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frozenwastes wrote:
We had six local shops that carried GW stuff. Then GW opened a store and everyone started getting rotating delays and late shipments on new releases. Then the year over year price hikes started happening as well as accelerated edition changes and the community went from huge to tiny and now only the GW store (which has since been converted to a single employee store that is only open 40 hours a week) and one other sell their products and all the other stores have moved on to selling other things (Magic: The Gathering, X-Wing, etc.,).

It's funny you point that out.

The same thing is happening in Oklahoma. GW opens up a store and suddenly the FLGS stores have delayed releases, no stock on new items available, suddenly out of nowhere.

Or allotment is all screwed up... FLGS can only get 2 of a special release item and the GW store has 12+..

Seen that also..

They want to go direct but I think they would be damaging themselves by doing that.. But that didn't stop them
from abandoning warhammer players with Age of Sigmar..

Our locals manager is a young woman, and thats the thing I hate about it.

Now, before the howls begin, My problem IS Not that the manager is a woman, the problem is she lets everyone know she has no interest in gaming, miniatures, or GW. How she got hired is quite beyond me. I think the worst thing I've seen her do, is say things like"ok, what do you nerds have"? when someone comes to the counter. She has also said things like "don't spazz in MY shop." And "slobber on the products after you buy them!" (Said to some little kid. The kid had his mom with him, and the mom took the kid right out the door.)

She said that to me one afternoon(the nerd remark), and I said, "I'm nearly 50 years old, young lady. Don't say that to me again." She fell all over herself trying to be nice, as I think she thought I was going to complain to someone.

I tried. No one cares.

I hate that there's not one single GW in my whole country. I just have a local IR, with 30% higher prices.

bound for glory wrote:
How she got hired is quite beyond me.

What GW wants is enthusiastic salesmen who drive sales, not people who know the hobby inside out, as the latter can be always be taught later, or one release at a time.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Bookwrack wrote:
The fact that as a one man store, the two days off are Sunday and Monday, and Sunday is half of my days off too. XD

A lot of hobby shops take Sundays off, I've never understood why because Sunday is one of 2 days most people have off and are likely to be doing hobby related stuff. Taking Sunday off makes sense for a lot of other businesses, not so much a hobby shop.

Because they're one-man stores and even GW aren't willing to accept the level of staff turnover that would result from them essentially demanding you give up any pretense of ever having a social life in order to work there - they have to give them one day off at weekends, and Saturday's when they're likely to get the most customers in.

As for the topic; Eh, I've not been in for over a year now and stopped being a regular a few years before that. The store just doesn't offer me anything I can't get elsewhere; there are clubs to game at, I can order anything GW I actually want online at a discount(and I've never needed anything GW so badly I couldn't wait a day or two for it to arrive), you're not allowed to "hang out" there any more like you could when I was younger and just paint or chat or have a wee game(it's very much buy, get a basic painting lesson, or play a demo game or else GTFO), and the last reason I used to bother going in was to get HH paperbacks on day of release and BL fethed that one with the current enthusiasm-killing release model. Given that, and that going would entail enduring the usual OTT sales pitch, aye, not much point to the place these days.

 BrookM wrote:

bound for glory wrote:
How she got hired is quite beyond me.

What GW wants is enthusiastic salesmen who drive sales, not people who know the hobby inside out, as the latter can be always be taught later, or one release at a time.

For a while, and in a bunch of cases, product knowledge was required though. You can be pushy, but you'd have more success if you know about the product you want to choose.

 n0t_u wrote:


For a while, and in a bunch of cases, product knowledge was required though. You can be pushy, but you'd have more success if you know about the product you want to choose.

It used to be a requirement to have an army for the main systems, but I don't think it's been a requirement to even know what the games are anymore, I mean the focus is largely on trying to sell whatevers been launched that week, so you don't need to know much more than the marketting blurb.

