I like my LGS, but not enough to spend nearly $100 more on Wave 4 with them then what it costs online.

I've approached the owner of my FLGS with a price comparison on a large pre-order. He wasn't able to match, but did work the price a bit so I could keep my money in store.

I'm planning on getting 20 ships (8 Z-95 and 4 of everything else) so the difference is $200 at MM vs $300 MSRP. Its not a difficult choice for me, especially since I haven't had any bad experiences with MM.

Local gaming stores give you a place to play and meet new people. Online retailers don't do that, but they can undercut those local stores and put them out of business. I'm sure I'm not the only person to see a local game shop go under. "I saved 20/50/100 bucks" might sound like a good thing in the short term, but when you find yourself having to drive a few cities away to get in a couple friendly matches, you might reconsider. Your experiences may differ, of course. Just some food for thought.

I have pre-ordered alot from MM and have gotten everything I ordered with in a few days of when they got it in. Nothing but 100% satisfaction from me on thier part.

but when you find yourself having to drive a few cities away to get in a couple friendly matches, you might reconsider.

I make a point of buying stuff from my LGS, I bought Imperial Aces and a X-wing from them, but I also don't play X-Wing there. I have a group of friends and we play in our homes, so I don't go to the LGS for games.

I just can't justify effectively throw away $200-300 a year for the sake of having a LGS. If it's a matter of $20 or even $40 I'll buy local, but much past that and we're talking about getting nearly 2 ships for the price of 1.

but when you find yourself having to drive a few cities away to get in a couple friendly matches, you might reconsider.

I make a point of buying stuff from my LGS, I bought Imperial Aces and a X-wing from them, but I also don't play X-Wing there. I have a group of friends and we play in our homes, so I don't go to the LGS for games.I just can't justify effectively throw away $200-300 a year for the sake of having a LGS. If it's a matter of $20 or even $40 I'll buy local, but much past that and we're talking about getting nearly 2 ships for the price of 1.

No judgment, friend. We all live different lives in different places. I was just making an observation, and cautioning people to be mindful of the possible repercussions of their spending habits.

If we are gonna have the "Online Discount Store vs. Local Gaming Store" debate, I'm only going to point out a few opinions of mine:

1. My closest store is about a 70 miles away. That ends up being about $16, round trip, in fuel alone.

I'm not gonna spend that time and extra money when I can get minis from MM or CSI and get several extra ships for the price of "supporting my LGS." If I had $1000 to spend on this game, maybe I would. But I don't. It's not me being greedy or selfish; it's me having a budget.

2. I've worked on a family owned organic fruit farm for about 5 years, so I know more than a few things about supporting "the little guys." That being said, when someone chooses not to buy your product because of the pricing (regardless of whether or not it is MSRP, or "just a few dollars") you have two choices: keep your current price and rely on your customers with bigger pocketbooks, or lower your prices a bit. That's just business. That's a decision the LGS has to make.

3. Different people have different budgets! I've read "if you're playing this game, you can afford blah blah blah." Ha! Do YOU know everyone else's financial situation is? Can you vouch for the contents of their bank account? No? Then worry about where your own money goes. Who are you to say, "if you can't afford $____, then you don't deserve to play."

4. The people running the gaming stores are adults. They can make their own business decisions, and decide their prices and content. They also should have plenty of other games to fill their shelves. If some guy opened a store, and only sold XWM stuff, and sold it all for $10+ MSRP, would you buy all your stuff from him, simply because he was your LGS?

/rant

I was just making an observation, and cautioning people to be mindful of the possible repercussions of their spending habits.

I get it

I'll be honest, I wish FFG would of adopted the same policy that Privateer Press did, they don't allow any online retailer to sell their stuff for more then 10% below MSRP, that means you just don't get great deals online.

If I could save at most 10% online I don't bother. I'll gladly spend the extra as a "table tax", but when you start looking at a %33 reduction...

