GW raises their prices

[Nomis]

thanks Finn

I have a standing order with Leisure Games in Finchley for Cry Havoc - you are right it is a huge cut above WD! - I still have what could be called an adiction with the mag so will almost certainly buy it tommorrow - unless Harbinger arrives!


I think we should all be pushing people to join UKCORD to encourage them to get more involved in the wonderful world of Rackam! - Got Ragnarok after Christmas (thank heavans for generous Aunties!) just for the fluff - great stuff!



JOIN UKCORD NOW!

 

[Modderrhu]

Give \'em time..

Thing is, I only know of one shop in ZA that stocks these marvelous Rackham creations, whereas there are three stores that stock GW in a 30 minute driving range. And when I picked some Rackham\'s up last Saturday, the crowd in the shop all wanted to know if I played Confrontation - not one of them did. Hehe, this guy with a mohican was quite interested when I said I only paint and don\'t play with miniatures.

But yes, give \'em time indeed.

 

[Frustrated Father]

I personally don\'t like GW stuff, I own some of it as I bought some when I got back into this hobby (obsession) but honestly, everything else seems to be of better quality or interest and the only thing GW has going for it (hah .. only .. its a rather big reason) is that it has a huge following for their games.

Its understandable that they raise their prices. If people will buy them, why shouldn\'t they? And they will continue to do so until people stop buying them and then they will scale it back a bit, become the benevolent company and sell again.

Buisness is buisness.

 

[finn17]

This is probably a very silly question...

Originally posted by Modderrhu
Thing is, I only know of one shop in ZA that stocks these marvelous Rackham creations...

Can you not get them direct from the Rackham eshop? Their courier service is not the speediest in the world, but I have found it to be reliable, plus you get all sorts of other discounts and deals..???

Nomis: I joined UKCORD as soon as I was able. Before that I was a member of the French Confed, but I didn\'t understand an aweful lot...being an idiot Brit with the default monolingual capability But you are right...we should be promoting UKCORD. I did have their banner as my sig for quite a while but I like to whore my advertising space around:flip:

 

[Propaintjob]

More doom & gloom

It would also appear that a number of £18 sets (Eldar Falcon etc) will be rising to £20.

The only good element of this is for those who want battleforces/battalions. Their price will remain at £50. They\'re a money saver now & will be even better \'value\' after the price rise. Provided you want that many minis in one go...

 

[Trevor]

What Dauber said, meh...

 

[Valander]

Well, looks like Ebonbuddha is gonna have to get totally blitzed thanks to this thread. (To see what I\'m talking about: http://www.coolminiornot.com/forums/viewthread.php?tid=7202)

And, now I must also take a drink. My drinking rules are that I have to take a drink whenever:

1. Games Workshop announces a price increase (this keeps me warm most of the time).
2. Someone asks what paints to buy.
3. Someone asks what NMM is.
4. Someone asks what tweening is (here I must chug).

Even if they\'re not increasing prices all over, it\'s just a matter of time. I was ok buying the plastic regiments back when they were ~25. I can\'t see paying 2.00 US per model for plastic stuff, though, and that\'s almost what they are now, depending on the box. So, I haven\'t bought any GW in about a year, and don\'t plan to any time soon.

I\'ll stick with Privateer Press, Reaper (Warlord mostly), and Rackham for the most part, with the occasional small company like Hasslefree, Freebooter, etc.

 

[Dragonsreach]

While we all sit on here and moan about GW\'s continuing price hikes, I think we are forgetting something.

GW expects it\'s customer base to be 12-16 years olds with an annual turnover of new players joining the hobby, and older players leaving, of 70% of their sales base.

Which in real terms means that long term players only account for a small sales percentage of their annual turnaround. (Painter/collectors like us are only expected to be around 5% [and I\'m being generous on the figure])

Therefore the annual price Hikes can be lost to the majority of their core customers as most 12-16 year olds I know, are not as fiscally aware as the older members.

You can see how much of a money orientated busines GW is by the fact that they have dropped the Fanatic Magazine and are returning the non-mainstream games into White Dwarf on an \"occasional basis\". Why? Because there isn\'t enough of a profit margin to employ 7 people to produce what is considered a marginal magazine. Which is why the Inferno Mag is also being dropped.