I've heard rumours that it's actually a disadvantage to be a gamer now, but I'm not sure how much water that holds as the manager of my local GW seems to have been an old gamer (though had to import mini's from another store for the cabinet until he could get stuff painted, so I'm not sure how much of a GW gamer he really was). He knew what Flames Of War was, though.

Herzlos wrote:

 n0t_u wrote:


For a while, and in a bunch of cases, product knowledge was required though. You can be pushy, but you'd have more success if you know about the product you want to choose.

It used to be a requirement to have an army for the main systems, but I don't think it's been a requirement to even know what the games are anymore, I mean the focus is largely on trying to sell whatevers been launched that week, so you don't need to know much more than the marketting blurb.

I've heard rumours that it's actually a disadvantage to be a gamer now, but I'm not sure how much water that holds as the manager of my local GW seems to have been an old gamer (though had to import mini's from another store for the cabinet until he could get stuff painted, so I'm not sure how much of a GW gamer he really was). He knew what Flames Of War was, though.

Even extended to the financial side of it apparently from what I heard from a friend when their dad had applied for a position with them, which seemed pretty dumb.
It'd make sense for sales staff to have working knowledge of the product though because they can make suggestions to help boost their sales a bit further; don't need to actually play just have enough sense to go well since this new product is coming out next week this current one we have works pretty well with it too.

What do I hate about my local GW?

Even in the UK it's a 30 mile drive away. That's about a gallon of fuel each way plus a few pounds parking. In total that'll cost me about £12. Roughly 4 times the postage cost of buying from GW online.

Only downside to ours is the lack of drinks other than a water fountain, and the prices. But I can always get a game, the manager is flipping AMAZING, and it is a great location and place to play (2 6x4 tables plus maybe a 3rd)

I've never ever had any problems with my local GW. Heres a list of things they do well:
1. They do try to sell products but they don't shove it down your throat
2. They have 3 members of staff 2 of which are also commission painters and are always happy to give painting advice
3. Most the vets welcome new players and are often happy to give advice
4. They have 3 tables 1 of which is 8 x 4 (splits into 2 4x4) and 2 6 x 4
5. Good availability of stock rarely had anything out of stock as they keep a good track of it.
6. Open 7 days a week 10-6 and 10-8 on a gaming evening
7. Near the bus station so fairly accessible
8. Never had any issues playing a game there, or getting a game.
8. Let you store your models in the store (one guy I know buys models hides them there and never tells his wife)
9. Players are happy to bring a list like yours competitive/ casual
10. My store even let me use a different brand of clippers/ glue
11. FW is happily accepted.
12. All the guys is there are super friendly and even break some of the rules (I got to see the deathwatch codex on the Wednesday before it came out
13. Happy to tell you about the local gaming clubs (which are on the same night as there own)
14. Fairly frequent events
All in all I think I have a pretty damn good store

Not the store itself, but the fact all the players jumped right on using the General's Handbook as the only way to play Age of Sigmar. Although I mean the store only has 3 tables (better than just 1) but 2 are like dedicated 40k tables, and one is a dedicated AoS table. It's actually not that bad though. Good stock, not as small as I considered, helpful and friendly staff member that genuinely wants to have fun.

 AUGmaniac wrote:
Only downside to ours is the lack of drinks other than a water fountain, and the prices. But I can always get a game, the manager is flipping AMAZING, and it is a great location and place to play (2 6x4 tables plus maybe a 3rd)

Tha'ts pretty standard as far as GW's seem to go, the only difference really being that he lets you play on them rather than using them as large display boards.

The main problem with mine is that the store is small. On special event days it's hard to move about as the middle of the store is taken up by a painting table, a single 6x4 gaming table and a 4x4 display table.
I remember a few years ago when it was in a different location... the store was an odd shape so unless you were at the front of the store by the window it was still hard to move about but at least it had room for 2 6x4 gaming tables, a full 6x4 display table (in addition to the massive window displays at the front) and a painting table double the size of the current one. Unfortunately most of the products were on the walls around the gaming tables and were near impossible to get to if someone was playing a game...


The only other annoyance is that the shopping complex it's in requires you to pay for parking.