What in the hell are they thinking?

[Ebonbuddha]

This maybe old news. But I just came across this.

Here...

And here...

It seems GW is going after Bitz sellers in the US.

Drink them if you got them.:beer::drunk::drunk:

 

[Sand Rat]

Money money money. Or something to that effect.


Have one on me :beer::drunk:

 

[No Such Agency]

There\'s an eBay user in the US called \"window-box\" who sells figure bitz and single plastic figures, I\'ve had dealings with him and he\'s pretty good. Not grossly expensive, and probably the best bet if you want to paint only ONE Kroot, for instance.

http://stores.ebay.com/Blackdagger-Games

 

[EArkham]

Aren\'t those two links the same?

Kep

 

[Shadzar]

back in 2003-2004 GW took on eBay sellers with cease-and-desist orders from selling online under the concept they they didn\'t authorize online sales at the same time they attack all other online sellers.

shortly though GW was met with eBay pretty much telling them they had no right targetting sellers on eBay as they cannot control what people do with their personal tangible property.

GW still uses this excuse and scare tactics to bully people out of the market so they have the only online store, using their \"protection\" of the B&M stores as an excuse.

effectively stating that if you sell online they will cease providing merchandise to the retailer.

they are digging their own grave pretty much, and this new wave of it from Bitz dealers may be a final straw in their coffin.

look at it simply. no matter where a sealed box or vlister comes from there will always be left over bitz. and rather than having them thrown in the trash some people would liek to sell them. why should stores be punished when the average consumer can jsut unload their bitz?

this is all part of their illegal price-fixing to prevent people from selling for less than their \"suggested\" discount rates as well.

maybe people have had to sign documents stating they wouldn\'t sell under a certain price or for more than a certain discoount, and its probably time someone got an investigation going on it.

if GW wants to be the only ones that sell their own merchandise they will fin it will quickly die in the US.

or they will learn that one retailer could sell to another and that secondary retailer can sell for whatever he sees fit without violating their price-fixing scheme.

just watch for eBay auctions and sellers to get placed under the gun again when they start this.

 

[demonherald]

They\'ve been slowly shifting this and it can only get worse but as said above a lot of what they are trying is actually against some trading laws... once they receive their trade payment for an item that item becomes the traders poperty and they decide how best to sell it..

going after bitz companies is a losing battle for tem..A. there are too many of them and B There is no way they can trace the source of the bitz... second hand bought full price bought under a trade account or picked up at a jumble sale ..they can\'t do it...

one of the sneakier moves they have done a lately is remove item availability for independents.. Blisters characters etc all dissappearing.. meaning independents are effectively left with Boxed sets only.. This will be bad for them in the long run...with limited availability of their poducts they will effectiveley be cutting off at the wist a lot of independents who deal with them.. This will mean many will stop selling their stuff.. They then not only lose their revenue through trade sales but their exposue to customers who don\'t have access to or want to visit a GW store.. It seems in many respects a commercial coffin nail...

coupled with their reshape of direct sales they are riding on an overconfidence that people will go direct to them and increase their profits.. unfortunately the most likely kick back is they will see more people just stop buying...

For now there are still plenty of bitz out there but it will be interesting to see how things pan out for GD\'s and the like.. I know I for one wouldn\'t have been able to do my last years entries.. my DP alone would have cost £350 plus just to get the parts in the current system.. as it goes they got about £60 off of me not that much but enough that if out of the thousands of entrants world wide they don\'t get a penny it\'s a slow rot and a lot of this smells of touble ahead for the company... I hope not but there are a lot of decisions at the moment that aren\'t sitting right...

it just seems to me they are pricing themselves out.. trying to control prices that trade customers sell at .. WTF..... why not simply use proper buisness ethics... If your worried your trade customers are taking your profits by selling at a lower margin then just cut your own damn prices so it isn\'t an issue..(I know I defended GW prices on another thread due to overheads etc but this is a different matter)
they make and control the product yet it\'s cheaper to go through another dealer to buy it.. become the cheapest available outlet for your own product and reap the benefits...worried that Bitz manufacturers are gonna steal your trade..sell the bitz cheaper...

 

[Friar]

I worked at a hobby/comic store in the 90\'s and then as now when you sign the contract with them to be a purchaser it is forbidin to list GW products online. the war store which is running bwb understands this as they state on there main site, the standard we carry GW shite but can\'t show it online please call to order\" unfortunatly for them they didn\'t think about the bits market conflicting with their agreement with their wholesaler when they took over bwb. Sucks but thats how it\'s always been with GW stuff and the hold a strong enough foot in the mini market to dictate these terms. It\'s not going to do em in or hurt their sales, it\'ll just funnel more sales to their site where they can get full retail for it instead of sellin to a retailer for wholesale then having them undersell them on-line.

