GW Models are NOT that expensive!

[eldargal]

I wouldn't pay Australian prices either, and I think they missed a great opportunity to earn some goodwill by not dropping the price of the Finecast range.

[Verilance]

I wouldn't pay Australian prices either, and I think they missed a great opportunity to earn some goodwill by not dropping the price of the Finecast range.

from what I understand almost everything has almost a 100% mark up in Austarlia, from video games to clothing expecting GW to lower their prices whilst no one else does is slightly unreasonable.

I don't know what can be done about it though, boycotting everything??

I hate paying 3-5 dollars more for books in Canada but it is either not buy them or pay the prices.

[vyrago]

Hell yes boycott them! GW raises their prices because they CAN. they want to see what the market will bear, and from what I gather on these forums.....most people will continue to buy GW, albeit some will buy less but buy nontheless.

Miniwargaming.com has 'invited' people look into other games, and Beast of War have used the term "vote with your feet". If you dont like what GW is doing, then stop buying it. You can keep playing if you want....but just stop buying. Myself and my close gaming group are all agreed to no longer support GW. Call it a boycott, call it "looking at alternatives", but end result is my 40k armies are done.

on a side note, we're considering going back to the miniature tabletop version of an old canadian favorite RPG, Heavy Gear. cheaper minis, lower model count per army.

cheers!

[Gotthammer]

from what I understand almost everything has almost a 100% mark up in Austarlia, from video games to clothing expecting GW to lower their prices whilst no one else does is slightly unreasonable.

I don't know what can be done about it though, boycotting everything??

I hate paying 3-5 dollars more for books in Canada but it is either not buy them or pay the prices.

A lot of people are boycotting everything (well, a lot of things). Personally I buy CD's from Europe or the US, DVDs and books from Amazon & Ebay (though Madman and JB, Aussie companies, don't charge excessive amounts for their wares so also get my business), clothes either on sale or from overseas and so on.
Video games are somewhat trickier due to region locking on consoles, but I mostly play PC games (and very few at that) so I often wait and pick up a bargain bin game of the year edition for half the release price with all the DLC a year later. GoG is my friend, as are indie games like GSB.
I have friends who buy almsot everything from overseas, employing proxy's to get around ISP deteting regional e-shop fronts.

I've bought three non-GW books full price locally in the last year or so. Crazy as it seems Black Library is sometimes cheaper than a normal novel here

These are the main areas (aside from consumer electronics like TVs) that are over priced here, so I get around it. If [URL="http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/national/internet-postings-pummel-gerry-harvey-over-online-shopping/story-e6freooo-1225983199204"]Gerry Harvey[/URL] wants [URL="http://www.smh.com.au/business/poor-gerry-harvey--tell-him-hes-dreaming-20101124-186nm.html"]to have a cry[/URL] about [URL="http://www.kotaku.com.au/2011/03/gerry-harvey-no-one-makes-money-from-the-internet/"]it hurting his business[/URL] he should look at JB Hi-fi for a place that has dropped prices and is very successful. All GW is going to do with a large amount of its fan base here is drive them to online alternatives which are now, thanks to the embargo, other companies who will be all too happy to take our money.

That said I will still be buying from my local GW.
Why? Because unlike the clothing stores or whitegoods retailers my GW fosters a community and goes beyond the base corprate level to make itself a great hobby store (even if it is the kind that only stocks one type of product ). I wish I could buy more, but I'm going to spend the same dollar amount as I used to, or realistically less as the price rises make the sets break my budget weirdly.

Hell, buying less might mean I'll get everything painted (ha ha).

[Morgan Darkstar]

Hell yes boycott them!

No I wont boycott them, infact if i get this new job i will be purchasing far more GW stuff.

to be honest i am getting sick and tired of hearing about, "how terrible it is that GW have raised prices"
give it a rest they dont owe us low prices. if you want it you pay for it if you dont you dont simples!

[HsojVvad]

Of course GW is Expensive. When something costs 50 cents to make and being sold for $50 it is way exepensive and over costed.

I don't want to hear about costs for molds and designs, blah blah blah, all that is, is excuses. You don' hear GM or Ford or any other company talking about charging more for start up costs. Start up costs is up to the company to take, so they can make money not for it's customers to suffer from.

Yes GW is expensive, but it will only bear what the market will bear. Problem for alot of us, the market seems to be bearing the "GW Hobby" so nothing will change until then.

Most of us on the forums here have been in the GW hobby for 2 years or more. We are not GW customer base. GW coudln't care if we complain about high prices becaue we are not comming into the stores dishing out $500 or more to start up. I said most since there is a few people here who still dish out alot of money for thier plastic crack. Thing is we are not GW customer base so the prices are not for us. It's for the rich people who dish out alot of money right away for Little Timmy and that's it. So untill the market will not bear this, nothing will change, GW and the share holders are laughing all the way to the bank.

thats nice, but it's not GW

What is this suppose to mean? So what if it's not GW? GW themselves say use anything you want when you play 40K. Just not sure what the intenet is suppose to mean.

[Zeonic Marine]

A couple points if I may:

I came to GW models about 5 years ago after building 1/35th scale armor kits and 1/48th scale aircraft for about 24 years and one of the reason I was less than thrilled with the hobby I loved was the increase in kit prices here in the states. Now mind you there are distinctly different reasons for the increase.