If we are gonna have the "Online Discount Store vs. Local Gaming Store" debate, I'm only going to point out a few opinions of mine:

1. My closest store is about a 70 miles away. That ends up being about $16, round trip, in fuel alone.

I'm not gonna spend that time and extra money when I can get minis from MM or CSI and get several extra ships for the price of "supporting my LGS." If I had $1000 to spend on this game, maybe I would. But I don't. It's not me being greedy or selfish; it's me having a budget.

2. I've worked on a family owned organic fruit farm for about 5 years, so I know more than a few things about supporting "the little guys." That being said, when someone chooses not to buy your product because of the pricing (regardless of whether or not it is MSRP, or "just a few dollars") you have two choices: keep your current price and rely on your customers with bigger pocketbooks, or lower your prices a bit. That's just business. That's a decision the LGS has to make.

3. Different people have different budgets! I've read "if you're playing this game, you can afford blah blah blah." Ha! Do YOU know everyone else's financial situation is? Can you vouch for the contents of their bank account? No? Then worry about where your own money goes. Who are you to say, "if you can't afford $____, then you don't deserve to play."

4. The people running the gaming stores are adults. They can make their own business decisions, and decide their prices and content. They also should have plenty of other games to fill their shelves. If some guy opened a store, and only sold XWM stuff, and sold it all for $10+ MSRP, would you buy all your stuff from him, simply because he was your LGS?

/rant

You make some valid points, but I would add that simply lowering the price is not always feasible for LGS. MM can lower their prices to ridiculous levels because of the sheer volume of business they do, much like Walmart or Sam's Club. A local gaming store is just that, local. If the solution was as simple as "just lower your prices!", those aforementioned businesses wouldn't have put so many mom and pop stores out of commission.

A local gaming store is just that, local.

Sure, the question really becomes. How much are you willing to spend to keep your LGS there? There's not many if any that can compete with some of the online retailers. So how much 'table tax' are you willing to spend?

As you point out, the answer is different for different people. For someone like Hoosteen, clearly he's not willing to pay much in table tax. Not when the L in LGS is not really accurate. 70 miles isn't what I'd call local.

Myself my LGS is pretty close, so I'm more willing to spend money there. I buy all my Flames of War stuff from him for example. I also do other things to help him out. I run demo games of X-Wing and FoW, which means other people buy stuff from him.

But if he were to close, my next nearest store is 45+ miles away... In fact the next nearest is the FFG event center. I wouldn't be willing to spend a ton on 'table tax' there because it's a bit of a haul to get there.

Honestly as you said above, there's really no one right answer.

Honestly as you said above, there's really no one right answer.

There seldom is in life.

Honestly as you said above, there's really no one right answer.

There seldom is in life.

Well, I can think of one easy example....

Han shot first.

:-)

Clearly he never met Roark.

Isn't it more accurate to say Greedo never shot?

I too have a LGS that is .. local, I do much of my hobby business there, but he cant get the price point MM, or other online stores do. I do make a point of getting some ships there, I did grab a Aces box, and have gotten much of my x wing minis there, but as money gets tight and I have to make the hard decisions, I tent to buy where I can get them cheap..

We all have to do what we must to feed our hobby needs, I am one who is glad for the cheaper online markets. If FFG had made it so no one could undercut their retail suggested price, I'd be at the local store more with purchases. That all said, my local store has been around for over 40 years.. I remember going there as a kid when we would visit my dads home town. Now I live just a few minutes away, and it's awesome to go hang out or play a game. Heck I even worked there for a while back in the 80s. The owner is no fool, he knows he can't compete with the online stuff, but he does try to do his best. He cuts where he can and makes it all work out..

I'm planning on getting 20 ships (8 Z-95 and 4 of everything else) so the difference is $200 at MM vs $300 MSRP. Its not a difficult choice for me, especially since I haven't had any bad experiences with MM.

That is the same pre-order I just placed at MM for wave 4. I checked out the local store, but they do not have any X-Wing games, leagues, or anything to keep me interested in supporting them...seems what they cater to most was Magic The Gathering.

I'm lucky enough to have a great FLGS just a few blocks away. I support them as much as I can, but ...