But it sucks anything that makes it harder to be creative in this hobby bites the big one.

Personally the guy who owns the war store and bwb should simply sell bwbs to his wife for a buck and have it run independent of the war store sight. He no longer has control over it so they can\'t threaten to cut his orders off and she can hold it while he runs it since she wouldn\'t need to order from GW since they operate mainly on spru trades and what they do kick over to the bits end GW can just be kept in the dark. Just a matter of more paperwork which sucks it\'s enough of a pain running a shop without extra headaches.

 

[Gussy]

What a great idea for a online business! I know a retailed and should be able to work out some discount for bulk, then sell online bitz. No one can force me to reveal who my source is.

Come to think about it, I can go to China and manufacture tons of bitz...even full kits and let\'s see what they can do. Look what happen to those Gundum models.

 

[Shadzar]

Originally posted by demonherald
worried that Bitz manufacturers are gonna steal your trade..sell the bitz cheaper...

exactly. take their old way when you could buy the components directly from them that make up a boxed set.

Tau Crisis Suit.

99120113005 - the boxed set costed $20

1. : contains one XV8 crisis battesuit
2. : two gun drones
3. : two small flying stems
4. : one large flying stem
5. : one Tau decal sheet
6. : two small flying bases
7. : one 40mm round base
8. : and an instructution pamphlet for building Tau

1. : 99390113002 - crisis suit sprue @ $22
2. : 99390113001 - 2 drones cost $5
3. : 99379999003 - 2 small flying stems cost $1
4. : 99379999013 - large fyling stem @ $0.50
5. : (# unknown) - Tau decal sheet $3
6. : 99379999014 - 2 small flying base cost $1
7. : 99379999023 - 40mm round base @ $1
8. : (# unknown) - could you even buy the instruction book?

$20.00 boxed or $33.50+ for sprues?

i can understand buying in bulk gets you cheaper deals, but $13 difference for something as mundane as this?

no wonder they can\'t compete with other bitz sellers.

 

[Ebonbuddha]

You would think they would get rid of their CEO.

 

[Thunderhawker]

Heh. As long as there are auction sites, and ways to sell bitz, people are going to buy those $20 box sets and make money off the bitz. GW can\'t stop it, but they are trying like hell to contain it.

 

[Shadzar]

Originally posted by Ebonbuddha
You would think they would get rid of their CEO.

which one?

AU, US, UK, DE?

all of them probably have different ones. but to coordinate a worldwide stop to online sellers it means they are working together through the various countries and trying to get around some of their local laws....

i think i heard a while back that UK actually jumped all over US online store for something. maybe someone local to the UK might want to talk to the MAIN office and see what this is all about and explain how internet sales actually keeps the game alive because the price hikes surely cause damage, and things like these preventing, or trying to, online sellers is in violation of some laws and doesn\'t make the customers feel very welcome by the company unless they are paying outrageous prices.

would anyone be willing to tackle that that is from the UK?

cause the trolls in the US could care less if you get what you order from their online store anyway, and even for retailers have ceratin useless things you must buy and carry, its no wonder the online markets are needed to unload the crap they can\'t otherwise sell and help get more people into the game so ALL of the products don\'t jsut waste vital shelf space for things that could sell quicker.

 

[Roger Bunting]

They don\'t even sell those component parts now at all. Some of the bitz I want are metal and bitz sites don\'t generally stock them.

 

[Ebonbuddha]

There is a head guy that everyone answers to. He is mentioned in the financial reports. Just like Microsfot China or Singapore. There are heads at those offices, but Bill is the big boss. No matter what.

@Roger Bunting. I know what you mean. I have two Minotaur that need lower jaws and arms and Dark Eldar Incubi that need back packs. I also have some ogres that need parts too. I think this is one of the most poorly planned actions in the company’s history.

Originally posted by Shadzar

Originally posted by Ebonbuddha
You would think they would get rid of their CEO.

which one?

AU, US, UK, DE?

all of them probably have different ones. but to coordinate a worldwide stop to online sellers it means they are working together through the various countries and trying to get around some of their local laws....

i think i heard a while back that UK actually jumped all over US online store for something. maybe someone local to the UK might want to talk to the MAIN office and see what this is all about and explain how internet sales actually keeps the game alive because the price hikes surely cause damage, and things like these preventing, or trying to, online sellers is in violation of some laws and doesn\'t make the customers feel very welcome by the company unless they are paying outrageous prices.

would anyone be willing to tackle that that is from the UK?

cause the trolls in the US could care less if you get what you order from their online store anyway, and even for retailers have ceratin useless things you must buy and carry, its no wonder the online markets are needed to unload the crap they can\'t otherwise sell and help get more people into the game so ALL of the products don\'t jsut waste vital shelf space for things that could sell quicker.

