're selling, general economic conditions, etc. By reading their financial reports, it looks on the surface like GW isn't great at 'guessing' the 'best' price.

 Kriswall wrote:

Azeroth wrote:
My LGS usually has at least 3-4 always in stock, but I think that some people waited to see what else was going to be released and then choked when they saw what GW was charging for the boxed sets of 5 models.

Personally, I bought the starter because I like the Stormcast Eternal models and it was a heck of a deal. I will not buy the $50-$60 ranged box sets for any other models - if I really want to flesh out the Stormcast more, I'll just buy more starter models on ebay. However, because I can field my Bretonnians with the Stormcast Eternals, I con't see ever needing to buy more models from GW.

GW really dropped the ball here - if they had only priced those 5 man Stormcast Eternal boxes at around $35 each, then I think they'd be flying off the shelves and AoS would have redeemed the fantasy line, as it is, I feel like GW just pulled themselves out of one toilet only to be flushed down the next.

It all comes down to math and basic economics. For any given price point, there will be an equilibrium demand quantity. Let's pretend like you can sell 1,000 units at $50 OR 2,000 units at $35. Let's further say that the set costs $25 to manufacture.

$50 price point... you sell 1,000 units and make $25,000 dollars. ($50,000 revenue from selling 1,000 units at $50 each less 25,000 cost of goods sold from producing 1,000 units at $25 each)

$35 price point... you sell 2,000 units and make $20,000 dollars. ($70,000 revenue from selling 2,000 units at $35 each less 50,000 cost of goods sold from producing 2,000 units at $25 each)

This is a pretty generalized example, but as a company, which scenario would you rather have? I'd rather raise the prices and make more money by selling fewer units at a higher profit margin. Sometimes you can have lower revenue (declining sales) but improved profit. The rent man doesn't care about your revenue. He does care about your profit since you pay your bills with your profit.

The guessing game comes into play in that you generally don't know how many units you'll sell at different price points. Sometimes reducing prices increase overall profit. Sometimes increasing prices increase overall profit. There is a sweet spot, but it tends to change based on a number of factors... including what other competitors are doing, where in the world you're selling, general economic conditions, etc. By reading their financial reports, it looks on the surface like GW isn't great at 'guessing' the 'best' price.

But this is just TOO basic sense of business and culculation...

As a Marketing Manger for years, I would say in the new product launch phase, you need to give away a lot of profit to make the conversion a copelling event, which means customers find no reason not buying it.
Also your culculation of cost is totally wrong. Cost of figures heavily lies in fix cost like designer, advertisement, factories rent, machines maintanance and official store rent. The plastic is with no worth. So when the sales volume goes up, average cost will go down dramaticaly.
Finally, board game is typical industry with scale effect. The more people playing and talking about this, the better promotion effect it has. In other words, if the price is 35 maybe not 2000 sets are sold but 5000.

I cannot see any good reason that GW is doing things like they are... I would consider it as 'lack of marketing common sense'.
But as the Total War Warhammer, which has a perfect synergy effect with the game is still based on Fantasy, I can say GW REALLY doesn't have any experience in marketing.

Aeonotakist wrote:

 Kriswall wrote:

Azeroth wrote:
My LGS usually has at least 3-4 always in stock, but I think that some people waited to see what else was going to be released and then choked when they saw what GW was charging for the boxed sets of 5 models.

Personally, I bought the starter because I like the Stormcast Eternal models and it was a heck of a deal. I will not buy the $50-$60 ranged box sets for any other models - if I really want to flesh out the Stormcast more, I'll just buy more starter models on ebay. However, because I can field my Bretonnians with the Stormcast Eternals, I con't see ever needing to buy more models from GW.

GW really dropped the ball here - if they had only priced those 5 man Stormcast Eternal boxes at around $35 each, then I think they'd be flying off the shelves and AoS would have redeemed the fantasy line, as it is, I feel like GW just pulled themselves out of one toilet only to be flushed down the next.

It all comes down to math and basic economics. For any given price point, there will be an equilibrium demand quantity. Let's pretend like you can sell 1,000 units at $50 OR 2,000 units at $35. Let's further say that the set costs $25 to manufacture.

$50 price point... you sell 1,000 units and make $25,000 dollars. ($50,000 revenue from selling 1,000 units at $50 each less 25,000 cost of goods sold from producing 1,000 units at $25 each)

$35 price point... you sell 2,000 units and make $20,000 dollars. ($70,000 revenue from selling 2,000 units at $35 each less 50,000 cost of goods sold from producing 2,000 units at $25 each)

This is a pretty generalized example, but as a company, which scenario would you rather have? I'd rather raise the prices and make more money by selling fewer units at a higher profit margin. Sometimes you can have lower revenue (declining sales) but improved profit. The rent man doesn't care about your revenue. He does care about your profit since you pay your bills with your profit.