Yes, scale models are getting more expensive but before you say they are apples and apples look at the kits. A Dragon 1/35th scale Pz.Kpfw Ausf. J Mid Production has at our around 700 plus parts on nearly a dozen sprues. Some of these kits while expensive have turned aluminum barrels, full or partial interiors, engines, small frets of photo-etch brass etc. Granted some of these kits are made up of recycled molds where sets of common parts are tossed in the box with a few new sprues to make specific version. Not to mention the tooling quality makes GW kits look primitive by comparison. Many GW kits minus some of their larger efforts (Baneblade for example) are on no more than two sprues. They do some excellent details but they are hardly state of the art. There are no slide-molded parts with multi-part molds in GW's line that I've seen.

This isn't meant to disparage GW's efforts, simply pointing out the facts.

I'm not sure who GW has doing their mold tooling but scale armor molds are pretty expensive, still, how fast does your investment return when you sells thousands of copies from each mold. Careful mold maintenance means these toolings can last for decades. Look at Revell, they make kits from molds that have been in existence for decades. Once the cost of the tooling has been paid for, you can generate kits for little more than the cost of the raw plastic, packaging and the electricity to run the machines (this is a simplification, but it's not far off)

GW is the manufacture and distributor of their products, there isn't a middleman. You want their products; they are made or packaged in your region (in this case, the United States) and shipped to you from the manufacture's warehouse. An Academy 1/48 F-15 Ra'am costs $55 from your local hobby shop these days but it came from an independent distributor like Squadron or Steven's International and they tacked anywhere from 20-60% on to the wholesale to margin their profit in after it was shipped from Korea. Some digital camera accessories reach 200% mark-ups before they hit the shelves depending on these factors.

Many have taken to buying from direct sources in Asia.

I used to work with a model kit importer based in Carrollton Texas as a pattern maker for one of their resin lines and while the manufactures did raise the prices there were some heated debates amongst the management because frankly, some wanted to raise prices for no other reason than the justification that people would pay it.

The manufactures were being angrily rebuked for their drastic price increases when it was the distributors picking the customers profit. A check of retail prices through regional distributors bore this out. Kits that cost $44.95 here were selling for $14.95 in Hong Kong.

There are formulas in retail that dictate how much profit you make after a wholesale purchase and this type of data is a proprietary. Afterall, if you're getting a better deal you can lower the price on a sale, outsell your competitors and still maintain a margin per item to maintain a healthy profit. GW doesn't have to do any of this, its all internal.

I'm not sure if the market is actually sustaining GW's price increases. There is a stereotype floating around that "we are geeks, we will pay it". This can be true, I've certainly see people that will pay any price for their hobby, still I konw just as many that have reduced their purchases pretty heavily. Are they doing this out of rage or indignation? No, it's an almost subconscious response. Sure they had $60 to spend, but instead of getting two boxes, they would buy one because they have gone up or they would put one back until "later". This purchase deferment hits home at the end of the year.I realized one day I was doign the same thing, impulse purchases were mostly gone, forays in to new armies or fleshing out small forces had fallen by the wayside. This is why pricey restaurants refuse to print dollar signs next to the numeric costs of their items? Research shows people buy less when the dollar sign is present.

Has GW hit their market tipping point? I don't know, we will probably never see honest data or a breakdown, in part because it's internal and proprietary (they would be crazy to release it frankly) and most companies will spin or obfuscate data like no tomorrow to present the image they want, especially where investors are involved, still they could be caught in a cycle of raising prices and seeing profits fall flat and needing (or wanting) to raise prices to offset the losses caused by the increases and lackluster returns on new kit investments. All we can see is the retail side and GW frankly, is pretty expensive.

Nice to be part of a community again

David

[Morgan Darkstar]

Of course GW is Expensive. When something costs 50 cents to make and being sold for $50 it is way exepensive and over costed.

I don't want to hear about costs for molds and designs, blah blah blah, all that is, is excuses. You don' hear GM or Ford or any other company talking about charging more for start up costs. Start up costs is up to the company to take, so they can make money not for it's customers to suffer from.

"you might not want to hear about it however molds and designs aside, it does cost money to run a business, staff wages, recruitment, insurance, buildings, heating, water, taxes, more taxes, shipping storage etcetera the list goes on and on. if they sold the models based solely on the cost it took to make, where do you suggest they recoup the cost for those?"

Yes GW is expensive, but it will only bear what the market will bear. Problem for alot of us, the market seems to be bearing the "GW Hobby" so nothing will change until then.

Most of us on the forums here have been in the GW hobby for 2 years or more. We are not GW customer base. GW coudln't care if we complain about high prices becaue we are not comming into the stores dishing out $500 or more to start up. I said most since there is a few people here who still dish out alot of money for thier plastic crack. Thing is we are not GW customer base so the prices are not for us. It's for the rich people who dish out alot of money right away for Little Timmy and that's it. So untill the market will not bear this, nothing will change, GW and the share holders are laughing all the way to the bank.

"i aint rich by a long way infact i am between jobs and i can still afford to drop £50 a fortnight on models"

thats nice, but it's not GW

What is this supposed to mean? So what if it's not GW? GW themselves say use anything you want when you play 40K. Just not sure what the intent is supposed to mean.

"It means i want GW models to play GW games, nothing more nothing less."

[HsojVvad]

It means i want GW models to play GW games, nothing more nothing less."

Thanks for explaining, just wanted to make sure.

[Commissar Lewis]

Maybe GW models aren't as expensive as other hobbies, like shooting, drinking of high-end liquors, or what have you - but to be honest this price hike has effectively priced me out of the hobby.

And even though I'll have some cash when I start my adventures in the Army this Sept... truth be told I'm not spending my pay on GW.