 

[Shadzar]

Originally posted by Ebonbuddha
There is a head guy that everyone answers to. He is mentioned in the financial reports. Just like Microsfot China or Singapore. There are heads at those offices, but Bill is the big boss. No matter what.

but the question is is it the fault of the head guy, or more crap just from the US offices?

it was the US offices that sent stuff to members of and eBay itself because eBay is located in the US.

so is it all of GW that is doing this as far as bitz sellers, or just those in the US being targetted?

they do kinda have a way around the anti-trust laws because its their merchandise and they can choose who to sell to through thier distributors, but its still fishy business.

 

[bullfrog]

Just another way for GW to try and get more money/sales...oh lets can the bitz trade unless it is from us and then only release a small amount of bitz so everyone has to buy boxed sets they don\'t want.

What I find even more insidious is how they have changed bags of one sized bases to a bag of all sizes.
Sure it may only be $15 here in Oz as the sales assistant pointed out to me....but I don\'t want to buy a bag of assorted bases when all I want is the 40mm ones....not very cost effective when you look at it like that.
I personally think it is a sneaky way to get me to buy what I dont want and wont use. Why on earth do I want to buy something that has a stack of 25mm bases in it when my own supply of them seems to be breeding or self replicating. I can\'t give them buggers away and GW wants me to buy more.....no thanks. I am yet another customer who now goes elsewhere for that product.

 

[Ebonbuddha]

But branches of a main company don\'t get to go willy nilly without some supervision on something this big. Especially since their sales are slumping and GW is trying to fix that problem.

You can\'t get bitz on the UK site either. So, this order was handed down from the head office.

Originally posted by Shadzar

Originally posted by Ebonbuddha
There is a head guy that everyone answers to. He is mentioned in the financial reports. Just like Microsfot China or Singapore. There are heads at those offices, but Bill is the big boss. No matter what.

but the question is is it the fault of the head guy, or more crap just from the US offices?

it was the US offices that sent stuff to members of and eBay itself because eBay is located in the US.

so is it all of GW that is doing this as far as bitz sellers, or just those in the US being targetted?

they do kinda have a way around the anti-trust laws because its their merchandise and they can choose who to sell to through thier distributors, but its still fishy business.

 

[Shadzar]

Originally posted by Ebonbuddha

Originally posted by Shadzar

Originally posted by Ebonbuddha
There is a head guy that everyone answers to. He is mentioned in the financial reports. Just like Microsfot China or Singapore. There are heads at those offices, but Bill is the big boss. No matter what.

but the question is is it the fault of the head guy, or more crap just from the US offices?

it was the US offices that sent stuff to members of and eBay itself because eBay is located in the US.

so is it all of GW that is doing this as far as bitz sellers, or just those in the US being targetted?

they do kinda have a way around the anti-trust laws because its their merchandise and they can choose who to sell to through thier distributors, but its still fishy business.

But branches of a main company don\'t get to go willy nilly without some supervision on something this big. Especially since their sales are slumping and GW is trying to fix that problem.

You can\'t get bitz on the UK site either. So, this order was handed down from the head office.

but are stores in the UK that do online bitz sales being affected?

or is it just a US/NA website?

yeah the loss of components is a pain. and pretty stupid.

 

[Ebonbuddha]

No. Bitz stores in the UK are safe for now.

But that isn\'t important. It still doesn\'t change that the order had to come from the head office.

Originally posted by Shadzar

Originally posted by Ebonbuddha

Originally posted by Shadzar

Originally posted by Ebonbuddha
There is a head guy that everyone answers to. He is mentioned in the financial reports. Just like Microsfot China or Singapore. There are heads at those offices, but Bill is the big boss. No matter what.

but the question is is it the fault of the head guy, or more crap just from the US offices?

it was the US offices that sent stuff to members of and eBay itself because eBay is located in the US.

so is it all of GW that is doing this as far as bitz sellers, or just those in the US being targetted?

they do kinda have a way around the anti-trust laws because its their merchandise and they can choose who to sell to through thier distributors, but its still fishy business.

But branches of a main company don\'t get to go willy nilly without some supervision on something this big. Especially since their sales are slumping and GW is trying to fix that problem.

You can\'t get bitz on the UK site either. So, this order was handed down from the head office.

but are stores in the UK that do online bitz sales being affected?

or is it just a US/NA website?

yeah the loss of components is a pain. and pretty stupid.

 

[Undave]

Apart from Bitxbox ARE there any bitz stores based in the UK?