"Would Historical Wargaming benefit from an Amazon?" Topic

Prompted by the Warstore's closing news I said this industry is a step further from having an Amazon style vendor at its heart.

On a scale of 1-10 with 1 being "It will murder and bury historical wargaming forever" and 10 being, "It will put wargaming into everyone's home and we'll see phenomenal growth and vibrancy for years to come" how desirable is it for a large online retailer, with a huge definitive selection, low prices, stellar communications and lightning fast service be?

No, it would sink a lot of small shops, pay a lot less taxes through "tax optimization" (while those smaller shops were paying their full share to the community.

I don't believe (anymore) in Liberalism at all cost.

For at least 20 years now the trend in the hobby has been the dying-out of the small producers, publishers, and retailers, replaced by a handful of (mostly UK-based) big brands. The Amazon model would probably be the final nail in that coffin because their business model is almost designed to crush the little guy.

They demand a huge discount from the supplier, then sell the product below his retail price, and then they often reserve the right to "remainder" products that don't sell, forcing the producer to buy it back from them! Oh, and then they don't pay taxes in half the countries where they operate. No wonder they're the world's most successful company.

Not sure if its in many other Countries other than New Zealand and Australia but Mighty Ape fulfils most of my gaming needs. It does not stock everything from say Warlord as an example but it is always worth checking there first.
They often have sales quite regularly.

Well, I could certainly have benefited from an aggregator--some place where I could pick "15mm" from the drop-down menu, typed in "DAK" and seen everything available, in production or used. And Amazon has been very good for giving small business as way in--authors who can't get accepted by the remaining handful of publishers, for instance--though Wargames Vault seems to be doing that for us.

But I understand the relationships differently. Amazon finds a market, but seldom creates one. It sells me a lot of books--many I can't find elsewhere--but it doesn't create a culture of readers. If there were enough historical miniatures gamers, we wouldn't need "an Amazon style vendor" because Amazon itself would have us on the drop-down menu. Since there aren't enough, no one's rushing to create such a thing.

Oh. Garth. "Remainder" doesn't mean what you think it does, at least in American English. If a book doesn't sell, the retailer sends it back for credit. That's a "return" And it works for B&N and the local independent bookstore just the way it works for Amazon.

When the publisher decides the book is no longer worth keeping in the warehouse, all the remaining inventory gets sold for some tiny fraction of the previous wholesale price--usually to Daedalus Books, or someone similar, which is why you can sometimes buy a hardcover of last year's hot book for less than the price of the new paperback edition. THAT's a "remainder."

Hope that helps.

Doesn't Wargaming already have an Amazon? Called: Amazon?

I just ordered my Fireforge cards with Prime shipping. The price might be higher but there is no +$7 for shipping nonsense.

Perhaps existing manufacturers can investigate "fulfillment by Amazon"

Robert – where do you get the idea that the number of small producers is 'dying out'. As far as I can see any that die off (either literally or by leaving the business) are replaced by another pretty soon. Some (at least here in the UK) have retired or combined their ranges with others, some even sold them to the USA. That means that older ranges are still around even though the original maker has gone.

I suspect that the demise of retail outlets tends to make people who use them assume the worst when they close but the UK pattern is very different to the US.

Most of us here have been dealing with mail order & Internet buying since we started wargaming (and I'm talking late 1960's for me), there were never more than a few shops that stocked wargaming figures in the whole of the UK and those rarely had more than a few ranges.

Fantasy & SciFi are different now but only if you count the GW end of that market – in the pre D&D past they were worse off than the historical wargamers.

As to the original question; you can buy a great deal of wargaming related stuff on Amazon already – provided that you look out for some of the dodgy rip-off stuff. E-Bay has a Wargaming category too, lots of stuff listed there as well.

Strictly speaking Amazons are more fantasy than historical. ;-)

And, based on the number of Amazon-related KS lately, the fantasy side of the hobby seems to be benefiting.

Gildas, are you confusing me with Garth? I did not say--and do not necessarily believe--that small producers are dying out.

Hmmm. I'd also like to note that for all the "Amazon swallows the little people" rhetoric above, in the book trade at least, Amazon has given a lot of authors access to a market they would not otherwise have had, and I suspect it's been a boon to a lot of small presses. The complaints about Amazon picking on them mostly come from about half a dozen multi-media giants who used to be quite happy to bully small independent bookstores. Now I guess they'd like some of them back. Life is like that.

How more Amazon interest would affect historical miniatures sales, I don't know. It would depend to a degree on decisions not made yet and technology still under development. "Never make predictions, especially about the future."

Not sure what an "Amazon" would offer. In the Uk we buy from small companies that market direct so we get ecomomies of scale. You will never get other than the basics from a big compamy. 1 12mm model for each 12mm player would not be viable for a big company, the overheads would be too large. Wargaming may approaching a new world order where buyers just buy files and either prins them themselves or gets them printed. Shapeways is a major player in this type of role and they have facilities in the US so even if its designed here in the UK,ATORS Shipyards on shapeways is a case in point, it can be obtained direct in the US. The market is now the world not just one counrty.

