[Blue Liger]

Just wondering has every country experienced yet another price rise a wekk and a half agao I was in GW and a box of 10 CSM was $50 AUS now they are $62, this of course is due to the OIL issues overseas (which I understand, but hope that the price isn't permanent, though fear it will be). Anyway has this happened in the UK, USA etc...?

 

[jaws900]

the uk had theres a while ago and was the first to go up. We tohguht shtta i would affect the US and the assiues

 

[HOBO]

It's been so long since I've actually visited GW Aus's site, let alone buy anything, but yes some things have definitely gone up..some only by $1 or so like individual metal minis, but some Boxed Sets have increased by $10+ ...which is ludicrious.

Still I can get most GW stuff from Wayland Games for approx half price, including postage.

 

[Blue Liger]

Yeah, I'm online buying from here on in I did buy a few things everynow and then from GW but not anymore!

 

[wombat_tree]

Did you just casually not notice the thread detailing the price rise? It was on the HNN and in the News and Rumours section.

P.S Before the price rise CSMs were $55 not $50, if the last time that you checked they were $50 then you obviously haven't looked in a while .

 

[MidnightSun]

We tohguht shtta i would affect the US and the assiues

Sorry for my unforgivable ignorance, but;
We thought WHAT would affect the US and the Aussies (not the Ass Iuses, tempting thought the notion sounds).

Again sorry, but I cannot make this out.

Midnight

 

[Holmstrom]

We tohguht shtta i would affect the US and the assiues

That sentence just made me die a little inside.

But I'm really not surprised they would hike their prices...again. I will laugh at the day a box of Terminators will cost $100. People would still by them in droves, which is the terrible part.

 

[wombat_tree]

Sorry for my unforgivable ignorance

Why are you apologising? It's his damned fault that he can't spell not yours.

 

[Giant Fossil Penguin]

People may have noticed that we are at the end of the financial year and that the prices of EVERYTHING have gone up. This is not a coincidence. These "OMG pricezzz hav gon teh upzzz' really bug me because they seem to ignore a basic property of how the world operates.
Inflation pushes prices up each year. At a certain level this is desirable. Why? It indicates a healthy economy in which wealth is being created; DE-flation, were prices go down, is undesirable because wealth is being lost. If you have a job and a decent employer, your wages also go up by the same amount as all of the prices. This means that you will be paying the same proportion ogf your wages for your toys. Note: the price will be higher, but, as your wages are higher it makes no difference; at the end of the day you will still have the same purchasing power. Now, if you have a crappy (or no job), then your wages will actually go down as your wage increase, or freeze, doesn't match the rise in prices because of inflation and will in effect mean you have less purchasing power. So, for those who work with good employers, any price increase because of inflation won't really matter.
The issue at the moment is the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), exacerbated by fluctuations in oil markets; but by far the GFC is the key issue. All public companies (IE those traded on Stock Markets) operate through credit. The Sub-Prime issue in the US (no matter what it actually was) has caused the cost of credit to go up a hell of a lot. Why does this matter? Well, when you borrow from a bank you have to pay extra when you pay it back, that's how banks make money. Now, with the GFC, lots of people who borrowed money from banks were unable to pay it back. This caused the banks to lose money. How to get over that? Increase the amount that all of the other customers have to pay to use the credit, that and charge new customers high interest (the amount extra you have to pay back, on top of what you borrowed). The knock-on effect? All public companies, such as GW, have to put up prices ABOVE inflation to meet the cost of borrowing from the bank. This is why prices GO UP durring a recession, and not down, as all of the companies that still operate have to pay for all of the companies that have gone broke, whilst still making enough money to run their own business.
So, please stop compaining about price rises each year. It has happened before and will happen again. And GW isn't some faceless corp. that has a huge money-pool people can swim in. It is made up of people like you, me, your parents and the people who work in the GW stores. If GW suffers, they are the ones who will feel it. Whilst I understand people don't like high prices (who does?), this constant whining seems to block out reality.
For those who understand all of this, I'm sorry to be teaching you to suck eggs. To those who don't know, well, the world is a complex place.
Oh, and a company can't gouge us for money if it doesn't have a monopoly on the product.

