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 sing your life wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

 sing your life wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:


No, you choose to agree with this, as is your right, I choose not to.

What are you going on about?

You don't have to agree, you choose to agree. Just my little attempt to try and encourage you to post more than one word replies and unqualified statements and actually express yourself more fully.

I didn't need to post anymore than 1 word since saying "I agree" means that your views are the same as the person you chose to agree.

I understand that you hate this wonderful website but what you're saying is just silly

I don't hate the website, why would you think that when I have close to 3k posts? If I didn't like it, I'd go elsewhere.
I do find your participation in threads often contributes nothing to the discussion, but rather than overtly criticising you for it, I thought I'd try and draw you into a conversation and try and subtly encourage you to write fuller, more qualified posts, rather than being one step removed from a spambot.

 azreal13 wrote:

 sing your life wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

 sing your life wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:


No, you choose to agree with this, as is your right, I choose not to.

What are you going on about?

You don't have to agree, you choose to agree. Just my little attempt to try and encourage you to post more than one word replies and unqualified statements and actually express yourself more fully.

I didn't need to post anymore than 1 word since saying "I agree" means that your views are the same as the person you chose to agree.

I understand that you hate this wonderful website but what you're saying is just silly

I don't hate the website, why would you think that when I have close to 3k posts? If I didn't like it, I'd go elsewhere.

I was referring to TW....

I do find your participation in threads often contributes nothing to the discussion, but rather than overtly criticising you for it, I thought I'd try and draw you into a conversation and try and subtly encourage you to write fuller, more qualified posts, rather than being one step removed from a spambot.

I [kind of] appreciate your efforts, but really you would find that I already do that and so much more [In my humble opinion of course

I have put my replies in bold.

I don't hate TWG either, but it baffles me why anyone aware of potential issues with them would continue to use them when they can choose another retailer that has no such issues?

Just out of curiosity, I scanned back through the last 5 pages of your post history, there isn't a single post where you have written more than two original sentences, and those with two are rare animals. If that's what you feel constitutes "fuller, more qualified, posts" fair enough, but just FYI, if someone were to consider you were posting multiple, short posts to try and increase your count, rather than actively get involved in the discussion, that would be in breach of the forum's anti-spam rules. Just sayin.

You don't need to write that kind of thing azreal13, your argument already stands on its merit and that kind of comment comes across as childish.

I don't hate TWG either, but it baffles me why anyone aware of potential issues with them would continue to use them when they can choose another retailer that has no such issues?

Riquende has already replied as I would..

But if you only ever order non-GW, and never had any sort of delay or problems, then how would you know their comms are awful (assuming one was unaware of this thread)? Until I started reading and responding on this thread, I had no idea other people were having issues with TW.

There is anecdotal evidence of GW fething around with Indy Retailer's supply when it suits their purposes, or the retailer has the temerity to do something GW doesn't like

When you have had at least half a dozen accounts of people saying the same thing, including from shop owners, that GW has made life as hard as possible (and on multiple fronts) for independent stores, it ceases to be 'anecdotal'. On top of that I've experienced it first hand myself at a store that I worked in, although that was some years ago and from all accounts they have got worse since then with a program that seems designed to move customers back to ordering direct.

I've met the owner of TW a few times. He seems like a genuine guy and has a real drive to try and make the best gaming store he can, they've been more than accommodating with anyone trying to run events there (which again I've done) and even ordering in whole new lines if customers ask for it.

All of the people complaining have have been ordering products produced by a single company. I've ordered at least half a dozen times, with products ranging from across about 4-5 different companies, and have never had to wait more than a week for an order. Now I'm not defending the lack of communication, which I think is the stem of problems (and I agree is unforgiveable - without knowing the reality of the shop's finances, it would probably be better to stop selling GW altogether), but what other conclusion is it possible to reach than there being one root cause for these problems?

 Riquende wrote:
But if you only ever order non-GW, and never had any sort of delay or problems, then how would you know their comms are awful (assuming one was unaware of this thread)? Until I started reading and responding on this thread, I had no idea other people were having issues with TW.

My order that took nine months was warmachine, so its not only their GW stuff they have issues with

I think somebody has already mentioned this once, but fwiw heres a bit of information on generic internet stores aka box-shifters: (nothing specifically to do with TWG, just some general retail theory)

As an internet store you have two choices to make:

1) Do i buy-in stock and sell what I physically have in store and only list my actual, real, stock levels.

OR

2) Do I list everything they *could* buy as being "in stock" , but only order it in when I need to?


