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I got a notification that a Warhammer Store is going to open in the El Paso Texas desert Southwest. Overwhelmingly, the sentiment seems to be open hostility between retailers, which is expected, and players. The store appears to be dead on arrival due to the gaming culture in the local Warhammer community.

Have any of you seen a Warhammer store die in a place with a strong Warhammer player base due to community hostility? This is the first time GW is putting an official Warhammer store in the region.

What about the local community has them so hostile to a GW store, out of curiosity?

Pretty sure it is not old guard hobbyists that keep those places open.

I imagine it will do fine.

 Dysartes wrote:
What about the local community has them so hostile to a GW store, out of curiosity?

In the US, GW has a bit of a reputation for putting their stores in locations that can make them direct competitors with already highly successful FLGSs. And when the GW store has easier access to all GW products and faster and bigger restocks of those products, the FLGS has a much harder time competing.

It happens here as well; when GW opened a store in the city centre of Utrecht, there was already a strong gaming scene present, scattered across.. three or four stores all within a 200m radius of one another, who weren't overly hostile to one another, but not exactly friendly either haha! Been ages since I last went, but the GW store is booming, while some of the other stores have reduced or dropped their GW ranges, due to stock issues, needing to stock certain unpopular items as core products, late deliveries and other reasons, which may or may not be GW shenanigans.

Whilst I’ve only been to one US GW Store (in New York, New York), in the UK at least they tend to be positioned just off the main shopping area, but still fairly prominent.

The sort of place most people walking or driving into the town centre will go past.

If the same is true of the US? Then they have prominence over FLGS, which tend, for entirely understandable rent/lease cost reasons, tend to be more something you have to know about, or have searched for specifically.

Which works for GW Stores, because their main aim is recruitment. Visibility of the hobby, and a place to show it off in, theoretically, the best possible light.

Now if that area is already supporting multiple FLGS? They’re not necessarily competing for quite the same audience. Indeed with GW doing the recruitment for the area, the FLGS can focus on what they may well do better - pricing, gaming space, organised events etc.

It’s overly simplistic to say “if you’re selling at a discount and can’t compete with your full price competitor, it’s not your competitor that’s at fault”, but it is still a consideration. Likewise if a FLGS does go under, it’s not necessarily “big mean GW pushed them out”.

I’ve been to excellent FLGS, and I’ve been to awful FLGS. My most local one doesn’t carry regular stock of…anything. Paints. Brushes. Glues. Kits. Books. GW or not they just don’t carry much, focussing on Boardgames and TCG.

But there’s a warehouse for a competitor the next town over. Wee bit dingey, but much better stock levels. Yet only sell GW paints.

Some stores allow a clique of a self appointed “elite” run it as their own personal clubhouse, which can be offputting to anyone looking to get involved. But if you’re the only game in town, those looking to get involved will still buy from you. Soon as competition arrives? There’s a chance they’ll be more hospitable and welcoming, which is already temptation to others.

In short? There’s a lot of interplay when competitors setup shop, and room for both to exist in at least some kind of harmony.

Independent store I worked at some years actually had to stop selling GW product after an official store opened across town - new releases got delayed and most of the sales (people want to buy stuff on release) were lost. After a few frosty phone calls with the rep they decided it wasn't worth the bother. And it's surprising how little people seem to care about 10-15% discount in that context.

Bearing in mind this was probably about 15 years ago and you can imagine individual reps being responsible for playing hardball or not, so no idea if things are the same now.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:
What about the local community has them so hostile to a GW store, out of curiosity?

In the US, GW has a bit of a reputation for putting their stores in locations that can make them direct competitors with already highly successful FLGSs.

And in the US, there's stores that don't deserve the moniker of "Friendly Local Game Store" but rather "Closest Local Game Store" or "Most Discounted Local Game Store".

And when the GW store has easier access to all GW products and faster and bigger restocks of those products, the FLGS has a much harder time competing.

This is always such a crock of an argument to me. I have a GW store and 3 independents all within 25 minutes of me. The GW store never has as much stock as the independents do.

There was a GW rep for a while in charge of handling orders who certainly had a habit of sending the wrong stuff a lot.

When the Crimson Slaughter got their own codex, the store instead ordered a few copies for those interested and instead got.. several sets of Carroburg Crimson.

When I wanted a Stormlord tank, this was when the online store still listed each kit separately, we instead got a blister of Imhotek, yay!

Worst case was when a batch of campaign books were delivered in the wrong language, French instead of English and the rep was being a massive bastard over not wanting them returned and exchanged English ones.

My current discounter of choice has been struggling with stock issues for months now and finally has been able to resolve all of the outstanding orders. They refuse to stop stocking GW despite this, mainly because, that's what put them out there and why people visit the store so much.

GW does have a reputation for abusing their vertical structure.

