Local store dropping reaper

[Dr.Bedlam]

I must respectfully disagree with Doug Sundseth.

The video store is dead, and I mourn it. True, I can now access a wide variety of streaming video via the internet, but I liked browsing the racks and finding hidden treasures, forgotten cult films, and arguing with the counter guy about Stanley Kubrick. And most people would disagree with me. And that's okay.

Your friendly local game shop is not a video store. It's a hub for like minded individuals to gather around. It's a source of news, gossip, drama, a place for the tribes to gather. Sure, I can get most of what they offer through Amazon, but I ain't the kind of nerd what lives in Mom's basement. I wanna go out and BOTHER people, durnit. And having this opinion, I make a point of supporting FLGS, since I have seen far too many of them sink and vanish without a trace.

Kickstarter is not a sales option, per se. Kickstarter is a way of getting your project funded and launched. It's a PRE sales option. The fact that it provides product is incidental, although I'm sure Reaper wouldn't have done so well with their experiment if they HADN'T offered the rewards that they offered.

I am aware of three FLGS that ordered Vampire packages and sold the contents piecemeal, probably for a profit. I have yet to hear anyone who owns or runs a FLGS complain about it. And I'm still uncertain that any distributors wish to punish Reaper for their kickstarter efforts; it's a mug's game. I really doubt anyone at Reaper is going to say, "Oh, noes, we has alienated a distributor! We must readjust our business model to suit said distributor, before further calamities rain down upon our widdle heads!"

Experience has taught me "Never attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidity." In short, I will wait until I see actual evidence that someone's mad at Reaper before I draw any conclusions. Meanwhile, I will continue to believe in the power of great stupid. While I disagree with Doug Sundseth on the idea of brick and mortar stores, he is very solidly right when he says that "Distributors lie." They do. And far too many FLGS depend on one or maybe two distributors, for the sake of convenience and the saving of money... meaning if one distributor doesn't wanna carry Reaper, then all FLGS that rely on that distributor ain't gonna get Reaper, whether they want it or not... and, well, it wouldn't be the first time a distributor lied for the sake of convenience or saving face. "Oh, Reaper ain't shipped any product in months, we ain't got Reaper, sorry," as opposed to "We don't wanna deal with that. You want this Warmachine stuff or not?"

[smokingwreckage]

What Bedlam said. Suppliers / distributors will say pretty much anything. Not just in this industry, either.

[MonkeySloth]

 

Actually, I would like to know which distributor it is.

 

Yeah, it would be nice to know which distributor is going out of business next.

 

The most shocking thing I heard was that many distributors were insisting on 60% to carry anything from a company that used kickstater and there was some very valid scuttlebutt about how those same distributors were quite upset with Reaper over the Bones Kickstarter.

 

60% off is the standard discount that distrubutors get from nearly everyone. It used to be 50% off with a 10% discount for paying on time and 10% more for paying more on time, aka 50/10/10, which works out to a 59.5% discount, since the discounts are taken consecutively. But the distributors took all the discounts whether they paid on time or not, so most manufacturers just went to 60% off. FWIW, stores normally get 50% off, plus or minus a bit, depending on volume and occasionally manufacturer.

 

 

My understanding it was about 40%-50% off. Maybe that's European rates as the people expressing the dismay at the required distributor price were not based out of The States or Canada.

[Ellyria]

Your friendly local game shop is not a video store. It's a hub for like minded individuals to gather around. It's a source of news, gossip, drama, a place for the tribes to gather. Sure, I can get most of what they offer through Amazon, but I ain't the kind of nerd what lives in Mom's basement. I wanna go out and BOTHER people, durnit. And having this opinion, I make a point of supporting FLGS, since I have seen far too many of them sink and vanish without a trace.

 

We had this really great store in Seattle called Uncle's Games. You could come in at any time, pull the demo copy of any game off the shelf and play with people. I was very sad to see them close.

 

Also totally agree with never underestimate the power of Stupid.

Edited September 16, 2013 by Ellyria

[Doug Sundseth]

I've gone to game stores recently. I've bought things from game stores recently. I haven't gone to a game store to buy something and found that thing at a price I was willing to pay in ... well over a year. I'm not opposed to game stores, I just find them irrelevant, other than for gathering places and impulse buys. (Note that I have made $100+ impulse buys; impulse control isn't a great strength of mine.)

 

Stock something I'm interested in and there's a good chance I'll pop for it when I drop by randomly. (Note that Bones work quite well for that sort of thing, as do paints, modeling tools, dice, collectible cards, card sleeves, ... did I mention that impulse control isn't a strength? ) Provide a place to hang out, and I'm likely to wander around looking for something to fondle. Show me enough things, and I'll probably pay for some of them. But if I know what I want, there are better ways to get it, and most of them actually give the creators significantly more money.

 

Now, is that sort of impulse purchasing enough to keep a store in business? Are there enough people who will go out of their way to keep a store alive? Beats me, but that's what's left. The market has changed and if you can't change with it, you'll be out of business. It's for darn sure that refusing to stock the things your customers want to buy won't work. And if your suppliers don't have what your customers want, you'd better get new suppliers.

[Dan Goodchild]

I don't think THAT FLGSs are irrelevant, but I DO think that old-fashioned distributors are (or at least could/should be). In this day and age there are few (if any) reasons that retailers shouldn't order directly from the manufacturer. Reaper does it, WotC does it, WizKids does it, lots of manufacturers will deal directly with retailers and why more retailers don't take advantage of that is a mystery to me.

