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 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
1 man stores aren't a great model,

but it's not only GW running with them, it's pretty much the case for every hobby shop/model shop/gaming store within semi easy reach of me

(with the exception of one store that also sells RC stuff and now drones)

and I'd much rather have a 1 man store that might be closed when I turn up than no store at all

My anecdotal experience is contrary to your anecdotal experience. As I mentioned previously, out of 6 hobby stores near me, 2 of which are purely gaming and the other 4 are general hobby, 5 of them employ multiple people and the 6th one is staffed by the owner and even he occasionally gets his wife or son to help out. Both the dedicated gaming ones run multiple staff.

Staff numbers should be considered on a case by case basis. To just uniformly make all stores 1 man isn't a wise move, but maybe there are some stores that it might be appropriate.

From my own experience, smaller stores are best run with 1.5 FTE.

You have a manager, who opens up, closes down etc etc, and then you have a part time staff member who covers the peak trading hours, lunch breaks for the manger, holidays, days off, sick days etc.

The reality is though, the .5 FTE is a really big ask to recruit. Finding someone competent, with the necessary experience, the desire to only work part time and the availability that suits the store's needs can be extremely tough, to the point of impossible. Finding inexperienced staff that fulfil the other criteria is easier, but they take a long time to bring up to speed (working fewer hours) and are useless for unsupervised work until they get there.

But Skink is right, making unilateral decisions about staffing levels is crazy.

 jonolikespie wrote:

 Lorizael wrote:
Reasons to go to a GW store:

Reasons to pick a FLGS over a GW:

Your mileage may vary...
As I said, many customers want the things I listed, or just generally choose shopping in GW stores over other options.
It may not be for you, that's cool, but it does work for others.
Remember the prime reason GW stores exist is to recruit new customers. If you're new to the hobby and you spend 6 months being taken through the process of building, painting and playing games, being taught all of the skills you need to set you on the path; that breeds a certain level of store loyalty. Genuine customer service will always retain customers.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Lorizael wrote:
Really I found anyone who wasn't patient enough to wait, or had issue with lunch breaks etc were pretty unreasonable to begin with and were rarely actual customers.

How do you know they weren't "rarely actual customers" simply because they weren't being served in a timely manner? Maybe they're unreasonable because they have somewhere else to be and don't want to be waiting for you?

That's the whole point. No one is arguing it's physically impossible to run a store with only 1 person, plenty of stores outside of GW manage it. The question is whether it's a good idea. There's a reason most stores expand to have multiple staff and the ones that don't tend to stay small and quiet (and sometimes the owner is the only staff and they're happy being small and quiet as long as they're paying the bills and putting food on the table). If you employ 2 staff then you don't have to sell twice as much to be better off and most businesses find the value of being able to engage customers and stay open longer is worth it.

Not 100%, but from those I encountered frequently, that's what I got. Or when I was on lunch and noticed someone waiting, I often offered to serve them quickly if they knew what they were after- but 9/10 just wanted to look around and were ok to come back later.
As a store manager you encounter a ton of people who just want to come into your store and talk at you for an hour or gripe about something that is out of your control. Generally I found those were the ones who had issue with opening times. It's anecdotal of course, but it was a common theme over nearly a decade in the job.
Generally, as long as you gave good service and were polite, customers had little issue with waiting if necessary.

 Kilkrazy wrote:


What period of time where you running these shops? I'm just thinking that what works during boom times might be more difficult when interest in GW has declined significantly. Though that also argues for reducing staff costs, of course.

Staffing and opening hours are flexible. As a store fluctuates (which most do) aver the years then number of staff and 5 / 7 opening days will change. There are thresholds as I said, but even these are flexible- managers run their stores how they wish and may always negotiate these things.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Three times in the last 3 months I've popped over to GW stores intending to make decent sized impulse purchases (£30+) when I happened to be in town going to job interviews and meeting with agencies and on every occasion said stores were closed due to the weird 1 man opening times.

