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.

Ummm.....do gw minis have their prices printed on the box in the UK? Because they don't over here, and I had assumed that the boxes were the same.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Ummm.....do gw minis have their prices printed on the box in the UK? Because they don't over here, and I had assumed that the boxes were the same.

Nope. No printed prices.

These days its mostly books that have a price printed in them.

But guys, GW have changed! They have a Facebook page and everything!

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
But guys, GW have changed! They have a Facebook page and everything!

They make jokes too about lore!

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
But guys, GW have changed! They have a Facebook page and everything!

They make jokes too about lore!

And charge $50 for them! Sometimes they have cool pictures in them!

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
But guys, GW have changed! They have a Facebook page and everything!

They make jokes too about lore!

And charge $50 for them! Sometimes they have cool pictures in them!

And the pictures never look exactly like the stock models they put together either!

I just heard from Northen Exile (former GW shop manager) that the increase on the independent side might be a response to the collapse of GW Australia where prices finally reached the limit. So if they cannot raise prices as usual to customers, GW will chisel a the FLGS earnings.

M.

Random pointless last few posts bashing GW aside.

What may happen here is those independent online retailers who decide to keep a 25% or a 20% discount will just get a huge chunk of the sales.
As people will move from their old faithfuls if it’s a 5% difference.
I’d imagine 15% will soon become the standard discount most places.

I will not watch the video as I really don’t like the channel. But assume any random points have been covered here, but the main takeaway is the photo and the info posted after, really should have that in the initial post..

 Miguelsan wrote:
... the collapse of GW Australia...

Got more information on this?

Danny76 wrote:
... pointless...

No, it has a point.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Miguelsan wrote:
... the collapse of GW Australia...

Got more information on this?

Danny76 wrote:
... pointless...

No, it has a point.

Just the claims of Northen Exile. I don't know where he got his sources, but being former GW he might still have contacts at store level.


M.

GW are heading the wrong direction.

They are using the wrong strategy to make bank in a recession.

During Covid they could rely on increased sales to the locked down, even though people had less money.

Now people have less money but can go about their daily lives, so a larger percentage of the customer base will be wanting to do other things and have to make sacrifices. As GW is an expensive hobby a lot of people will be choosing to make sacrifices amongst their plastic crack habit.

Yes, yes, you have heard this before. But I am not predicting doom and gloom for GW, only that they will have to be satisfied with less.

GW acknowledge the problem by not raising their own prices, and gaining profits indirectly by cutting into the margins of other sellers. Its a dick move but legal, and they believe that pissing off their third party retailers is the path of least resistance.

The actual answer is to rebox. plastic crack is very very cheap and GW can afford to sell larger boxsets at more reasonable prices. They learned this work when they brought in the start collecting boxes and made them good deals at reasonable prices. Slowly they have turned on the greed. GW bargain boxes are NOT loss leaders, but big profit makers. The plastic in a boxset costs a few pence, dopubling the number of sprues adds only a few pence more, the short addition to the price is almost all profit because these kits will sell.
Gw also need to learn from other manufacturers and sell more paint sets, they do do a pair of start sets, with a reasonable, for them, pricetag, but they could do far more and sell sets like Army Painter and Vallejo do. The increase in raw volume makes up for the reduction of individual itemised profit.

I do believe GW could end up with increased long and short term profitability by being less greedy. Lowered prices on a per item basis combine with larger boxsets of both models and accessories would boost sales far and above any additional itemised costs.

Keeping the range elite doesn't work for them. For several reasons:
- GW relies on new teen customers, whose parents frankly can less afford to buy into the hobby.
- There is no exclusivity bar a few special edition miniatures.
- GW are innovators, it is one of their core competencies. If they lower prices and increase box sizes they make less income per product line to customer, but that matters less as they do not have a static line, They are always adding more factions. So the principle reason for parsing out sales, that of customer termination at end of purchase cycle does not apply as there will be a constant temptation to start a new purchase cycle (i.e army).

GW can easily dig themselves out of the retail hole they are in, but are too pig headed to try, and cant see beyond price hikes as a catch all.
Make no mistake, this is a price hike, its just handled differently.