GW is ruled by the Retail arm and not the Studio. Therefore the new releases in plastic are aimed at simplistic assembly and leaving little scope for conversions. Why? Easier for 12-16 year olds to assemble.

Painters and converters like us are not GW\'s Bread & Butter worldwide. Yet they are all to happy to use our talents in the Golden Deamon to advertise what the potential that can be achieved in the hobby is.

Love em or hate Em, that is what GW is all about.

 

[Margo]

About plastic

One thing I noticed and correct me if I\'m wrong: it seems like GW are slowly switching to plastic. I think in the long run custumers will benefit from that -- even if the prices rise, plactis models will always be cheaper than metal. What do you think?

 

[Dragonsreach]

Originally posted by Margo
One thing I noticed and correct me if I\'m wrong: it seems like GW are slowly switching to plastic. I think in the long run custumers will benefit from that -- even if the prices rise, plactis models will always be cheaper than metal. What do you think?

Plastics have a higher profit margin. But personally I think that the metal figures are the better quality, there\'s more detail and a certain \"difficult to define\" difference. Possibly the weight of a metal miniature lends a certain presence to the figure as well.
Oh yes metal\'s easier to strip the paint off when I get it wrong.

 

[Legacy Account]

Errr....£8 for a single marine captain? Seems to me that they\'ll leave the prices the same and pocket the difference.

Leeches.

I see that their cheif exec is creaming it. He just got a HUGE payrise. Lets just hope they price themselves out of the market. It\'s getting to the price point where a kid has a choice between a regi box, or a console game.....

 

[Day]

Originally posted by Margo
One thing I noticed and correct me if I\'m wrong: it seems like GW are slowly switching to plastic. I think in the long run custumers will benefit from that -- even if the prices rise, plactis models will always be cheaper than metal. What do you think?

In addition to plastics having a higher profit margin, going mostly plastic will hinder the rampant second-hand market of GW minis. Metal miniatures are simple to strip and repaint but with plastic it\'s both difficult and time-consuming. If the second hand markets are eliminated, all consumers need to purchase new GW products if they need them, generating more sales and profits.

But I believe that going all plastic is not a feasible choice, since there are quite a few miniatures which do not sell enough for GW to make a plastic injection mould out of them - which is far more expensive than making a mould for metal casting. All special units will certainly be made of metal for quite a some time. But it seems that the current GW trend is to make the miniature plastic and go for metal only if sales are not expected to cover the costs of the plastic mould making process.

I believe that while customers will benefit from the trend to go plastic in that they will get more minis for their buck, the customers who like to purchase second hand will be hurt a lot. But if new gamers generate the 70% of GW\'s revenue annually, most customers won\'t care, since they\'re still getting more for less - for GW it\'s a win-win -situation. Only we old-timers who buy second hand lose.

...just my 0,02e

 

[Aragorns_mate]

just for the record, the SM commander is well worth it i bought him a few days and am loving convering the bugger with the old Green stuff. hundreds of spares aswell, the only downside is the mould lines!

if GW made minis with no mould lines! id be quing up to buy there stuff, but for now, im moving to pastures new for a while and will try some rackham, as everyone seems to like them

 

[kittykat23uk]

Originally posted by finn17
Not all is doom and gloom out there folks. Rackham are still giving away free minis with orders of over E100 plus free shipping. (although I don\'t know if that covers places outside Europe..it might do??? )

Sorry to be plugging them, but I feel that GW needs to feel \'the bite\'

These are the free minis you can get:

Free Rackham Minis

Finn, you are evil!! There I was trying to save money and you\'ve gone and made me blow £70 on some more wolfen!!! Whats a girl to do?!

 

[Valander]

Of course Finn\'s evil; look at his avatar!

Too bad they don\'t have any kind of undead dealio. That\'s about the only thing I get in any kind of quantity. Then again, I don\'t need to get anything right now, since I won\'t even have the time to open the box until the end of this quarter (not to mention I\'m still a poor college student...).

 

[Trevor]

Damn thats tempting...

no

no

no

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!

Aaaah the flesh is sooo weak.