Stores should have consistent opening hours, and the vast majority do. Things like manager change overs and illness can make a difference, but usually every care is taken to not be closed when the store should be open.

So if one of my stores had been your local that you tried to visit, the only way you would have encountered a closed store was if every time you visited it was a Monday/Tuesday or an open day but between 2-3 when I would take a 30 minute break.

And that's not beyond the realms of possibility as I've met a customer or two who seem to ignore the opening hours on my door and repeatedly show up on a Monday.!

- - - - -

Also, someone mentioned commission; GW managers are not paid commission in the traditional sense. There is a bonus structure, but it's not like they get a flat percentage of sales.

 Lorizael wrote:
Not 100%, but from those I encountered frequently, that's what I got. Or when I was on lunch and noticed someone waiting, I often offered to serve them quickly if they knew what they were after- but 9/10 just wanted to look around and were ok to come back later.
As a store manager you encounter a ton of people who just want to come into your store and talk at you for an hour or gripe about something that is out of your control. Generally I found those were the ones who had issue with opening times. It's anecdotal of course, but it was a common theme over nearly a decade in the job.
Generally, as long as you gave good service and were polite, customers had little issue with waiting if necessary.

The problem is that it's *really* hard to gauge. The people who you think have little issue waiting may actually be annoyed but too polite to say anything... but then the next purchase they make ends up from somewhere else.

The ones who want to gripe for an hour and not buy anything are simply the ones who are going to tell you, it's the ones who walk in and hang around for a few minutes while you chat to other customers then walk out that might have been potential customers that are the problem. Or the ones who drive past and see the "back in 15" or "closed" sign and just keep driving and don't come back.

I've discussed it at length with the owner of the hobby store (non-GW) that runs his own shop by himself and how he knows he's losing sales at times when he's the only one there and can't manage the number of customers, but he doesn't really have the capacity to employ another person. By contrast a big multinational company like GW should be able to handle staff management better (though I know it's still not easy, it's something that should be done if you don't want to be throwing away money).

Especially when you consider wages are only one of many costs in having a store open. Employing an extra person doesn't mean you need to double the number of sales as the wage of 1 full time employee is likely less than the rent and upkeep on the store (much less if it's in a busy area or a city centre).

Two different gw stores. Visited one on a tuesday, and the other on a Wednesday and Friday IIRC. I'm not local to those towns and rarely visit the stores so I can hardly be expected to know their opening times, especially when they were unplanned visits.

My point is that because they have limited numbers of staff and close for 2 or 3 days a week, they missed out on impulse purchases from me on three occasions.

Yeah, "they weren't buying anyway" is the sort of bs excuse (and for clarity, I've been responsible for training people of a similar level in a simlar position to a GW manager) that would get you a strip torn off if you were under my management.

If you didn't have time to engage with them, how did you know? They were interested enough to walk in the door, and, psychologically speaking, that's quite a big deal for a customer. One company I worked for, for instance, forbade having the front door closed during working hours as a closed door is a literal barrier to entry.

Then, as Skink says, you have all the missed opportunities you have no ability to assess because you simply weren't there. Sure, you can plaster your opening hours all over the shop, but Joe Public simply doesn't read that gak. They do however, and, IMO, quite reasonably, expect a retail outlet to be open on Mondays and Tuesdays.

Why not. It's not the best of all models. But it's cheap and can be effective. I know one such store, Berlin Spandau. Not a bad place to be.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Two different gw stores. Visited one on a tuesday, and the other on a Wednesday and Friday IIRC. I'm not local to those towns and rarely visit the stores so I can hardly be expected to know their opening times, especially when they were unplanned visits.

My point is that because they have limited numbers of staff and close for 2 or 3 days a week, they missed out on impulse purchases from me on three occasions.

