GW prices are slyly increasing and it's really p***ing me off, i just looked on the website and i'm sure that Archaon used to be 15 pounds, but now it's 20! i haven't played warhammer for the last 2 years and coming back and seeing the increases in prices is almost scary, i thought GW were a hobby organisation, but to me now it seems they are there purely for profit. i mean, regiments going up 3 pounds, blister packs going up 1. And just as bad, those units that they're selling for 12 pounds i.e Wood Elf Eternal Guard, pack of 5, Dark Elf Cold One Riders (5 PLASTIC MODELS FOR 12 POUNDS!!). i don't understand.
Does anyone have any ideas why they might be increasing the prices that isn't profit related? because the next time GW raises its prices, it's going to lose BIG business because people can't afford to pay so much for the models. I just can't see why GW would put their company in danger just for some short term profit.
I can verify that that is the case. It's an economics of scale matter.
Casting plastics is on a curve, the more you cast, the cheaper it becomes.
Metals casting is costed on a liner basis.
The break even point on a metal mould is apparently 10,000 casts, all inclusive.
IIRC, the break-even point on plastics is more like 250,000 casts when only considering the mastering of a single mould.
does anyone know the number of GW stores?
in 2006 I believe Gw had 338 stores. that could have gone up or down since then I am sure..
If they're profit margins are so low, they should consider changing other things than just price. Such as: reducing costs of production where possible.
A few years ago, they took to having their books printed in eastern Europe rather than domestically.
AFAIIA, the main costs are the design studio, which is kind of necessary, and their retail arm, which is also responsible for most of their sales.
GW would need to sell roughly 33.27+ units for each of it's 334 hobby centers (if hobby centers accounted for 100 percent of the sales) to break initial cost. I would have to take your word on the 3 months Herr Blessing because I have no idea how long it takes to sell take many units in a hobby center.
I wonder how many regular consumers GW has, on average, at each hobby center.
This varies one hell of a lot on every basis.
Blisters of special characters, for example, may take years to sell the 34 units. OTOH, something popular will sell that easily when the stock arrives.
At our Gw meetings the managers used to throw the 100 units number around. I don't know if that is a hard number used to determine profit margin, as they probably factor in sales vs rent and employee pay, and shipping, packaging, storage, etc.. I know the 30 someodd boxes is not the final number to break even..
Well, somewhat tellingly, GW's number one selling item is pots of Chaos Black paint.
Which is why it was funny when, as staff, we started a rumour amongst the more gullible kids that we where phasing it out & not replacing it...