GFP

 

[Geist]

People may have noticed that we are at the end of the financial year and that the prices of EVERYTHING have gone up. This is not a coincidence. These "OMG pricezzz hav gon teh upzzz' really bug me because they seem to ignore a basic property of how the world operates.
Inflation pushes prices up each year. At a certain level this is desirable. Why? It indicates a healthy economy in which wealth is being created; DE-flation, were prices go down, is undesirable because wealth is being lost.

Now, I could be wrong, but it looks like you have that mixed up. Inflation is bad, because the unit of money(pound, dollar, AU dollar) is now worth less then it was before, meaning that to buy the same item, more of that money must be spent, meaning less the physical wealth that backs each unit of money is not as much as it used to be, meaning the economy is doing badly. Deflation is when the unit of money is worth more, and can buy more things with less, meaning more physical wealth(I mean gold etc...) is backing that unit of money.

I think this is how it goes, since I heard this story about after WW2, the german unit of money(mark?) was worth such a small amount that it was cheaper to burn money then buy wood for an oven. If that kind of inflation is good, then I truly can't make sense of finance.

On the other hand, he's right about it not being GWs fault for the price rises. If you could blame anyone, blame the world governments for letting this economic crisis go on for so long.

 

[Blue Liger]

if you guys actually noticed it's not due to the EOFY (end of financial year), it's due to the oil crisis which our minis are pretty much made of!

 

[humakt]

if you guys actually noticed it's not due to the EOFY (end of financial year), it's due to the oil crisis which our minis are pretty much made of!

The cost of the raw materials is probably neglible in price rise terms, but the cost of transportation has risen due to fuel price increases I would imagine.

 

[Schizofen]

Deflation is bad because it gives no incentive to buy stuff. If you wait a few months it'll be cheaper, and if people don't buy stuff the economy suffers. Massive inflation is similarly bad, as you point out. That's why governments tend to try to aim at inflation of a couple of percent, therefore avoiding deflation while not letting inflation get out of control.

 

[chromedog]

Welcome to the "not buying GW retail in Aus" club.

I haven't bought a model in a GW at retail in 10 years.
I've bought them from FLGS at a discount, or at dealers' tables at conventions at a bigger discount, or even (in the last year or two) online from overseas when the local internet dealers don't have what I want.

Mostly, I'll support a couple of local dealers (internet and bricks and mortar) because for some games, there isn't the same discrepancy between local and import prices.

I buy my GW through Wayland. I get my Infinity stuff through a couple of Aus stores because it's not worth going OS for the less than $1 net saving (Phoenix Forge have prices within $1-2 of the Maelstrom prices for most of the range - and the overseas currency conversion fee eats that difference anyway.)

 

[Giant Fossil Penguin]

Schizofen has the reality of it. The high prices here in Aus are a git, but, again, there is a reason for this. GW are not going to make their major markets pay to subsidise our hobby. There fore, like evrything that we have to import, it will come with a premium price. GW are affected more badly because of the bricks and mortar ahops they have, the staff they have to pay and keeping the stock levels up to cover what anybody might need. This is why it would be beneficial for a Chinese factory to pick up some of the injection-moulding work. Hell, I imagine that having a lot of the stuff actaully packaged in China (take a look on the boxes) has saved us from bigger price rises.
The Dismal Science is counter-intuitive and just depressing. It feels like money should work like water- flowing from where there is lots of it to where there is not, but infortunately it doesn't. Even worse is that many politicians and economists seem to think it DOES act like water. Wow.

GFP

 

[rodmillard]

Now, I could be wrong, but it looks like you have that mixed up. Inflation is bad, because the unit of money(pound, dollar, AU dollar) is now worth less then it was before, meaning that to buy the same item, more of that money must be spent, meaning less the physical wealth that backs each unit of money is not as much as it used to be, meaning the economy is doing badly. Deflation is when the unit of money is worth more, and can buy more things with less, meaning more physical wealth(I mean gold etc...) is backing that unit of money.

