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.

 Talys wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
GW's Cost of Goods (which basically is the same as Cost of Sales) is about 20%. GW has stated this specifically in their reports because a few years ago they stated it as about 25% and it's a major achievement to get it down such a lot. This reduction is an important cause of their profitability.

In the 29 Nov 2015 statements, the stated Revenue is 55.3k, and cost of sales is 16.8k for a gross profit of 38.5k. That's 30.4%, and the previous full year is 31% (37k / 119k).

...

Even though the cost of sales is 30.4%, because the financials are so ambiguous, the traditional CoGS, where we're measuring the cost to manufacture goods, could actually be closer to 20%. To further complicate things, the Cost of Sales blends GW store sales and channel sales; in the latter, there's presumably a greater cost to the sale as a line item. That is, sales reps' commissions that are probably captured as direct selling, where as regional managers of GW stores are probably paid on a structure that has more of a fixed salary with some kind of performance bonus scheme.

In any case, we can probably assume that each additional dollar GW makes will earn them at least 30.4%, which gives GW, at least another 14.6% to play with, versus traditional stores, which must remain profitable based on a 45% cost of goods.

You are entirely correct that it's possible that the cost of goods for GW stores is closer to 20% (probably not quite, because freight is probably still significant, and there are variable selling costs at the store level too, such as performance bonuses, I assume), giving them even more leeway.

When I worked at GW the % was much better than that. They sold to employees at 60% off and were still making profit on that.
They also take advantage of currency differences (as we've all seen) to make them more money.

The Cdn pricing has always been rough compared to the British.

When we got stock in the store it always had the 'cost' for the store on the sheet with the qty and item codes. The store was only 'paying' about $2.50 for a blister pack that we sold for around $15 (this was back in the days of metal!) So their margins, at least in Canada, were huge.

@Ashitaka - Oops, you know, I made a typo. It should say, "In any case, we can probably assume that each additional dollar GW makes will cost them not more than 30.4%, which gives GW, at least another 25% to play with versus traditional stores, which must remain profitable based on a 45% discount (or 55% cost of goods)."

It was too late when I posted, and I was tired

Which means, at 30% cost of sales, they'd still make 10%+ if they gave employees a 60% discount. Keep in mind that when they sell to an employee, there's no cost to the sale other than manufacture plus freight plus warehousing (that is, hopefully, nobody gets a bonus based on an employee buying something )

That actually sounds pretty reasonable. Nice perk too!

Another way to put with respect to retail stores is that based on GW's last 3 financial periods, its blended gross margin is about 70%. So a store that sells $10,000 at retail is actually making more than $7,000 for GW's bank accounts - the same $4,500 that any retail store would make, plus an extra $2,500 that manufacturing operations gets credit for. So even if the retail store loses money at $4,500, that's not terrible, as long as it's close, because of the profit on the manufacturing end.

Where this model doesn't hold true is if (a) an independent or GW web store would have make the same sale anyways or (b) if an independent would actually have made more sales than the GW store. But both of those scenarios are very difficult, if not impossible, to assess, even with GW's internal data.

If GW's one man shops, are costing them money. It might explain this rumour,
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2016/01/bombshell-gw-moving-into-toymodel-stores.html


http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/677961.page#8409786

Wow, given the quality of those pics, I think we can rule out a photoshop job!

Ah... the old Gorka Morka truk. Nothing but the latest and greatest models to put your best foot forwards, capture the imagination and entice newbs right?

That model was already horribly primitive when it was released in 1997, mercifully put out of its misery in 2009... and now lives again as (an ill conceived) lead-in product in 2016!

-edit- That looks like the discontinued ork bike too... with the tracks and the nonsense side-guns. Ugh.

HumblePenitent wrote:
Wow, given the quality of those pics, I think we can rule out a photoshop job!

Yup they're real.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 keezus wrote:
Ah... the old Gorka Morka truk. Nothing but the latest and greatest models to put your best foot forwards, capture the imagination and entice newbs right?