I can speak to that, twice now I've received a call about an order being in, only to show up and have the place be closed for half an hour to an hour. It's bad enough that once I finally get in the store I get a lecture about not physically driving to the store originally to place the order so the 1 individual can get the sales stat.

That's not a positive customer service experience at all, but in the mind of the higher it's apparently par for the course.

If a gw staff member spoke to me like that I'd ask for a refund on the spot.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:The problem is that it's *really* hard to gauge. The people who you think have little issue waiting may actually be annoyed but too polite to say anything... but then the next purchase they make ends up from somewhere else.

The ones who want to gripe for an hour and not buy anything are simply the ones who are going to tell you, it's the ones who walk in and hang around for a few minutes while you chat to other customers then walk out that might have been potential customers that are the problem. Or the ones who drive past and see the "back in 15" or "closed" sign and just keep driving and don't come back.

I've discussed it at length with the owner of the hobby store (non-GW) that runs his own shop by himself and how he knows he's losing sales at times when he's the only one there and can't manage the number of customers, but he doesn't really have the capacity to employ another person. By contrast a big multinational company like GW should be able to handle staff management better (though I know it's still not easy, it's something that should be done if you don't want to be throwing away money).

Azreal13 wrote:Yeah, "they weren't buying anyway" is the sort of bs excuse (and for clarity, I've been responsible for training people of a similar level in a simlar position to a GW manager) that would get you a strip torn off if you were under my management.

If you didn't have time to engage with them, how did you know? They were interested enough to walk in the door, and, psychologically speaking, that's quite a big deal for a customer. One company I worked for, for instance, forbade having the front door closed during working hours as a closed door is a literal barrier to entry.

Then, as Skink says, you have all the missed opportunities you have no ability to assess because you simply weren't there. Sure, you can plaster your opening hours all over the shop, but Joe Public simply doesn't read that gak. They do however, and, IMO, quite reasonably, expect a retail outlet to be open on Mondays and Tuesdays.

It isn't an excuse I would make, and I think you're getting the wrong end of the stick Azreal; if they're in the store, then they've been engaged. Being a one-man store doesn't stop you from engaging with everyone who walks in. It has to get to silly numbers before it becomes a serious issue, and even then I can count on my hands the number of people I haven't been able to engage with.

I can't speak for everyone Skink, but I see trends and can generalise from that- it's not 100% but my experience of actually running a one-man store isn't invalidated by others theories and anecdotes of what might be happening.

Yes, opportunities will be missed, but how many? And are those opportunities worth doubling staff or increasing opening hours by 40%?
It's not like GW are doing it ideologically without looking at actual figures and case studies. The one-man store was originally an experiment for new stores, after a few years of several one-man stores opening they were deemed successful and more stores were made one-man. They're profitable and they grow; they may not be making mega-bucks, but they do work.
Do they work everywhere? Of course not. And where they don't work, they invariably close or they're expanded. As I said, things are flexible, hours/staff can and do change.

Do GW one-man stores have a future? Yes, yes they do. From experience, yes they do have a future and a very successful one. They don't work in the same way as GW stores have worked in the past and they may not work in the same way as FLGS do, that doesn't stop them from being successful in the most part.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Two different gw stores. Visited one on a tuesday, and the other on a Wednesday and Friday IIRC. I'm not local to those towns and rarely visit the stores so I can hardly be expected to know their opening times, especially when they were unplanned visits.

My point is that because they have limited numbers of staff and close for 2 or 3 days a week, they missed out on impulse purchases from me on three occasions.

I can speak to that, twice now I've received a call about an order being in, only to show up and have the place be closed for half an hour to an hour. It's bad enough that once I finally get in the store I get a lecture about not physically driving to the store originally to place the order so the 1 individual can get the sales stat.

That's not a positive customer service experience at all, but in the mind of the higher it's apparently par for the course.

