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 TalonZahn wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I'm sure GW would rather sell direct to each individual customer if they could do so without losing sales volume.

That's the goal of ANY company.

This is what you disputed.

I guess it was MY fault for saying ANY instead of narrowing it to.... any company that can feasibly manage doing so. Which is far more than you seem to think.

Perhaps I should have said something like....

"Every manufacturer than can feasibly sell direct to consumer at MSRP and eliminate all middleman losses incurred through their inability to be 100% vertically integrated, would make it their main goal as to maximize profit on every sale."

Like say...Sherwin-Williams paint. They make their paint, you can buy it from them online, they have stores, and own their distribution/shipping.

However, they also sell their paint at Lowe's, who is a competitor.

I bet SW would rather sell you paint from their stores than Lowe's.


[Edit] Now now Az, stop making petty attacks.

 TalonZahn wrote:


Like say...Sherwin-Williams paint. They make their paint, you can buy it from them online, they have stores, and own their distribution/shipping.

However, they also sell their paint at Lowe's, who is a competitor.

I bet SW would rather sell you paint from their stores than Lowe's.

Isn't their slogan to "cover the world," complete with a somewhat creepy image of blood red paint drowning the globe?

Very Chaos.

Cover the Earth.

Very metal for a company that has a globe drowning in red paint..... in a time when people claim to hate all fossil fuels.

I bet SW would rather sell you paint from their stores than Lowe's.

Even that's not a gimme. Stores are expensive to run, for the longest time GW's stores barely broke even most years (they might still, I've just not cared enough to look recently.)

GW rationalised it as an advertising/recruitment tool rather than a money making enterprise. Even if you could flick a switch and channel every sale through a local GW store tomorrow, ilthe lost sales from areas where they have no presence might mean it wasn't a net gain.

Send everything to the webstore and their visibility disappears, and they would likely need to start investing far more heavily in traditional advertising to acquire new customers, and that could get very expensive.

The idea that they want everyone to buy straight from them is logically sound, but the reality is so much more complicated. The more pragmatic approach is to get product in as many places as possible for a price that makes you a profit, which is by and large what they do.

Were it GW Day 1 and they could start from scratch, they might build differently, but as with any ongoing concern they have to contend with the legacy of decisions made historically.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I'm suddenly reminded of something I said in the locked previous thread:

"We just need Azreal13 to come back into the thread for the coup de grace."

Ha!

Of all the people to pick a fight with on matters of business.

In fairness, the thread started with people not calculating sales tax properly and not understand the difference between gross and net or profit and margin, so that we've moved on to debate over vertical integration and the truncation of supply chains is a significant step up.

And that, in a roundabout way, leads back to the original statement.

If a manufacturer could sell directly to each of their customers, and not lose volume of sales, they would do so.

Eliminating all costs of land, rent, employees, etc. etc... and getting 100% MSRP every sale is the easy choice.

I would argue though that GW stores don't gain as many newcomers as the other mediums they are pushing into; video games, comics, animation, CCG's, etc..

[Edit] If you want, I can change the conversation back to something less engaging.

If a manufacturer could sell directly to each of their customers, and not lose volume of sales, they would do so.

It's moot though, because unless a business sets itself up day 1 to sell a product it makes direct to consumer, it's effectively impossible to pivot into that. GW predates the wide adoption of the internet by decades, therefore the best if can do is try and stack the deck in its favour, which is probably why this topic exists.

Eliminating all costs of land, rent, employees, etc. etc... and getting 100% MSRP every sale is the easy choice.

Still need people etc. In GW's they'd still need warehousing, production, admin, HR, telesales, web support, etc etc anf somewhere to put it all. They'd be able to make the account managers for the third party sales redundant and that's about it, and they'd likely need to recruit more heavily into their stores and warehousing/dispatch to accommodate the increase in orders (and far more small ones.)

As I said, it's logically sound to say they'd do it, but it's logical to say that I'd choose to gain superpowers if I was offered, but the odds of it successfully happening are essentially nil.

 Azreal13 wrote:

I bet SW would rather sell you paint from their stores than Lowe's.

Even that's not a gimme. Stores are expensive to run, for the longest time GW's stores barely broke even most years (they might still, I've just not cared enough to look recently.)

This is true, but they're in a better situation than regular FLGS (to which the above applies exactly the same), as they don't have as big a margin as GW when selling GW stuff, which is the topic of the thread: that margin, that was already (and obviously) lower, is getting reduced by GW at a point in time when the situation of those stores is already dire, due to... <waves around vaguely>

 Albertorius wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

I bet SW would rather sell you paint from their stores than Lowe's.

Even that's not a gimme. Stores are expensive to run, for the longest time GW's stores barely broke even most years (they might still, I've just not cared enough to look recently.)

This is true, but they're in a better situation than regular FLGS (to which the above applies exactly the same), as they don't have as big a margin as GW when selling GW stuff, which is the topic of the thread: that margin, that was already (and obviously) lower, is getting reduced by GW at a point in time when the situation of those stores is already dire, due to... <waves around vaguely>

I don't know if this was just a one off accident or actually something more. But I have been part of the Votann outofstock waiting list since Preorder in October at an independent, some specific items have been Out of stock since ever but almost 2 weeks ago they are back at the GW online store.... yet the Independent claims GW will only ship those after 5 January... What's the relevance of this?
I hope that GW doesn't start playing the out of stock game with other stores while selling the items only on their own stores first. In this example Votann will miss the Christmas shopping sprees.

tricky, but the last time I had this happen to me the explanation from GW themself I got after asking was that orders are resolved differently as orders on release day are done first and pre-orders backwards (GW before FLGS last order first) and that my best option is to cancel my pre-order and go into a GW store to buy it there

 NAVARRO wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

I bet SW would rather sell you paint from their stores than Lowe's.

