A good new GW retail policy

[Wildeybeast]

My understanding is that this new policy is for third party retailers, it shan't have an impact on GW stores which are the only ones that get prize support (or so I've been told).

Makes sense, given GW's drive to have smaller, one-man stores, I can't see how they would qualify for the 'reasonable sized stores' criteria.

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

bloomin' eck! first GW allow The Lord Inquisitor, next they show praetorian guard on their website and now this? Have I just walked into a parallel universe? Well these are all good things! and makes me feel a little cautiously optimistic about GW's business practices. A little. Good on them - props where props due!

[crazyredpraetorian]

Hmmm, don't know if it's a regional thing but we've gotten $150 a month in product from GW for prize support at our local stores for over a decade. Also with a phone call to our GW rep we can almost always get some additional goodies for store leagues and special events. If they haven't been doing that everywhere it's about time they got everybody on board.

The Partner Program is what provides that level of support. If a store is not a Partner level account they do not get that support every month. If this new level of support replaces the Partner Program, we will see less prize support not more.

[Eldanesh]

Wow GW supplying trophies and demo stock.

Hmmm,..sounds kind of like,..uh GW circa 1998?

[Bigred]

From my understanding, there will be a new set of tiers any 3rd party store will fall into based on some GW-measured criteria.

The support is then handed out based on that.

This new program replaces the previous Partner Level support program. In general it looks to be an attempt to pull back from prize support, and the outlays from GW will go down in net.

Several FLGS' we've talked to have already indicated they will be receiving less than before. No one has mentioned getting more.

This looks like some penny pinching with a nice new sounding program to paper over the overall goal. Very similar to the annual "new improved" GT support packages offered by GW as they slowly backed away from the tournament scene (they are now out entirely).

[gannam]

yeah, my Local shop had prize support for almost every tourney that they did. Now they have a yearly budget? doesn't sound good at all to me.

Sounds like shops will be able to provide less prize support now which will probably mean less tourney's given that most of these shops run on razor thin margins heavily subsidized by holding magic tournaments.

Those guys smell bad too in case anyone hasn't noticed that.