I agree, not positive. The manager should have been clear with you about when is the best time to collect your mail order.
'Lecturing' you on not ordering from store isn't on either, and definitely isn't par for the course.
It's ok and appropriate to ask a customer why they order from home, but you have to accept their reasons.

I was in a store where the 1 employee was engaged in conversation with someone else. I waited around for a quarter of an hour or more for him to speak to me as I didn't want to interrupt.

When I ran out of patience I interrupted him, and tried to buy something, and he became distracted by something on his computer for a further 3 minutes or so.

I was pretty nonplussed. FLGS staff can be a bit crappy sometimes, but at least a FLGS has a diverse selection of products to browse!

Future yes, but fun no.
Frankly it depends on the customers.
Saturday at Spandau GW is a fun place. Great laugh.

I go to the GW in Kingston occasionally. On the last three occasions, the staff member was out to lunch, or the store was closed. On each occasion, I have gone home and ordered a competing product from a different company as a result.

That GW manager doesn't even know I exist, but has lost about £60 in sales from me as a minimum. How many other customers like me are there? Hard to say. But now I simply don't bother going back. If there's a 20% chance (two days a week and an hour on the remaining ones) it won't be open when I'm in the area and in a purchasing mood, it simply doesn't feel like it's worth the effort of walking over there when doing the rounds. You could say to me, 'Memorise the opening hours', but why should I? GW isn't so great that I can't get a competing product on the internet from the luxury of my house.

The first and cardinal rule of any business is 'Make it easy for people to give you money'. A variety of payment options, a wide range of stock, knowledgeable staff, and so on are all just tools to that end. GW is making it awkward for me to give them my money, so they they're not getting it. It's that simple, really.

Da Boss wrote:I was in a store where the 1 employee was engaged in conversation with someone else. I waited around for a quarter of an hour or more for him to speak to me as I didn't want to interrupt.

When I ran out of patience I interrupted him, and tried to buy something, and he became distracted by something on his computer for a further 3 minutes or so.

I was pretty nonplussed. FLGS staff can be a bit crappy sometimes, but at least a FLGS has a diverse selection of products to browse!

It's unfortunate, but there will be bad staff, it happens. It shouldn't but it does. They generally don't last long.

Ketara wrote:I go to the GW in Kingston occasionally. On the last three occasions, the staff member was out to lunch, or the store was closed. On each occasion, I have gone home and ordered a competing product from a different company as a result.

That GW manager doesn't even know I exist, but has lost about £60 in sales from me as a minimum. How many other customers like me are there? Hard to say. But now I simply don't bother going back. If there's a 20% chance (two days a week and an hour on the remaining ones) it won't be open when I'm in the area and in a purchasing mood, it simply doesn't feel like it's worth the effort of walking over there when doing the rounds. You could say to me, 'Memorise the opening hours', but why should I? GW isn't so great that I can't get a competing product on the internet from the luxury of my house.

The first and cardinal rule of any business is 'Make it easy for people to give you money'. A variety of payment options, a wide range of stock, knowledgeable staff, and so on are all just tools to that end. GW is making it awkward for me to give them my money, so they they're not getting it. It's that simple, really.

GW are going to be aware there will be customers/opportunities that are missed; I guess it will be weighed against the cost to get those opportunities.
If you think that many stores in the UK went from 7 days to 5 days, the figures will show what gets lost (or doesn't). If a 5 day opening, one man store can make as much as it did when open 7 days with 3 staff then it's all good. And to be honest, it doesn't even need to make that much, it just needs to increase in % profit.
GW stores aren't designed to cater to 100% of the collecting community; that's why they have a webstore and a huge number of stockists.

My local GW has been run by two different managers, and both are/ were really great (the former moved to a different, larger store closer to his home.) The thing that gets me going into the competition to buy their product is their hours of operation. They are open something like 11-6 or 12-6 five days a week. I usually work until 4:30 or 5-ish and it takes a half hour at least from my work to get to the store. If anything holds me up at work, if I have another place to go in between or if traffic is particularly bad I miss the opportunity to go. By contrast, there are at least half a dozen stores within a half hour of my house/ work that sell GW products and are open until at least 9 on weekdays. Some are open until 10 or 11.

