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I suddenly got the urge to own Commander Shadowsun. I don't know why, it may have been from seeing the "sexy Shadowsun" that got posted in the Modelling forum a couple of weeks ago. Call it a mid-life crisis, call it wanting a Morale 10 bubble 36 inches across, I had to ave my Shadownsun.

Anyway, as my office is under five minutes walk from one of GW's flagship shops in The Plaza, Oxford Street, London, I zipped along in my lunch hour and tried to buy it.

No dice. Shadowsun and most of the Tau range are no longer held in stock and must be ordered. There is a new ordering point in the shop -- a PC running IE and browsing the GW web site. Apparently over a long piece of taut string.

After some hassle the shop manager logged in using his account and placed an order for me.

That was the 29th Oct. I knew the box wouldn't be delivered until 7th Nov because they told me. No problem, I am not an impatient teenager, I can wait.

On 7th Nov I rock along to the shop to get my Shadowsun. No Shadowsun. After a long wait and several phone calls it turns out that it was sent to the branch in Oxford rather than Oxford Street. Another copy is ordered.

Today I go along to get my Shadowsun. By now I am pretty desperate, because it's over two weeks since I started to obsess over powder blue alien cleavage 2mm wide encased in powered stealth armour. You'll agree that is a serious concern for any man.

Well, it took half an hour before they were able to confirm they had screwed up the whole thing. The order had been cancelled. The shop manager's account had been cancelled. I was lucky even to be able to get a refund of my cash payment.

The suggested solution was that I should make an account using their terminal and place a new order. What is the point of going to the shop? I can do that at home, quicker and with better security.

I really hope this is not GW's new and improved stock control system operating.

Makes me glad I live in the US, where such things are accomplished as they should be: by Pony Express. I think I'll mosey on down to the General Store and see if the stagecoach brought my dime novels and army lists yet.

You have Pony Express? We're still stuck with carrier pigeon!

Here is Hurricane Land we have Storm AirFreight. Twice as fast but half your stuff is destroyed in the ensuing flood.

Christ... how fething hard is it to get an in-store mail order system working?

Wow...

BYE

Pretty easy- 40+ orders from our store with no such weirdness.

The new webstore is much easier to use in store than the old phone mail order for a ton of info EVERY time-
Take a saturday- to do a mailorder you had to find the product codes- do some paperwork, wait on hold on the phone for 30 mins, get the order processed (10 mins) and then pay at the till.

Now you have to log on, find what you want- call the staff member over and run it through the till- takes 10 mins tops- including the snails pace website (which the servers are being updated for on monday apparently)



I quite like it

those things i have little patience for. I would of been cool the first time, not in stock no biggie. the second time.. little annoyed but still bearable. that third time I seriously would of exploded and possibly killed the crew in the process..... that happened once in a Kroger store because the employees thought itd be funny to instead of fixing the pop can return, theyd sit in the stock room for over an hour talking about porn. true story

Nothing wrong with porn, especially it is pointy eared space elves [love eldar lol] or 8 foot tall green killing fungus, they are only human.

I dont think the problem was the order but the manager of the store and the manner of which he set it up. i dont have any GW stores near me but i have a fantastic Independant stockist, i can ask him to order something in and it will be there in a week and i even get discounts

^^

one word for you guys...

ccgarmory.

I don't have any GWs in my store but my local store is great, if they don't have it i can usually get it in a week.

The *only* FLGS in my area now does mail orders, including... dun dun dun... direct-only! Futhermore, every order I make arrives within a week. Happy times.

Kilkrazy wrote:
Well, it took half an hour before they were able to confirm they had screwed up the whole thing. The order had been cancelled. The shop manager's account had been cancelled. I was lucky even to be able to get a refund of my cash payment.

The suggested solution was that I should make an account using their terminal and place a new order. What is the point of going to the shop? I can do that at home, quicker and with better security.

I really hope this is not GW's new and improved stock control system operating.

Sounds like human error to me. I don't think that should necessarily be any indication of the system as a whole unless we hear about a lot more stories like this one.

Kilkrazy wrote:The suggested solution was that I should make an account using their terminal and place a new order. What is the point of going to the shop? I can do that at home, quicker and with better security.

I agree...seriously, why go to the store at all?

Back in 1999 before these newfangled computers were in all GW stores and Oxford Plaza was my local GW the manager did an instore phone order to mail order for me for 30 mixed preatorians.
1 week later I return to find 15 stand and aim and 15 kneel and aim praetorians.
He was pissed off when I opened it (I thought it was ok as they were the best of the range) but he rung up and ordered me 30 more for free.
1 week later I return to find 15 advance with bayonette and 15 advance without bayonette.
The manager takes this as a personal insult and goes spastic at the mail order trolls via the phone and puts in yet another free order for me.
1 week later I return and finally the correct order arrives.

Each time he was so annoyed he gave me all the models for the inconvenience (I was coming to the store anyway as we met there before the London City Games club met at the university up the road)
So I ended up with 90 models for the price of 30....

Perhaps its just Oxford Plaza store...

Nope. Most stores will do that if you order random and you don't get random.

Is part of GW's appeal.

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:Back in 1999 before these newfangled computers were in all GW stores and Oxford Plaza was my local GW the manager did an instore phone order to mail order for me for 30 mixed preatorians.
1 week later I return to find 15 stand and aim and 15 kneel and aim praetorians.
He was pissed off when I opened it (I thought it was ok as they were the best of the range) but he rung up and ordered me 30 more for free.
1 week later I return to find 15 advance with bayonette and 15 advance without bayonette.
The manager takes this as a personal insult and goes spastic at the mail order trolls via the phone and puts in yet another free order for me.
1 week later I return and finally the correct order arrives.

Each time he was so annoyed he gave me all the models for the inconvenience (I was coming to the store anyway as we met there before the London City Games club met at the university up the road)
So I ended up with 90 models for the price of 30....

Perhaps its just Oxford Plaza store...

What were you doing in London in 1999? (Sorry for the OT.)

Working as a nurse at The Whittington NHS 1999-2000.

A golden age of gaming as minis were so ridiculously cheap compared to Australia and I had money to spend on them

The best way to guage it was that a Abbadon in Oz cost the same as x5 large Big mac meals at McDonalds, in the UK it was an exact parity in cost.

A Big Mac meal must have been about £2.99 back then.

The one in our shop here in NJ hasn't been working for a while now. They're using one of those "Ethernet over the Power Lines" style jobs.

Last time I went in there to use it, it was dead.