GW Store Staff

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Alcidas
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Post by Alcidas »

Best way to deal with a GW store person who is bothering you is to steer the topic towards Finecast. This is very easily done without being rude as all you have to say is something along the lines of...
"So do you have any metal figures in the store?"

At which point the GWombie in question will launch into a passionate defence of Finecast and how its perfectly okay because if you have a mini that is bent all you need to do is stick it next to the heater and it will straighten out magically. By the time you are done, they will have forgotten their entire sales pitch and will be only too happy to leave you alone and talk to someone else.

Have tried this several times and it always works.
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Post by Tyrannus deathbringer »

:lol:
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Re: GW Store Staff

Post by Noble korhedron »

Store staff are just no good anymore, apart from being able to actually have games against them now!! :(
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Re: GW Store Staff

Post by Red... »

I found that calling ahead and asking them to reserve the item I wanted for me to pick up later in the day worked well. When I turned up, I looked rushed (to be fair, I was rushed) and disinterested in small talk. I stated that I had reserved the item, the manager pulled it out from behind the till, I paid and left. Not a question asked or answered.

Generally, I have found that the tricky part is always the actual card transaction. Everything can be sped through up until that point, but once your card is in the machine and you are waiting for the 'remove card' message to flash up, they have you at their conversational mercy. Staring rigidly at the machine as though you think it might transform into some kind of magical chimera rather than process your card and avoiding all eye contact with them is a good approach here.

Of course, I do think they genuinely mean well and - I suspect - when they see an adult like me they are excited at the prospect of having a real conversation with a customer who is not a whiny 9 year old asking such scintillating questions as 'who would win in a fight between Malekith and Spiderman?'. If I was a nicer or more sociable person, I would probably be willing to strike up a conversation with them, I don't think they are bad people. But sadly neither trait applies for me...
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Re: GW Store Staff

Post by xFallenx »

Red... wrote:I found that calling ahead and asking them to reserve the item I wanted for me to pick up later in the day worked well. When I turned up, I looked rushed (to be fair, I was rushed) and disinterested in small talk. I stated that I had reserved the item, the manager pulled it out from behind the till, I paid and left. Not a question asked or answered.

Generally, I have found that the tricky part is always the actual card transaction. Everything can be sped through up until that point, but once your card is in the machine and you are waiting for the 'remove card' message to flash up, they have you at their conversational mercy. Staring rigidly at the machine as though you think it might transform into some kind of magical chimera rather than process your card and avoiding all eye contact with them is a good approach here.

Of course, I do think they genuinely mean well and - I suspect - when they see an adult like me they are excited at the prospect of having a real conversation with a customer who is not a whiny 9 year old asking such scintillating questions as 'who would win in a fight between Malekith and Spiderman?'. If I was a nicer or more sociable person, I would probably be willing to strike up a conversation with them, I don't think they are bad people. But sadly neither trait applies for me...

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Re: GW Store Staff

Post by van Awful »

No real GW shops nearby, and at my lgs they leave me to browse around and gather up anything i need erhh want. The other day i was in dusseldorf and passed the Drakenburg. My gf who never been to a GWstore, offered to go inside(nothing to do with me staring). And there was a female redshirt didnt know those exsisted. Who as soon as i opened the door started yapping in german, which i dont speak but undertand pretty good. She at first started to falter because she didnt speak any english..really in a GW shop?!..but she stoically remained at my side and walked us through to the store. trying to get me to buy this or that, to come back and a play a game with some locals. Like Red said i thought she genuilly meant well, even though she was trying like hell to sell something. She just refused to understand i was just showing my girl the GW Geek kingdom. After a while though, i was getting kinda fed up. so politily told her of. "Yes i See the Warhammer thankyou, I know what is available for dark elves thank you, no need to point it out. You know what? if i have a question i'll find you allright? THANK YOU! it helped
But thats my problem with sales people in general and depends what face i got on. My "leave the f*** alone face" or my "sure im a nice and social bloke,please come talk to me and sell me shiz face".
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Re: GW Store Staff

Post by hellbane »

Fun to read about this, because I've also experienced most GW staff to be kinda pushy. That drive to sell you something is always present in their talk. It's subtle, but very present. That approach always backfires on me because I don't like anything being sold to me. I buy stuff because I decide I want/need/like it. Usually I make my opinion about their product clear, after which I can shop around relatively unbothered.

