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.

So miniature market was enacting a Goku move? Attack, fall back to lick wounds, come back stronger?


I wonder what happened behind the scenes to facilitate this.

Absolutely fantastic news.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

I wonder what happened behind the scenes to facilitate this.

Has enough time passed for MM to see a noticeable drop in sales? That is the only factor that I can imagine would motivate such a 180 shift. Maybe MM's sales in PP products tanked after they reduced their discount?

Awesome news, though, regardless of the reasoning.

My theory:

MM drops discount to 10% off, no sales.
PP goes "gulp"

or -

Mini market says "we will clearance it all and not carry mk3".
PP goes "double gulp"

or both -

"super big gulp" aka 128 ounces of purchasing power

The plucky retailer railing against the horrible corporation, praise be.

Hope PP doesn't cave, I don't want my FLGS to fall on its butt, I'll have to go to my cliquey and donkeycave gaming club to game

Interesting! Thread title / OP updated, thanks for the heads up doug

Was the discount more or less than 25% previously? I know they ran specials where it was higher... maybe this is a compromise, as the language makes it sound like that will be their constant rate (perhaps without the crazy "clearance" rates we sometimes saw previously?).

Either way, I'm happy about this - local stores should be able to compete with a 25% off online retailer. Stores do the exact same with GW all the time. Should be good for consumers and not hurt locals too bad, impulse buys still overcome most folks' desire to save 25%

 RiTides wrote:
Interesting! Thread title / OP updated, thanks for the heads up doug

Was the discount more or less than 25% previously? I know they ran specials where it was higher... maybe this is a compromise, as the language makes it sound like that will be their constant rate (perhaps without the crazy "clearance" rates we sometimes saw previously?).

Either way, I'm happy about this - local stores should be able to compete with a 25% off online retailer. Stores do the exact same with GW all the time. Should be good for consumers and not hurt locals too bad, impulse buys still overcome most folks' desire to save 25%

25% was what it was previously. Though long ago it used to be 30%

I remember someone saying that 20$ is the impulse buy area. PP sure has alot of 20$ or so miniatures.

A year or more ago they had 30% off nearly across the board; within the past twelve months it went down to 25%.

After MiniMarket "caved' two weeks ago, it went to 10% off or so.

Now it's back up to 25%. Good on MM. Now I'll actually buy mk3.

Is this just to move out MKII stuff? Back to 10% for MKIII

 Eldarain wrote:
Is this just to move out MKII stuff? Back to 10% for MKIII

Definitely seeing 25% off for preorders of mk3.

 Eldarain wrote:
Is this just to move out MKII stuff? Back to 10% for MKIII

The stuff is still perfectly usable for MK3, they would just need to run a disclaimer that it contains old cards.

 judgedoug wrote:
My theory:

MM drops discount to 10% off, no sales.
PP goes "gulp"

or -

Mini market says "we will clearance it all and not carry mk3".
PP goes "double gulp"

or both -

"super big gulp" aka 128 ounces of purchasing power

or

MM doesn't drop discount initially to get a lot of positive gaming publicity.
MM drops to 10% after a while to keep PP happy in the meantime.
MM meanwhile consults its lawyers
MM returns to 25% discount with a fanfare, double publicity.

So far MM have had three batches of publicity once when they 'alone' amongst major online stockists didn't reduce discounts, once when they did which was neutral publicity and once when they reversed the decision. They made themselves out to be supporting the gaming community while not entirely being confrontational with PP. It also kept an unpopular decision PP made and most sellers quietly complied with stay fresh in the minds of gamers. MM's rivals who didnt argue with a price rise, which directly increases their own profits look greedy, and keeping the reduced markup from trade to customer prices low it has made it unfeasible for PP to raise trade prices on the quiet.

Got it - thanks for the timeline guys

Eldarain, since the vast majority of models aren't changing, there isn't really "MKII stuff". Unless they somehow haggled that the policy could only apply to new SKUs released going forward, but that wouldn't make sense with the banner image they've posted.

So, hopefully it's just 25% off from now on, really curious how they were able to win that battle but it had to be important for them - I thought they ended up dropping GW after similar shenanigans, but PP has to be a pretty important revenue source for them. Glad they could work it out!

Could be the moved to a different distributor (as those are the entities that PP was going to slow deliveries to if any of their clients misbehaved)

its hard for a distributor selling to loads of stores to stand up as big as they are MM are only part of their business,

but MM are a great catch for a distributor that currently has far fewer stores stocking PP on their lists

The problem there is, if a distributor picks up MM, and PP has to take action against the distributor, that also affects all the other PP customers that distributor has. Those stores will not be happy with that distributor hurting their business just so they can sell to MM. And if that distributor does little to no PP business, then instead of slow deliveries it might be no deliveries at all. PP has a contract with distributors on how their product is distributed. Distributors are used to this. AsmodeeNA just put one in place, Battlefront has one, Mayfair games, a few more.

 mikhaila wrote:
The problem there is, if a distributor picks up MM, and PP has to take action against the distributor, that also affects all the other PP customers that distributor has. Those stores will not be happy with that distributor hurting their business just so they can sell to MM. And if that distributor does little to no PP business, then instead of slow deliveries it might be no deliveries at all. PP has a contract with distributors on how their product is distributed. Distributors are used to this. AsmodeeNA just put one in place, Battlefront has one, Mayfair games, a few more.

