A new strategy to replace B&M

[Bloodknight]

Honestly, the reason most FLGS's I've seen don't run intro games

They also have the added difficulty of not selling 3 pretty similar games, but tons of them. I doubt that a 2-man operation, for example, could know all the rules for all the stuff they offer.

[Trasvi]

How about this as an alternative... (just came to me, might not be viable)

Have official, GW sponsored local gaming clubs which run 1-2 weeknights and/or a weekend day.

Most gaming around my location occurs in clubs or at home. There is a very healthy local gaming club scene here.
These clubs are non-profit, meaning they charge entry fees and sell drinks just enough to cover their venue hire and various other expenses.
For the salary of a single employee per year (forgetting about rent and other overheads) a GW sponsored club could effectively:
- introduce people to the hobby
- have enough space to run plenty of games on great terrain
- have a small cart of product (paints, core items) at the club to sell on the night, and the ability to special order in
- give demonstration games
- support and grow the local gaming community
- support their local independent retailers
Sure, it would obviously be GW-only games, but they could possibly even run specialist games there.
Just a thought and theres probably plenty of holes in it....

[shelfunit.]

The latest in a series of good posts

They could even act as some form of travelling sales person - carry an order form and collect payment, then bring the models/whatever the next week - like the GW version of an Avon lady.

[Omniassiah]

Okay 2 things I thought of at work.

First GW is missing a lot of income available from selling other companies games in their stores. Now I'm not talking competing games, Magic, D&D, etc. games that attract a similar clientele but doesn't directly compete with it's miniature lines. Its added revenue for the stores and can help bring people into the stores to that are better recruits.


Alright and the second is that a lot of people defend GW stores by saying they are a marketing and research tool, and wonder how many people would or wouldn't get recruited without them. But the reality for GW is that the number of people recruited means jack. First we need to figure out when to call someone a recruit; is it when they buy their first model or when they have their first army together? I'd say neither, they are a recruit when the amount of money that they spend is greater then the amount of money spent to recruit them. this is a nice reference point because it allows us to compare different methods of recruitment. For example if the GW store method required that a person buy say 300GBP worth of stuff for GW to have recouped its recruitment costs its much less likely that you will see that many people who will qualify as a recruit, and it would be a poor recruiting method. If something like a Heroquest style game that was sold at either a slight loss or a marginal profit and was priced at a competitive point in a regular toy store may see that a potential player would only need to spend 20-30GBP to become a recruit.

Now if you want to consider the GW Stores as a marketing not a retail store we can do that. For any marketing plan there is a simple metric to determine success: (Increase in sales)-(cost of marketing plan/tool). If the resulting number is positive its a success. If its a negative its a failure. For GW stores the numbers are not only negative but the cost of the plan is more then the entire region makes and part of another region. For those thinking its a good marketing tool, think if you went into your boss and said "I think I can increase our Home region sales by 1% its just going to cost every sent we make there and I'm going to have to borrow some of what region X makes too." Most good-humored bosses will check the date(may be April 1st), wait for you to say you were joking, then fire you if you didn't have a real plan; or if your me, just fire you for stupidity first.

Now if you apply the information above to the requirement to be classed as a recruit it means that GW stores have effectively recruited NOONE... not only are they not getting enough people to pay off what GW invested in them, those that do provide a return on GW's investments and the current customers can't even cover the costs of attempting to recruit others.

[blongbling]

First GW is missing a lot of income available from selling other companies games in their stores. Now I'm not talking competing games, Magic, D&D, etc. games that attract a similar clientele but doesn't directly compete with it's miniature lines. Its added revenue for the stores and can help bring people into the stores to that are better recruits.

I mooted this when I was there, needless to say it was a no

[Chivs]

In the UK, the Games Workshop stores do still recruit youngsters. Even if their first exposure comes from a classmate saying 'Look at these cool models I bought', it's still going to be easier for the youngster to find a GW store in their nearest town and look at all the pretty miniatures. They can go in groups, taking their shoeboxes of half assembled, half painted models to their local store and use their tables, where the member of staff can answer all their rules questions. It's the place where a youngster can pull their parents too and say 'This is what I want' or spending their own cash.
In the UK, I reckon this is more likely to happen than the kid googling 'Wargaming' as opposed to Warhammer. They may be able to find stuff cheaper online, but this will need a credit/debit card to purchase, requiring parental support. Parents are probably more likely to purchase from a storefront for their child than an Internet site, as they'll have an advisor there to help them out. It is naive to assume that most of the kids and/or parents will recieve the sales spiel, go home and order the exact same products online, and then wait for them to be delivered.

