*But they are too wrapped up in their NEW target marketplace (CHINA) to care.
I've a really bad feeling that they will find that this is an apple that they shouldn't bite into.
Being in China for the last 10 years, then seeing the first GW shop opened in Shanghai almost 2 years ago, I would say that it is not an easy job to open a shop in Shanghai, the rent are really expensive, and people don't know GW, don't know miniature and wargaming. The start was difficult... But Chinese like to discover new things, they start to understand that GW is really famous abroad and word is spreading and here things are spreading fast... So now they have a small but growing customers base, people start to spend in entertainment stuff, which was not the case few years ago... I saw father buying for 500USD of GW WH40K space marines to the 6 years old kid who was barely interested, I think that the father was more interested than the kid. People don't know anything about what GW did in the past years, price increase, closing down independent internet stores, etc... So it is like a new life for them. But it is not an easy one and the path is still long in order to have sustainable business and incomes in China.
The problem here is that Internet is the main retail space, everything is going through internet... I buy stuff online on a daily basis, all my colleagues do the same, everything is delivered the next day for less than a dollar... when I say everything, it is really everything, you have online supermarket called "yihaodian", you just pass an order you can get it next morning... Then you have Taobao, it is a large ebay and bigger then ebay, million transaction a day, you can find any products especially from the "grey" market like stuff not allowed in China, baby powder milk, computer parts, mobile phone, clothes, perfume, etc... and miniatures, copies and real stuffs...
Then there is my point, China has the capacity to copy anything, when GW will grow, people will get interested in their products, but kind of expensive stuffs for most of the people here, especially for a piece of plastic sprue (I can hear my wife saying it). So more famous they will become more copy will circulate, they have to go online in order to sell to the mass, they need to be fast. But they are afraid to lose the control. Here, it is really difficult to close a Taobao shop selling fake stuff, one close down, 10 are going to open. It is the rule, you need to differentiate yourself with good pricing (with promotional offers during public holidays, they love that, etc...) and good quality and people will respect that and continue to buy from them, if it is too expensive with low service then people go buy fake stuffs. The problem here is what is considered as expensive?? they might not be able to go too low, so they need to differentiate themselves differently than what they did abroad, and I think their service can save them, but they don't really have one right now, like organizing events, competition, painting lessons, keeping a group of kid during one afternoon teaching them how to play, supporting local gaming club providing some playing table, etc... this is costing money so... Even in a booming market like China, they might run into trouble if they don't change their way of doing and for that they need to think as Chinese people do, if not the apple will get bitter...
I believe that any other smart miniature company based on science-fiction stuff with easy gameplay can simply overrun them in a short time if they do it correctly and according to Chinese business way of doing, selling online, with short painting free tutorial videos, gameplay demonstration videos (all in chinese), advertisement in the metro, no brick and mortar shops, but organizing events and supporting local gaming clubs. Anyone want to go for it?
