I think there certainly is a need for online shops; I remember the early days of gaming when mail order was the only way to receive my fix.

To me, a 10% and free local postage is an acceptable level of discount from an online retailer. It costs less to run an online only operation and the savings are passed onto customers.

Here in the UK we have a good club culture so one could argue that shops are not as necessary to maintain the hobby as say in other countries where gaming is not as club based. So online discounters perhaps don’t harm as much as they seem say in the US.

I do agree… without stores the hobby shrinks… the stores are good for getting new gamers that eventually flush into clubs…

But since there is no store that locally carries what I’m playing…

Andres

I think your decision is a good decision - in the end it is standing up for something you personally believe in and to me that’s the most important thing.

On the other hand, I doubt that a significant amount of sales were funneled from an LGS to Amazon via an ad link to Amazon on this site. The reason being is chances are most of us most likely have favorite on-line retailers for buying game stuff, anyway. Heck, I don’t think I’ve even tried looking for miniatures/game stuff on Amazon.

Another thing to throw in there is most products on Amazon aren’t being shipped by the company Amazon. Many people don’t know this, but Amazon is basically a giant flea market where virtually anyone can sell product on Amazon. So while you think you’re ordering from Amazon, it could be a brick and mortar LGS, or even your favorite on-line store selling their wares via the Amazon marketplace. And this is not to be confused with the Amazon-bidding side of things, but rather the normal Amazon site is just a conglomeration of retailers.

But for me in the end it comes down to my money coming out of my pocket. So if I can find something significantly cheaper on line, then chances are I’m ordering it on-line. Or, like MetalMiniMadness said above, if I can’t find decent product locally (like AT-43). I won’t lie - back in the “golden days” of GW when you could actually buy their product at a discount on line, I did so because saving the 30% was awesome, and I was still supporting “the little person” by ordering from someone’s personal on-line shop. I don’t mind being altruistic, but chances are that altruism is going to manifest itself in the form of supporting local homeless, not my local game store.

On the other hand, if I’m at a game store playing a game, or getting some “value” from my visit there (other than buying product), then I usually buy at least something to support my prolonged visit at the store. - usually a miniature, small book, more dice I don’t need, etc. I think of it as akin to paying for a movie ticket for admission to the theater. But I’m not feeling like I have to walk out of there with some $80 box of wargame-of-the-week just to justify me hanging out there for a few hours playing a game.

So while you think you’re ordering from Amazon, it could be a brick and mortar LGS, or even your favorite on-line store selling their wares via the Amazon marketplace.

The few times I have picked up product from a store other than Amazon selling via Amazon it has always been clearly marked. I was trying to find a copy of an OOP book recently and got it via Powell’s Books in Portland from Amazon.’

I knew that I wasn’t buying from Amazon though.

Amazon is usually pretty clear about making sure that you know that they are not the people selling you a product.

Or at least that has been my experience. I only use Amazon.ca and Amazon.uk (for football books) so the US site could be branded differently.

AT-43 is a bit of a special case…

All that being said, I applaud you doing your part to help out those deserving stores by removing the Amazon ads.

My “local” gaming store is 11 miles away in the big city centre where it costs £1.20/hour to park, if I can find a space. So with petrol at £1($2)/litre just visiting the place for half an hour costs me £2.25 even before I buy a single thing. And then when I get there there may be a couple of example books left out of there shrink wrapping, but demo games? Forget it! No such thing!

So why the heck should I support them? They aren’t a charity! They are a business that offers an identical product at a greater cost and less convenience than any online retailer. So why do they “deserve” my money?

No reason I could see!

Zac, I respect your decision. Your site, your rules etc. Plus your experience f stores is different to mine so I’m not criticising it.

But please, do me a favour, and don’t make a moral case for trying to support a failed business model! Here in the UK I suspect, GW aside, that the vast majority of wargaming sales are online. Which is nothing new, as prior to the internet they were mail order.

The internet isn’t the Big Baddy here, the problem appears to be that some indie store owners believe they have the God-given right to offer minimal service with no extras over what Joe Punter can get online and at substantially higher cost. I’m sorry, but in my book they don’t. If they want me to pay a “Brick and Mortar Tax” then they’ve got to earn it. THose that do, well “Good on ‘em”, and more power to their elbow. If there was one anywhere near me I’d support it. However there isn’t so I can’t!

As for the whole “the US population is too spread out to support clubs” argument. I call phooey! I live in a little village in the North East of England with a population of 1,400 souls. I run a club of locals meeting weekly in my home. It’s quite possible to create a club if the will is there. I suspect the reason there are so many clubs in the UK compared to the US is that because there are decent Indies to play at there isn’t a need for them. Here in the UK, with the domination of GW on the high street, necessity has been the mother of invention and clubs playing games have sprung up all over the place as its the only way to game - all it takes is a mate who has another mate and things snowball from there!