However...
If the numbers are showing that the stores aren't bringing enough people in (ie the analyses that IamFanboy et all have been providing), then the above isn't good enough. Alternatives do need to be looked at, rather than continuing the same model and (even worse) trying to make it work abroad. You can't simply close down the stores and leave a vacuum as what recruitment there is will significantly drop (the defenders standard viewpoint to show why the stores must remain), and the thread has prompted some good suggestions back. But, as with virtually any discussion about running Games Workshop, it still comes back to price. Whether you introduce in your own shop, whether in independents that you help support, an 'avon lady' in a shop, or through plenty of Veterans spreading good word of mouth, if a good number of your potential customers will balk and walk out without the purchase then it's no good.

Hypocritically:
I want a Games Workshop store in my town. I moved a year ago, and can't find anyone to play with. There's a generic model shop with a small selection of 40k stuff at full retail cost (I asked the owner if there was much of a gaming scene in Stroud; he said none). I haven't found any clubs. I can't drive, so have difficulty going further afield. A GW store would provide me an area to play and people to meet. But I can't afford to purchase anything there anymore (certainly won't next week), so the store wouldn't generate income from me. It's a small town, so it probably can't find enough new players to meet targets and revenue costs. Should I expect the company to shell out money just to provide me somewhere to game? Nope.

[Omniassiah]

Hypocritically:
I want a Games Workshop store in my town. I moved a year ago, and can't find anyone to play with. There's a generic model shop with a small selection of 40k stuff at full retail cost (I asked the owner if there was much of a gaming scene in Stroud; he said none). I haven't found any clubs. I can't drive, so have difficulty going further afield. A GW store would provide me an area to play and people to meet. But I can't afford to purchase anything there anymore (certainly won't next week), so the store wouldn't generate income from me. It's a small town, so it probably can't find enough new players to meet targets and revenue costs. Should I expect the company to shell out money just to provide me somewhere to game? Nope.

Sadly, this is why a lot of LGS fail and why the Stores are killing GW... They probably will look to put a store there at some point and there just isn't the clientele to support it. LGS usually are started in the hometown of the proprietor and in a lot of cases the population of the area just can't support it. Its not a matter of that they are necessarily bad its just the customer base isn't there. Harrisburg, PA has the gamer population to support 1 game store on each side of the river no more, every so often people try to open a second and they fail because the customer base just isn't there. When GW does that it just supports the store with income from other sources in that region and in some cases other regions.

[Iron Puritan]

First GW is missing a lot of income available from selling other companies games in their stores. Now I'm not talking competing games, Magic, D&D, etc. games that attract a similar clientele but doesn't directly compete with it's miniature lines. Its added revenue for the stores and can help bring people into the stores to that are better recruits.

You miss a key element of GW's internal logic with your first line of reasoning: much of their management strategy is based around the notion that Games Workshop needs to operate like an absolute monopoly. They operate as if Games Workshop has no competition and has worked hard to foster the isolation of its customer base from wargaming at large. Haven't you ever wondered why some people seem to have something of an epiphany when they learn about other wargames? Gamers love games. It is as simple as that, so their expectation of absolute loyalty (in GW's case an artificially imposed one) is unrealistic as a business model. The bottom line is that your proposition would require a huge shift in the company's internal culture.

You only need to look as far as how Games Workshop treats its Warhammer Historical line to see this put into practice. Because Games Workshop does not manufacture a corresponding historical range of miniatures, it gives pretty much zero product support to the line. GW doesn't even sell it in their stores. This is all because it exposes their customers to some of Games Workshops secrets: they are not the only game in town and that other vendors often give better value for money. A recent example is the C&D given to Wargames Illustrated over an upcoming American paratrooper list for Kampfgruppe Normandy. Games Workshop's legal department stepped in to protect their intellectual property, even though GW has zero interest in giving their product any ongoing support. What WI was effectively giving to GW by covering Kampfgruppe Normandy amounts to free advertising, something GW flat out refuses to do to. Games Workshop could use their own "hobby publication" to support Warhammer Historical, but then you would see non-GW minis... Please note that Battlefront now owns Wargames Illustrated and regularly features and reviews competitors products and even includes ads from the competitors. Other companies earn your business, but GW does not see it that way.