Even that's not a gimme. Stores are expensive to run, for the longest time GW's stores barely broke even most years (they might still, I've just not cared enough to look recently.)

This is true, but they're in a better situation than regular FLGS (to which the above applies exactly the same), as they don't have as big a margin as GW when selling GW stuff, which is the topic of the thread: that margin, that was already (and obviously) lower, is getting reduced by GW at a point in time when the situation of those stores is already dire, due to... <waves around vaguely>

I don't know if this was just a one off accident or actually something more. But I have been part of the Votann outofstock waiting list since Preorder in October at an independent, some specific items have been Out of stock since ever but almost 2 weeks ago they are back at the GW online store.... yet the Independent claims GW will only ship those after 5 January... What's the relevance of this?
I hope that GW doesn't start playing the out of stock game with other stores while selling the items only on their own stores first. In this example Votann will miss the Christmas shopping sprees.

As we have now entered the "can't guarantee it for Christmas' phase of the festive period, the store in question may simply be playing safe. My GW sales rep has informed me that while they will take trade orders next week, and the week after - their arrival time is not certain. As for Leagues of Votann, restocks have been sporadic, and FLGS may have to trust to luck that certain items are available as when their order gets processed. I think I'm one of the lucky ones to get a Land Fortress this week. GW's web store (and any mail order based trader) while be quite happy to take your money as soon as you click 'pay now'. What time it arrives at it's destination is somebody else's problem.

MarkNorfolk wrote:

As we have now entered the "can't guarantee it for Christmas' phase of the festive period, the store in question may simply be playing safe. My GW sales rep has informed me that while they will take trade orders next week, and the week after - their arrival time is not certain. As for Leagues of Votann, restocks have been sporadic, and FLGS may have to trust to luck that certain items are available as when their order gets processed. I think I'm one of the lucky ones to get a Land Fortress this week. GW's web store (and any mail order based trader) while be quite happy to take your money as soon as you click 'pay now'. What time it arrives at it's destination is somebody else's problem.

To be fair, it may actually be someone elses fault. For example, in Germany, we have huge huge problems along the whole distribution chain for stuff even as basic as standard mail, mostly due to a lack in postal workers and absolutely insane rates of absence due to illness at the moment. Standard letters, which usually operate under a legaly mandated policy of 2 working days turnaround between posting and delivery for at least 90% of the total and 3 days for 95% can be delayed for weeks, and packages take even longer. Even super-expensive services like guaranteed next-day delivery in a determined timeslot that cost several hundred percent more than standard mail do regularly fail at the moment, and stuff like inhouse pickup for firms is totally cancelled in many service areas. It's a problem that made the news on several occasions because stuff like important official mail with non-negotiable deadlines for reply is also affected by this. That's not really something GW can influence or account for, if any step of your supply chain depends on that at all you'll just be randomly hit by delays with no warning and no recourse.

Their risk is doing this, as opposed to a price rise, might crimp their visibility. GW stuff can be marginal for some shops (selling online is a different beast), if this pushes their turn rate down and there is no indication it is a temporary measure, the temptation is to drop the lines. Being a small stockist doesn't seem to work for many, it is carry considerable stock or give up. Of course if GW can fix their distribution as a compromise that would change things, but if those problems continue and the margin is cut, I would see their physical visibility dropping.

And to the above - whilst many companies sell direct in some way (even if it is just a bad website), it is expensive and tricky and often doesn't make them as much after costs as wholesale sales. Why doesn't everyone do everything? Because it is hard, retailers tend to be better at retail, manufacturers better at making things, and so on. Maybe machine learning will provide a better base of ability and make expertise more of a marginal gain? Who knows.

 Albertorius wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

I bet SW would rather sell you paint from their stores than Lowe's.

Even that's not a gimme. Stores are expensive to run, for the longest time GW's stores barely broke even most years (they might still, I've just not cared enough to look recently.)

This is true, but they're in a better situation than regular FLGS (to which the above applies exactly the same), as they don't have as big a margin as GW when selling GW stuff, which is the topic of the thread: that margin, that was already (and obviously) lower, is getting reduced by GW at a point in time when the situation of those stores is already dire, due to... <waves around vaguely>

What were the estimated margins the last time anyone saw figures for GW Online vs. GW Store vs. average independent?

I can see a GW Online sale probably having a higher margin than an independent, but it might not be the case for the GW Store, assuming the costs for each channel aren't averaged between the two.

Well margin or profit? GW stores aren't franchises, they aren't buying in branded product. It is shipped to them to sell and they ship the proceeds back. The company is deliberately opaque about the profit from that channel. But they clearly despite various efforts over the years still make money and need the non-GW stores.

The_Real_Chris wrote:
Well margin or profit? GW stores aren't franchises, they aren't buying in branded product. It is shipped to them to sell and they ship the proceeds back. The company is deliberately opaque about the profit from that channel. But they clearly despite various efforts over the years still make money and need the non-GW stores.

In retailer logic, it's a choice between two distinct cost profiles: sell it yourself at retail price, but assume all the risk and costs that entails, especially the cost of bound capital and of warehousing and store operation, or sell at discount, but get all the cash right now and shift most the operating risks to the independt retailers. In a world that was ideal for them, GW would like to have all the risk-free options like pre-orders, made-to-order and such in their own hand to collect the highest possible rents, while leaving the risky business of keeping stuff sitting around for random walk-ins to the independents. Of course, it's not entirely that simple, but that's the general principle.