Business is business. B&M stores are in it to make a profit. If they don’t make a profit there is no moral imperative on the customer!

Hello all, I am the original poster of the CBT thread, and I frequent this site. Imagine my surprise when I realized that my ignorance that prompted me to ask this question affected this site here..

Reading all your comments, have in mind that for me, online ordering is the only option. And even if I live in Greece, it’s cheaper to order it from US than from the UK.

Someone said that ‘without stores, the hobby would die’. Well, I never saw or held a real CBT book before I purchased the Intro box, TW, Map compilation, a few figs and some stuff from Ebay. It wasn’t a hobby store that directed me to CBT, but the MechWarrior and MechCommander games, and a random BT novel I saw in a bookstore by chance. I won’t argue that hobby stores do help of course, but there are other ways to lure people into the hobby.

But please, do me a favour, and don’t make a moral case for trying to support a failed business model!

Just because Amazon has a better business model doesn’t mean that a brick and mortar store is a failed business concept. :-)

The internet isn’t the Big Baddy here, the problem appears to be that some indie store owners believe they have the God-given right to offer minimal service with no extras over what Joe Punter can get online and at substantially higher cost.

How many stores do you think are like this? I would suspect that most of them have gone under already or are soon going to.

And as I mentioned earlier, are these stores promoting the hobby then?

The entire concept is that we as a hobby want to help build and grow the hobby. And so obviously, to me, if a store isn’t doing that then they aren’t helping anyway (and could also be seen as hindering the development of the hobby) and so, again, obviously aren’t worth the support.

I don’t know that anyone is saying to blindly spend your money on local stores regardless of their service… well maybe poorly run stores would be saying that. :-)

But I think that if people want to make sure that this hobby stays vibrant that they need to do something to make sure that there are local gaming opportunities for people at attend and for people to see.

Clubs are great if you don’t have local stores with gaming space. And from what I understand clubs are a lot more prominent and vocal than they are here in North America.

But where I come from, stores are where the gaming happens for the most part and so my emphasis has always been on trying to get people to support their local stores.

Your personal situation is going to effect your buying decisions.

As for the whole “the US population is too spread out to support clubs” argument. I call phooey!

I run weekly gaming sessions at my house as well but people here seem to shrink away from the idea of clubs and I am not sure what the issue is. I, in effect, have a club running from my basement but I’ll be darned if anyone wants to call it that.

maybe we’re just shy on this side of the Atlantic :-)

By “deal” I mean something purely economic. If I can obtain something in a shorter time frame & at a significantly lower cost, why shouldn’t I? Perhaps indeed not if the local shop I could have bought it from is a kind of charitable institution run by someone who lives on minimum income in order to offer gamers a clubhouse & introduce them to unknown yet worthwhile stuff, sure. But those places are rare in my experience.

This whole argument reminds me of the claim that high officially regulated prices for books would be vital for the survival of literary culture in that it would allow small bookshops to survive. It never worked even in countries where they tried it. Most still went under, because they didn’t have a lot to offer in the first place and certainly weren’t the fantastic literary treasuretroves run by erudite yet friendly amateur-scholars that many book lovers imagine when they hear the words “small bookshop”. It will go the same way for B&M gaming stores, only those genuinely offering added value have a chance of survival. I’ll support those wholeheartedly, but will also cheerfully participate in weeding out the others by buying cheap online :-)

Sorry, I’m not buying it. Not if you compare the english & american world of publishing with that in France & Germany. Prices are lower, and there’s far more diversity overall. Living close to both countries, I visit both french & german B&M bookshops, large & small, independent & part of chains, occasionally, and what strikes me is how little difference there is between most in what’s on offer. Most of them also rely on Harry Potter, just as much as the much maligned Waterstone’s or WH Smith in Britain. Yes, there might be more shops, but that in itself has no added value. What does work is subsidizing publications, but even then you shouldn’t forget that most of the 94,716 new titles published last year by the 14,000 German publishers never make it to the average corner bookshop. You need to order them, and the internet is often the best way to do that.

Liberating the market will kill off some smaller shops, but while that’s not good for the owners, it will not necessarily be a loss to buyers purely in terms of what they pay & what they can get.

Sorry, I’m not buying it.

Nothing to “buy”. :-)

It seems quite empirical. German and French laws appear to have fostered a larger market of stores and publishers and the lack of those laws in Switzerland have created lower prices for mass market books but higher prices for other books to make up the loss of a margin from those bestsellers.