If you go with number 1 you need a LOT of money to invest into physical in-store stock. You have to buy-in entire ranges in multiple amounts just to start the store, and you need to buy-in lots of ranges to attract customers in the first place.
On the plus side if a customer orders something then you have it right there and ready to dispatch, but you will end up with a relatively huge amount of your own money invested into stock that sits on the shelf. Unless you really have oodles of money you will have to keep stock levels as low as possible, so you may only have 2 or 3 items of each product - that means that products go "Out of stock" very easily and by the time that you have re-ordered those items, something else has probably gone "Out of stock".
People visiting your store will often think "I would order from you but there's always something I want that it out of stock!"


If you go with Option 2 you dont need to invest anything into stock: You just list everything and say its "In stock".
You then wait until you have enough orders to make the minimum order value with the manufacturer, then make the order. You already have the customer's money to pay for the items, so you don't invest any money into stock and you can take your profit immediately out of the money you took up-front from the customer.

Unsurprisingly most box-shifters go with Option 2.

So what/s the problem?

The usual problem is to do with minimum order values from the manufacturer/distributor, free-postage and heavy discounts.

Manufacturers and distributors have minimum-order values to help prevent the "man on the street" pretending to be a trade customer and buying their goodies at a discounted price, its also there so that they don't have to deal with lots of piddly little orders from dozens or hundreds of stores because that eats up a LOT of time. Its far more economic to deal with larger orders. Often they will also have a price-break whereby at X order value you will get free-postage and at Y order value you will get a bigger trade discount.

OK, still with me?

If you are an Option 2 company you probably attract your customers for 2 main reasons:
a) "Everything is in stock"
b) You discount from Retail prices.

So,
a) we now know is a PR fudge, its very rarely ever true - they may not hold any stock whatsoever...but so long as their turnover is high and they can make regular orders from the manufactures, so what?
b) discounting is dangerous: Why?

Say a figure RRP is £10. You get a 30% discount from Company A who make it - so the shop pays (ftsoa) £7.00p for it. However, you discounted the figure by 25%, so YOU, the shop, only got £7.50p and £7.00p of that goes to actually buying the item from Company A.
You make YOUR order from Company A as soon as you have the £250 of money to make their minimum-order value. If Company A is a big seller then you can do this fairly often as lots of people will be ordering their stuff.

However, Company A has a price-break at £500 where they will give you a 40% discount. So instead of ordering when you have £250 to order, you wait until you can order £500 because you will make more money that way as you are now only paying Company A £6.00 for that item.

Of course the problem now is that you need to wait longer to put in that order because you need to have sold more items to make an order big enough to get that discount in the first place... and the result of this is that the customer, who paid X days, weeks, or even months, ago, still hasn't seen their order, it hasnt even been dispatched, because you havent even ordered it in yet! Nor can you order it in until enough other customers have made orders.

Which is where DISTRIBUTORS come in.

Distributors hold the products of lots of Companies, so instead of you having to order £500 from Company A, you can order £500 from Distributor B - the reason this is good is because that £500 from Distributor B does not have to be from a single Company, it can be a bit from A, some from c, some from X,Y and Z. So, distributors are good in that respect, however, Distributors need to make money, so the chances of you getting a good price-break from a distributor is much, much less.. which means that if you offer BIG shop discounts, you want to deal directly with Company A.

Company A, however might not want to deal directly with you - it might rather deal just with Distributor B who is placing orders for X thousands of £s at regular intervals and always pays on time... so IF it still sells to YOU the price-break order value may well be a lot higher, say £1000.00.. which means YOU, the shop, now need to wait even longer before you can place that trade order with Company A and, meanwhile, the customer STILL hasnt got their order (or part of it).

Still with me? Ok...

So, you, the customer, phone up the Shop and ask "where's my order?" - what can they say other than "Its on order" (even if it isnt), they can GUESS that next week they *should* or *might* have enough to make their order with Company A, but the problem is that they never really know - it depends entirely on what customers buy. So, because there really sint much they can say to you, quite often it is easier for them to say nothing at all...they quite literally cannot tell you WHEN they will make the order from Company A ...and they dont really want to try to explain all the above otherwise they have to explain why, when you ordered "the item showed as being *in stock*"... but actually wasnt

So box-shifter stores are at the mercy of customer orders and the order-values of the companies (or distributors) they buy from, very often "In stock" does not mean it actually is in stock and "On order" is usually *technically* correct but entirely unpredictable.

-- - -

On the flip-side, once a box-shifter becomes successful they may well have a turn-over so high that they can then afford to hold SOME stock and they can also order regularly from Company A-Z because they have so many sales. So IF a box-shifter becomes big and usseccful they often become MORE reliable and offer you, the customer, better deals (they get bigger discounts, so so might you).... at this point start thinking "Amazon"...or maybe Wayland.

Box-Shifting is NOT BAD per-se, far from it. It is, however, very, very difficult to get right, especially when you are a small company. It can also go spectacularly wrong (*cough* maelstrom games *cough*) and go up like a super volcano.