For me it works much, much better when someone simply starts honest, well meant smalltalk about the hobby. Also general smalltalk works well. I want to feel at home and among equals. The more someone relates to me the better, happy and likely-to-buy I get. The more someone tries to nudge me in a direction the more I'll push towards the other direction.

I do however understand the commercial push. The local GW is switching managers and out of interest I checked out the vacancy: http://careers.games-workshop.com/2013/03/31/hobby-centre-manager-groningen-netherlands/. One thing really sticks out:
"Your pay is based on the sales of your store. If you increase the volume of your store’s sales, year-on-year, your pay will increase. In addition, each year that you deliver better growth than our stated minimum you will receive a share of that extra growth."

I'm a firm disbeliever in target-based salaries. Any employee should get a decent basic salary. I've never seen this kind of rewards leading to better results in regard to employees that have a steady contract. It always pulls focus away from quality and leads to short-term thinking. In this case, I think it's partly because quality is not the main goal. Reading trough both the vacancy and internal culture manifest, quality doesn't seem high on the agenda. The main themes are (increasing) sales, attitude, improving yourself and 'do it GW or GTFO'.

All in all I much rather go to the local independent gamestore. I'm among fellow gamenerds there, nobody tries to make me do anything, there's a broad variety of games and models (for instance: warmachine, army painter, malifaux), staff gives an honest opinion on all products, I'm helping a small entrepeneur uphold his business / feed his kids. They even have two pet iguana's you can feed and pet. Then again, I always root for the underdog.
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Re: GW Store Staff

Post by Cold73 »

Having a friend who owns a GW in the Netherlands myself I am probably a bit biased on this.
I certainly have not noticed any pushing on buying certain stuff myself.
But that might have 2 reasons...
1) the store owner warned his staff about that.
2) If they actually do start to ask something a good way to get rid of it is simply asking them what armies they play themselves.
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Re: GW Store Staff

Post by Red... »

Hellbane - to be fair to GW, they offer both, which is probably the most effective model for sales. What do I mean by that? Well, GW employees get paid a basic level of salary, and then receive commission beyond that for their sales. That ensures that they get paid regardless of how they do, but they get paid better if they do better. You can't really fault it as a mechanism for selling, and it is used widely across the retail sector - scarcely limited to just GW. I do agree that GW employees can be pushy, but then at the same time some of that comes because we tend to be unfriendly anti-social people. They want to talk with you, learn more about you and - arguably - help you with your purchasing needs. We, on the other hand, want to stand in stoic silence while we wonder around their store. If you engaged with them in actual conversation rather than simply trying to shake them off as quickly as possible, maybe you'd find they are actually quite reasonablel folk underneath. Don't get me wrong, I'm playing devil's advocate here a bit - I don't like talking to GW staff in their stores either tbh - but I do think it is sometimes a little too easy to jump on the 'GW staff are too pushy, their products are too expensive and they are this big evil corporation that feeds babies to crocodiles' bandwagon. This isn't Enron, it's not even Apple. It's a miniatures vendor being sold by staff who have a genuine interest in their product, using a business strategy that does appear to be yielding them good returns. Fair's fair.
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Re: GW Store Staff

Post by Noble korhedron »

@Red: Sorry, I'm refusing to subscribe to the 'GW can be nice guys' notion, after I was nearly threatened with banning for saying the 7 Ed. Empire state troops suck - not the price, the models!! I was getting all nostalgic for the 6 Ed. ones, and the manager took issue with it. Well, he can go jump in the Liffey as far as I'm concerned, so I basically said I'd think what I liked and what did he have a problem with? The word "sucks"? Turns out "negativity", "sucks" or anything similar is a dirty word in GW stores as they aren't "positive about the hobby". Sod off!! :x
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Re: GW Store Staff

Post by Red... »

Break it down though and you'll realise you were standing in a shop that sold a product, while saying that their product was bad. Most store managers, not just GW ones, would struggle with that - it's bad for business to have clients standing inside their store while badmouthing the items they are trying to sell. Perhaps he could have handled it better - I don't know, I wasn't there - but if I stood in a clothing store or a phone shop saying clearly to other people around me that I felt that this year's stock sucked then I wouldn't be at all surprised if the sales team asked me to leave... Why do we hold GW to standards that we don't use with other stores? Try it and see - go into another non-GW retail store for another kind of product and talk to other customers about how much the current range in that store sucks... I wouldn't be at all surprised if the management don't take kindly to it. Well, maybe don't try it, but you get my point :)
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Re: GW Store Staff