 Lorizael wrote:

Da Boss wrote:I was in a store where the 1 employee was engaged in conversation with someone else. I waited around for a quarter of an hour or more for him to speak to me as I didn't want to interrupt.

When I ran out of patience I interrupted him, and tried to buy something, and he became distracted by something on his computer for a further 3 minutes or so.

I was pretty nonplussed. FLGS staff can be a bit crappy sometimes, but at least a FLGS has a diverse selection of products to browse!

It's unfortunate, but there will be bad staff, it happens. It shouldn't but it does. They generally don't last long.

Yeah, that's true. The guy was nice - I was actually charmed by his interaction with the other player as he was really trying his best to genuinely help the guy out. I don't think he was bad exactly - though getting distracted on his computer was poor form. I think he's actually a pretty decent sort and I hope he can hang on in there.

But I figure he'd be better off if he had someone working with him, as he'd be able to do that customer interaction stuff that he was good and enjoys while other customers got served.

I'd love to see them close half their stores and move the other half into real stores again, with tables and enough employees to be open for Friday night gaming.

This is something I miss from my local GW. The store is closed the usual Monday and Tuesday, but the store used to be open 12-8 each day with a 4:30-5:00 break. If you wanted to get in a decent point total game during the week after work you could do it. For league games the only way some people could participate was by getting their game in during the week.

Then the manager shifted hours to a 7pm close each day and a 5:30-6:00 pm break on Wed., Thur., and Friday. It's impossible to get in anything but the smallest games during the week now. The other players who used to be available for weeknight gaming stopped playing at the store as they don't want to play only two or three turns.

The store has become popular enough to where the manager is letting people reserve tables and hobbying table spots on the weekends. I've tried and failed to get a pickup game on a Saturday or Sunday the past four weeks. Forget about grabbing one of the open hobby spots unless you follow the manager in as the store opens.

The manager's a fantastic person and a terrific painter. I've been happy enough paying GW their full retail price in exchange for having this nearby store as an option for painting and gaming. But if I can't play or paint there now, why should I bother shopping there when online sellers are begging to give me 20 percent off my purchases?

I guess the one-man store model has a future as this one is busy enough. I have no idea what their sales are like so I could be wrong.

 Lorizael wrote:


GW are going to be aware there will be customers/opportunities that are missed; I guess it will be weighed against the cost to get those opportunities.
If you think that many stores in the UK went from 7 days to 5 days, the figures will show what gets lost (or doesn't). If a 5 day opening, one man store can make as much as it did when open 7 days with 3 staff then it's all good. And to be honest, it doesn't even need to make that much, it just needs to increase in % profit.
GW stores aren't designed to cater to 100% of the collecting community; that's why they have a webstore and a huge number of stockists.

Oh, I completely see where you're arguing from. But I think the evidence is against them. What evidence?

The fact that every other shop on the High Street has more than one staff member. I'm not sure you can wave away GW as being so unique a retail experience that somehow they can go against what every other shop does as a matter of basic operation and somehow be making more profit as a result. If it were really that easy, Game would only be open 5 days a week and Waterstone's would have one staff member on the till and close up for lunch. Yet somehow, those two businesses (which if anything, rely less on needing someone in store to sell the product, have no need to push a 'community', and suffer from equal online competition) always have two staff on. If the one man store concept was that great a money saving idea, I'm pretty sure businesses like them would be all over it.

Yet for some reason, they're not....

 Sir Arun wrote:
Just went to pick up my hardback copy of Deathwatch: Ignition from my local GW store (1 of 2 in the capital city, btw my flag is messed up im Austria), of course it was approx half hour before closing time (7 p.m.; I went there around 6:30 pm)

There was absolutely nobody in the store except the lone redshirt at the counter. I kinda felt sorry for him.

