Minor rant

[Marshal Valkenhayn]

My LGS gives a 15 percent discount on purchases over 200 bucks, and up to 25 percent off if the order caps some other number. 800 or 1,000 if I recall. I tend to order in bulk once a year or so and have gotten the big one multiple times, but I also buy smaller purchases here and there when they really jump out at me. I'm a sucker for Underworld and Warcry boxes, as the smaller contained warbands are so good for any number of fantacy themed games, or tabletop RPGs.

 

Even if I didn't get the discount I'd probably buy through them, just because I like the guys who run it and they give me a free place to play with terrain, matts, spare tape measures if you forget yours, etc. It's my only real hangout and where I put most of my leasure time, to the point I have a tab of store credit I add about 20 bucks a month to for snacks and any time I have an order I just call up one of the guys and give them my list.

 

I say all of this because they are also a store that, while it stocks a decent amount of GW, has a lot more in boardgames and other company's kits. Reaper Minis, historicals, that sort of thing. And without them being cool about busting out other games to try when GW got too tedius, or generally being a chill place to be, my investment in this hobby would never have taken off to the point it has. Just have to build up that relationship and you'll get what you put into it.

[Bung]

7 hours ago, JayJapanB said:

 

What's with the attitude, mate?
It's still my local community for 40k. 

 

 

I dunno if it varies store to store, or if they just don't see the point in offering the service if it makes no margins for them. Either way I don't think they do it.
The staff seem to like FW stuff though. Some really cool Sisters hover tanks in the window.

 

Depends what Stores we are talking GW or Independent.

GW Stores dont really need to care but for Independents.

As said they dont get a retail Discounts.

Second Imagine being a Store owner having to tell a customer you have to Order that stuff from FW like themself.

 

When FW only accepted credit cards some stores offered to order for some customers as a collective order as a service.

But now with FW accepting PayPal it differs from Store to Store. 

Really depends on your Store owners Idea of customer service.

 

 

[Noserenda]

Your local store will be wanting to buy in stock that sells quickly, stuff gathering dust on the shelves is a liability after all, if you pay up front id be surprised if they wont order in for you too. 

As to stocking lots of GW stuff, it can be something that gets folk into your shop, just like CCGs, they may not like it be footfall and solid sales are king, but if nobody is buying it... why get more? 

Also, from my experience, GW reps often upsell some right crap which might alienate shop keepers who dont know the system, like the week i didnt do our order and my partner got a huge pile of the "new" cadian boxes (amongst a lot of other stuff) when they went from 20 to 10 man boxes at a markup, that guard players hated and some of those were still there when we liquidated the stock, hell i think one of them is still in my garage unopened :D 

[Orion]

4 hours ago, Bung said:

 

Depends what Stores we are talking GW or Independent.

GW Stores dont really need to care but for Independents.

As said they dont get a retail Discounts.

Second Imagine being a Store owner having to tell a customer you have to Order that stuff from FW like themself.

 

 

GW on the whole doesn't really need to care, but the GW store staff might. It depends on whether or not they would make any accountable sales on FW orders. Which as far as I know they don't. I've heard directly from a staffer to another customer that they can't order it in. But like I say, that might be a store policy set by the manager who doesn't want to deal with it due to no recorded sales from it. 

 

Either way, I'm still going to buy the models I want to buy. I just figure it would be nice to be able to do that and run my purchases through my local store, considering it's all full retail anyways.

 

Quote

 

When FW only accepted credit cards some stores offered to order for some customers as a collective order as a service.

But now with FW accepting PayPal it differs from Store to Store. 

Really depends on your Store owners Idea of customer service.

 

 

Yeah, I forget that can be an issue. People definitely used to be able to order to GW stores back in the day and pay instore. Would have made a lot of sense back then.
I've never hard a credit card but have still been shopping online with a debit card for 15+ years?
Feels kinda like a necessity to have some form of online bank card at this point. 