That model was already horribly primitive when it was released in 1997, mercifully put out of its misery in 2009... and now lives again as (an ill conceived) lead-in product in 2016!

-edit- That looks like the discontinued ork bike too... with the tracks and the nonsense side-guns. Ugh.

Maybe Talys would like to paint them for his collection.

@Loki old fart:

Honestly, I have fond memories of the Gorka Morka Trukk... it makes a great buggy / wartrack base. The main problem is that it needs new crew, as the supplied ones are horribly undersized by today's standards. If the kit is retooled with new crew, it might be OK. If it is not, it is a horrible missed opportunity for GW... $27 is a bit of coin for such a primitive kit and selling in dedicated model shops can only compare unfavorably vs stuff like $10 1/144 Gundam kits and Revell's Star Wars kits (e.g. Poe's X-Wing is msrp $22 IIRC)

http://gundamguy.blogspot.ca/2015/10/hg-1144-gundam-barbatos-review-by.html

http://makingstarwars.net/2015/09/review-revell-snaptite-star-wars-poes-x-wing-and-first-order-special-forces-tie-fighter/

 keezus wrote:
@Loki old fart:

Honestly, I have fond memories of the Gorka Morka Trukk... it makes a great buggy / wartrack base. The main problem is that it needs new crew, as the supplied ones are horribly undersized by today's standards. If the kit is retooled with new crew, it might be OK. If it is not, it is a horrible missed opportunity for GW... $27 is a bit of coin for such a primitive kit and selling in dedicated model shops can only compare unfavorably vs stuff like $10 1/144 Gundam kits and Revell's Star Wars kits (e.g. Poe's X-Wing is msrp $22 IIRC)

http://gundamguy.blogspot.ca/2015/10/hg-1144-gundam-barbatos-review-by.html

http://makingstarwars.net/2015/09/review-revell-snaptite-star-wars-poes-x-wing-and-first-order-special-forces-tie-fighter/

I have one, converted using a landspeeder.

 loki old fart wrote:

 keezus wrote:
Ah... the old Gorka Morka truk. Nothing but the latest and greatest models to put your best foot forwards, capture the imagination and entice newbs right?

That model was already horribly primitive when it was released in 1997, mercifully put out of its misery in 2009... and now lives again as (an ill conceived) lead-in product in 2016!

-edit- That looks like the discontinued ork bike too... with the tracks and the nonsense side-guns. Ugh.

Maybe Talys would like to paint them for his collection.

LOL. Why not

Most of the space marine/imperial guard/ork collections are utter "nonsense" in the sense of practicality anyhow. As long as it's a cool looking model, I'm in


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 loki old fart wrote:

I have one, converted using a landspeeder.

That's cool! Love it

As I said in the other thread, GW's financial situation might be worse shape than we think if they are embracing big retail stores again for the first time in, what, 20 years? More?

 Talys wrote:

 loki old fart wrote:

 keezus wrote:
Ah... the old Gorka Morka truk. Nothing but the latest and greatest models to put your best foot forwards, capture the imagination and entice newbs right?

That model was already horribly primitive when it was released in 1997, mercifully put out of its misery in 2009... and now lives again as (an ill conceived) lead-in product in 2016!

-edit- That looks like the discontinued ork bike too... with the tracks and the nonsense side-guns. Ugh.

Maybe Talys would like to paint them for his collection.

LOL. Why not

Most of the space marine/imperial guard/ork collections are utter "nonsense" in the sense of practicality anyhow. As long as it's a cool looking model, I'm in

Trouble is that the model is very dated in scale and aesthetic compared with the modern offerings. If GW is pushing out these old kits hoping to sell based on rule of cool, I think they are missing the boat entirely. Instead of these old models, I think they should have gone with the Black Reach Dread, the Ork Kans / Deff Koptas from Black Reach / and whatever set had the Kans... On top of that, one of the best parts about the Gorka Morka kit was the inclusion of the Gubbinz sprue to Ork up your model, which is almost CERTAIN to not be included.

