PP doing a GW for OLR?

[CoffeeGrunt]

used to drive me mad in Game when people would come in to take advantage of your expertise, and then buy online. just going and buying online is one thing, but to actually come and take advantage of everything a store offers, including staff time, to then not reimburse for it...

I know that feel. Used to work in electrical retail, (selling TVs, Hi-Fi and the like.) Amount of times you'd spend a solid half-hour or more going through LCD/LED/Plasma, HD-Ready or 1080p, what brand, what extras, etc, etc with a customer to set them up with the right stuff to suit their needs, and they go, "anyway thanks for your help, but the prices are a bit steep here so I'll grab it online."

I may be biased, but it felt damn rude every time.

The worst ones were people at the local store who would play games there, buy stuff online, then come down and boast about it and how much cheaper it was. :/

[Kirsten]

yup, very rude. I always try to buy in store where possible. I have a hierarchy of local shop, local chain, then internet. options are limited over here so it regularly ends up being internet, but where possible I pay a bit extra and buy local.

[grimmas]

It's a probably a policy that was instituted at the request of the independent retailers somethings on the line of "we're getting humped by Internet retailers. What are you going to do about it?"

It just that the Usual saw it as an opportunity to indulge in their Angryhammer hobby. It a bit like when they claim GW is trying to compete with independents at selling their products by always charging full price and never under cutting them. The *******s.

[Mr Mystery]

That argument never did make much sense....

'They came to town, selling the same thing for a higher price and drove the cheaper seller out!'

Erm....that's just not how Capitalism works. At all. Market forces etc.

What's more likely is that GW came to town, and did a much better job of getting people gaming and buying than the FLGS.

Oh there were occasional accusations that GW stopped getting orders to the FLGS in time, but nothing to substantiate such claims.

[grimmas]

When I worked for them it was company policy not to open a GW where there was an Independent that was successfully selling GW in an area, as it as actually better for GW profit wise for this to be the case. I even went to not so successful Independents to run events to help them do better. On one occasion they sent an area manager that's how seriously they took it (I worked in retail as well not trade sales). Of course if the Independent didn't/wouldn't sell GW well that was different matter but a GW store wouldn't be in competition with them.

[eldargal]

That argument never did make much sense....

'They came to town, selling the same thing for a higher price and drove the cheaper seller out!'

Erm....that's just not how Capitalism works. At all. Market forces etc.

What's more likely is that GW came to town, and did a much better job of getting people gaming and buying than the FLGS.

Oh there were occasional accusations that GW stopped getting orders to the FLGS in time, but nothing to substantiate such claims.

The fact that GW didn't undercut pricing always kind of undermined those claims. Like if you have a FLGS you know and love and a GW next door, the price is going to be the same, so if you can buy product at your FLGS why would you go to the GW? If the FLGS didn't have it in stock then they aren't losing that transaction anyway.

[Denzark]

My local toymaster/model shop - a good one mind with a cack load of high end model trains - sold GW. GW opened a shop across the street literally 30m away. The LGS threw a track and tried to get local shops to complain about them, they then stopped selling GW stuff.

This vexed me because they had a cabinet of second hand stuff where I used to find the odd gem.

But back OT, the irony of this will make oi laff if it is true.

[lobster-overlord]

I have had a distribution account with one of the bigger US distributors. PP Currently has in place the same restrictions that GW does that if I don't have a brick-and-mortar location, I cannot buy any product. It doesn't restrict the online part, but PP does have it so that if you are online ONLY, you cannot purchase their stuff at wholesale.

Only 5 companies do this that this distributor deals with. GW, PP, Spinmaster (toys), WOTC (MTG only, I can buy all the D&D I want), and some other company that only has 2 or 3 games, that I can't remember.

So at least in some part, the already do restrict based on seller type.

John M.

[Erik Setzer]

Love how the GW fanboys and GW trolls call pro-PP people "fanboys" and "trolls." And I normally wouldn't call people fanboys and trolls, but the moment you applied the label to fans of another company while acting in the way you claim to dislike, you earn the title yourself.

I'll skip dealing with the ridiculous praise for GW's business model. Though I should note they definitely don't have any policy in place right now to prevent opening a store close to an FLGS. They did it in my town. There was actually a second store close to the GW store, but it's since closed (and it relied heavily on GW players).

Here's the PP press release (since people love to post rumors and not, you know, do a basic freaking Google search before holding a lengthy conversation):

[url]http://privateerpress.com/press-releases/privateer-press-supports-brick-and-mortar-retailers-with-new-free-rider-policy[/url]

Here's the important bit:

Upon enacting this policy, Privateer will monitor the market for free riders and provide a confidential list to its distributors regarding which retailers are offering Privateer Press products at an unsustainable deep discount while offering little or nothing in the way of services. This list will be updated and reevaluated by Privateer Press through a regular internal evaluation process in which listed retailers who have ended their harmful business practices may be removed from the list and new retailers may be added. Distributors who sell product to retailers that have been added to the free rider list will have their shipments, including new releases, delayed. This delay protects the investment of those distributors and their retailers, who require the unobstructed revenue of a full-market-value product to support community-growth programs. Furthermore, a delay will disincentivize a distributor from selling product to any free rider, because having product on time is critical to the success of its business model. The free rider list will be provided confidentially to Privateer’s distribution partners with an updated distributor’s agreement on April 4, 2016, at which time the policy will be enforced.

Got that? In a nutshell, they're not cutting off sales to online-only retailers. They're looking for ones that provide no value and offer very deep discounts - basically ones that exist just to leech sales of product - and targeting only specific retailers. In addition, they're not even cutting them off completely, just "disincentivizing" distributors continuing to provide to those retailers, though if the distributor feels that money is worth the delay, they can choose to do so, but with a bit of penalty.

It seems any retailer in danger could probably just drop the discount some and get back in PP's good graces. That's a very likely approach, given that there are some areas without an FLGS nearby where people would rely on online retailers to get products. I'd imagine 10-15% is probably safe, 20% is pushing it, but get closer to 30% or more and they're going to put you on The List. There's no hard guidelines listed there, but I think they'd give stores some kind of warning and tell them "if you go to this level, you'll be fine" before they take punitive action. (Cutting someone off when you could correct their actions and continue to make sales through them is a rather daft idea.)

Cutting off all of the stores completely? That's a bad move. Doing this, where they're just targeting stores with deep discounts offering no value (well, other than the discounts, I suppose) to customers, and even leaving an out where said stores might still get product but would have it delayed? Makes sense. Gives room to correct actions, and doesn't punish the ones who aren't trying to be leeches.

It doesn't have to be all-or-nothing. Smart companies recognize this.

[grimmas]

Blah blah blah my opinion is fact blah blah blah.

So given what the Lobster Overlord has told us they are restricting to Brick and Mortar and restricting what discount is given. But it's ok because PP. just like it's ok because FFG. But evil because GW. There's nowt like consistency 😏