No.

What Amazon would need to benefit the wargaming community is a flat tagset that allows comparison shopping.

Tagging the items for sale is the responsibility of the sellers in the Amazon model, not Amazon. And for good reason … you couldn't keep that large a number of experts on staff for small amounts of widely distributed work. Likewise, would you, a seller want someone else describing your wares?

What Amazon brings to the effort is the tagging structure, based on many more customer interactions than an individual seller could ever have.

UshCha, you may misunderstand the meaning of "economy of scale." That's the advantage of the large producer who sells much greater numbers of something for about the same set-up costs--which generally means lower overhead costs.

What you're discussing is a flatter administrative structure--and, though we don't like to talk about it, the willingness of the hobby manufacturer to spend an evening casting, boxing and shipping for a profit so low he can't afford to hire even unskilled labor.

There's a reason so many wargame companies fold when the principle retires or dies: there really isn't enough money to support someone who doesn't love the hobby.

Sorry Robert, I was.

In the UK one of the 'economies of scale' that works in the opposite direction to normal is VAT – smaller companies often don't have the sales to have to register and so have lower costs (at least a bit).

I also think the US retail structure of supply mostly through 3rd party wholesalers down a food chain where everyone takes a bite doesn't help small players much.

In the UK direct sales have always been a large part of the diversity in the market, even in areas where larger players have the lion's share they can and do survive and prosper. I'd have thought that would be just as valid in the US but, I do understand that shipping costs are much higher now than they used to be. The UK is relatively small and that seems to be reflected in our lower postage costs than the US – at least at the moment.

The food chain thing is a real problem, Gildas. My local game shop lost Woodland Scenics recently. His usual supplier stopped carrying it, and the minimum direct order was above his touch. I needed a couple of bags of 5mm dice, and they had to be ordered from two suppliers, because each one had ONE bag of dice in stock. (I found out later I could have bought them by the hundreds from Walmart as an on-line order.) On-line sales can be a real boost for a small outfit. The local used book shop tells me it's worth an extra week a month to the store.

But the different geography of US and UK miniature wargaming reflects is a lot of ways--our lack of clubs, for instance, and the British demand for microscale. I suspect about half the time, each nation is unable to understand the problems the other one is trying to fix.

Wargamevault is the rules equivalent of Amazon for Kindle.

The problem with Wargamevault, like Amazon, is that they can charge what they want to carry products. Given their much smaller scale, their charges might not be making them much profit, but it's impossible to tell either way.

The best thing for the hobby would be Amazon occasionally sneaking in "see also" of rules and miniatures when people are shopping military history, fantasy, or science fiction that's not a novel from Games Workshop.

emckinney, so nearly as I can determine, the "other people viewed" and "other people bought" features on Amazon are entirely run by The Computer. Buy a science fiction book and a science fiction gaming product from Amazon, and it will start showing up as a recommendation.

Actually, while we've been debating what someone might do, Amazon has already done it. I've used them now and then for gaming-related needs, so out of curiosity, I went to "My Recommendations" and checked out "Toys for Grownups." Some GW stuff, yes, but a lot of Warlord plastics and Vallejo paints, some terrain and painting guides and a set of 3D printed terrain.

So we meet again in five years and do another fact-free argument over whether Amazon has or has not benefited historical miniatures gaming?

Amazon is bad enough. A dedicated gaming Amazon would kill my marriage.

A dedicated Amazon style shop?. I doubt it too much, this hobby is not profitable enough for anyone to carry nearly all miniatures ranges.

Amazon has driven at least one small press out of business that I know of. Via the requirement that the company always have two copies of each book available at all times.

It is hard enough to stay in business now.
Amazon cut rate selling would be no different than eBay when it started.
There is no golden goose for stores. Just more obstacles forcing you to close.

Via the requirement that the company always have two copies of each book available at all times.

How did this requirement prohibit them from selling through other venues?

emckinney, so nearly as I can determine, the "other people viewed" and "other people bought" features on Amazon are entirely run by The Computer.

To be fair, they are run 99% by other people's shopping habits, and 1% by monitoring and balancing the tracking algorithms.

This is the big challenge with social networks – if you want what everyone else wants, you're good; if you don't, you're not. That's why to be a useful wargaming marketplace, Amazon would need to establish a taxonomy that supports wargaming, within which the social recommendations would be useful.

I would be your "Toys for Grownups", like mine, has some stuff you're interested in and a bunch you're not … a bunch that's not even really wargame stuff.

I think this whole discussion indicates that the Historical part of the hobby isn't in fact growing very much at all and is flat maybe slightly declining.

etotheipi >> As I underhand it it was the burden of constantly having to print a small print run, not when they wanted to but when Amazon required them to.

As I underhand it it was the burden of constantly having to print a small print run

I got that part. For Amazon to have put them out of business, Amazon would have been the only place they could sell, and I don't understand that. Why not just sell through someone who doesn't have that restriction?