I think the most significant thing here isn't that GW is releasing cut down/simplied kits to model shops but that GW is actually giving real previews of its future releases. When was the last time that GW made public a release scheduled for next year?

I think the real determinant of success for this build and paint line will be whether or not GW sells to toy and model distribution or iinsists that ever toy or model shop who might want to have a couple of these on their shelf open up a GW trade account with all the restrictions and minimum orders and whatnot.

Imagine if you owned a toy store and wanted to get a case of these for your model section, but GW insisted that you also have to carry Age of Sigmar and 40k stuff. Or if a given kit sells out and you can't restock it without buying $400 worth of stuff you don't want.

 keezus wrote:
Trouble is that the model is very dated in scale and aesthetic compared with the modern offerings. If GW is pushing out these old kits hoping to sell based on rule of cool, I think they are missing the boat entirely. Instead of these old models, I think they should have gone with the Black Reach Dread, the Ork Kans / Deff Koptas from Black Reach / and whatever set had the Kans... On top of that, one of the best parts about the Gorka Morka kit was the inclusion of the Gubbinz sprue to Ork up your model, which is almost CERTAIN to not be included.

Since my last Ork army was built in 1990 and I have no desire to rebuild/play Orks, that's ok

All of these build+paint boxes are pretty useless for 40k anyhow. They're just nifty boxes of models. Looking at the photo of the sprue, aside from the color, it doesn't look like an old sprue, so it's entirely possible that they've been retooled. If nothing else, the new casting process has much higher density on the sprue, so it would ship in a smaller box.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

frozenwastes wrote:
I think the real determinant of success for this build and paint line will be whether or not GW sells to toy and model distribution or iinsists that ever toy or model shop who might want to have a couple of these on their shelf open up a GW trade account with all the restrictions and minimum orders and whatnot.

Imagine if you owned a toy store and wanted to get a case of these for your model section, but GW insisted that you also have to carry Age of Sigmar and 40k stuff. Or if a given kit sells out and you can't restock it without buying $400 worth of stuff you don't want.

I don't know about other parts of the world; in west coast Canada, the toy scene is totally dominated by giant super-toy-stores (like Toys R Us) and department stores (like Walmart). The little independent toy stores do exist in malls, but they've slowly been driven out of business with the pricing and selection of larger competitors.

I don't think a shop like Walmart would have an issue with stocking all 6 boxes, if they decided this was a product worthy of their toy section. I can't imagine sticking proper 40k/AoS stuff (like AoS starter) in a big box store. In any case, they'd make GW front them for like, 90+ days and take back anything that didn't sell anyhow.

 Talys wrote:

I don't know about other parts of the world; in west coast Canada, the toy scene is totally dominated by giant super-toy-stores (like Toys R Us) and department stores (like Walmart). The little independent toy stores do exist in malls, but they've slowly been driven out of business with the pricing and selection of larger competitors.

People have this impression pretty much anywhere, but it turns out that small independent toy stores are actually doing okay and each city usually has a good number of them.

https://www.google.ca/search?q=victoria+canada+toy+store&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=uHipVuTnMee0jgSJ9rHICw#q=victoria+canada+toy+store&rflfq=1&rlha=0&tbm=lcl
https://www.google.ca/search?q=vancouver+canada+toy+store&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=mHypVtyPJemDjgSAoI0I#q=vancouver+canada+toy+store&rflfq=1&rlha=0&tbm=lcl
https://www.google.ca/search?q=calgary+canada+toy+store&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=13ypVqzCO4vtjgS3hZTYAQ#q=calgary+canada+toy+store&rflfq=1&rlha=0&tbm=lcl
https://www.google.ca/search?q=calgary+canada+toy+store&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=13ypVqzCO4vtjgS3hZTYAQ#q=edmonton+canada+toy+store&rflfq=1&rlha=0&tbm=lcl

That's just 4 Canadian cities and each one has a handful. Now how many potential customers are there for GW when you extrapolate that across Canada and the much, much larger US?