Post by Saintofm »

From what I understand in my neck of the woods (California, USA), is that they have to make a certain Dolar amount in sales or the company thinks they are not doing their job. It dosn't matter if they talk to someone, that someone thinks about it, and when they come back convinced the hobby is for them and it's someone else's shift, the money earned wasn't on their thing. This sucks on both the consumer and store as one is forced to be a used car salesman and one has to think of their wallet.
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Re: GW Store Staff

Post by Noble korhedron »

Red... wrote:Break it down though and you'll realise you were standing in a shop that sold a product, while saying that their product was bad. Most store managers, not just GW ones, would struggle with that - it's bad for business to have clients standing inside their store while badmouthing the items they are trying to sell. Perhaps he could have handled it better - I don't know, I wasn't there - but if I stood in a clothing store or a phone shop saying clearly to other people around me that I felt that this year's stock sucked then I wouldn't be at all surprised if the sales team asked me to leave... Why do we hold GW to standards that we don't use with other stores? Try it and see - go into another non-GW retail store for another kind of product and talk to other customers about how much the current range in that store sucks... I wouldn't be at all surprised if the management don't take kindly to it. Well, maybe don't try it, but you get my point :)
Actually Red, more specifically I was lamenting the loss of the 'Empire Soldiers' box set - as it was known - and it's replacement with the 7 Ed. 10-strong, overpriced(which I did NOT, repeat NOT cite as a factor), awful one-piece casting 'State Troops' boxed sets. What is so wrong with preferring an older kit? In fact, I merely said I thought replacing it entirely was a mistake, and the kit should simply have been re-worked to add options for spears, as I had preferred it as it was, in the multi-part style of the current milita kit. If you're old enough to play the game I.M.O, you're old enough to make the effort to sit down and put your army together.... :|
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Re: GW Store Staff

Post by Red... »

Right, but I assume that he had the current kit in store to sell and didn't have the older kit. With that in mind, your comments may have come across as disparaging of his products and as providing a negative stimuli towards his shop selling a product. Nothing is wrong per se with praising an older kit, but negative comments towards the current one are probably inappropriate to make in a store that exists to sell said products.

I mean, look at it this way: how would your words be likely to affect someone standing next to you at the store and listening to your lament? Odds are it would make them feel that the current Empire kits you mentioned were less worth buying. And any store would find that kind of influencing unpalatable. If you were in a clothing store talking to other potential customers about how last year's line was much better and the current line was awful, they would get upset and we wouldn't be surprised about it.

Independent Stores tend not to mind such comments so much because they have a wider array of products - if you don't like GW ones, they can point you towards other mini companies like Privateer Press, Wyrd or Kings of War (in fact, they may encourage such criticisms because folk who are disenchanted with GW generally are more likely to purchase from them rather than GW, increasing their own sales...so not entirely altruistic behaviour on their part here). GW stores have to sell the stock they have. I do hear where you're coming from, but GW shops are retail shops and have a reasonable right imo to get upset at customers who stand inside and make negative comments about the stock on their shelves.
Last edited by Red... on Sat Apr 06, 2013 7:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: GW Store Staff

Post by Noble korhedron »

O.K. I take your point. T.B.H, I think G.W stores and - in SOME cases - staff, have gone downhill big-time since GW launched their IPO some years back. For Christ's sake, I remember this git from G.W. Dublin, Carlos I think his name was, who got thick about some kids painting G.W. models in a G.W. store!! :o Now how stupid is that?! :o :x :(
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Re: GW Store Staff

Post by Red... »

Yeah, I do agree - I'm playing Devil's Advocate a bit. Personally I try to avoid venturing into their stores, as I do find their full on sale's pitch a bit too unpleasant for my liking... Same way I try to avoid going into other stores with such approaches, like mobile phone stores (where the words 'I'm just browsing' seem equally alien to their staff). I don't like being lobbied when trying to browse in a store, but I think it does apply to a wider breadth of stores than just GW ones (and indy stores can be quite bad about this too, tbh, just with a wider range of products).
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Re: GW Store Staff