The guessing game comes into play in that you generally don't know how many units you'll sell at different price points. Sometimes reducing prices increase overall profit. Sometimes increasing prices increase overall profit. There is a sweet spot, but it tends to change based on a number of factors... including what other competitors are doing, where in the world you're selling, general economic conditions, etc. By reading their financial reports, it looks on the surface like GW isn't great at 'guessing' the 'best' price.

But this is just TOO basic sense of business and culculation...

As a Marketing Manger for years, I would say in the new product launch phase, you need to give away a lot of profit to make the conversion a copelling event, which means customers find no reason not buying it.
Also your culculation of cost is totally wrong. Cost of figures heavily lies in fix cost like designer, advertisement, factories rent, machines maintanance and official store rent. The plastic is with no worth. So when the sales volume goes up, average cost will go down dramaticaly.
Finally, board game is typical industry with scale effect. The more people playing and talking about this, the better promotion effect it has. In other words, if the price is 35 maybe not 2000 sets are sold but 5000.

I cannot see any good reason that GW is doing things like they are... I would consider it as 'lack of marketing common sense'.
But as the Total War Warhammer, which has a perfect synergy effect with the game is still based on Fantasy, I can say GW REALLY doesn't have any experience in marketing.

Oh, I'm very aware that my example was extremely basic. I was considering the audience. I also worked in marketing/sales and now work in banking. I definitely understand the ins and outs of a practical example. My main goal was just to point out that "LOWER DA PRICES!!! GW IZ DUM" isn't always the correct answer.

I do suspect strongly that they'd sell a lot more units at a lower price, increasing both revenue and profit. Then again, this is a niche business. We like to think we're this giant juggernaut composed of millions upon millions of gamers, but the reality is that we rate less shelf space in a Walmart or Target than a 112 year old board game (Monopoly). I often wonder how GW would be marketed by some company like Bandai. Bandai makes model kits that have to be clipped out and assembled and that can be bought at Barnes and Noble alongside games like X-Wing, Zombicide and those DnD Miniature 'Board Games'. They sell tons of these things. If you've never assembled one, the sprues come in multiple colors (sometimes multiple colors on the same sprue), don't need glue for assembly and don't really need paint. The models are fully pose-able after assembly. If you want, you can glue and paint them. Honestly, they make GW kits look like super old tech. AND... they're significantly cheaper for what you're getting. I'd buy pre-colored, easy to assemble and pose-able models in a heartbeat.

As a person who works at a store that deals with GW and selling their product i'll give you some insight.

You buy AoS kits around $68 or so per unit. If stores are selling around $70 already, they are idiots. No matter what GW says, their stuff isn't ever going to be the "fly off the shelf" kinda product. We have had products from the 40k line for years that eventually sell.

GW pushed really hard on 3rd party stores to buy lots of starters. Want a early demo copy? Buy 80 units of the starter! You get about 5 or 6 per case so imagine how much room that takes up in your back stock. Very few game stores have the storage for that. Those who decided to do that, probably are regretting having that many.

The biggest mistake they made however, is they released their product on a pre-release weekend for Magic the Gathering. I don't know how popular MTG is outside of the U.S, but your comparing lions to kittens if you pit Wizards vs GW in the ring as businesses.

@matthewp - the store I picked up my AoS from had a giant 40k sale concurrent with the MtG launch. At midnight, everything from GW was buy 1 @ 25% off, buy 2nd of equal or lesser value at 50% off. They sold a lot of stuff -- and to MtG players who just happened to be there, too!

 Talys wrote:
@matthewp - the store I picked up my AoS from had a giant 40k sale concurrent with the MtG launch. At midnight, everything from GW was buy 1 @ 25% off, buy 2nd of equal or lesser value at 50% off. They sold a lot of stuff -- and to MtG players who just happened to be there, too!

Yea, there is some stores that have that ability, but they are more sparse then you may think. Also remember that stores are only marking GW products around 40-50 percent profit. So they are pretty much selling you a 2nd item at cost. Unless they have some sort of larger bulk program that offers better merchant level sales I'm unaware of.

 Kriswall wrote:

Aeonotakist wrote:

 Kriswall wrote:

Azeroth wrote:
My LGS usually has at least 3-4 always in stock, but I think that some people waited to see what else was going to be released and then choked when they saw what GW was charging for the boxed sets of 5 models.

Personally, I bought the starter because I like the Stormcast Eternal models and it was a heck of a deal. I will not buy the $50-$60 ranged box sets for any other models - if I really want to flesh out the Stormcast more, I'll just buy more starter models on ebay. However, because I can field my Bretonnians with the Stormcast Eternals, I con't see ever needing to buy more models from GW.