I don't think a shop like Walmart would have an issue with stocking all 6 boxes, if they decided this was a product worthy of their toy section. I can't imagine sticking proper 40k/AoS stuff (like AoS starter) in a big box store. In any case, they'd make GW front them for like, 90+ days and take back anything that didn't sell anyhow.

Definitely. If Toys R Us and Walmart carry these, they will dictate the terms, not kowtow to GW's.

--

Weren't there rumours floating around that years and years ago some GW reps went to talk to Walmart (or someone like that) about stocking their product and got laughed at because of the crazy trade terms they tried to put on a much much larger company that didn't need them one bit?

 jonolikespie wrote:
Weren't there rumours floating around that years and years ago some GW reps went to talk to Walmart (or someone like that) about stocking their product and got laughed at because of the crazy trade terms they tried to put on a much much larger company that didn't need them one bit?

I remember hearing something like that, but it's impossible to confirm. The thing to remember is that a single super Walmart location in a major US centre has a greater revenue than the entirety of GW's operation worldwide. When you count their smaller stores not in major cities, it takes about 6 to equal the entirety of GW's revenue. If I was on Walmart's team and GW tried to tell us how to retail, I'd laugh them out of the room as well.

If GW can get this product line in a few percent of toy and model shops in the UK, Europe and North America and actually work out terms with some larger stores (perhaps even walmart) then they could return to growth with this one move. They need to do everything in their power to get these products in as many sales channels and possible and stop insisting on their sole control over everything.

--

frozenwastes wrote:

People have this impression pretty much anywhere, but it turns out that small independent toy stores are actually doing okay and each city usually has a good number of them.

https://www.google.ca/search?q=vancouver+canada+toy+store&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=mHypVtyPJemDjgSAoI0I#q=vancouver+canada+toy+store&rflfq=1&rlha=0&tbm=lcl

Looking at the Vancouver map (Victoria is a much, much smaller city on an island, despite being the capital of the province), the number of toy store dots is actually tiny. When I was a kid, there were way more toy stores than that. Also, a lot of the toy stores on that map are boutique shops -- for example, Oakridge Mall shows a toy store, but it's a Lego store. The Disney store is likewise not really a toy store. Others specialize in wooden toys or kites, and that kind of thing. And the dot Downtown is uhhh... "Honey Gifts Sex Shop Vancouver"

When you look at the two large shopping centers in Vancouver -- Pacific Center, Oakridge Mall -- there isn't a single independent left. Ditto in Richmond Center, and Guildford Mall, two other large shopping centers in suburbs, though Surrey Place and Park Royal each have an independent toy store.

 keezus wrote:
Ah... the old Gorka Morka truk. Nothing but the latest and greatest models to put your best foot forwards, capture the imagination and entice newbs right?

That model was already horribly primitive when it was released in 1997, mercifully put out of its misery in 2009... and now lives again as (an ill conceived) lead-in product in 2016!

-edit- That looks like the discontinued ork bike too... with the tracks and the nonsense side-guns. Ugh.

It's covered in the main News thread but the boxes and art are watermarked with "Mock Up" so who knows what the final product will actually be.

If you consider the intended target audience though, the Gorkamorka era Trukk may be less daunting to an 8 year old splashing out some pocket money.

Get them hooked on a gateway product before ensnaring them with the higher priced product.

The "assemble and paint your own toy" is a good idea, a better one would be a weekly magazine that comes with a miniature and takes you through collecting your army week by week.
The magazine could contain rules, assembly guides and painting guides, and all collectors would be at the same stage each week so their armies would be balanced against each other.

Talys it doesn't really matter that google returned a variety of results and includes things you find funny. It also makes sense that google would return all types of toy stores, doesn't it? So how about you just count the ones that might have a model section or could be talked into starting one with these sort of products. The fact is that in pretty much every major urban centre there are still independent toy and model shops. They may not be in malls anymore like they were when I was a kid, but they're there. And they represent an untapped potential for GW trade sales that these new products are probably meant exactly for.

