GW Reward card scheme, a good idea ?

[Deadlift]

Married to a self confessed shopping addict, I was amazed at how many reward cards the mrs has accumulated over the years. Make up, clothes, the family shop, make up, clothes and more make up. The point I am making is there seems to be plenty of reward schemes here in the UK for nearly every type of store. Hell I even have one for GAME and even my local health food / supplement store does their own.

So why the not GW ?. I would imagine especially in the current economic climate that this would be a great way of improving customer loyalty and make the customer "feel" the GW love again.

I know that supermarkets like Sainsburys actually only give you a very little % back in "points" which then can be converted to £ but with the addition of "bonus points" for certain products I think GW could be onto a winner.

I am sure the GW marketing bods must have thought about this at some point and obviously muted the idea......but why ?

[Lockark]

The point of a reward card is to encourage consumers to come back to your store, over your competitors.

They only Competitors to the GW stores, is Indy LGS's.

In all honesty it's not in their interest. No matter witch you go to, they get your money. They just take a bigger cut of the pie when it's their brand of "Games Workshop Stores". Why make that cut smaller just to try and stamp out Indy stores?

Makes more sence for them to market their brand stores as the premium gaming stores, and let the indy guys take care of being the discount guys.

Many people in the community have complaints about this model, but besides this point. The truth is a discount card is not in our interest as wargamers. It's better to grow the indy retailers then stamp them out.

[Deadlift]

But with the growing support of other systems like Warmahorde, Infinity, Flames of war, Kings of War and in the works Warpath, Don't you think that GW should start looking at encouraging its consumer base by adding an incentive to keep all of our hobby pocket money. I know many of us play more than one game system but I think we can all see GWs market domination become lesser as newer business's like Privateer press make more and more inroads into their market. I do think that GW will be the market leaders for a long time to come but I can see their market share diminishing as these different games continue to produce more and more amazing products.

I personally think that GW take some beating as far as actual miniature quality and design go but that may not always be the case.

Oh and I like freebies so bring on a GW loyalty card please :)

[lobster-overlord]

GW had a program 10 years ago, but the sales points were so high it took forever for most people to accrue anything. (look up SKULLZ if you want info).

I personally got a lot from it,but I also used to be rich.... (before the internets crashed...)

[Grailkeeper]

They phased out Skullz just as I got into 40k, maybe something like that?

edit: Lobster overlord got there before me

[Ssyrie]

The point of a reward card is to encourage consumers to come back to your store, over your competitors.

They only Competitors to the GW stores, is Indy LGS's.

In all honesty it's not in their interest. No matter witch you go to, they get your money. They just take a bigger cut of the pie when it's their brand of "Games Workshop Stores". Why make that cut smaller just to try and stamp out Indy stores?

Makes more sence for them to market their brand stores as the premium gaming stores, and let the indy guys take care of being the discount guys.

Many people in the community have complaints about this model, but besides this point. The truth is a discount card is not in our interest as wargamers. It's better to grow the indy retailers then stamp them out.

You're forgetting that Indy stores get the items wholesale, which means that GW doesn't make the full amount. That's how indy stores can make a profit when selling mini's at 10-20% off. They probably only paid 70%* of the retail price so they would still make some profit from it. So if you buy directly from GW they get to make both the wholesale and retail profit.

* As I'm not a retailer I had to guess at the number, but it's probably not too far off. And that number could vary from one retailer to the next.

[SotonShades]

Although GW get the whole cash when you buy in their stores, because of the overheads of rent, lighting, heating, staff wages, running of hobby events, providing boards for gaming and areas for painting etc, GW actually makes more money from the models we buy at other retailers. The only reason the keep stores is as 'Hobby Centres'; places we can go to get our hobby fix and, more importantly, as somewhere people can easilly see on the highstreet to get new customers in.

As such, so long as the store is making enough money to justify being open as a hobby centre (ie not making a loss), there is little sense in trying to encourage you to buy more models from where they are making less money out of you.


I say all this based on what I have been told by several hobby centre managers over the years (although I know they've been asked to keep it more under wraps recently) and have no first hand information to back it up. I'm sure it could all be found in the financial report if one was to look hard enough though.

[Gir]

I got pretty far in the skullz track, and the one skullz replaced I completely finished (It was a card with a 40k force org on it, and as you bought something that fits into a slot, that slot got a stamp. If you filled a line, you got one of those old expensive card + plastic bunkers).

[Wildeybeast]

Lockark makes a good point about the point of a reward card being to encourage loyalty, which isn't necessary. Also, the scheme could be quite costly for GW. Even giving say 1 point for every point spent, they have customers who spend a substantial amount on expensive products, so they are going to be paying out quite regularly. A big chain Like Tesco, GAME or high street clothing stores use it as a loss leader to get people in and they can afford to take the hit. GW cannot as it is farily niche store, nor do they need to since as has been pointed out, where else can you go?