More or less. A certain ammount of inflation is inevitable in any healthy economy: prices go up, therefore companies can pay their workers more, therefore the workers have more disposable income, therefore prices will rise again. It is a fundamental function of supply and demand. Deflation (such as the UK experienced late 2008/early 2009 after the banks crashed) is a sign of an unhealthy economy: it indicates that consumers are no longer willing to pay the asking price for goods (ie there is no demand) and companies are forced to slash their prices or go bust. Even companies which survive will often end up laying off workers or slashing their pay, which reduces the ammount of currency in circulation, which again forces demand down. An equilibrium is reached in any given market when there are so few suppliers that a drop in demand will not affect prices, only turnover.

Since the late '90s, GW has had such a tight grip on the fantasy wargames market that they do not have to compete for market share. This means that they have been able to increase prices year on year regardless of the state of the economy, since a drop in demand can be absorbed by the increased profit margin on each box of goldswords to maintain a consistent annual turnover.

However ... in the current economic climate, this has led other companies (such as Mantic) to emerge who can meet the demand at a lower price. As yet, this has made so little difference to GWs market share that it has had no discernable impact on their marketing "strategy," but once their turnover starts dropping despite the increased profit margin on products they will have to start competing on price or slash services, such as stores (effectively creating period of micro-deflation localised to the miniature wargames market)

I think this is how it goes, since I heard this story about after WW2, the german unit of money(mark?) was worth such a small amount that it was cheaper to burn money then buy wood for an oven. If that kind of inflation is good, then I truly can't make sense of finance.

That is hyper-inflation, which is an altogether different beast. In a period of hyper inflation, price rises are measured in days (or hours) rather than years: if you buy a box of chocolates for £5 in the morning, it will be worth £10 the next day despite the fact that you have eaten all the coffee cremes.

The story I think you mean actually refers to the Weimar Republic in Germany after world war one; a photo-journalist saw a man with a wheelbarrow full of bank notes going to the bakers to buy bread, and took a photograph which is now in every economics textbook in the world. On the way back, he asked the man how it went. The man replied "Not good: he took my wheelbarrow. Tomorrow I will have nothing with which to buy bread."

On the other hand, he's right about it not being GWs fault for the price rises. If you could blame anyone, blame the world governments for letting this economic crisis go on for so long.

Or you could blame the Monopolies and Mergers Commission for letting them get such a complete market share. The reason GW can increase prices every year is that they have no meaningful competition; the economic crisis is just the reason we are noticing it, since prices for other commodities have fallen.

PS: UK gamers can look forward to another price rise in January when the 2.5% VAT increase kicks in. Joy.

 

[Nave Senrag]

I may have missed something, but I fail to see how it is GW's fault that no one else makes miniatures.

 

[nocturnalK]

lol, i seen the comment around the GW having to increase Prices to do with Loan rates for business...
If you read GW's 2009 Financial report then that comment is not correct, GW's had negotiated for a fix rate for all loans made between 2010-2012 at 6%.

If you read it carefully they also talk about the fact that they are decreasing the amount of metal minis so they are not as vulnerable to metal costs.
They also state in the report that their intentions over the next few years is to increase the cost of plastic minis so their cost is the same as that of metal minis. In GW opinion there should be no difference between metal and plastic in sale value, though they admit plastic is much cheaper to make.

You may also see that gratuities are now almost meeting the same profit level as that from the sale of minis.

In another few years i can see GW getting most of their profit from gratuities (PC games, Books cards etc)

 

[Farseer_Iowan]

Does is surprise me that GW raised its prices two years running? Not at all, lets face it the business side of GW is just a bunch of money grubbing whores that look at the bottom dollar (insert your currency name here)... It is only off set by the fact that the game side (products) are just getting better and better. You would be hard pressed to prove to me that GW had to increase the prices... GW has been phasing out the pewter (white metal) for a long time now and 90% of there products are plastics (and the quality is sweet) and with a solid distribution network and manufacturing process in place, I just don't see a "Must" to increase the price, it would be wiser to keep them level unit this economic funk we are in improves... I know it has made me buy less of there products...