I used to think it was just that; poor management. Like, they tried to grow too fast and screwed themselves over. Now, though, I'm starting to wonder if it really wasn't part of sover overarching, insidiuos plan. "Sure, we'll take losses in the short term, but we'll force a bunch of competitors out of business. When we close, we'll have a larger market share via mail order." Couple that with the limits on % discounts they enforced and the growing list of "direct only" items they're coming out with, and it all seems to fit together.bluemeenie wrote:I think the biggest tragedy of GW is that in most major cities they opened up huge stores in the 90's and 00's...forced out a lot of smaller FLGS's whe were really seeing a reimegance of their clientel as GW brought in a new type of customer out of buisness by shorting them stock and keeping new releases held from them when a Bunker was near. (I know this happened with a number of stores in the Chicago area)
Fast forward to now and most of those GW Stores are now gone, I hear the Bunker on the SW Side is soon to go also and that will leave a GAP since the FLGS's either went out of business or stopped selling GW. Sad really.
I remember that. I used to go there for the major tourneys ('Ard Boys, etc). The staff there was NOTHING like the horror stories I heard; although I only went a couple times a year, every staffer knew my name AND USED IT every time I came in, they never tried to push items on me that they knew I didn't want and stuck their extra selling to asking if I needed glue, brushed, WD, etc. at the cash register.Gaijin18 wrote:I remember when GW closed the store at the St Louis Mills Mall,,,it was making money,was very active,,,made no sense at all,,,,,go gw,,,,,,they are smoking somethng or sure.
But, the St. Louis area lost a couple FLGS's while they were open so, for me, it just goes to support what I said above.
Eric