 

[Ichaerus]

GW Market Targeting

Originally posted by Dragonsreach

GW expects it\'s customer base to be 12-16 years olds with an annual turnover of new players joining the hobby, and older players leaving, of 70% of their sales base.

Which in real terms means that long term players only account for a small sales percentage of their annual turnaround. (Painter/collectors like us are only expected to be around 5% [and I\'m being generous on the figure])

I agree on their approach, however, and this is a big however, most of the younger players will gravitate towards what games the majority of gamers are playing at the time. Sans, why Warmachine has become a BIG hit among local retailers.Truth is, the younger players mainly got into GW because \'everyone is playing it\'.

While they target the new players, it is the steady players who draw these newer players into the market. Every major phenomenon in this market segment can be traced to this — D&D, Magic: The Gathering, MageKnight, Warmachine and even GW. They forget that it is steady players that bring new players into this market. They also forget that, in this industry, a company can fall as fast as it rises (TSR, anyone?).

I work for a large company also, though not in this industry. We have also taken the \'twice a year price increase\' strategy and let me advise, it is done because customers are being lost! So the thought behind this is to milk your \'existing\' customers to make up the difference. Problem is, everytime you raise prices, you lose more customers. So it becomes a downward death spiral. Maybe this explains why GW recently had a large layoff.

I agree with your take on the company and my bet is, within two-three years, GW will not be the company they are today.

 

[Ichaerus]

Originally posted by EricJ
GW can only take what the market gives, and it\'s hard to blame them for doing so. As was pointed out on some items the market gave less so they lowered their prices, on others they realized they could raise them...

Ok, that\'s just my economics background talking, of course I think it stinks!

From my marketing experience, you can also push too far - especially in a captivated market segment like this one. Anyone remember how the strongest brand ever in this industry, D&D, damaged themselves with 2nd edition, high-priced, inferior quality products? When gamers turn, it becomes in mass. In fact, if it weren\'t for WotC, D&D would probably not even exist today.

In my opinion, GW is treading dangerously close to alienating themselves from the market and other companies, such as Rackham and Privateer Press are benefiting from this alienation.

 

[Drake Farstrider]

Well I worked for a game store for 5 years in the late 90\'s and early otts and every 6 months or so, I would get a call from my GW rep telling me of a $ .50 price hike. And sure enough everytime they told me of said price hike, I would tell them that they were nuts and my players would stop buying their product. They would ask me the age of my customers and I would tell them 18-34, and their reply was always the same: they are NOT our targeted age group. SO that being said 9 years later they are still doing the same shit, with the same response. And something tells me they will continue it for another 9 years and beyond. It\'s sad but true.

The only thing that would ever stop them is if NOBODY bought their stuff, but that will never happen because they have got a foothold on the wargaming market. For crying out loud they are in the damn malls, kids will see their stuff and play their games.

Untill you see store\'s that only sell Warmachine or Rackham, or Reaper in the malls they will continue to thrive.

Sorry for ranting. I feel much beter.

 

[Ichaerus]

Ya, but...

They have been fortunate enough to get away with it for that amount of time, and now it is coming to an end.

All you have to do is read their 2005 report to see both in the UK and The Americas, they are turning off the market quickly.

In their report, they state that US hobby shops are struggling. Well, I happen to visit six of those shops and NONE of them are struggling. In fact, in five of the six, they have invested heavily in Warmachine as their primary inventory. Four of those five continue to buy GW, but not anywhere near the level they once did. The remaining one will only buy GW through special order now as Warmachine has become such a big seller that all of his money is placed into that.

So the trend has started, and while GW has been big for a bit, they are now suffering the same fate that befell TSR (three years to demise), WotC (two years to demise) and now them.

As part of a class I was taking, I did a study of this market and conducted surveys at five of those stores. Part of those results indicated gamers were fed up with two major points with GW:

1.) Expensive books full of errors and typos and,
2.) The 25%-40% difference in pricing between the rest of the market.

P.S., In one of the more successful stores I interviewed, they saw sales of WH40k go from No. 1 on their list to No. 9 in a SIX month time frame.

GW has enjoyed a period where they really didn\'t have much competition. Now with Warmachine, Rackham, Dark Age and others, they no longer have that luxury and it is time for them to GET REAL.