The only question is whether or not GW will stand in their own way on this and assume sole distributorship and demand things of these shops that no other of the store's suppliers demands. The stores for these kinds of products are there. I just don't think GW's current trade sales approach will reach them. I think they need a more traditional, less demanding, manufacturer-retailer relationship with these sorts of stores in order to get as many of these kits onto as many shelves as possible.

One thing I've gotten into over the last couple years is using historical model kits for miniature gaming. I travel a lot for business and pretty much without fail I can find a place to buy a kit I'm interested in. All across Canada and the US. I've been to Saskatoon and Vancouver and Markham and St John's and Raleigh and Phoenix and Ojai and all sorts of places. Independent toy and model stores are so not dead. All of them I visit seem to be doing pretty well.

If GW is going to actually do what needs to be done (including revisiting the very nature of their products) so they can get into these stores, it could be exactly what they need to stop their decline.

--

Joyboozer wrote:
The "assemble and paint your own toy" is a good idea, a better one would be a weekly magazine that comes with a miniature and takes you through collecting your army week by week.
The magazine could contain rules, assembly guides and painting guides, and all collectors would be at the same stage each week so their armies would be balanced against each other.

Problem is who buys magazines anymore? Kids would keep the model but just throw the magazine away and look up the info on their tablets.

 Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:

Joyboozer wrote:
The "assemble and paint your own toy" is a good idea, a better one would be a weekly magazine that comes with a miniature and takes you through collecting your army week by week.
The magazine could contain rules, assembly guides and painting guides, and all collectors would be at the same stage each week so their armies would be balanced against each other.

Problem is who buys magazines anymore? Kids would keep the model but just throw the magazine away and look up the info on their tablets.

I'm not so sure. Kids love books and many parents still read to their young children with real paper books. I could totally see an 8-10 year old loving a "Battle Games in the Dark Millennium" series. It kicked ass in terms of getting GW sales during the LOTR boom. I know GW has expressed fear of expanding too rapidly if they ever had success like that again, but with another declining year into a bad December and already having a profit warning issued for next report, I think GW might be waking up a little.

Oh, and apparently the magazine market worldwide is still over 90 billion dollars a year. It's definitely shrunk, but it appears to have leveled off.
http://www.fipp.com/news/fippnews/globally-total-magazine-revenue-resumes-growth-in-2015

frozenwastes wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:
Weren't there rumours floating around that years and years ago some GW reps went to talk to Walmart (or someone like that) about stocking their product and got laughed at because of the crazy trade terms they tried to put on a much much larger company that didn't need them one bit?

I remember hearing something like that, but it's impossible to confirm. The thing to remember is that a single super Walmart location in a major US centre has a greater revenue than the entirety of GW's operation worldwide. When you count their smaller stores not in major cities, it takes about 6 to equal the entirety of GW's revenue. If I was on Walmart's team and GW tried to tell us how to retail, I'd laugh them out of the room as well.

If GW can get this product line in a few percent of toy and model shops in the UK, Europe and North America and actually work out terms with some larger stores (perhaps even walmart) then they could return to growth with this one move. They need to do everything in their power to get these products in as many sales channels and possible and stop insisting on their sole control over everything.

--

The things is with the Walmart story is that Walmart, like similar approaches from Argos and Tescos et al, is that the terms they trade (anything up to 6months plus returns at the suppliers cost) restrict cashflow to the supplier massively on top of the heavy discounts they want just aren't attractive versus unknown additional sales that might ultimately just reduce sales at your own stores.

I have had similar experiences when a former company I worked for tried to impose lengthened terms on suppliers, all the suppliers with established or diversified businesses walked away. As one owner said to me "I've got money and other clients, why do I need this?"