Knowing store and mail order addresses they can pick a district where their game are popular. They can then delay or imped shipments to competitors in the area.

Not sure it's illegal, but it certainly stacks the deck.

 Kanluwen wrote:
The GW store never has as much stock as the independents do.

A nice sign of teamwork was the GW staff pointing me to the FLGS sited next door as the place to pick up an Angron 'Red Angel' box just before Christmas as there was no way I was getting one direct from GW

It doesn't have to be an acrimonious relationship.

 Pacific wrote:
Independent store I worked at some years actually had to stop selling GW product after an official store opened across town - new releases got delayed and most of the sales (people want to buy stuff on release) were lost. After a few frosty phone calls with the rep they decided it wasn't worth the bother. And it's surprising how little people seem to care about 10-15% discount in that context.

Bearing in mind this was probably about 15 years ago and you can imagine individual reps being responsible for playing hardball or not, so no idea if things are the same now.

Based on industry scuttlebut from other retailers, the same holds relatively true now.

It also happens for other manufacturers kits, but to a lesser degree. Warlord, etc post up a 50% off sale and all the customers go to their website, even if retailers are given extra margin to be able to match the same.

Also worth keeping in mind that GW stores are their least profitable sales channel. Each store of course requires a tenancy, power, staff, insurance and potentially local taxes to be paid.

So it’s a significant investment. Doing so simply to drive more profitable sales channels out of business makes….absolutely no sense. At all. None. Especially as each store is expected to be profitable, with those that aren’t being closed (after a period of attempted remediation)

But, as a means to ensure GW products are promoted over competitors, and maximising outreach and market penetration? Now you see the sense in it.

Having somewhere near your place of employment that sells undercoat and paints is not to be sniffed at.

FWIW I stopped going into the local-to-my-office Warhammer store just after Indomitus launched because the lad told me I wasn't welcome to bring in any models that weren't bought from his store, so I stopped all spending there.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:
What about the local community has them so hostile to a GW store, out of curiosity?

In the US, GW has a bit of a reputation for putting their stores in locations that can make them direct competitors with already highly successful FLGSs.

And in the US, there's stores that don't deserve the moniker of "Friendly Local Game Store" but rather "Closest Local Game Store" or "Most Discounted Local Game Store".

in my area, there are three different game stores, but they're "Closest Local Game Store", "Most Discounted Local Game Store", and "Local Game Store With People I Want To Be Around" i appreciate the dynamic, actually, because i have a reason to visit all three (the one convenient, the one that's a little cheaper, and the one i attend events at)

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Also worth keeping in mind that GW stores are their least profitable sales channel. Each store of course requires a tenancy, power, staff, insurance and potentially local taxes to be paid. .

Although as they got rid of about two thirds of the retail staff that particular overhead has dropped somewhat.

I'm still waiting for that one to come back and bite them on the arse. Having businesses operating with a single adult and lots of children genuinely isn't a good idea, for several obvious reasons.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Also worth keeping in mind that GW stores are their least profitable sales channel. Each store of course requires a tenancy, power, staff, insurance and potentially local taxes to be paid.

So it’s a significant investment. Doing so simply to drive more profitable sales channels out of business makes….absolutely no sense. At all. None. Especially as each store is expected to be profitable, with those that aren’t being closed (after a period of attempted remediation)

But, as a means to ensure GW products are promoted over competitors, and maximising outreach and market penetration? Now you see the sense in it.

All of that is offset by the fact that GW gets to directly sell a customer a $50 kit that only cost them say $5 to produce, whereas they sell the same kit for only $30 to a retailer at wholesale rates.

It’s still a significant overhead they avoid through FLGS and Direct channels.

They’ve also reduced down gaming space, being more introductory and beginner game focussed than “this is where you play most of your games”.

Every GW staff member is suitably vetted. Now that process sadly isn’t completely foolproof, not least because it requires them to have been caught before.

But it’s been One Staff Stores for a fair old while now. Like, at least a decade, if not 12+ years. So whilst the obvious concern is obvious? With no reports of such concern actually occurring, it seems it is no more than a baseline concern.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Responding to Chaos0xomega.

Kind of? By the time you’ve added the overheads (minimum wage for a 40 hour week in the UK currently stands at £21k, give or take at the highest rate, which is for those 23 year and older.

How much is a shop lease in the UK? I’ve honestly no idea, but that’ll vary from town to town of course, and square footage etc. Though thanks to a centralised stock system, stores don’t need a huge amount of storage space.

Business rates also apply. Utilities need to be paid. As does insurance (though it’s possible that’s a Group Policy, rather than one policy per store)

This all adds up, and cuts into the profits made directly. This is reflected in GW’s annual figures. In terms of profitability? It’s…

1. Direct Sales
2. FLGS
3. Warhammer Stores

So it’s still a risk. And by no means one taken to corner the local market entirely.