A couple of points from me and my previous game store experience:

1. As said above, $140 in the grand scheme is not that big versus a bad review or disrupting the general feel of your store's community.

2. The store owner is obviously having issues understanding how to order because ordering 4 $140 items is not very smart for various reasons.

His piss poor ordering skills and his lack of customer services may lead to him dropping several lines of product and then losing customers on top of that. As others have stated, talk to him calmly about your desire to return the item for an "exchange" and not a "refund". Throw in stuff about the group of people playing X-Wing.

Unopened product, with a receipt, from three days ago? The harshest store return policy I've ever encountered would be to only exchange it for store credit and maybe--maybe--a 10% restocking fee.

Does the store have a prominent sign that says, "All sales are final. No returns, no exchanges," or something?

That was what irritated me the most to be honest, my buddy just bought it 3 days ago from them. It is still brand new upopened in the box...

Oh that's different. Did you tell them that he bought it 3 days ago?

Unopened product, with a receipt, from three days ago? The harshest store return policy I've ever encountered would be to only exchange it for store credit and maybe--maybe--a 10% restocking fee.

Does the store have a prominent sign that says, "All sales are final. No returns, no exchanges," or something?

Nope no signs... and the sad part about it is, we as gamers and table top gamers especially love our local stores. It's where we hang out, get a game, bull sh*t. It sucks that the local stores are losing this focus for whatever reason.

If the store flat-out refuses to accept a return of unopened merchandise with a receipt, well, there are a few things I'd do...

1) File a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.

2) Leave a detailed review on Yelp/Facebook/etc.

3) Find a new store to give your business.

4) Enjoy the present from my friend.

Most likely, the owner is worried that he might not sell the Knight. Like you said, he has three sitting on the shelf. If he takes yours, he will have four.

On the other hand, 3 days seems to be pretty harsh.

I can see where both sides would be upset.

That was what irritated me the most to be honest, my buddy just bought it 3 days ago from them. It is still brand new upopened in the box...

Are you sure you can't enforce the return? I guess it's on the US, how does the return policies work there ?

There are no universal return policies in the US. Each and every store is free to make their own. In some stores sales are final even if the product turns out to be damaged, other stores give over a year for any reason.

Ah. That's a really hard place.

I don't think you are overreacting. You already said that you and your group of friends are regulars at that shop, and have spent plenty of your hard earned cash to support this local store (instead of buying everything online, which would have saved you money). The item was bought there, it was unopened, and you returned it within a reasonable amount of time: ANY good business owner should have the common sense (or common decency) to honor that.

I am guessing that he simply didn't think very far ahead (as evidenced by already having too many for him to sell, apparently), and only considered the dimes and nickels (taking a bit if a loss that is in no way your fault) instead of dollars (keeping a valuable customer/good rep).

I'd say talk to him, privately. Although it may be difficult (it would be for me!), do your best to remain very kosher, non-confrontational, and non-accusation-al. He put you in a very bad spot by refusing to accept this return, but if you can explain the situation and still remain friends, that would be best. In reality, as a manager, this should be a no-brainer.

Of course, if he flat-out refuses, and decides to be a prick about it, not much else you can do. Let him know that he is in danger of losing you AND your group of friends to Amazon, as well as losing your recommendation of the shop. Stay cool about it though, you don't wanna give him any excuses ("He was like, 'give me my money back, or else!' So I kicked him out.").

I don't think you're overreacting at all. Heck, I had words with a store owner who wouldn't let some kids use their water fountain.The store was 1/5mile from the Appalachian Trail and had a 'You can't use our fountain without buying something' policy.

However, I get the store owner's issue.

He's got 3 of an item that likely won't sell, and tons of an item that will. If he takes back your piece, he's saddled with more merchandise that won't sell, or sells slowly, while the stuff you're picking up in it's place would've sold regardless. It's a tough swap for such a niche market. All that said, he shoukd've taken care of his customer.

Quick update:

Like I said before I know these guys at the store and the manager in particular really well.