OK, so nearly FULL-Circle.. the end is near... (promise!)

Imagine you want to start a new box-shifter company. How do you compete against existing box-shifting companies?
The answer is simple: offer a bigger saving.

But you're new, you dont have lots of customers, you cant predict sales and you cant afford to make small orders from the manufacturers you NEED the big discount because you are offering the customer a big discount. If you make a small order you dont get the discount and you dont make any money!

And now, at this point, you should recognize all the problems that they are going to encounter as a store, and you MIGHT encounter as a customer.


Finally, bear in mind that not all companies offer the same deals, price-breaks, go direct or use distributors. Some *force* you NOT to offer big discounts also - they don't want you to upset their other shop clients and they dont want to devalue their own products. So they may ASK you never to discount below X or their price-break to YOU may be at a really high order level so, yes you can offer these products at great prices BUT you simply cannot afford to buy them in at normal trade prices - you MUST wait until you can make the higher-value high-discount order...and if there is no distributor that sells those products (alongside other company's stuff) then the delay in getting to that order value could be a long time.

- - - -

And there you have - the world of miniature figure sales.

As a customer we should be able to recognise box-shifters and *accept* that to get that high discount you may be waiting a long time to actually get the order... you will, probably, get it, but it might not be this week/month/year. So one has to ask oneself "Do I want the figure now, or am i willing to wait an *unknowable time* to get the nice discount?"

- - -

I am Da Law!

Technical issues:

*technically* you shouldn't list an time as in-stock unless it is. In practice? Imagine how hard this is to "Prove" and imagine how often this happens, legitimately, by accident.

under the DSR you *technically* shouldn't charge the customer until the order is ready to ship... again imagine how hard this is to prove. Also bear in mind that getting stock levels wrong 'just happens'.
There is also the aspect of "well we sent what we could so we invoiced for the full amount, and the rest is on back-order as per our T&Cs".. well, its just what happens, again quite legitimately - there is nothing innately nefarious about these things... you, the customer, just have to decide if its OK by you or not.

Its all about informed decisions.

hope that helps

Jed

Thanks for all that typing, Jeb. It's still not entirely relevant for TotalWargamer though.


It still doesn't help with companies like TotalWargamer though. Where they leave you waiting 2 weeks for a refund, after you waited 2 months for a book, to get.

The refund has been done for you - it was made to card ending: ****

Refunds can take a little longer than the period we stated - please see this link: http://www.ehow.com/info_8511456_do-credit-cards-long-refund.html

I'm more inclined to believe my bank than totalwargamer when they say, "a little longer means 3 days, not 14."

And yes, that was back in September when I finally got my money back *from my bank* not twg.

I should have checked on here first but I have a saga to add to the poor service totawargamer provide.
ordered 2 items on 08/12/13 to beet the last date for xmas shipping. Chased them 13/12/13, got response items out of stock... I shouldn't have to chase to find that out the site should state when items are out of stock or message me upon finding they can't fulfill my order, but they said they will restock shortly so I said ok I'll wait. I also wanted to know what was out of stockc as it didn't sound like my full order ... no reply
tried a few more e-mails... no reply
messaged on another e-mail address today inquiring on a new order... answer in a couple of hours... tried to chase again on the address my order is linked to... nothing
phoned them not taking calls due to high volumes only responding to e-mails message plays

final attempt to resolve situation... facebook publicly slated them on there timeline... 10 mins later a response after there normal closing time

Eh, ordered from them once before, they are alright. No communication, but it was delivered within the week, so I wasn't fussed.

Just ordered again; I don't mind waiting for longer. Let's face it, it's the Christmas holidays, and Boxing Day on top of that too!

They've now removed the ability to write on their wall, which means now we're gonna have to wait a long while to even get responses now.

I wonder how long until they have another 'mysterious accident that deleted their facebook page' again.

Only issue I ever had with them was getting pp metals but that turns out to be the same everywhere.
I asked for a refund and received it promptly.

Yes, I have had a slight issue.
My mum has ordered me some Battletech stuff for Yule.
It was meant to be 4 mechs-a Marauder, a Highlander, an Urbanmech and an Atlas, with a Hellbringer to follow). They got them here in record speed, but sadly the Atlas was missing. We have contacted them about this, and also to ask where the Hellbringer has got too (its been several weeks now) so now we await. (Its been a day, so no, im not saying their bad)

Ill report on the result here.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 azreal13 wrote:
I don't hate TWG either, but it baffles me why anyone aware of potential issues with them would continue to use them when they can choose another retailer that has no such issues?

