A GW Manager Takes Your Questions….
It’s a very rare day indeed when someone claiming to be “on the inside” walks up to a forum and starts taking questions. How can you say no?
The thread started so simply:
Im a gw manager ask me anythingI run one of the one man stores, ask me anything. Unfortunately I cant post proof because itll get traced back to me and we cant participate on forums
And Warseer’s “amabot” was off to the races. The thread is long and convoluted, but here are some choice excerpts:
I’ve got a question to start you off. With all the recent talk of profits being down and the backlash against GW pricing and general doom mongering (on this and other forums), has their been any acknowledgment/acceptance that things are taking a turn for the worst from your superiors? Or is it just business as usual; “go sell those Dwarves”.
Profits are down because we closed all the bunkers and big 4 man mall stores, however our costs are also down which in corporates eyes is better because it allows us to expand our brick and mortar stores which can saturate more and more communities. Honestly from my personal experience the only grumblings about prices come from the older players, newer players seem to have no problem with it. I did however ask when I was hired what the deal was with the price increases and apparently they had done a bad job of matching prices with inflation. So the box that mad them $30 dollars in 5 years ago money was only making them $25 dollars now. Which seems small but when you consider that is a 15% drop in profit per box it really hurts the bottom line and it is a business that answers to share holders they had to do the price increases. HOWEVER the new policy appears to be “hide the price increases in the releases” as opposed to “that 30$ box is now $40” which IMO works way better for me because its easier to justify a brand new plastic kit being $40 then the same old sculpts.
I’d be interested to hear about sales numbers (both in general and specific ranges). If there is anything about future releases you can share, I’d be happy to hear that as well.
Sales are down from last year (starter sets sell like hot cakes as well as new edition books), but the dip isn’t anything the company wasn’t expecting. There is also the dip from big box stores being gone, but again nothing that wasn’t expected. And unfortunately, I know NOTHING that you guys don’t know save for like 2 days ahead. I get my release information the thursday before the release happens so that’s about all the advance notice I get. And its only because thats when my shipment for saturday arrives
What’s the pay like for running a one-man? Do you find your store often ends up closed due to unforeseen circumstances?
33,000 a year with full benefits and on salary. The only time my store has been closed due to unforseen circumstances is when my grandfather died and I had to fly out the same day. Usually If I’m sick or planning something I have an on-call manager that will fill in. I’m also good about letting people know exactly when it will happen.
How often do you recruit an entirely new customer ? What do you sell them? Do you ever get partway through a new sale and have someone balk at the price?
My goal is once per week, but it honestly depends on who walks in the door, I usually go for the starter set because its got a rule book in it, and I’ve never had any price balk because most people either know the price coming in or I’m very upfront about it.
is GW doomed lol.
Nope, if anything its making its’ business more resilient by reducing costs
Okay, that’s a little mean… Though I do wonder why you want us to ask you stuff…
But okay… As a manager, you obviously love the Warhammer game, like most of us here, even if most of us are extremely disgruntled. I can’t imagine you, as a person and gamer and hobbyist, agree with the direction GW has gone in some of their ventures, specifically the White Dwarf. You have to agree that it went from bad to worse to absolutely terrible now. How vocal are managers in telling GW or WD how terrible some things are? I mean, I would probably hassle GW or WD every time I received a copy.
Unfortunately there isn’t a channel except during our quarterely managers meetings, however, the reason I wanted to be here is because I feel like all too often places like this become a sounding chamber and there is really hardly anyone to argue the other side. Not saying I’m being combative, not saying gw is paying me to be here (trust me i wouldn’t be scared to death of them finding me if they were) but the doom and gloom can really blow out of proportion sometimes and really doesn’t match what I encounter in real life in store. I don’t know if you guys just run into bad managers or if im just endlessly cheery but yea. One thing I will say though is money talks, if something doesn’t sell well or has issues it changes. Our glue had issues for awhile, it changed. People had issues with WD, it changed, they still had issues, it changed again. as I said earlier I’m a fan of the weekly WD and I think visions is great for people whose army it has. Also alot of the visions backlash is “oh we’ve seen this pictures” but you gotta remember its just got that lag between old release and new release so yea. I would say though that GW’s online policy went from “lets try to interact” to “oh god avoid at all costs” and that has just let it get worse and worse and worse which is unfortunate because all you guys are is customers airing your grievances. Not trolls to be shunned.
Didn’t say that. Meanwhile i’ll ask again: if you’re legit, what purpose are you serving here?
I believe I already put it in earlier posts.
But to reiterate.
GWs policy towards online interaction is that it’s a waste of time, we can’t stop the community from being venomous so we’ll just ignore it and keep making models.
I disagree with that and I wanted to show that some goodwill and interaction with the community can go a long way towards dispelling rumors and conspiracy theories. Especially because I spend half my day at my store shooting down or not having a proper answer for whatever zany rumor bols or faeit has decided to run with. (Like finecast disappearing tommarow or gw stealing metal models in the night)
Do you get the impression from the communications you get from those further up the corporate management ladder that there is a disconnect between management and gamers? I.e. from some of the decisions and rumours we see, we get the impression that those making the decisions don’t know anything about the hobby itself.
There is about a year and a half production time from what I’ve been told, and the thing that takes the longest is the models, so the production process goes Models>Rules>Balance. So if they make a box and it has knights, and super knights in it for brettonia there is no way around including those super knights in the book. Now that’s not to say the sculpting team throws new sculpts at the design team and says here have fun, but there is no way to “Scrap” or remove a unit from a book whats the sculpt has been made, especially if it’s attached to another unit in a dual kit. You also have to remember that by the time these armies come out, the meta has completely shifted,which explains the feeling of disconnect. Can they do more to alleviate this issue? Of course. Have the decided it’s worth the monetary cost to do so? Apparently not
And following on from that, do you get any feeling of contempt from upper management towards the customers, as we occasionally see rumours of?
I don’t see outright contempt but I do see frustration. It’s difficult to see your hard work ripped apart by anonymous people on forums when they don’t have the whole story of why things are. To me this problem can be solved by having an active online presence and being more transparent. It’s also difficult for me personally when I have people come in with ebay armies or “kitbashed” (read: made from spare sprue bits from other kits) centerpiece models and have them rub them in my face. But to more directly answer your question nobody at GW hates the customers, there are just some bad eggs that can really ruin your day.
Serious question: Are GW staff unionized?
Nope, there isn’t a need too, we are paid well above what could be considered fair.
I can’t wait for your thoughts on this…
