Monday, July 11, 2011

Games Workshop Retail Fail (again)

 
Like many of you, I received the regular email blast from Games Workshop last Thursday announcing the "Storm of Magic" expansion for Warhammer Fantasy to be in stores on Saturday.  Although the little I've heard about it makes Storm of Magic sound pretty silly (a spinner?  really?), as a long-time WHFB enthusiast I thought I would check it out if I was in the neighbourhood of the local GW.  I wasn't planning to splash out the mega-bucks that the book is sure to cost, but thought that perhaps if there were new wizard models released, I might pick up a Finecast Grey Seer for my Skaven, and blog a review of the new resin.

So, on a sunny Sunday afternoon, I found myself in the vicinity of our local and decided to drop in for a look-see.

And the shop was closed.

A note on the door told me that it closed on 4 July and would reopen on 13 July.

As I noted last year, our local Games Workshop store has one (1) employee, "Pete".  Nice guy, enthusiastic, and a great ambassador for the brand.  I don't begrudge Pete a vacation for one minute.  He works hard and has to deal with crap that I can't even imagine.  The man needs to take a holiday.  In fact, the man needs some relief on a day to day basis.  How stressful would it be to have to close your store to go have lunch or even drop a deuce, for the love of God??

Anyway, GW didn't get any of my money on Sunday and they might have.  Or maybe they wouldn't have, depending on what they had there.  In any case, we'll never know.  It's just rather annoying that they have a retail presence that's not actually "present" much of the time.  Quaere whether this is better or worse than not having a shop here at all...
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4 comments:

  1. eriochromeJuly 11, 2011 at 12:09 PM

    Given that GW only has new releases like once a month I am suprised that their is not a rule about not being closed on the release weekend for each month. Ofcourse people often have to plan trips months ahead of time.

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  2. Dave GarbeJuly 11, 2011 at 2:34 PM

    It makes me wonder if GW opens shops, or if they have franchise options available.

    You would think that GW would want any of its stores to be properly staffed.

    Whereas perhaps he's a franchise owner - wanted to open a hobby store, but with a big brand name instead of his own.. and can't afford more staff.

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  3. DallasJuly 11, 2011 at 3:02 PM

    Hi Dave, GW stores are not franchises, the stores are company-owned and the people who work there are employees of GW. The manager there is a good guy but I am sure he has little or no control over staffing policy for his store.

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  4. BVidlerJuly 15, 2011 at 1:12 AM

    I actualy talked to the manager about this before he left on holidays.

    He was not informed of the release schedule before he had to submit his requests for his holidays. His holidays were approved and planned before SoM release date was announced. By the time the manager found out, he couldn't cancel his holidays. As GW have a total employee pool of 1 person at this store...

    Classic case of departments not talking to each other in a large company. Expect to see more of it as GW becomes more secretive with its own staff.

    Another store I was at complained that he didn't know about the closure. His stock was gone before he knew what was happening. If he had known GW was going to be closed, he would have ordered more SoM stuff.

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