[tzeentch9]

15 hours ago, LameBeard said:

I’ve often wondered if it would pay for an independent shop to have a greater range for fewer systems or factions. Like maybe they could get a critical mass going in their area, rather than trying to please everyone and failing. It would be like going into the store and seeing “oh, this is the Tau vs. Chaos 40k and Blood Bowl store -I guess that’s what we’ll play round here”, but they have *everything* in that range.

 

I realise the shops typically don’t get to choose quite like this, they are locked in to some core products and the release cycle, but it’s a model that GW could think about if they really cared about nurturing the games, rather than selling to the impulse buy. 

That would be a terrible idea though. It would just encourage people to buy online. And if those online buyers ever decide to buy anything from the tau range or whatever, then they won’t go to that specialising shop, they’ll keep buying online. Better to have a bit of everything, a bigger net

[Bung]

10 hours ago, JayJapanB said:

GW on the whole doesn't really need to care, but the GW store staff might. It depends on whether or not they would make any accountable sales on FW orders. Which as far as I know they don't. I've heard directly from a staffer to another customer that they can't order it in. But like I say, that might be a store policy set by the manager who doesn't want to deal with it due to no recorded sales from it. 

 

Either way, I'm still going to buy the models I want to buy. I just figure it would be nice to be able to do that and run my purchases through my local store, considering it's all full retail anyways.

 

 

Yeah, I forget that can be an issue. People definitely used to be able to order to GW stores back in the day and pay instore. Would have made a lot of sense back then.
I've never hard a credit card but have still been shopping online with a debit card for 15+ years?
Feels kinda like a necessity to have some form of online bank card at this point. 

 

I dont have much experience with GW Stores more with Independents.

As Independents dont earn Money with FW Models some banned them outright from the Tables, cause they didnt want customers asking for that Models.

Some others did collective orders due to the Credit Card issue but that died when GW / FW started to accept PayPal.

So if they Order FW for you, expect it to be customer service as they wont earn money with that.

[Sergeant Bastone]

On 9/27/2023 at 11:28 PM, Grotsmasha said:

If you want to support your local vs. buying online, it's quite likely they'll order specific items for you, as they'll have access to GWs entire catalogue. The only downside is additional wait time.

Yeah, this is what i do.  It costs 15% more to go thru the store (online can always get discounts) and it takes like 4x longer.  But if i don't support the store we won't have anywhere to play. 

 

Edit: our old store did a lot of 40k stuff but closed.  Now the new game store is making a home for us but apparently GW is TERRIBLE for an independent store to deal with, especially one that has not ordered much from them in the past.  

Edited September 29, 2023 by Sergeant Bastone

[Halandaar]

19 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

The store isn’t actually that much smaller than what I’m used to, it’s just like 80% packed with random boxed board games no one has ever heard of.

 

I guarantee you people have heard of them. There is a huge market for board games of all kinds, from your ubiquitous Catan and Ticket to Ride types right up to complex boutique games and massive game sets with price tags that rival GW's biggest boxed offerings. 

 

Here in the UK where arguably Warhammer is more popular than anywhere (on a per-capita basis, not outright sales numbers) it's still dwarfed by the wider board/card game scene. Just for one example, I haven't seen any actual attendance numbers reported anywhere but WarhammerFest had a maximum capacity of 30,000 people over three days that we know it didn't reach. By comparison, the UK Games Expo drew over 52,000 attendees over the same number of days*

 

Even in my nearest city the two biggest book stores have board game sections that are bigger than the entire footprint of the local GW store, and they wouldn't dedicate that much city-centre retail space to it if they weren't selling enough to justify it.

 

*That's muddied slightly by the fact that GW themselves are exhibitors at the expo, but they're one small corner in one of three massive halls and they're there for the exact reason that it's a bigger market for them to tap in to.

[DemonGSides]

That being said, there are a lot of terrible trash board games. They have exploded in popularity over the past ten years and that means there's also gonna be a lot more people trying to make their way in the space. So the sentiment that it's a bunch of board games that no one's ever heard of isn't wrong; for every Catan and Ticket to Ride, there's about ten board games with cliche titles that less than a thousand people have ever played.