[EvilMonkee]

[QUOTE]No. I'm a realist. No large company, with management, stock holders, etc. is capable of spending more money on running its stores than what it earns in a year without a huge scandal. It just doesn't happen. The accountant would bring it up, and Wells would be publicly executed for pissing away the companies money.

Can you not imagine the board room conversation?

What did we earn this year? £38 mil. And we spent? £42 mil. You're fired.

/[QUOTE]

Actually this is a fallacy. A product may cost more than it earns and STILL be worth producing as it contributes to the overall costs of the rest of the products produced.

The long, short and tall of it is that GW management is geared and has experience of (as someone else said) toward high street retailing, they have either ignored or are ignorant of the fact that most UK high street stores are failling in the internet age. It would require a massive sea change in attitude for them to see that the future is not high street retailing. As a management Accountant I firmly subscribe to the model put forward by iamfanboy (ever fancied a career in accountanting?)

An interesting titbit from their previous financials for last year was that in real terms retail figures flatlined and Black Library and Forgeworld and computer licences contributed the most to profits. They had to use their retained profits to offer a larger dividend to their investors to keep them sweet.

From a management accountantcy POV there is so much wrong with their core business model it shocks me, and I seriously wonder who advises them (anyone know?). GW will cease to exist within the next 10 years if they do not change as they will lose to much market share to an ever widening field of competitors that are more willing to put the customers at the heart of everythingthey do, not as GW does presently, put sales at the heart of everythign they do.

I could write a paper on this but its Friday and the sun is shining.

[bobafett_h]

One of the current issues with GW stores is that they lose their effectiveness as soon as they move into smaller and cheaper locations that don't get a lot of people passing by. FLGS are typically already in cheaper and smaller locations so do poorly at recruiting new gamers. One of the advantages they do have over GW stores however is that they sell other games to attract a wider variety of customers, so people will go there for one thing they might already play and then potentially drawn to another game while they are there. If non-gamers don't have a reason to be in the area around a GW store, they will never walk past one and never walk in to find out what it is about. Therefor, GW's current model for their stores is going to fail. Any B&M stores they do operate need to be in popular locations that have potential for lots of different people to walk past, otherwise they will have even less recruitment ability than your average FLGS...

Personally, I was brought into the game back in the last year of 2nd edition by a few friends who were already into it, it was quite some time before I first stepped foot into an actual Games Workshop store. My first ever GW purchase was from a local toy store and my next couple of purchases after that were 2nd hand items from friends who had not yet decided what army to stick with. I am not sure how the guy who got everyone else into it first was introduced to 40K, but I know that some of the other guys in the group had previously played Hero Quest, Space Crusade, Space Hulk and things like that. Following that, most activity was done from the single GW store that was in my city at the time which was situated in a very busy strip mall in a small food court area right next to the largest video arcade in the mall. It was packed just about every Saturday based on what I can remember. This store is no longer in that spot and has sinced moved to it's current location off the main strip into a hidden alley way near a beauty salon and German butcher...

Regardless of this though, GW still need to reduce the number of stores they operate globally and branch into other methods of recruitment and marketing. They need to realise that certain methods work better in certain areas, where other strategies do not work at all. Getting small miniture board games out like Space Hulk into toy and independent stores then setting up small demo tables in various independent toy, wargamer and hobby stores would be good places to start. As I have said before, they also need to heavily improve on the quality and level of content of their web site and web store while trying to be price competitive with other manufacturers. Despite having a monopoly in the wargaming industry, their arrogance is dangerous. Never acknowledging the competition is not always a bad thing providing you don't bash or put the others down, but GW should also realise that there are other gaming companies and customers are quite happy to play their games and buy their models instead if they think it is better, cheaper or simply provides better value than what GW assumes to be the best...

[Tresidentevil]

This isn't a Games Workshop problem. It's an economic one. I can't say for other countries but in my own (UK) the 'high street' (AKA B&M stores of various types) is a dying concept. The internet has just eroded their revenue to such an extent the economics of setting up a B & M store compared with operating online just don't make sense. The few B & M stores that do exist tend to be massive out of town ones, which is beyond GW's size requirements. Take the Dark Elf Battalion I recently bought from Darksphere. I'd even previously visited Games Workshop that same day, and quietly explained to my friend that he could save £15.0 of his £60.0 by shopping online with a 3rd party.