I'm pretty sure Miniature Market's sales dwarf every other LGS. I'd be willing to bet money MM threatened to drop PP and not sell mk3, and the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars let PP make an "exception" for MM.

Maybe MM simply bit the bullet and became a distributer? They've got the warehouse space to make it work and they could then go to PP without any middlemen (improves their margins and removes outside influence at the same time).

 judgedoug wrote:

 mikhaila wrote:
The problem there is, if a distributor picks up MM, and PP has to take action against the distributor, that also affects all the other PP customers that distributor has. Those stores will not be happy with that distributor hurting their business just so they can sell to MM. And if that distributor does little to no PP business, then instead of slow deliveries it might be no deliveries at all. PP has a contract with distributors on how their product is distributed. Distributors are used to this. AsmodeeNA just put one in place, Battlefront has one, Mayfair games, a few more.

I'm pretty sure Miniature Market's sales dwarf every other LGS. I'd be willing to bet money MM threatened to drop PP and not sell mk3, and the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars let PP make an "exception" for MM.

I would bet this is probably closest to truth. All MM had to do was to point out to PP their sales numbers for PP items the month before dropping the discount, then point to the numbers for the month after. They're savvy that I would think they lowered the discount to 10% to gather leverage.

 judgedoug wrote:


I'm pretty sure Miniature Market's sales dwarf every other LGS. I'd be willing to bet money MM threatened to drop PP and not sell mk3, and the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars let PP make an "exception" for MM.

See - I was thinking the reason MM folded in the first place was that PP said "lower your discount or no MKIII stuff for you."

Really though, I'm thinking Orlanth's version is probably the closest to correct - lowering to 10% (I think it was actually 12-13%) was a "cover our ass while we consult with these guys in suits" sort of move. Or maybe they just had to poke around to find a new distributor who was happy to take the delay in getting new stuff shipped to them in exchange for having massive sales numbers?

Either way - good news! And I'm much more excited for MKIII now too. As the huge price increase had really put a damper on things.

Hmmm...when I look at the MKIII pre-orders on MM, I see this blurb added in their usual pre-order lingo

"We cannot guarantee we will receive new Privateer Press items on their release date. We will do our best to acquire any new items and ship them as close to the release date as possible."

Interesting...sounds like maybe MM are fine with getting delayed product.

BigDaddio wrote:
Hmmm...when I look at the MKIII pre-orders on MM, I see this blurb added in their usual pre-order lingo

"We cannot guarantee we will receive new Privateer Press items on their release date. We will do our best to acquire any new items and ship them as close to the release date as possible."

Interesting...sounds like maybe MM are fine with getting delayed product.

How long before the arbitrary delay imposed by PP just becomes the standard release date for most buyers? I'd bet a fair number of players will happily wait a few weeks for items they can save 25% on.

BigDaddio wrote:
Hmmm...when I look at the MKIII pre-orders on MM, I see this blurb added in their usual pre-order lingo

"We cannot guarantee we will receive new Privateer Press items on their release date. We will do our best to acquire any new items and ship them as close to the release date as possible."

Interesting...sounds like maybe MM are fine with getting delayed product.

Or are looking at plopping down a lawsuit if PP tries to pull a GW.

Manufacturers have gotten in trouble in the past for pulling those kind of shenanigans.

And PP does not have the bottomless wallet that GW has to try to crush their... allies....

Not that it matters much to me - I have not bought any Privateer Press material in years. Not because of a boycott or anything like that - their models just have not interested me in proportion to their price. (Yes, I would rather spend my money on halflings riding giant chickens than buy a new warjack.... )

The Auld Grump - in my defense, those chicken riders are pretty danged awesome.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

BigDaddio wrote:
Hmmm...when I look at the MKIII pre-orders on MM, I see this blurb added in their usual pre-order lingo

"We cannot guarantee we will receive new Privateer Press items on their release date. We will do our best to acquire any new items and ship them as close to the release date as possible."

Interesting...sounds like maybe MM are fine with getting delayed product.

How long before the arbitrary delay imposed by PP just becomes the standard release date for most buyers? I'd bet a fair number of players will happily wait a few weeks for items they can save 25% on.

I'd say you are right. I know I would wait.

That is really good news. I was pretty much ready to never again buy anything from PP that wasn't amazing, but MM discounting makes it a lot more likely I will support PP in the future beyond being a non-paying player.

 Wehrkind wrote:
That is really good news. I was pretty much ready to never again buy anything from PP that wasn't amazing, but MM discounting makes it a lot more likely I will support PP in the future beyond being a non-paying player.

Same, I'm getting a kodiak from MM right now

The really funny thing about this is that Gamenerdz, eBay sellers, and Amazon sellers kept on selling at the 25 to 30 percent off rate throughout this whole thing. It really drives home the stupidest part of this whole price fixing thing: it doesn't even work. There's too many retailers trying to find ways to undercut each other. It's like how GW's online policy is also a joke when I can get Imperial Knight Renegade from online stores for ~22% off.

Probably why MM decided to just go back. These rules only work if everyone follows it. If they don't, then you're just crippling your business for no reason

The other side of it is they probably looked at what their sales would be like without the deep discount vs what sales would look like with delayed releases and realized that when weighing those options, volume wins over frequency.

Remind me again, PP probably sells stuff to everyone at the same exact wholesale price - whether retail or online store right?

It's just that online has lower overhead so they can choose to discount more?