I will confess to buying a few things for X-Wing (and other games) when an especially good deal came up online. I do plan of getting the lion's share of Wave 4 from them though, despite MM and CSI being so tempting.

I should clarify... I'm not saying you should support a price gouger, but If we're talking less than $2 a ship, think if it as the "I have it right here in my hand right NOW" tax. A lot of the online retailers are ordering in large quantities, which allows them to sell at a deeper discount. Not much the LGS can do about that.

"You must do what you feel is right, of course." - Obi Wan

I buy one of every ship from my FLGS. But the rest of my X-Wing fleet comes from online orders. And those are mostly from Miniature Market. I have had nothing but good experiences from Miniature Market.

I've been reading this thread with interest. Now I'm gonna come in here.

Last week, I found miniature market and spent 2 days drooling over their entire site.

So I made up about a 150.00 order. But! I had some questions.

I spent an entire day trying to get someone to answer the phone. No luck.

So they lost 150.00 order and the warstore got it instead. The point: Be accessible.

As for the LGS debate, this isn't the only forum to have the big debate and it **** sure wont be the last.

In my area alone there are 8 different places to go that supports various different games.

All of them are smart enough to not rely just on magic as their primary sales engine and the one guy I know has just opened up his 3rd store this past fall. Which is pretty amazing considering how much thie economy still sucks.

All of them know about the Internet, most of them will try to give discounts (notice I said try). But the main reason I will support them is because......

They answer the phone. They are accessible.

I have a budget. I make that known. I spend what I can mostly at my LGS and then if and only if the LGS cant get what I need, then I go to the inter webs of doom.

I like to have it NOW !! I can't stand waiting around my mail box for several little ships to show up when I could be doing other things with my time. But thats just me. Old and cranky. ! Lol.

Might be a dumb question, but are you charged right away or upon release?

I spend the majority of my money at my LGS but go online if I can't get what I need. I talked him into getting into ST:AW but it just didn't take off. I bought as much of his initial stock as I could and he has pulled the plug on getting anything else after they release the wave 5 stuff. At that point I'll have to go online and he or I haven't got a problem with that.

Here in the UK we generally do not have Game stores the way you do in the US, the only equivalent are GW stores. Although since buying this game I have noticed a that there are one or two US style places around, but they are few and far between. There are several reasons I buy online from the US, MM has been great, their prices (including postage) are better than the UK, and above all, they carry everything.

My experience here is that if I want two A-Wings, the store will have none or one and the price will carry a hefty increase. This is one reason I gave up buying planes for Wings of War/Glory and went with kits. It was not that I did not have the money, it was the frustration and the feeling of being ripped off.

Now obviously not all sellers were like that, but a great many are.

don't really have a local game store anymore so its kind of a moot point for me, however when it was still around they didn't have much of a selection and tended to be one of those "i don't have that but can order it for you stores" and that is one of my peeves, why would i want you to order it when i can order it cheaper, pay less or NO tax, and have it delivered to my front door, rather than driving 20 miles to pick it up at YOUR convenience. However i did buy out ALL the stock of X-wing stuff my local game store did have on hand which wasn't much. and as far as table tax, yeah i can kind of see wanting to support the local game store, but the one that used to be in my area was more of a "Magic" store or other similar games.. and at the time they only played games on Wednesday nights and Saturdays, the TWO days that I did not have free.. Saturdays i usually bicycle with the local club, and Wednesday nights are reserved for family time, however that will change come Aug when my daughter goes to college. as for the original topic, i have never had a problem with Miniature market, or cool stuff... How ever i would be leery of the smaller no name places...

I am lucky enough to have two stores in my smallish town that sell ships. They are both independant stores and our local box stores (Target/Chapters) do not ever carry them. I am in Canada. The small stores sell them for 17.99 and 19.99 for small ships, which the latter is nearly double what I can get them for online before shipping.

I should clarify... I'm not saying you should support a price gouger, but If we're talking less than $2 a ship, think if it as the "I have it right here in my hand right NOW" tax.

This is exactly how I see it too, but as I mentioned above, my local prices are just too high.