So anyway, I know GW has switched to one man stores for about 2 or 3 years now, my question is how well are the GW stores doing? I know it varies vastly from location to location, but is it true that there is a general trend of fewer and fewer people coming to GW stores to play?

I remember in the mid and late 2000s (I was introduced to the hobby in 2004) the GW stores were almost packed (we had people playing on almost all available tables, there were dudes painting at the painting station, 2 or 3 customers chatting with the redshirts at the counter etc.)

What led to the fall?

The rise in quality of minis the competition has to offer?

GW's increasing price hikes?

The rise of discount online third party retailers who sell GW stuff so you can just order from the internet?

A new generation growing up even more with video games replacing traditional tabletop as entertainment?

Economic crisis meaning less disposable income for people in general?

Welcome to my world.

DOOOOOMMMM!!!!

 Ketara wrote:

 Lorizael wrote:


GW are going to be aware there will be customers/opportunities that are missed; I guess it will be weighed against the cost to get those opportunities.
If you think that many stores in the UK went from 7 days to 5 days, the figures will show what gets lost (or doesn't). If a 5 day opening, one man store can make as much as it did when open 7 days with 3 staff then it's all good. And to be honest, it doesn't even need to make that much, it just needs to increase in % profit.
GW stores aren't designed to cater to 100% of the collecting community; that's why they have a webstore and a huge number of stockists.

Oh, I completely see where you're arguing from. But I think the evidence is against them. What evidence?

The fact that every other shop on the High Street has more than one staff member. I'm not sure you can wave away GW as being so unique a retail experience that somehow they can go against what every other shop does as a matter of basic operation and somehow be making more profit as a result. If it were really that easy, Game would only be open 5 days a week and Waterstone's would have one staff member on the till and close up for lunch. Yet somehow, those two businesses (which if anything, rely less on needing someone in store to sell the product, have no need to push a 'community', and suffer from equal online competition) always have two staff on. If the one man store concept was that great a money saving idea, I'm pretty sure businesses like them would be all over it.

Yet for some reason, they're not....

Valid point, but you have to compare similar businesses. My local Waterstones is easily 10 times the physical size of my local GW (and it's one of the bigger GWs), and it's footfall exceeds GWs by vast amounts. Same with Game- their footfall and customer count is huge. They'll deal with as many customers in an hour as a GW does in a day sometimes! And from knowing a Game manager their stores take much more cash.
GW is a niche, destination store, so you would have to think of some more of those on the hIgh street to compare to that have similar customer counts.

Most hobby stores on the high street I've been to over the years (not just in my own city) employ more than 1 person. Even the ones not on the high street usually do. The FLGS that's literally less than 5 minutes walk up the same street from my local GW also employs more than 1 person.

The thing is, if your store is quiet and doesn't get many sales so you think you only need 1 person manning it... it might be that the reason it's quiet and doesn't get many sales is because you only have 1 person manning it

Each store does need to be *carefully* considered in and of itself, which is why I think GW's global policy of 1 man stores is rather moronic. Especially when you see a thriving store in a busy location that obviously needs more than 1 person manning it suddenly drop to 1 staff because GW expects a global policy to be a good idea everywhere.

 Lorizael wrote:

Valid point, but you have to compare similar businesses. My local Waterstones is easily 10 times the physical size of my local GW (and it's one of the bigger GWs), and it's footfall exceeds GWs by vast amounts. Same with Game- their footfall and customer count is huge. They'll deal with as many customers in an hour as a GW does in a day sometimes! And from knowing a Game manager their stores take much more cash.
GW is a niche, destination store, so you would have to think of some more of those on the hIgh street to compare to that have similar customer counts.

