GW closes stores in New York

[skeeve]

<p><font size="3">Well, we saw it coming but still it is sad. We were fortunate to have 4! stores in New York. The first one was closed about a month ago.</font></p> <p><font size="3">Another one, on Upper East side will have their last day on November 18th. They will be holding farewell event there on that day, so I think those who live in NYC and play the game should visit, I am sure that they make it worth your while .</font></p> <p><font size="3">As for my store (Austin street) we don't know yet when they close it but the sign that this property is available for lease recently appeared at the entrance.</font></p> <p><font size="3">That will leave us with one store on the 8th street. On a bright side the rumor has it that they might open one large battle bunker instead of these three stores but this is just the rumor while store closures is, alas, &nbsp;real.&nbsp;</font></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]-->&nbsp;<!--[endif]--></p> <p>&nbsp;</p>

 

[Jericho]

I remember hearing something about X number of the least profitable stores being closed down. It's kind of a shame to see 3 out of 4 in NY getting shut down. A Bunker would be cool though, one more reason to go to NYC some day Hopefully "trimming the fat" should help keep the company healthy though, I've always been worried that their attempts to take over the world would leave them spread thin and unable to keep things profitable. How many years left on the LOTR liscense?

 

[skeeve]

Yeah.. but they are trimming MY fat . It is very difficult to be a business like GW in NYC - rents are too high and profit is pretty much fixed (you know the mantra 20% of your customers provide 80% of your profit...). As much as we love our local GW we can buy only so much from them... In addition in several cases they signed 10 year property leases and you really have to be very confident to tie yourself down like this.... And as for LOTR don't even get me started on this. Our local people after pressure from above put heroic efforts into trying to boost sales of this line but it is absolutely dead... Again these 20% that are responsible for 80% of the profit simply refuse to buy it after playing 2-3 times. The whole line is very very sad...

 

[Malekyth]

Agh, at least two stores in the Boston area closed down within the past few months. There is one left that I know of, which is quite a ways north of Boston and probably not going to be on my itinerary any time soon.

A co-worker and I were thinking that maybe they were just consolidating GW stores in a more central location, but so far there's no sign. I wonder if they'd been planning to pull stores for awhile, and that's why they buffed up their mail order?