The decades have shown that for every person priced out of GW's products, two people are willing to pick up their slack and buy more stuff for higher prices.

Well, OTOH, recessions tend to wreack havoc on that kinda stuff.

Time will tell if their practices pan out o not, as always.

But this will make life quite a bit harder for all the independent retailers that make a sizable part of their business from GW stuff.

The good news is, like a lot of places, GW will reduce their temporary prices once the economic conditions stabilise.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
The good news is, like a lot of places, GW will reduce their temporary prices once the economic conditions stabilise.

Actually the good news is, GW is actually giving a hand to competition in these needy times.

Angry man rants at screenshot of an email for 11 minutes is one hell of a USP Northern Exile...bit too niche for me.

The sad thing is I am shocked that GW have not started this price increase to FLGS's earlier. Will the 5% odd change backfire? Time will tell. It may drive some people away, it may turn more towards 3d printing...but in a time of rising prices on just about everything this is bad news for hobbyists.

ListenToMeWarriors wrote:
Angry man rants at screenshot of an email for 11 minutes is one hell of a USP Northern Exile...bit too niche for me.

The sad thing is I am shocked that GW have not started this price increase to FLGS's earlier. Will the 5% odd change backfire? Time will tell. It may drive some people away, it may turn more towards 3d printing...but in a time of rising prices on just about everything this is bad news for hobbyists.

Sure, because GW never has raised prices except in "times of rising prices" globally. They've been so restrained that this comes as a shock. </s>

Hello Albertorious, not sure what your problem is with me or what you think I have said? Not sure where I said they have never raised prices in times of financial prosperity? That I said I was shocked they had not done it earlier proves your point that you think I was denying. But this is DakkaDakka where every post must be jumped upon by "akchtually" posters whose whole existence seems to rest on validating their petty little lives by jumping on people on the Internet. But you take your anger and run with it Alby, enjoy your day.

Adios.

Sure, I will!

People seem to be assuming that GW's own margins aren't already being squeezed. If GW's costs are increasing (very likely) and they aren't raising prices, then their own margin is already being hit. Whether that's more or less than the 5.8% rise in trade prices they've passed on to retailers none of us would know, but it doesn't follow that just because GW raised trade prices by 5.8% without raising RRP that they're simply netting 5.8% more profit at the expense of independent retailers. They may well have been sucking up those kinds of cost increases in their own supply chain already.

Before people pile on, this isn't a blanket defence. Games Workshop products are expensive; they make lots of pricing decisions that I think are strange, misguided or objectionable – but raising prices to retailers when your own costs are likely going up considerably really isn't much evidence of a strategy to hammer independent stores or hit internet discounters or whatever.

Greenfield wrote:
People seem to be assuming that GW's own margins aren't already being squeezed. If GW's costs are increasing (very likely) and they aren't raising prices, then their own margin is already being hit. Whether that's more or less than the 5.8% rise in trade prices they've passed on to retailers none of us would know, but it doesn't follow that just because GW raised trade prices by 5.8% without raising RRP that they're simply netting 5.8% more profit at the expense of independent retailers. They may well have been sucking up those kinds of cost increases in their own supply chain already.

Before people pile on, this isn't a blanket defence. Games Workshop products are expensive; they make lots of pricing decisions that I think are strange, misguided or objectionable – but raising prices to retailers when your own costs are likely going up considerably really isn't much evidence of a strategy to hammer independent stores or hit internet discounters or whatever.

It's more that we know their margins on the stuff they make tends to be quite large, and that they've had record earnings for several years on a row. They could suck up a reduction in margins without having losses, just less earnings. They chose not to do that.

We also know that many, if not most FLGS, run at razor thin margins.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Miguelsan wrote:
... the collapse of GW Australia...

Got more information on this?

There's this documentary you should check out called 'Mad Max'. It's a sort of living documentary that gets updated every so often, so it's worth looking for the latest iteration.

 Arbitrator wrote:
The decades have shown that for every person priced out of GW's products, two people are willing to pick up their slack and buy more stuff for higher prices.

Somewhat luckily this isn't actually true, as the decline in the latter years of Kirby shows. GW can and has gone too far for too many customers before, and they are not immune to it happening again.