I called him back just a few seconds ago and pretty much gave him an out; I said "hey ______ this is _____, remember when I asked you about the Knight yesterday, maybe you were really busy and got distracted but I wanted to clarify; I want to exchange it for some Xwing stuff. Brand new unopened, just purchased 3 days ago?" His answer was priceless "your bud bought it here, dude of course you know I'll take care of you". Maybe I'm nuts or there really was a miscommunication... that or someone at the store is an X-Wing forum fan lol.

Thanks for all the support guys!

Quick update:

Like I said before I know these guys at the store and the manager in particular really well.

I called him back just a few seconds ago and pretty much gave him an out; I said "hey ______ this is _____, remember when I asked you about the Knight yesterday, maybe you were really busy and got distracted but I wanted to clarify; I want to exchange it for some Xwing stuff. Brand new unopened, just purchased 3 days ago?" His answer was priceless "your bud bought it here, dude of course you know I'll take care of you". Maybe I'm nuts or there really was a miscommunication... that or someone at the store is an X-Wing forum fan lol.

Thanks for all the support guys!

Maybe he reads x-wing forums in his spare time...

Mighty nice he did that.

I come from the school of thought where vendors shouldn't refund/exchange items simply because the customer changed their mind AFTER making a purchase .. unfortunately, vendors potentially lose customers (as we almost saw) by not offering these services.

Mighty nice he did that.

I come from the school of thought where vendors shouldn't refund/exchange items simply because the customer changed their mind AFTER making a purchase .. unfortunately, vendors potentially lose customers (as we almost saw) by not offering these services.

I don't disagree with this in theory... But in this case it's an exchange for the same value in merchandise... The store is not losing out in performing the exchange.

It would be silly to deny the action. (Which it turns out, wasn't denied, so it's all good).

I'm glad this is resolved, but unless the store owner was a genuine ass about it (not his decision, but his demeanor) I would have sided with him. I'm getting the impression that people here are misunderstanding how difficult it is to move high dollar product. $140 for a single 40k figure is nowhere near the same as an equivalent number of X-Wing ships. Assuming a fair degree of popularity for X-Wing, those ships will get sold in $15 increments regularly; only the store owner knows what kind of demand there is for that Imperial Knight, but I suspect that they'll be sitting on his shelf for a while. When you compound the issue by returning one, you put him in a very bad position. He'll make an immediate profit with the X-Wing figures, but how long will it take to resell one of those 40k pieces, let alone two or more?

Hopefully some of you are familiar enough with Magic to understand this, but if not, I challenge you to ask your own LGS a few benign questions. How long do they typically sit on high dollar Magic items? I'm talking about cards like the Power 9, the From the Vault series, or a foil Jace, the Mind Sculptor for example. I see those sitting in cases all the time, sometimes for years at a time. Their price ranges from hundreds to thousands of dollars, but ultimately a product is only worth what people are willing to pay for it. When nobody is buying, it may as well not exist at all. Now contrast that with the businesses who deal in high volume and can afford to sit on high dollar product for that long. Star City Games, for example, might be analogous to Walmart - or Miniatures Market. Those kind of businesses can afford to sacrifice an opportunity cost to satisfy a customer. I'm moderately disgusted by the people encouraging the OP to take his business online simply because his local game store had a gut reaction to not take a $140 hit. Customer service is important, that much is indisputable, but how much of a loss should that store owner be expected to take before protecting his own business interests seems reasonable?

Mighty nice he did that.

I come from the school of thought where vendors shouldn't refund/exchange items simply because the customer changed their mind AFTER making a purchase .. unfortunately, vendors potentially lose customers (as we almost saw) by not offering these services.

I don't disagree with this in theory... But in this case it's an exchange for the same value in merchandise... The store is not losing out in performing the exchange.

It would be silly to deny the action. (Which it turns out, wasn't denied, so it's all good).

I understand this .. but it is an inconvenience for the store nonetheless.

It is the end of the financial year in Australia. I don't know where the OP is from but in Aus it would be a possibility that the vendor had completed his profit/loss statements, GST declarations and stocktake for the year whilst the OP was fluffing about.

Maybe the mark-up differs between the single $140 thingy to the $140 X-Wing models, affecting the vendors profit. It may go in his favour (I really hope it does) or he may have taken a kick in the balls just to keep a loyal customer happy.

