If you ever needed evidence that Games Workshop do no market research and work to an entirely "different" economic model, it must be their decision to open a flagship "Warhammer" store in Dunedin.
For overseas readers Dunedin used to be New Zealand's largest city....in 1863.
It is now the 5th, maybe 6th largest metropolitan area in the country with a population of 127k. Auckland with a population of 1.5 million has one GW shop which has struggled for years to be economic. Wellington has two shops - with a greater metro population of 400k. I think that that is a bit of an anachronism.
Christchurch, NZ's second largest metro area has no GW retail presence. Now I'm no fan of the Village of the Damned but it must make more economic sense to site any new shop in Christchurch over Dunedin.
It's not like Dunedin is any kind of economic powerhouse - the new Horus Heresy set equates to two weeks rent on a typical family home.
I guess we can say GW really do create their own alternate realities.
Posted with Blogsy
So I'm thinking they wanted a warhammer Edinburgh in the south of the city. But got the Edinburgh of the south. It's all just a typo
ReplyDeleteThey honestly have no idea what they are doing Peter. They went mad years ago and the nuking of Warhammer proved it. This is just another crazy move in a series of crazy moves.
ReplyDeleteAs a resident of the Gothic Capital of Aotearoa I am personally looking forward to watching this unfold :P.
ReplyDeleteThey can definitely give it a go here I have checked out the site and it is in the right part of town to take advantage of our 20,000+ young male and females of a particular age that appear for an 8 month period at a time and appear to have no shortage of lack of sense when it comes to cost lol
I reckon it'd be suicidal taking focus from Comics Compulsion in CHCH that place has been open for decades through two quakes and I think it wound be seen as a bad move and generate ill feeling.
Here in Dunedin there is nothing. A small range at the local Laser Tag where they frequently either get the prices wrong (too high and too low) and have no way of helping interested parties understand the product.
Let us know when the closing down sale starts :-)
DeleteSorry Minitrol, that remark of mine was crass. I hope that the store is used by the locals as necessary - though I suspect most being internet savvy will be using a UK supplier and a Youshop account for any major purchases.
DeleteThe biggest problem facing the local GW shops is the ludicrous pricing model foisted on them by Corporate GW. I think any shop has an uphill battle to overcome that here in NZ
I do know what you mean. I think it will struggle however in saying that anecdotally it appears the collector element here is strong. Seven peple I know all remarked on it yesterday looking forward to buying something.
DeleteThey don't collect armies, don't game I genuinely had no idea they were even aware of Games Workshop...
Will it be enough to keep it afloat I dunno I wish the manager well he seems like a nice chap.
Coming from an abused ex WFB collector/player with enough venom and ill-will towards GW to start a decent sized war.... I think this might well float ! The shop is run by an excellent chap who deserves a fair go. Now... where did I put those Kings of War rules?
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