The Paint and Play kits are a good idea even if they are old models and don't fit into the most high end modern range.

It isn't about getting to build any army, it is about getting the Games Workshop and 40K Brands back into wider awareness.

Young kids don't care about scales and so on anyway, as long as the toy looks cool.

 notprop wrote:

The things is with the Walmart story is that Walmart, like similar approaches from Argos and Tescos et al, is that the terms they trade (anything up to 6months plus returns at the suppliers cost) restrict cashflow to the supplier massively on top of the heavy discounts they want just aren't attractive versus unknown additional sales that might ultimately just reduce sales at your own stores.

I have had similar experiences when a former company I worked for tried to impose lengthened terms on suppliers, all the suppliers with established or diversified businesses walked away. As one owner said to me "I've got money and other clients, why do I need this?"

Absolutely. I'm not advocating for GW doing whatever it takes to get them into walmart. If they can make it work, fine, but I don't see them taking on a bad deal in order to get it done. While they haven't had a cash flow problem for years, if GW got themselves into an overly long term with a place like Walmart, that could kill them in a single incident of returned product and destroyed margins.

frozenwastes wrote:
Talys it doesn't really matter that google returned a variety of results and includes things you find funny. It also makes sense that google would return all types of toy stores, doesn't it? So how about you just count the ones that might have a model section or could be talked into starting one with these sort of products. The fact is that in pretty much every major urban centre there are still independent toy and model shops. They may not be in malls anymore like they were when I was a kid, but they're there. And they represent an untapped potential for GW trade sales that these new products are probably meant exactly for.
--

This was exactly my point, though: The kite shop, adult sex toy shop, lego shop, rc/drone shop, and store selling toys carved out of maple wood... are not going to sell GW models.

Yes, major urban centers still have independent toy stores that sell a wide variety of toys. Yes, they are good places for GW to have toys (at least, the ones that don't have . My point was just that there are a lot fewer of them now compared to decades past -- just like there are a lot fewer independent bookstores that don't specialize in some niche (like computer books or occult). Neither is imagined; it's actual, at least in my part of the world, a qualification that I originally stated. Whether indie toy stores are a big thing in Frankfurt or Paris or Cleveland, I have no idea, even though I've probably been to those cities a hundred times.

This is an important distinction insofar as to say that should GW wish to succeed in selling toys in 2016, I believe that they will need to be sold in big box stores like Toys-R-Us, Walmart, and Target, as well as online places where people buy toys like Amazon. Otherwise, I am guessing that the market they'd reach will be only a tiny fraction of the potential. It's no different than having a book that isn't sold in Barnes & Noble or Chapters/Indigo or Amazon. Sure, there are other places to buy books; but those three eat up such a big piece of the pie now, that they're really key partners.

This is also an important distinction because one of the reasons that stores like Walmart can offer their customers great prices is the way that they treat all their vendors; it's a very different relationship than Games Workshop is accustomed to. GW models will be something that these stores don't really care about, not a core item like Coca-Cola or Barbie, so they will have no leverage at all. It will be their standard terms, which will include infernally long payment terms, return of unsold product, big discounts, required contributions for co-op advertising, and so on. And that's if the buyer wants the product at all.

frozenwastes wrote:

 notprop wrote:

The things is with the Walmart story is that Walmart, like similar approaches from Argos and Tescos et al, is that the terms they trade (anything up to 6months plus returns at the suppliers cost) restrict cashflow to the supplier massively on top of the heavy discounts they want just aren't attractive versus unknown additional sales that might ultimately just reduce sales at your own stores.

I have had similar experiences when a former company I worked for tried to impose lengthened terms on suppliers, all the suppliers with established or diversified businesses walked away. As one owner said to me "I've got money and other clients, why do I need this?"

Absolutely. I'm not advocating for GW doing whatever it takes to get them into walmart. If they can make it work, fine, but I don't see them taking on a bad deal in order to get it done. While they haven't had a cash flow problem for years, if GW got themselves into an overly long term with a place like Walmart, that could kill them in a single incident of returned product and destroyed margins.