Regardless, I simply disagree with the principal of it .. irrespective of the situation. Having said this, I know about this thing called 'the real world' where my rantings and opinions count for zero.

You know its actually quite fascinating reading this. I had no idea returns policies in the US were based on a stores own ideals. Like many have said, in the UK there are a standard set of rules that apply to returns and they're quite stringent but cover a lot of avenues.

Im glad you resolved this with him and I can understand the hesitation on his part, but I would say that if GW products are a small profit margin and you're not confident about selling too many would it not be prudent to buy only one or two and order more in for the customers where necessary? If I wanted to buy something in a shop and it wasn't in stock, i'd still order in from them and understand why they didn't have a huge stock of them. Just an after thought, not meaning to dictate business acumen.

You know its actually quite fascinating reading this. I had no idea returns policies in the US were based on a stores own ideals. Like many have said, in the UK there are a standard set of rules that apply to returns and they're quite stringent but cover a lot of avenues.

Im glad you resolved this with him and I can understand the hesitation on his part, but I would say that if GW products are a small profit margin and you're not confident about selling too many would it not be prudent to buy only one or two and order more in for the customers where necessary? If I wanted to buy something in a shop and it wasn't in stock, i'd still order in from them and understand why they didn't have a huge stock of them. Just an after thought, not meaning to dictate business acumen.

Well, I don't know about other companies, but GW does make demands to some shops to purchase a certain amount of GW product when it is released, if that store wishes to continue to sell GW product. For example, when a new codex releases, GW might tell a store that they must have 6 copies on their shelf after preorders are filled.

Lol all sorted and I'm giving advice-doh. Glad it's sorted (amicable is always the preferred outcome:-)

So much going on here.

1. I believe it is "good store policy" if nothing else to allow the exchange of an unopened item purchased less than a week ago and given as a gift. Presumably the receipt is still available. Gift giving can be challenging but to make up for a giver's "oops" should be relatively painless.

2. I can certainly see why a store may not want to take a return on a high priced item that may not be moving well. Unfortunately, this says more about the store than anything else because ideally a store will not have all of that high cost stuff sitting around for long periods of time.

3. I really don't think this situation is AT ALL comparable to looking at various MtG products. Ok, maybe we can compare it to various products when they sit on the shelf at what I believe to be MSRP. One should NOT compare it to some "power nine" card sitting in a display case or some new boxed set that is on the shelf but has had a serious markup from the MSRP. I'm not sure how "collectable" the WH pieces are and X-Wing currently has zero collectability factor so there really shouldn't be any speculation going on. It's a far cry from buying certain MtG cards or collectible minis and then hoping to turn a profit on them because of a high demand.

I know when I was buying collectible minis I may have done my purchasing online (no FLGS although I did purchase game relate books from a city an hour away when I was there) but I really hope a store wouldn't have "stocked up" on Colossal Red Dragons (DnD Icons line) on the assumption that they'd sell better than the Gargantuan Black Dragon had and then wonder why the higher priced dragon languishes on the shelf.

So much going on here.

1. I believe it is "good store policy" if nothing else to allow the exchange of an unopened item purchased less than a week ago and given as a gift. Presumably the receipt is still available. Gift giving can be challenging but to make up for a giver's "oops" should be relatively painless.

2. I can certainly see why a store may not want to take a return on a high priced item that may not be moving well. Unfortunately, this says more about the store than anything else because ideally a store will not have all of that high cost stuff sitting around for long periods of time.

3. I really don't think this situation is AT ALL comparable to looking at various MtG products. Ok, maybe we can compare it to various products when they sit on the shelf at what I believe to be MSRP. One should NOT compare it to some "power nine" card sitting in a display case or some new boxed set that is on the shelf but has had a serious markup from the MSRP. I'm not sure how "collectable" the WH pieces are and X-Wing currently has zero collectability factor so there really shouldn't be any speculation going on. It's a far cry from buying certain MtG cards or collectible minis and then hoping to turn a profit on them because of a high demand.

