Overpriced Hobby Stores

[monkeyfish]

No way would I want a master set for $55 when I can get one for a little more than half that at Wally world.

[Uprising]

For all of my other gaming needs (Runebound, Descent, dice, Card Games), I use my FLGS. Heroscape is a different beast. It's available pretty much everywhere. I bought 80% of my HS stuff through Sandra, Funagain, and Hasbro Online. 5% through E-Bay, and the other 15% through the Big Stores. I would have no problem paying extra for HS from my local guy if he had a better HS selection. If he had an online store, I would probably strickly use him. Having Heroscape delivered to your door is SO key in my opinion.

[Rodriquez]

hey I've got ye all beat..at Dragoncon(in Atlanta) this year, one of the vendors had HS...Onyx viper set......$85.....
set of Drones & Minions....$35...
and I never did find out what he wanted for Rttff and orm's he had there...

but he got pissed at me when I asked what he had it for some much...

but aye my local stores carry HS..and they are more than stores...Ms are 50'ish, fiq's packs are 15..

[Taelord]

Ridiculous.

i couldn't pay that much if i wanted to. lol.

[ej]

I envy those people who can afford to support their local stores by shelling out 50-100% more for a product than they would at WalMart. Personally I don't like to buy ANYTHING for the MSRP, let alone for a lot more. In fact KMarts "sale" on expansions (only 10% off of 12.99) is a joke to me when WalMart and Target sell them for $9.99 everyday.

[Fourshadow]

Originally Posted by ej

I envy those people who can afford to support their local stores by shelling out 50-100% more for a product than they would at WalMart. Personally I don't like to buy ANYTHING for the MSRP, let alone for a lot more. In fact KMarts "sale" on expansions (only 10% off of 12.99) is a joke to me when WalMart and Target sell them for $9.99 everyday.

Yes, who wouldn't mind having that much disposable income?!

[WreakLoosE]

Sorry. I don't have that problem... I live less than 10 miles from 5 Target Stores 2 Walmarts 3 TRU's So finding HS stuff is never that bad for me.. There are times when I wait and wait for something and none of my local stores get it so I just get it from House Mouse.. But for the most part.. The Cerritos CA. TRU kicks Arse... They get stuff very fast and alot of stock on things as well.

[Kepler]

It depends on how much you value the gaming store. If you play there often or they can get you stuff you can't get any where else, then paying a little extra for HS is not that big of a deal. However, if all you are doing there is buying HS then it probably is not worth it.

[eaglekiller]

You figure if the store owner charged $40 he would make enough money on a MS.

[maxo-texas]

Problem with wally world is this.

In every market 20% of the stuff generates 80% of the revenue.

Small and specialty stores carry the other 80% of stuff.

Wally world sells the profit stuff cheap.

YOU, ME, everyone logically buys that 20% at 50% of the price.

Then the specialty store goes under since it can't make a profit with that 20% of cream cut out.

Solution ultimately... cut even walmart out of the loop. Online shopping has both the specialty stuff and the 20% stuff cheaper than local brick and mortar. Sure, you are not supporting "Bob", the local game store owner but you are supporting "Bill" the guy who makes the game (you may even buy 3 games from Bill instead of 2 since you are not giving a cut to Bob).

Bob was always a middle man. He still works okay in small towns where real estate is cheap ($20,000 to outright buy a store) but it is now so expensive in big towns ($3,000 a month *rent*) that Bob can't stay in business anyway.

In our terms.
I want *HASBRO* to make heroscape. It's going to make more heroscape if I buy 3 sets through walmart than if I buy 2 sets through K&B toys. It's going to make more heroscape if I buy 4 sets through hasbro.com or amazon.com (where the castle sets are the cheapest you can get right now) and get free shipping.

And it won't
a) put miles on my car
b) use gas to go to a store to find out they still don't have the product in stock.

All that being said,
I absolutely don't resent "Bob" having sets on sale for any price he wants to sell them at. If I just had to have a castle set today, then I understand he's probably making less than the national average wage at the end of the day after expenses.

[auralerogeny]

Originally Posted by Kepler

It depends on how much you value the gaming store. If you play there often or they can get you stuff you can't get any where else, then paying a little extra for HS is not that big of a deal. However, if all you are doing there is buying HS then it probably is not worth it.

I'd never been to that store before, it's out of town. I literally walked by it, and said, "hey, lets check this out." I walked in, saw the prices and pretty much left after that. They had a lot of cool stuff other than HS, but once I saw the price of my favorite game, I didn't even walk around that much before walking right on outta' there.