Games Workshops problem is that they have a need for B & M stores beyond generating sales (to engage with the gaming community and promote the hobby). They are in some regards stuck in an age of 'retail' which is now obsolete. The solution is obvious.

1) Diversify - Key business concept. Stock products which supplement the GW branded ones. Sell some relevant computer games and even other companies card games (such as Magic). Sell snacks and drinks for the thirsty gamers. It doesn't dilute GW's own branded stuff, it just makes the customer happier.

2) Close smaller loss making stores - Already somewhat implemented, but by doing this you can focus on point number 1. Maybe with this they can focus on bigger more value for money stores? Think business rates and rent in inner city locations.

3) To make up for the above - Promote 3rd party gaming clubs, provide support for them! Even teach people how to set them up. Tour schools and clubs promoting the hobby, Games Workshop 'reps' could tour all manner of places promoting and supporting the hobby. Think regional leagues and tournaments, gaming as a 'sport'.

4) Sell via agents - Promote the hobby via a network of 3rd party agents who sell the game (plus others), less costs for GW.

5) Internet sales - Promote sales online, and more important provide a clear % of saving on rrp for doing so.

It isn't rocket science.

[shelfunit.]

I mostly agree with you Tresidentevil. All 5 of your points have great merits and few to no downsides - although introducing MtG trading cards would a) open the customer base to the idea that fantasy worlds other than those sold by GW exist and b) Could be seen as a massive snub to FFG, as they have a number of collectable card systems based on the Warhammer (and 40k) universe - I truely fail to see why these could not be sold.
I think it is less that the B&M system (overall) is dying, and more that it is moving down to a lesser plane of existance. The need for a certain number of certain types of B&M shops is unquestionable, but it will only be for shops that can a) cover costs and make a profit, b) offer an experience that cannot be readily found in a combination of the internet and at home, neither of which the vast majority of GW shops are able to provide.

[Agrimax]

This isn't a Games Workshop problem. It's an economic one. I can't say for other countries but in my own (UK) the 'high street' (AKA B&M stores of various types) is a dying concept. The internet has just eroded their revenue to such an extent the economics of setting up a B & M store compared with operating online just don't make sense. The few B & M stores that do exist tend to be massive out of town ones, which is beyond GW's size requirements. Take the Dark Elf Battalion I recently bought from Darksphere. I'd even previously visited Games Workshop that same day, and quietly explained to my friend that he could save £15.0 of his £60.0 by shopping online with a 3rd party.

Games Workshops problem is that they have a need for B & M stores beyond generating sales (to engage with the gaming community and promote the hobby). They are in some regards stuck in an age of 'retail' which is now obsolete. The solution is obvious.

And here is the key problem – they created this ‘need’ themselves. It was previously done for them by indie stores without the overheads, they just didn’t have the confidence that their product would sell ahead of others and dominate the market on it’s own merits, so ran them out of town, making this current situation rather ironic.

The worst part is your point 2 – can’t argue against the need to shut loss making stores. But how many of them took the place of an indie, meaning their closure now actually leaves the local community worse off that it would have been if GW never moved in?

[Sean_OBrien]

The worst part is your point 2 – can’t argue against the need to shut loss making stores. But how many of them took the place of an indie, meaning their closure now actually leaves the local community worse off that it would have been if GW never moved in?

Almost all of them are worse because GW moved in...whether they stay or not.

If you look around the various locales which have a GW store and talk to people who go there, they are almost completely oblivious to other games which exist from 3rd parties. Competition is good for everyone, and when a company attempts to gain a monopoly...whether it is local or on a larger scale...it hurts the consumers, the competition and even the company themselves as they tend to get fat and lazy.

GW has become the epitome of fat and lazy in terms of business practices, and what makes it worse is that they have become so fat and lazy in their home region that they think that those practices should work in regions outside of the UK.

[prowla]

GW could just close most of their B&M stores and simply give all the tables, miniature displays and painting stations to local FLGS with big GW stickers on them. They could even pay the FLGS for floor and window space, or give them discounts based on how big they make the GW advertisements. FLGS gets some stable income, GW gets it's placement.