Indeed. These Paint + Play products seem like a good compromise. They're effectively 2nd string lines that will capture interest and the (one would assume) included 40k leaflet/catalogue showing more "advanced" kits.

These will be super cheap to produce as they seem to be old AoBR stuff or similar, so thousands of units sitting on sale or return shouldn't be too big a deal and will not negatively effect (or at least shouldn't) sale of existing products.

frozenwastes wrote:

Absolutely. I'm not advocating for GW doing whatever it takes to get them into walmart. If they can make it work, fine, but I don't see them taking on a bad deal in order to get it done. While they haven't had a cash flow problem for years, if GW got themselves into an overly long term with a place like Walmart, that could kill them in a single incident of returned product and destroyed margins.

I agree. In this case, the actual cost of goods sold is extremely relevant, as the other costs of sale will be much lower. If the actual CoGS is around 20% or lower, GW is in a good place to be in Walmart; at 30% and above, I think it would be pretty dicey.

If the CoGS approaches 10% or lower, the returns aren't really a big deal. In the case of these box sets, or sold in high enough numbers, that actually might actually be possible.

 Talys wrote:
Yes, major urban centers still have independent toy stores that sell a wide variety of toys. Yes, they are good places for GW to have toys (at least, the ones that don't have . My point was just that there are a lot fewer of them now compared to decades past -- just like there are a lot fewer independent bookstores that don't specialize in some niche (like computer books or occult). Neither is imagined; it's actual, at least in my part of the world, a qualification that I originally stated. Whether indie toy stores are a big thing in Frankfurt or Paris or Cleveland, I have no idea, even though I've probably been to those cities a hundred times.

Cool. I apologize if I mistook you as dismissing the independent toy store out of hand.

Here we have an example of GW going to an actual trade event and unveiling a new product line (even if it is just repackaged old figures in coloured plastic) meant for a new sales channel. In a product that has a low development cost but could open up an entire new source of revenue for GW. This is the first concrete thing they've tried other than just talking about more single employee stores and how everything rests on their store managers not thinking for themselves and GW's ability to recruit replacements when they don't work out.

What I find a little strange is that there's an individual's email address on these flyers. Like a single individual has been tasked with tapping into this market. If so, then this might be a really low risk, high reward situation. If they already have the tooling done and can spin up the machines to pump out the sprues and already have their source for packaging, tiny paint pots and the like, then it doesn't take too much in the way of investment to go after this new target market.

If it works, it could be huge for GW and the way it might benefit your typical Dakka poster is if it reminds GW that there's profit to be made on each individual sprue costing very little after all the design and development work has been done. It could remind GW that they have a huge reserve of moulds already cut that they can use to package things at good prices rather than constantly churning their own product line and concentrating on high pressure sales of the latest release at the highest possible price. It might make them see that a return to growth is actually possible and that the Wells and Kirby plan of intentionally shrinking the business year over year isn't the only path available for GW. A small project like this really blowing up could revitalize their corporate culture.

Do i think it will work? Probably not. I think GW will shoot themselves in their own foot and just approach all these toy stores with their current trade sales plan and it'll go nowhere. Stores that might go "Oh, six products for the models section? And they come with paints and a brush? Sure." will instead go "And I have to bring in the whole line of paints and this Age of Sigmar products and reorganize a large portion of my shelves and if I want to reorder anything I have to wait until I have a $400 order to place? No thanks."

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Talys wrote:
If the CoGS approaches 10% or lower, the returns aren't really a big deal. In the case of these box sets, or sold in high enough numbers, that actually might actually be possible.

If GW has hit the point where they can keep their costs shrinking with their revenue declines then they might have injection moulding hours available. They already have a huge variety of steel moulds that are all paid for. A single graphic designer, a single product developer and a dedicated sales guy and a bit of support from various people as needed and GW might be able to do this for next to nothing.



--