They are however reasonably adept at getting back up again and they're generally boiling the frog slowly, so there is little chance of a quick and significant customer exodus that would get them in trouble overnight.

But they do have momentum and a generally loyal customer base, which helps immensely. And, as we are so fond of saying, they also have a Facebook page. So right now they are in an unreasonably good position that they are all to willing to exploit. They're still riding the high of the pandemic and try to keep their high profits up for as long as the market will bear it. The wholesale price increase isn't the first measure in this and it won't be the last.

 Arbitrator wrote:
The decades have shown that for every person priced out of GW's products, two people are willing to pick up their slack and buy more stuff for higher prices.

Big spenders are usually whales and people with no impulse control.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
But guys, GW have changed! They have a Facebook page and everything!

They make jokes too about lore!

And charge $50 for them! Sometimes they have cool pictures in them!

And the pictures never look exactly like the stock models they put together either!

I tell you it´s all a scam.

Well, I for my part will not order any time soon the IH shoulder pads/helmets thus ruining GW´s Christmas business. I will order instead from Raging Heroes an Iron Empire army. That´s my way of showing Gee-Dubs the cold shoulder. Damn, suits in Nottingham will get their panties in a twist when they read this.

 Strg Alt wrote:

 Arbitrator wrote:
The decades have shown that for every person priced out of GW's products, two people are willing to pick up their slack and buy more stuff for higher prices.

Big spenders are usually whales and people with no impulse control.

Has anyone ever seen one of these Whales?

I know they exist in MMO games, but with those you can at least interact with every new release. With models it takes time to at least build let alone paint and many of us here are not whales and yet already have extensive backlogs of models. So are Whales a thing for Warhammer and are they really as impactful as people suggest. Or is it really just that whilst no one likes a price rise, many just grin and bare it (and a few just tolerate it but then sling mud like crazy online to vent)

I'd say anyone with a decent sized Horus Heresy army from FW is a whale

 Overread wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:

 Arbitrator wrote:
The decades have shown that for every person priced out of GW's products, two people are willing to pick up their slack and buy more stuff for higher prices.

Big spenders are usually whales and people with no impulse control.

Has anyone ever seen one of these Whales?

I absolutely have! I worked five years as a redshirt in one of Madrid's stores, in Spain, in one of the posh-est neighborhoods of the country, and people spent stupid amounts at a time. They just got everything, sometimes multiple times. Some then got them painted for tourney play, some painted themselves.

Without them, we would not have made target, most months.

A friend of a friend worked on a remote mine, so had a large amount of income and only one week in three to spend it. He had reams and reams and reams of grey plastic he barely touched.

I myself have a similar job but can't stomach the foolish prices GW charges these days so very infrequently buy from them. That being said I did pick up a Necron combat patrol the other day for over 200AUD from my FLGS....

I too would like to hear more about this tenuous claim about GW dying in Aus...

Indies who are set up to be GW discounters will already be counting the cost of increased shipping, fuel, staffing, energy, and items essential for the maintenance of their business.

5.8% on top of these pre existing raises will see a few just stop. Just another business decision.

Stores who are not set up to exclusively discount will be absolutely clobbered by all of the above -That is those who feel they have to compete with discounters to survive and more traditional gaming shops/sites.


GW would need to see literal hundreds of trade accounts go to zero before noticing any effect.

 Overread wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:

 Arbitrator wrote:
The decades have shown that for every person priced out of GW's products, two people are willing to pick up their slack and buy more stuff for higher prices.

Big spenders are usually whales and people with no impulse control.

Has anyone ever seen one of these Whales?

I know they exist in MMO games, but with those you can at least interact with every new release. With models it takes time to at least build let alone paint and many of us here are not whales and yet already have extensive backlogs of models. So are Whales a thing for Warhammer and are they really as impactful as people suggest. Or is it really just that whilst no one likes a price rise, many just grin and bare it (and a few just tolerate it but then sling mud like crazy online to vent)

I haven't seen them in person, but I've seen their big preorders waiting for the at the local GW store a couple times I've preordered GW stuff.

M.