[Darsc Zacal]

It's a lot of extra work for a small retailer when you realize that could mean having to deal with dozens of different companies, different payment dates, terms, and methods of payment. Keeping track of dozens of different orders. Having separate deliveries from each different companies.

 

Nevermind the minimum order requirements many manufacturers have to get the best retailer discount.

A lot of smaller independent retailers won't be able to meet those requirements so will have a smaller profit margin on the product they do sell.

 

It really is a drain on a retailers already meagrely resources.

Edited September 16, 2013 by Darsc Zacal

[MonkeySloth]

What I don't get is when game stores won't special order from the manufacturer when a customer asks. I tried to get some Reaper stuff once and the game store said it would be several weeks for the distributor to get them and ship them I mentioned they contact Reaper and order it directly so I could get then stuff in one week (as I needed something much sooner then 4-6 weeks) and when they wouldn't I just ordered directly myself. Don't even bother with ordering stuff through the game stores anymore. If they don't have it in stock I buy it online and get it way before they ever will.

 

I don't think game stores are irrelevant but they need to change their business models some as in this day and age waiting more then about 7-10 business days to get anything is crazy when most online places will get it to you in half that. Saving a few dollars is not as important as getting something quickly as, after you add in shipping, you don't always save as much online as people say. If the interenet is destroying local stores its got to be partially because of how expectations have changed on when and how we get things.

 

Look at Warmahords stuff on Amazon. If you look at them with shipping added (or prime shipping which has a higher base price) they're maybe 10% cheaper then game stores (except those battle boxes, holly molly those are cheap online) but I can get anything off there in 2-4 days and they always have what I want in stock compared to my game store which never does. And when I ask about ordering a new one they generally say "we only place orders with that distributor once a month so we can have it in 4-6 weeks". Absolutely insane, and I know part of that is how distributors work, but I refuse to be treated that way when there are so many other places that will happily take my money and have it to me ASAP.

[hmdrake]

FWiW, my FLGS in San Diego barely carries any Reaper, and cites the difficulty of the ordering process for them specifically. This was pre-KS.

[prophetic_joe]

It's interesting I never went into game stores. I started painting bought the KS and even though I have the vampire set I still go into them every time I have a chance simply to see what type of stuff they have on hand. I will inevitably pick up at least 1 mini and 1 bottle of paint. Possibly more. I enjoy help brick and mortar stores, I want them to stay in business, I want to have places to go and talk about cool new products, games things like that. The last KS actully pushed me to visit more often and buy more than I normally would.

 

In addition, I recently ordered some items from miniature giant because I wanted a dragon for a campaign and needed a few minis for the paint excuses contest, also picked up some earlier bones minis. Not one thing I ordered was in stock. I placed my order and just like the website said everything was ordered and shipped to me within 2 weeks. My dragon Diabolous came in and had a problem with the casting, I contacted both Reaper and Miniature-Giant to let them know about the problem and they replaced the part within another 2 weeks. It's funny to me that I could get out of stock, out of print and backordered items from a company that does direct to reaper ordering and a distributor is saying they are having trouble getting it for a brick and mortar store.

 

Sounds to me like somebody is feeding someone else a big load of Bull.

Edited September 16, 2013 by prophetic_joe

[Nocturne]

I love gaming stores but it's long been an issue with them that many are badly run by people who are more interested in the hobby, not in running a business.

[vulture]

We had this really great store in Seattle called Uncle's Games. You could come in at any time, pull the demo copy of any game off the shelf and play with people. I was very sad to see them close.

i just moved to west Seattle and i haven't been able to find an FLGS that carries anything but magic and catan. seriously. i went to one of the bigger new shops and they had a handful of minis from the big manufacturers and a sickly collection of paints (no black? WTH?). i asked the cashier if they carried green stuff, and he didnt even know what it was. i tried, i genuinely tried, to give the "FLGS' my business and they looked at me crazy because i wasnt buying cards from them.

before Seattle i lived in Denver i had a brief run of luck with game stores that had some minis. until they closed down, suddenly.

my fiends, the FLGS is dead. not kicking, straight dead. you know what? i barely noticed its passing. even when i could find a " good " game store that carried minis that meant: a small stand of reaper, loads of GW garbage i dont care for, and a moderate selection of PP. in short: either stuff i already own or stuff i have no interest in. long gone are the game stores of my childhood with a eclectic selection of RPG minis and a box of old metal to dig through in the back. why would i drive 30 mins and hunt for parking to scrounge through that? instead, i could place an order directly to the MFG, and truly support a company i like rather than letting the distributors gouge them and raise the market price of minis for everyone.

Edited September 16, 2013 by vulture

[Last Knight]

As amusing as it is to watch "vulture" prematurely declare things dead, I'd like to point out that a number of us still have FLGSs in our neighborhoods.

[smokingwreckage]

The tough thing about the FLGS is it takes a good location, good business sense, and a desire to waste both on one's hobby. What I'm saying is that you need to be capable of excelling in any retail trade, but willing to take lesser profits in order to do what you love.

[Rosielicious]

In my town, the FLGS died a few years ago. And they ran the store in the next nearest big town as well, so that one's gone too. All we have is GW, and whilst the staff are friendly, all I buy there is paint and I can't play anything I want to play.

 

It's a real shame that so many are going out of business. I would definitely buy Bones at one if I could as I've only found one seller in the UK that carries Bones (Miniature-Heroes) and they don't carry much stock. I've avoided ordering directly from Reaper so far because of the shipping costs for me. And someone said that if you order enough to get free shipping, you then get slapped with customs charges when it gets to this end.