I'll concede that GW tends to be more of a target destination, but I'm not convinced they're all ten times the size (or even five). Certainly, some regional stores are, and there are always flagship branches, but that applies to GW as much as anywhere else (Warhammer World and the big London store for example). Certainly, for every single Waterstone or Game I've seen that's three times the size as a GW, I've seen several about the same size as the average GW branch in terms of square footage.

As for taking more money, well Game hasn't been doing so hot lately. They've had to close a lost of stores, yet still always have that two staff minimum on, as do their competitors like CEX. If it it were that easy to pocket a bit of cash in operating expenses by dropping one, I'm pretty sure Game would have been wielding the scythe quite adroitly by this stage with the pressure they're under.

Even if we presuppose that the till being busier requires stores like Waterstone/Game to have that extra staff member available, that should be countered out by the fact that being in the type of business that they are, GW has the extra burden of having staff need to sell the product (as opposed to just watching people wander in and selecting what games/books they want), not to mention attempt to build a community. These things require a lot of staff time, and those are burdens that places like Waterstone/Game don't need to support.

I'm far more inclined to believe that these other businesses (being in the trade of running smaller specialist retail stores like GW) have done the cost-benefit analysis. And that they have concluded that the loss of trade/potential customer inconvenience of being closed for 20% of standard trading hours is not worth the financial benefit which dropping that 0.5/1.0 employee brings.

I think it is notable that despite having cut so many key costs, GW's turnover and profit level has dropped to it's lowest point in quite some time, so saying, 'If it didn't work they wouldn't be doing it' may also be incorrect. They're quite clearly and measurably selling less product, and turning less of a profit than they did in an era when they had higher staffing levels. Whether you can attribute that decline to lower staffing levels or one of several other factors is arguable, but it is clear that their current sales policy is working less well than that which they had before.

Also, in certain corporate cultures, it is often difficult to tell people up top that a current initiative is not working. Certainly, GW has a strong reputation of a 'Yes-man' culture.On top of that, with such intangible things as 'community' contributing to sales, it would be hard for any GW employee to put together the quantifiable case that would be required to overcome even basic corporate inertia. It is impossible, after all, to count every customer that does not visit your shop or every lost sale when there's no-one in the shop to count them or they stop turning up as a result!

 Xca|iber wrote:

Fair enough - I'll agree that there's no way to be certain whether the switch to one-man stores caused their closure.

I think most likely the stores were already doomed, and the single staffer was left running the place until the leases ran out, as it's a minimal cost and might work.

 Snoopdeville3 wrote:


Laugh all you want. GW employees all get 100% of there medical and insurance paid for, multiple managers and a manager from corporate has told me this. For them to put 2 people in there stores they would need to DOUBLE there sales if not more. You want to see more GW stores close?? Then put multiple people working in one store.

Only if everything else is free. You've got the rent, utility rates, insurance etc that are all fixed regardless of how many staff you have and how much you are open. These are easily more than the staff member costs.

Yes there 2% of inventory you'll need to leave the shop floor smart guy. A stolen $15-20 blister box here and there is a lot cheaper then hiring a second employee that start at $32k a year !!!!

You don't get many blisters as cheap as that, though I've heard of lots of $100 boxes wandering off shelves in 1-man stores. If it becomes known as an easy target, the stock losses could get pretty significant. No stock = no sales.

 Azreal13 wrote:
If you didn't have time to engage with them, how did you know? They were interested enough to walk in the door, and, psychologically speaking, that's quite a big deal for a customer. One company I worked for, for instance, forbade having the front door closed during working hours as a closed door is a literal barrier to entry.

My wifes last shop didn't have a door for that reason. Onto a main shopping street though, but it sucked a bit in winter. When visiting GW's (less so with FLGSs) I normally stop at the door and actually think "Do I really want to go in?" because it's not a great place to browse, and I'm not sure I'm the only one.