 

It's just that Catan by itself is more popular than Warhammer is. So that plus Ticket to Ride basically guarantees a bigger audience, plus the sales to keep them on the floor of your normal stores. Plus COVID keeping families and households inside... never been a better time to be a board gamer!

[Bung]

@Inquisitor_Lensoven

Independent Gamestores dont survived with Warhammer / Tabletop.

What pays the bills are TTCG like Magic etc. cause there are always people that buy a a dozen or mote Displays per month.

My store is rather small in Magic terms but still pre-orders around 150-200 Displays of Magic cards for a release.

Then, if you are Independent, you need to offer some other Games besides GW, Infinity, SW stuff etc. is not unpopular.

And if you are at that point offering boardgames too helps you to increase your customer base depending on your reputation. 

My Store owner knows the Boardgames he sells, so he can give you good suggestion even if you dont know much about Games yourself.

Those people will come again and maybe spend more Money on TT etc. 

[Mechanicus Tech-Support]

From chatting with my buddy who owns his own hobby store for the last 14 years (oh god I remember when it was year one T_T)

MTG > boardgames > retro video games > warhammer/tabletop 

 

"Boardgames are huuuuge It's easier to sell someone a boardgame they have never heard of than overpriced plastic toy soldiers"

 

Like seriously Catan, Ticket to ride, gloomhaven, cthulu wars, I can go on and on about the games that likely have a larger audience than TT warhammer. Which is especially clear (locally) when the boardgame meetups happen vs warhammer meetups. I don't think I've seen any store locally that solely focuses on TT actually survive here.. aside from GW and they downsized from 3 stores  to 1 and only opened a 2nd maybe 4 years ago.

Edited September 29, 2023 by Mechanicus Tech-Support

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

1 hour ago, Bung said:

@Inquisitor_Lensoven

Independent Gamestores dont survived with Warhammer / Tabletop.

What pays the bills are TTCG like Magic etc. cause there are always people that buy a a dozen or mote Displays per month.

My store is rather small in Magic terms but still pre-orders around 150-200 Displays of Magic cards for a release.

Then, if you are Independent, you need to offer some other Games besides GW, Infinity, SW stuff etc. is not unpopular.

And if you are at that point offering boardgames too helps you to increase your customer base depending on your reputation. 

My Store owner knows the Boardgames he sells, so he can give you good suggestion even if you dont know much about Games yourself.

Those people will come again and maybe spend more Money on TT etc. 

 

I’m not against stores having more than just warhammer and SW games, but damn, they basically have one section that’s 4ft wide and like 9ft tall for all of GW.

 

I’ve seen people playing DnD in their private rooms, and they supposedly have a 40K night but the ridiculous parking situation means I’ll never go there to play, especially with winter coming up

Edited September 29, 2023 by Inquisitor_Lensoven

[Mechanicus Tech-Support]

If GW doesn't sell and isn't the main breadwinner of the store why would they allocate more space to it. 

 

One could debate that if they offered more gw stuff it would sell more, but that may not necessarily true, if the stores been around for a while they may have already tried that or more likely they know what sells locally 

[Marshal Valkenhayn]

My LGS charges DND and other RPG players to rent the table. It isn't a ton of money, like 10 or 15 bucks for a block of a few hours, but war, board, and card gamers get to play on them for free. When I asked one of the owners about it he basically told me that RPG gamers spend a fraction of the money of any other person who comes into the store. A single book and some dice every year, year and a half isn't uncommon, where as the rest of us buy paints, modeling supplies, new cards, and new games on a semi-regular basis. So at the very least they want to keep those tables open to people who contribute to the store, and a minimum charge helps keep the majority of tables free without just running players out.

 

We've also noticed a curious habit for RPG gamers to order all their snacks/meals through door dash just about every time they come in, where the majority of the wargamers/board gamers buy snacks in store, or eat the lunch they brought before playing a game, then buy drinks while they play.