Yes, there might be more shops, but that in itself has no added value.

It does if you are a publisher and a book buyer.

Liberating the market will kill off some smaller shops…

That argument doesn’t seem to take into account the externalities of the “equation”. People buying all their goods online from giant mega stores doesn’t do anything to help foster a vibrant local economy that has jobs and helps to create the tax base that provides services to people.

Indeed if all you want is the cheapest price possible then buying online is a good idea but that only makes sense when one thinks purely of oneself.

We don’t live as isolated economic units. We live in wider communities that ultimately depend on local economic activity to create the economy that helps provide public services and the higher standard of living that we all enjoy.

Liberating markets is really about allowing larger economic players like Amazon to dominate a market and make more money. Because ultimately it is those folks that benefit and not the small local retailer that is going online and selling at a discount.

I don’t see the value in that.

I’d much rather see a more robust and varied local economy than have everyone buy everything at Amazon (for example) or even “big box” stores because really all that does is siphon money from the local economy.

In any case this is all wildly OT and probably boring the heck out of everyone.

Use the contact form to email me if you want to continue the debate via email :-)

You have any idea how many different game systems are out there? How many expansions etc there are?

If you want your local LGS to stock everything you might ever want, you’re living in a dream world. To stock a new range involves a lot of money, and that money is tied up until the stock is sold. Quite a lot of stuff may never sell, or it may sit on that shelf for months on end.

Throwing £1000 at a model range to stock it, having an open copy to demo, and hoping you sell at least 75% of that range to turn a profit (demo copy, your time learning the rules/painting the models etc) just isn’t really gonna pay off. And don’t forget you have to pay for the stock before you get chance to sell it, so the money for it has to come from either the most-likely dwindling profits of your store or your own pocket.

Online is different, since one man can service an entire country, and that means they have many times more “footfall” who might buy their stock. So they buy in £1000 of stock, that’s only 5 people with a starter game and a few expansions. Nationally, that’s not hard. In one town, it’s harder than you think.

Blah blah blah, this sure rambled on :O

I have diligently bought my gaming needs from 2 local stores over the past 9 year. I now find myself “drifting” to online purchasing. Why?
1) Some retailers (GW for example) do “splash” releases - once the week has gone by your local can no longer order them with ease. It is wait a couple of uncertain months, or hit Amazon.
2) the C:US$ exchange rate. Why should I pay 40-60% more to buy in in C$, when I should be paying 5% less? This will hurt the Canadian distributors soon, if they don’t bring parity to the pricing.

imagine if gw just embraced online selling

of course that would be like asking for the return of those pesky “space dwarves” - see the “space dwarf” clock references

Something else to add into this interesting debate, is a concept that is valid here in the UK of “where the club ends and a store starts”. I can think of at least one operation I have visited which most definitely a club in that its primary function is to get members together to play games, but which have various negotiated deals with local B&M and online retailers for member discounts and have one or two members who act as mini distributor/retailers for the more popular games collating bulk orders direct from the manufacturer. Definition of “club” = pay a membership sub, not open to non-members.

On the other hand I can also think of a store (too far away to game at regularly, sadly) that is more like a club. Yes it is a retail premesis open to the general public, but they have gone hell-for-leather in actually making its major activity the playing of games. They have a huge warehouse style playing area and run big terrain-making and painting workshops, and regular competitions for around 3 or 4 main product ranges (GW games, FoW & Urban Mammoth). Products are on sale at full retail and of course the profits subsidise the gaming aspect. Definition of “store” = no sub needed to join, open to non-members.

Obviously gaming space has to be paid for. A larger club will do it by charging a small membership and renting a local community hall. Smaller clubs will do it for free in a mate’s basement. A retail store will do it by subsidising the renting of non-retail space from its profits, which hopefully are boosted by its organising gaming space and thereby providing customers with a need to purchase and an easy route to do so.

So we can perhaps agree that it is “immoral” to utilise but not pay for gaming space. In a club you can say “no subs paid, no entry”. In a store they can’t do that, so they have to make the urge to buy from them irrisistible I guess, and also do stuff like put in snack machines. We are all at heart lazy, which is borne out by the fact we will pay £1 for a can of pop/soda from a nearby machine rather than walk a couple of hundred yards down the road and buy one from a store for 50p! It works the same in games retailing. We are prepared to pay a reasonable mark-up for getting our stuff right now from a pile in the store instead of at 20% discount mail order/online.

Maybe the answer is for stores to be a little more transparent in their subsidy of gaming. They need to be up front and honest with the punters. Tell them that their gaming doesn’t come cheap and offer incentives to buy for them.

Or maybe they should just form a club that uses their premises… ;)