Just out of curiosity, I scanned back through the last 5 pages of your post history, there isn't a single post where you have written more than two original sentences, and those with two are rare animals. If that's what you feel constitutes "fuller, more qualified, posts" fair enough, but just FYI, if someone were to consider you were posting multiple, short posts to try and increase your count, rather than actively get involved in the discussion, that would be in breach of the forum's anti-spam rules. Just sayin.

Because their the only suppliers of Battletech that I know of in the UK? And certainly the most available.

So, you can't really choose another retailer then?

Ordered Deadzone 'pre release' set with a few extras. Arrived in less than week.

So I'm quite happy with that!

Because their the only suppliers of Battletech that I know of in the UK? And certainly the most available.

you could order from Ral Partha in Liverpool the people who cast the stuff for UK retailers its where i order all my Battletech mechs from for my customers

I placed an order at GW Germany on December 13th, got a message the following day that it shipped and the package arrived 2 days ago...TWO weeks to get to its neighboring country; thats how long stuff from the UK usually takes to get here. GW customer service sucked as well. You write to them and no reply till 3 or 4 days afterward.

Wow, its....it's almost like there was some event in the interim which slowed the whole postal service down..!

I've had similar issues to the ones I've had with Total Wargamer when dealing with Maelstrom Games(just before they went out of business). Make of that what you will...

I was disappointed that there was no post-Xmas/New Year sale on this year, usually the only time I get something from TWG.

Another indication they're not doing so well?

they're always offering 30% off now...how much more do you expect from them?

 Savagecoyote wrote:

Because their the only suppliers of Battletech that I know of in the UK? And certainly the most available.

you could order from Ral Partha in Liverpool the people who cast the stuff for UK retailers its where i order all my Battletech mechs from for my customers

Indeed.

http://www.ralparthaeurope.co.uk/shop/miniatures-mechs-c-1_3_4.html

 Sir Arun wrote:
they're always offering 30% off now...how much more do you expect from them?

They're always offering 30% off GW stuff, which doesn't interest me. There are similar discounts on selected lines, these were expanded during their sale last year.

:UPDATE:
Okay, so my mum finally checked her E-mail last night (first time in over a week) and they have replied.
They apologised, and said they where getting restocked for BT next week, and they would ship one ASAP.
So alls good

 master of ordinance wrote:
:UPDATE:
Okay, so my mum finally checked her E-mail last night (first time in over a week) and they have replied.
They apologised, and said they where getting restocked for BT next week, and they would ship one ASAP.
So alls good

Does this read familiar?

Hello Azreal13

Your order should be leaving us in the next few days - we are just waiting for our first Games Workshop restock of the year to come in.

Obviously, if you no longer wish to wait, I can refund you.

We hope this response has sufficiently answered your questions. If not, please do not send another email. Instead, reply to this email or login to your account for a complete archive of all your support requests and responses.


Regards,

Sarah

I received this on the 2nd Jan last year, after placing an order for two plastic troops boxes on 12/12

If it's any consolation, my stuff was dispatched 5 days later (according to my email history)

I'm pretty sure, but not 100%, that this was my second query after not receiving the goods when promised the first time, but seem to have deleted those messages (if, indeed, they were from TWG and I'm not misremembering)

Still, the fact that responses are forthcoming is positive, and that has been my main criticism with how they've conducted themselves all along, let's just hope the product is equally forthcoming.

 azreal13 wrote:


I received this on the 2nd Jan last year, after placing an order for two plastic troops boxes on 12/12

If it's any consolation, my stuff was dispatched 5 days later (according to my email history)

I'm pretty sure, but not 100%, that this was my second query after not receiving the goods when promised the first time, but seem to have deleted those messages (if, indeed, they were from TWG and I'm not misremembering)

Still, the fact that responses are forthcoming is positive, and that has been my main criticism with how they've conducted themselves all along, let's just hope the product is equally forthcoming.

Actually, the stuff came through just 2 days ago. Everything was there and complete. A week before they had predicted. Now that's what I call good service.

However, I accept that this is my small view of a larger total, and others experience may vary. Still, its good to put some positive out there

Only ordered once from TW and they seemed alright but they were pretty slow when compared to the likes of Wayland.

 angelofvengeance wrote:
Only ordered once from TW and they seemed alright but they were pretty slow when compared to the likes of Wayland.

And Wayland games are pretty bad with shipping times.

I had no issue buying a ton of Mantic from wayland. They were very quick. I believe it's only GW that wayland, and everyone else, has a problem with. I wonder why that is...

 gianlucafiorentini123 wrote:
And Wayland games are pretty bad with shipping times.

Ehh, they're 50/50. I once had to wait 2 months for their order cause I had ordered stuff from GW, privateer press (kolony militia) and polish micro art studios, and this was around september last year, but I ordered from them again on january 1st, purely gw stuff and got it within 3 weeks.