Post by Noble korhedron »

I can almost forgive the Indy stores, as in the current climate of recession and unceasing competition - online and otherwise - they face a hard time trying to stay afloat. W.T.F Carlos' problem was though, I have NO idea!! :x :x :x He just went ballistic at this group of kids at the GW Dublin painting table one afternoon, while I was in there; I THINK having a game of Warhammer or 40K. I'd even stake my - 2000+ pts - Ork army that EVERY model they had was G.W., even if they were not brand-new. :x :(
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Re: GW Store Staff

Post by hellbane »

@Red... I actually do talk with the personnel and fully understand where they're coming from. I'm quite social and don't mind the pitch that much. However, it's enjoyable trying out different tactics and seeing what it results in :P All in all I'm Devils advocating for the other side. I do oppose targets, especially in the GW case. Employees should be passionate about the hobby, which should be enough to sell it. I think it results in a wrong motivation, leading to a wrong approach of customers. But i'm happy to agree to disagree !lol!
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Re: GW Store Staff

Post by Tyrannus deathbringer »

Unusual experience today.

Was waiting for a train and thought I'd have a browse in the local store and ask the staff about the impending High Elves release.

Staff looked honestly surprised to hear about any new High Elves on the way. They started asking me what I new about it!

Don't know if it was a company line 'we don't know what comes out next month' or if they genuinely were surprised :shock:
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Re: GW Store Staff

Post by Dalamar »

I noticed GW store staff doesn't know about new releases until they get the information from the HQ (which honestly they should have by now)

It was a very surprising experience to me, as if GW grunts are cut of from the world and access to the internet.
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Re: GW Store Staff

Post by Gnosis »

GW store staffers know as much or as little as us about the new releases: they find out once the latest White Dwarf is released. The days of stores receiving a 'black box' with many of the releases one month in advance is already a year or two in the past.
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Re: GW Store Staff

Post by Liquidedust »

Tyrannus deathbringer wrote:Unusual experience today.

Was waiting for a train and thought I'd have a browse in the local store and ask the staff about the impending High Elves release.

Staff looked honestly surprised to hear about any new High Elves on the way. They started asking me what I new about it!

Don't know if it was a company line 'we don't know what comes out next month' or if they genuinely were surprised :shock:


GW Store staff as well as independant retailers get to know what they will stock when as said that months White Dwarf comes out, or one week prior to the release/change in case of reboxing and items that are slipped between regular or on demand only stock.

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Re: GW Store Staff

Post by Banja »

I once had a expierence that left me literally " :shock: - :? - :lol: ".

Back when i was playing High Elves i came in to buy a box of the new plastic Phoneix Guards ( needed two packs) and they were out unfourtantly. So i asked the red-shirt and he says they are waiting for a restock..BUT, he has a bunch of Caradyran blisters. I dont think his point was for me to buy a bunch of Caradryan blisters but the way he showed me a handfull of metal blisters left me :burns: , thinking he meant that i should buy 20 Caradryans instead
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Re: GW Store Staff

Post by Cold73 »

@Banja,
That happend to me quite often in other stores as well....
"I'm sorry sir...the jeans you are looking for are out of stock...we can however offer you these jeans"
< and the store owner shows a pair of jeans 2-3 times as expensive>

Morale of the story... I don't think this kind of 'agressive' behaviour is only found in GW employees.

I do however agree that GW employees are a bit more forward, and actually approach new people who enter the store.
(instead of you having to walk through a store for over an hour to actually find an employee)
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Re: GW Store Staff

Post by Elodin »

Honestly, the guy who runs my GW store is awesome.

He doesn't really push anybody to buy anything, he sets up events that may encourage people to buy things (Secret Santa for example) but he never flat out tries to pressure people into buying things. That being said, you can't just hang around the store and use the tables for a year without ever making a purchase, but that's never been an issue.


Once we did have a substitute while the normal manager was on holiday and this guy was a little bit more pushy, but he did it in a way that was humorous so it wasn't that bad. (For example, I bought a box of Corsairs and he made a joke about also buying Fellheart to lead them to the promised land.)


I guess I'm pretty lucky with my store, I never really even thought about the people working there being pushy are rude to people if they don't buy things.
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