As for opening hours - it's really not my job as a customer to memorize your opening hours. Of my 3 FLGS stores (run by private individuals), 2 are open 7 days a week, 1 only 5. They don't close for lunch (which, incidentally is when you get a lot of customers - hence 1-man stores have lunch at like 2pm), and are pretty much always open when the door says. Several times I've been visiting a town and popped by one (after finding out where they are) to discover they are closed. Even if it's just a back in 15 minutes I probably won't return unless I happen to be passing again. Just seeing the closed sign tends to kill off my motivation.

I think 1.5 staff per small store is perfectly sustainable, if you can find the staff for the 0.5.

In the UK smaller GWs I am familiar with (Oxford, Reading, Windsor, Maidenhead, Chiswick) tend to open five or six days a week, not Mondays, from 11 or 12 until later in the evening. The busiest times are mid to late afternoons, when the schoolboys get out, and special game nights. One man can easily hold the fort during quiet times.

Obviously GW has a mission apart from selling stuff, which is to teach painting and game skills, and this requires more oversight.

The five or six days a week part gets me. I think it was the year before this last one that Christmas Eve fell on a Tuesday, but no GW's around here are open Monday or Tuesday.

Someone told me the GW managers themselves are allowed to pick when they open or close, but supposedly a whole bunch of managers decide they didn't need to be open the two days before Christmas.

Something is very very wrong there...

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I think 1.5 staff per small store is perfectly sustainable, if you can find the staff for the 0.5.

Surely that's what the old key timer positions were for? I know its not the fashionable thing, but you could have several people on zero hour contracts (that more than likely work elsewhere) that have said position simply for the discount. I know a couple of people in the past who've done just that with GW. Before they abolished it at our local GW we had both a teacher and an RAF engineer in key time positions just for the discount the job brought.

I know the whole zero hour contract thing is somewhat bad PR for GW, but this strikes me as one of the areas where it is actually appropriate due to their store model.

When I used to work in a store there were 3 of us and a PT guy at weekends, obviously most of the time it was just 2 of you on but sometimes at weekends it was so busy with customers, the phone ringing, prepping stuff for display, running demo games I have absolutely no idea how one person is expected to manage. I suppose ultimately they don't.

I think it also shows a fair amount of naivety on the part of GW and I'm glad it sounds like they are moving away from it. Any situation where you have 1 adult working on their own with kids is leaving both the kids vulnerable to that adult and also the adult vulnerable as well. Having the two adults working in that kind of environment helps to act as a safety blanket for all concerned I think.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Snoopdeville3 wrote:

You should just shut your mouth before you are embarrass yourself more, read some books and cut down on your forum post time, you obviously have no business sense.

If you know ANYTHING regarding Az's posting history and his prior employment. Just back away. Seriously. There's putting your foot in it and there's this.

No, no, let the puppy continue to approach the big, growling dog. It's the only way they learn.

This post may be informed by the addition of a puppy to the household in recent weeks

A barking dog never bites,
This saying's very true.
For doggy cannot bark well,
When his mouth is full of you.

The math also bothered me - saying that having two employees means needing to more than double sales assumes that payroll is the primary expense with a two man shop....

Which does not hold true for any moderately central location of reasonable size.

The Auld Grump - we also have a recently acquired puppy... he is very well behaved, which worries me.... (Mastiff/retriever cross... he doesn't chew shoes, but he does pick them up and carry them around... we are trying to break him of the habit of using the catbox - the cats won't use it, after he is done....)

 IllumiNini wrote:

As for discount retailers, that just sounds like some suspicious stuff to me. And save money how? unless you;re going to these "Discount Retailers" how do you save money?

Come on, you don't know what a discount retailer is? The stores that offer like 20%+ off, usually comic shops or independent hobby stores. There are two in my town. eBay even has a ton of discount Warhammer sellers who have been consistently selling GW stuff for YEARS. This has been my source recently (not sure if we can link eBay stores outside of the Swap Shop so I won't plug him).

To address your inquiry about how it saves money, well it's simple. They charge less, I spend less. Get it?