 

I actually find this whole aspect of gaming shops and shop culture interesting, especially in how it varies from area to area, and how people approaching the shop from different gaming communities view it. 

 

Also, Inquisitor_Lensoven, you should ask around to see if any of those shops organize matches online. It's not uncommon for them to have local facebook communities and the like, which would be your rout into getting games in on the non warhammer days. Assuming you haven't already looked into that. That's how I found my shop's 40K community originally, and how I organized all my matches before I made friends and got people's numbers. It's like a 45 minute drive to the shop for me, and as a blind guy I have to take public transportation or organize rides with people to get me there. Setting things up before hand helped a lot.

[LameBeard]

10 hours ago, tzeentch9 said:

That would be a terrible idea though. It would just encourage people to buy online. And if those online buyers ever decide to buy anything from the tau range or whatever, then they won’t go to that specialising shop, they’ll keep buying online. Better to have a bit of everything, a bigger net

Well you’re probably right, because that’s what most do, but I’m still curious for evidence. As another frater said, some shops are selling what GW tells them will sell and that’s not always right for their area.

 

And it’s really not like buying online is a secret niche thing that people don’t know about any more.

 

I did try to put some business the way of my local independent shop, and sadly they’ve closed, so maybe not enough.  It was a shop with Magic the Gathering, Board Games, RPGs and actually a decent selection of GW, Warlord and Army Painter - they were making an effort - but some very faded boxes on some of the shelves. Maybe the issue there was *not* that they didn’t know their customer, but some do suffer from that I fear.

[Noserenda]

Margins can be razor tight on an LGS too, when i chatted to a previous manager of a failed shop near ours about problems to avoid he mentioned a series of bad investments by the owner into ranges or products that never sold like a whole bookcase of trash 3rd party d&d books, an obscure limited edition boardgame that cost £300 or a mini range that wasnt particularly popular but their trade contract meant you had to stock their whole range. You always need to be aware that unsold stock can add up to thousands invested in crap thats clogging your shelves to boot.

[Bung]

5 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

I’m not against stores having more than just warhammer and SW games, but damn, they basically have one section that’s 4ft wide and like 9ft tall for all of GW.

 

I’ve seen people playing DnD in their private rooms, and they supposedly have a 40K night but the ridiculous parking situation means I’ll never go there to play, especially with winter coming up

 

What does that Store do to promote GW Games?

If the Store owner isnt interested in growing the Community you wont have much luck.

Tourneys, Leagues etc. do a lot to promote the Hobby.

 

For example my Store does a Starter League during the Summer school Holidays.

The generall Idea is you buy a start collecting box and expand your Army but only with stuff you buy in that Store.

You get a League with 2 days a week where the Store owner commits fully to that League and system. From helping painting assembling, extra written Missions etc. 

 

Then the Store and the local group have a Discord Channel to Setup Games etc.

 

Just an example from a Store that grew over 15+ years with dedicated regulars for nearly every bigger TT, TCGs, Boardgames and RPGs.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

On 9/29/2023 at 8:22 PM, Bung said:

 

What does that Store do to promote GW Games?

If the Store owner isnt interested in growing the Community you wont have much luck.

Tourneys, Leagues etc. do a lot to promote the Hobby.

 

For example my Store does a Starter League during the Summer school Holidays.

The generall Idea is you buy a start collecting box and expand your Army but only with stuff you buy in that Store.

You get a League with 2 days a week where the Store owner commits fully to that League and system. From helping painting assembling, extra written Missions etc. 

 

Then the Store and the local group have a Discord Channel to Setup Games etc.

 

Just an example from a Store that grew over 15+ years with dedicated regulars for nearly every bigger TT, TCGs, Boardgames and RPGs.

They have weekly warhammer nights, but that’s no less than my old stores did.

 

[Bung]

12 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

They have weekly warhammer nights, but that’s no less than my old stores did.

 

 

Thats the problem.

You need to do more and not only for a few months.

As said you need Leagues, etc. especially building Leagues for beginners to grow your Community and then you can Stock more Warhammer cause you have the customer base you need.