[Tresidentevil]

I agree with the replies to my post, it all makes sense. Closure of stores is an uncomfortable notion, maybe with a bit of change those loss makers wouldn't need to close? That would solve our problem.

To sum it all up though, how many of you prefer shopping at an independent retailer over Games Workshop to buy Warhammer? I think that question speaks volumes. Unfortunetly we're not the majority here. I prefer indies every single time, although visit Games Workshop for 'nostalgia' if anything else :s I'm of the firm belief indies are better because GW shops lack diversity.

I think embracing the entire genre of fantasy, whether thats gaming, literature, wargaming, larp, rpg, cards strengthens your own small piece of that big pie. The crazy thing is that GW possibly already agree with this, having associated themselves with LOTR. Call me crazy but why aren't they selling LOTR books and computer games alongside their LOTR wargaming stuff? Its all one product area and all generates profit! Hell why isn't the Black Library the worlds major fantasy/sci-fi focused publisher? The scope exists for that, and GW always has spare money which they pay in dividends! Keep that money for a few years and invest it! Maybe the shareholders really are a problem?

Take that further. Corporate hat on. Why aren't they buying out lesser competitors (not saying that's a good thing, this is capitalism)? Why will this company not invest in anything, beyond its current products?

[SunTzu]

Call me crazy but why aren't they selling LOTR books and computer games alongside their LOTR wargaming stuff?

GW couldn't afford the LOTR license for books, and certainly couldn't afford to make a LOTR computer game. (They license out their own IP to other companies to make computer games for Warhammer/40K, they couldn't possibly license in LOTR and develop the game themselves, so they're in no position to do anything related to LOTR computer games).

Or do you mean literally selling the books/games other people make, in GW stores? Makes GW less money, and you only need to count the number of LOTR articles (zero) in the latest WD to see how much they really believe in it. They got the LOTR tabletop game license as a defensive move, to stop other wargames companies using the association with the movies to steal Warhammer's fantasy TT game dominance.

Hell why isn't the Black Library the worlds major fantasy/sci-fi focused publisher?

Because a lot of it... whisper it... isn't very good. Sad but true. For every ADB or Dan Abnett (very good), you've got a Nick Kyme or CS Goto (very, very bad). Seriously, read anything by Patrick Rothfuss or Brandon Sanderson or Kristin Cashore or Robert Jordan, then pick up one of the Salamanders novels and see how long it takes for your eyes to start bleeding... I'm guessing about four pages. A lot of what they publish, people only buy because of the association with Warhammer or 40K. Those licenses themselves aren't the biggest in the world - so Black Library never will be, either.

Which isn't to say BL is worthless. I really enjoy the better books by their better authors, and many (...not all) of the less-good books have at least enough redeeming features to be worth reading, too. A few BL books are making the NYT bestseller list, which is really awesome and great news for them... but they'll never be a really major force in publishing.

[Iron Puritan]

Something I have wondered about for a long time has been the absence of high profile names in the Black Library stable. Take a look at the media tie in books at your local bookstore and you will see that work for hire has become a much more diverse field in the past decade. A lot of big names (particularly horror and SF/F writers) have been using their actual names now instead of pseudonyms or house names. It has also become one of the primary ways mid-list authors put food on their tables now. I can only think of one writer that has published through Black Library that wasn't essentially brought up in-house. I'm sure they could make a HUGE improvement to their fiction line without any change to their level of investment unless their contracts are rubbish.

[Tresidentevil]

GW don't need the license for LOTR books (or anything) to sell those products. They can just sell them like anybody else does. Its all profit, and it expands the products that support your store. They used to sell various stuff, not just their own (a long time ago, before I remember). Likewise White Dwarf used to cover other products also, maybe that's asking a bit much.

Novels people their own opinions about, obviously.

[shelfunit.]

GW don't need the license for LOTR books (or anything) to sell those products. They can just sell them like anybody else does. Its all profit, and it expands the products that support your store. They used to sell various stuff, not just their own (a long time ago, before I remember). Likewise White Dwarf used to cover other products also, maybe that's asking a bit much.

Novels people their own opinions about, obviously.

It's only "all profit" if they actually sell any. They would sell them at full RRP with no "buy 2 get 1 free" offers which are fairly common with popular books these days, they just wouldn't sell enough - and the books wouldn't have the all important GW logo on them (a point which you allude to later in your post).