I know when I was buying collectible minis I may have done my purchasing online (no FLGS although I did purchase game relate books from a city an hour away when I was there) but I really hope a store wouldn't have "stocked up" on Colossal Red Dragons (DnD Icons line) on the assumption that they'd sell better than the Gargantuan Black Dragon had and then wonder why the higher priced dragon languishes on the shelf.

Then compare it to a Corvette. Perhaps you've seen some of the whining about how cost prohibitive it is; how fast do you expect those to move? The principle is the same.

In a lot of cases a Corvette actually moves pretty well. I'm not sure how many dealerships would get "stuck" with a new one for a year or more as they are one of the few cars you almost never see discounted. Admittedly some dealerships may not move one very quickly but they often do a good job getting people in the door.

A Corvette is a bad example because I will admit it is possible for a dealer to order a vehicle which may have options that make it very difficult to sell. Of course part of the time that is just because of the market and poor production practices. This is some company releasing something that BOMBS but convincing the dealers they are going to be HUGE only to see them flop later.

Lol, I think WAAAAAH is talking about the Star Wars Corellian Corvette, not the car...

Arriving late to this party, heeeere I go...

$140 is a lot for an item that could sit on the shelf for a while, but it appears he had ordered four of them anyway. Whether that is under pressure from GW or not, it's the same stock he initially had. Add in you spending thousands of dollars there over the years, and a business owner would be insane not to provide this reasonable exchange. Good faith all around and your shelf is the same as three days ago. If your friend ordered/preordered one specifically for purchase the issue might be different, but I have seen no evidence of that, and three on the shelf indicates the contrary.

Maybe as consumers we are spoiled, but I do not think your request was unreasonable. It's nice to see it is resolved, enjoy your ships!

And let's never forget the most important thing: Games Workshop is the devil.

@Wonderwaagh

I don't see any sane store owner would order 6 corvettes in my zone "just because", which would be the same as those 4. You normally only have 1 product of those at a time, and order more only if required. Having 4 of them is not the consumer's fault, it is the store owner's fault (and more probably, his acceptance on the more than dubious GW's practices to LGS).

He didn't take a 140$ hit either, since the OP was going to spend the 140$ on xwing ship anyways. What he lost is the opportunity to remove one of the big transformers out of his shelves, but that's not worth misstreating a loyal customer for that, when you are not even losing money (well, yes, you kind off are, but the hit is really minor, not 140$). Ever. If you have a business, you should understand this.

Yeah, I can understand that the store owner would have liked to have gotten a $140 slow-moving piece off of his shelves and not have to take it back. But I also think he would be foolish to stiff the customer in this case.

I'm guessing that he just didn't understand what he was being asked to do. His brain was probably just elsewhere for a moment.

Now, regarding the Corvette; I'm seeing my closest FLGS stocking a bunch of those. I think they may have gone in over their heads. I'm saving up happy-wife points until I can get it, though I wonder if I should. Enough of my friends, or people I play with regularly, have one, so I won't really be missing out on it. Also, I mostly play Empire.

Still, it looks pretty cool. I already have the happy space whale, and I've been playing it in solo skirmishes. I like it!

I feel I may not have gotten across the point that I meant to. When I said that I sided with the store owner, I meant that I see things from his point of view. That was in no way an endorsement for shop owners to arbitrarily deny their customers a return just to make an extra buck. Regardless of how you look at this particular situation, someone was coming out on the losing end. It's unfortunate, but sometimes there isn't a person to blame when things go awry. I think the store owner was well within his right to protect his own interests, and that choosing not to fulfill his customer's sense of self-entitlement was in no way indicative of poor customer service (before someone takes umbrage at my choice of words, let's consider the fact that OP quite clearly believed he was owed something). Changing his mind, on the other hand, was obviously great customer service, so I'm glad for everyone involved. That having been said, I think the OP completely overreacted. I get it, the store owner didn't respond in the way that was most ideal for you. Assuming the owner didn't conduct himself like a compete ass, you still had $140 worth of product that was purchased just for you, so it's not like you were taking a hit either. There really wasn't a good reason to get huffy about giving them your business in the future.

For all those people saying that a store owner would be crazy not to bend over backwards like a big-box store, let's see you go run a small business. Some choices aren't as easy as you think.