GW really dropped the ball here - if they had only priced those 5 man Stormcast Eternal boxes at around $35 each, then I think they'd be flying off the shelves and AoS would have redeemed the fantasy line, as it is, I feel like GW just pulled themselves out of one toilet only to be flushed down the next.

It all comes down to math and basic economics. For any given price point, there will be an equilibrium demand quantity. Let's pretend like you can sell 1,000 units at $50 OR 2,000 units at $35. Let's further say that the set costs $25 to manufacture.

$50 price point... you sell 1,000 units and make $25,000 dollars. ($50,000 revenue from selling 1,000 units at $50 each less 25,000 cost of goods sold from producing 1,000 units at $25 each)

$35 price point... you sell 2,000 units and make $20,000 dollars. ($70,000 revenue from selling 2,000 units at $35 each less 50,000 cost of goods sold from producing 2,000 units at $25 each)

This is a pretty generalized example, but as a company, which scenario would you rather have? I'd rather raise the prices and make more money by selling fewer units at a higher profit margin. Sometimes you can have lower revenue (declining sales) but improved profit. The rent man doesn't care about your revenue. He does care about your profit since you pay your bills with your profit.

The guessing game comes into play in that you generally don't know how many units you'll sell at different price points. Sometimes reducing prices increase overall profit. Sometimes increasing prices increase overall profit. There is a sweet spot, but it tends to change based on a number of factors... including what other competitors are doing, where in the world you're selling, general economic conditions, etc. By reading their financial reports, it looks on the surface like GW isn't great at 'guessing' the 'best' price.

But this is just TOO basic sense of business and culculation...

As a Marketing Manger for years, I would say in the new product launch phase, you need to give away a lot of profit to make the conversion a copelling event, which means customers find no reason not buying it.
Also your culculation of cost is totally wrong. Cost of figures heavily lies in fix cost like designer, advertisement, factories rent, machines maintanance and official store rent. The plastic is with no worth. So when the sales volume goes up, average cost will go down dramaticaly.
Finally, board game is typical industry with scale effect. The more people playing and talking about this, the better promotion effect it has. In other words, if the price is 35 maybe not 2000 sets are sold but 5000.

I cannot see any good reason that GW is doing things like they are... I would consider it as 'lack of marketing common sense'.
But as the Total War Warhammer, which has a perfect synergy effect with the game is still based on Fantasy, I can say GW REALLY doesn't have any experience in marketing.

Oh, I'm very aware that my example was extremely basic. I was considering the audience. I also worked in marketing/sales and now work in banking. I definitely understand the ins and outs of a practical example. My main goal was just to point out that "LOWER DA PRICES!!! GW IZ DUM" isn't always the correct answer.

I do suspect strongly that they'd sell a lot more units at a lower price, increasing both revenue and profit. Then again, this is a niche business. We like to think we're this giant juggernaut composed of millions upon millions of gamers, but the reality is that we rate less shelf space in a Walmart or Target than a 112 year old board game (Monopoly). I often wonder how GW would be marketed by some company like Bandai. Bandai makes model kits that have to be clipped out and assembled and that can be bought at Barnes and Noble alongside games like X-Wing, Zombicide and those DnD Miniature 'Board Games'. They sell tons of these things. If you've never assembled one, the sprues come in multiple colors (sometimes multiple colors on the same sprue), don't need glue for assembly and don't really need paint. The models are fully pose-able after assembly. If you want, you can glue and paint them. Honestly, they make GW kits look like super old tech. AND... they're significantly cheaper for what you're getting. I'd buy pre-colored, easy to assemble and pose-able models in a heartbeat.

I know Bandai pretty well. I worked for them as marketing in China after graduate. They are losing their position due to the general shrink of modelling/ hobby market, but they have way more clear mind on value proposition.

GW is just one of those typical old school British companies. Can you imagine how they promote AOS in China? They just called all the retailer 3 month before launch telling them there will be a new starting box, just tell me how many you want to order. The retailer owner want to ask what is the content of the starting box (there was no news of AOS at all at that momonet) and the answer was 'dont ask, just tell me how many you want to order.'
The pride and self-esteem is in their vein that you can never imagine they will change. Not compare to Bandai, not compare to any of the new hobby company or even electronic game suppliers.

Personally I love this game, but I believe GW has already made enough mistake to ruin everything. Let's see how AOS roll out on revenue and hope for the best.

35% off all AoS at Heroic Knight Games in Issaquah, Washington.

They just started the sale on all Age of Sigmar items.

Goes to 40% off, if you pay in cash....

Mez

Too bad I don't live there... would they do paypal and ship to wisconsin?