So, whilst I would like one, it ain't going to happen. However, what GW could do is team up with someone like NECTAR, who offer reward points across a whole spectrum of retailers. That way GW could offer reward points to it's cutomers, however most Nectar users aren't going to choose GW vouchers as a reward so it would reduce the cost vs their own reward scheme. I still don't know would that it would be financially viable for GW, but its a thought. Another alternative they could do is one off rewards as they have done in the past - I have a unique Space Marine sergeant that I got for spending £50 online. One of those every few months would make people happy, whilst keeping the cost low.

[HsojVvad]

One thing forgotten that nobody mentioned, is that GW doesn't like giving out anything for free. They don't like giving out sales or anything like that either. They want everyone to pay at "premium price".

All I know something has to change, because 2010 was the worst year ever for GW in Minis sold. By that I mean yes GW made money but alot of that was from movies, games and other non releated minitures. As a miniture standpoint, 2010 was the worst year ever for GW in selling new product.

So what they do? Raise prices, I will never understand how GW thinks.

[fuzzbuket]

the problem:

the 2 main player base ages: young and old.

young person buys a new kit every week or two but not much, as they have a much more limited income.

old person (30-50) has a lot more income and so we see this playerbase buying a lot more.

(note some young peopel may spend a tone and some older players may spend less)

if the reward card scheme was implemented there would be a problem, how much. if it were per £100 big- spender players would be fine. but sadly younger, limited income players yould hardly ever get anything. but if it were per £50, well some of the bigger spenders would be getting a HUGE amount of free stuff.


why not sales? because people would just wait till the sale and buy a ton, then not buy much later!

and frankly the stores do enough (free gameing tables, free painting space, help, tactics, ect) so its fine ATM :)

-fuzz

p.s.
@Wildeybeast i do like the idea of using nectar points though, good idea, and the 1- off things

[Deadlift]

Fuzz, I take great offence at your bracketing me in the OLD category lol. Thanks matey.

Nectar points though, that's a grand idea. I also like the limited model idea too ( I have said space marine ).

[Lockark]

You're forgetting that Indy stores get the items wholesale, which means that GW doesn't make the full amount. That's how indy stores can make a profit when selling mini's at 10-20% off. They probably only paid 70%* of the retail price so they would still make some profit from it. So if you buy directly from GW they get to make both the wholesale and retail profit.

* As I'm not a retailer I had to guess at the number, but it's probably not too far off. And that number could vary from one retailer to the next.

*Scratchs Head*



The point of a reward card is to encourage consumers to come back to your store, over your competitors.

They only Competitors to the GW stores, is Indy LGS's.

In all honesty it's not in their interest. No matter witch you go to, they get your money. They just take a bigger cut of the pie when it's their brand of "Games Workshop Stores". Why make that cut smaller just to try and stamp out Indy stores?

Makes more sence for them to market their brand stores as the premium gaming stores, and let the indy guys take care of being the discount guys.

Many people in the community have complaints about this model, but besides this point. The truth is a discount card is not in our interest as wargamers. It's better to grow the indy retailers then stamp them out.

I'm prety sure I mentioned that in my post.....



But with the growing support of other systems like Warmahorde, Infinity, Flames of war, Kings of War and in the works Warpath, Don't you think that GW should start looking at encouraging its consumer base by adding an incentive to keep all of our hobby pocket money. I know many of us play more than one game system but I think we can all see GWs market domination become lesser as newer business's like Privateer press make more and more inroads into their market. I do think that GW will be the market leaders for a long time to come but I can see their market share diminishing as these different games continue to produce more and more amazing products.

I personally think that GW take some beating as far as actual miniature quality and design go but that may not always be the case.

Oh and I like freebies so bring on a GW loyalty card please :)


But who sells thows Game Systems? The Indy Stores. I don't see Kings of War and Warpath getting pushed by "Mantic Games Stores" as the next big thing. In Indy Stores these Game Systems are still trying to compete with the "Big dog" that is WHFB and WH40k.

What probably dooms alot of the smaller game systems is that their are two many of them. At most gameing stores I have noticed that it will always be one of the warhammers and something eals. The something eals will always come and go and as new game systems take it's place. (Necromunda, Warmahords, Battlefleet Gothic, Flames of War, ect.) But one of the Warhammers (If not both) will always be their at the center of the wargameing.

Some people like to make lengthy posts about how GW's days are numbered, and that some game is going to be the next big thing. But it never happens. 1st it was Warmahoards, then it was Flames of war, and Now it's Mantic. Now. I think these games will be much of sucessfull then thows that game before them. But they will never have the same level of success as WHFB/WH40k. GW knows this and realy are not worried about alot of these games.

But in the end of the day it's Indy stores that are selling these games. Indy stores that have sold GW games for the last 20+ years.
=/


Games Workshop will never have a "true" rival in wargameing untill we seen some Someone with a chain of Gameing stores that have anywhere the same reach as the GW stores, who also have their own war game that's the next big thing. Untill then many marketing ploys like Discount and reward programs will hurt them at this point in all honesty.