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rigeld2 wrote:

rich1231 wrote:
The thing is emails are sent out when there are delays.

A large percentage of people in this thread are saying they aren't.
Are you really sure they are?

Yes indeedy, we use an application called Mandrill to send our Delayed order emails and I can see the open rates and data on individual emails.
Over 70% are opened - that's in a normal client - and that doesn't include previews. 99.9% of them are delivered.

rich1231 wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:

rich1231 wrote:
The thing is emails are sent out when there are delays.

A large percentage of people in this thread are saying they aren't.
Are you really sure they are?

Yes indeedy, we use an application called Mandrill to send our Delayed order emails and I can see the open rates and data on individual emails.
Over 70% are opened - that's in a normal client - and that doesn't include previews. 99.9% of them are delivered.

Since you're hitting on an area I'm intimately familiar with, I'm curious about those numbers.

http://mandrill.com/

Is that what you mean? A delivery of 99.9% is pretty high and I'm curious as to how they calculate those numbers.
And it's simply not possible to know that 70% of them are opened. At best it's a misrepresentation of other data.

You can read how Mandrill calculates its figures on their help pages.

Despite finding SMTP one of the most fascinating subjects ever

I've never received an email in regard to any of my orders being delayed.

I'm not asking for promises of a date but surely you must understand that no-one in their right mind would place an order when the delivery could take in excess of 3 weeks.

I'm not even looking at other people's responses. I placed my order on the understanding that the maximum length of time I should need to wait would be 9 working days. On the 10th day no email of dispatch nor one of apology/update. 11th day still no contact so I Wayland only to be told that it may be another week if not longer.

I'm not asking for an unreal estimation of when an order would be ready, but I do think that Available (3-9 working days) should only be shown if that product has previously been ordered and you are waiting for delivery. If you don't have it in house or due within the next week then it's not available...available would mean it can be picked, packed and posted.

It may be worth checking your email system. As I said earlier, I've used Wayland a lot in the last 18 months, and there have been a couple of orders that have taken well over a month, with no email recieved other than when I've chased the order. After the first one that took a while, I accepted that any GW orders may take a long time, and I don't mind that, but it may put others off using you. Fortunately, I'm patient.

On a different note, have you ever thought of introducing a loyalty card or something? I've probably spent around 1k with you in the last wee while, and a freebie or two wouldn't go amiss.

I use Wayland a lot, and so far my experiences with them have been great. They are a little slow in delivering sometimes, but their customer support is amazing and really fast.

 Eggs wrote:
It may be worth checking your email system. As I said earlier, I've used Wayland a lot in the last 18 months, and there have been a couple of orders that have taken well over a month, with no email recieved other than when I've chased the order. After the first one that took a while, I accepted that any GW orders may take a long time, and I don't mind that, but it may put others off using you. Fortunately, I'm patient.

On a different note, have you ever thought of introducing a loyalty card or something? I've probably spent around 1k with you in the last wee while, and a freebie or two wouldn't go amiss.

Now that would be a great idea!

Do you know, I'm amazed more sites don't do something like this.. only one I can think of is Antenociti'w Workshop.

Foxfyre wrote:
I've never received an email in regard to any of my orders being delayed.

I'm not asking for promises of a date but surely you must understand that no-one in their right mind would place an order when the delivery could take in excess of 3 weeks.

I'm not even looking at other people's responses. I placed my order on the understanding that the maximum length of time I should need to wait would be 9 working days. On the 10th day no email of dispatch nor one of apology/update. 11th day still no contact so I Wayland only to be told that it may be another week if not longer.

I'm not asking for an unreal estimation of when an order would be ready, but I do think that Available (3-9 working days) should only be shown if that product has previously been ordered and you are waiting for delivery. If you don't have it in house or due within the next week then it's not available...available would mean it can be picked, packed and posted.

They wouldn't...?

I regularly put out order to companies, and over eBay, knowing that it might be months before I get my stuff. And look at Kickstarter where people will pledge ridiculous amounts of money for a product they haven't even seen and for which they'll have to wait months.

Honestly, what do you expect? Any company will be running a tight ship in regards to stock levels. Companies offering a product-wide discount like Wayland doubly so. You can, in a way, see it as the "price" you pay for the discount. You can order straight from Games Workshop and get your stuff fast. Or you can save a few bucks and wait for a while.


I will agree with those who talk about communication though. I have had a few order delayed and never gotten a mail about it. Fair's fair when it comes to stock-levels vs. discount (especially with Games Workshop products), but a little communication would go a long way.

 Pacific wrote:

 Eggs wrote:
It may be worth checking your email system. As I said earlier, I've used Wayland a lot in the last 18 months, and there have been a couple of orders that have taken well over a month, with no email recieved other than when I've chased the order. After the first one that took a while, I accepted that any GW orders may take a long time, and I don't mind that, but it may put others off using you. Fortunately, I'm patient.

On a different note, have you ever thought of introducing a loyalty card or something? I've probably spent around 1k with you in the last wee while, and a freebie or two wouldn't go amiss.

Now that would be a great idea!

Do you know, I'm amazed more sites don't do something like this.. only one I can think of is Antenociti'w Workshop.

Maelstrom used to do this too.......

 Eggs wrote:
It may be worth checking your email system. As I said earlier, I've used Wayland a lot in the last 18 months, and there have been a couple of orders that have taken well over a month, with no email recieved other than when I've chased the order. After the first one that took a while, I accepted that any GW orders may take a long time, and I don't mind that, but it may put others off using you. Fortunately, I'm patient.

On a different note, have you ever thought of introducing a loyalty card or something? I've probably spent around 1k with you in the last wee while, and a freebie or two wouldn't go amiss.

We used to have a Loyalty point system but it caused lots of accounting issues... and was buggy. We are moving to a new website in the next few months which replaces it and enhances it completely and it works as well It will be a go live feature along with some other reward systems/processes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
For those saying that they have not received emails informing them that orders are delayed... can you PM me your order numbers so I can investigate please.

The notifications started going out back in November.

I'de forget about a rewards system and invest the time in a stock check that works.

rigeld2 wrote:

rich1231 wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:

rich1231 wrote:
The thing is emails are sent out when there are delays.

A large percentage of people in this thread are saying they aren't.
Are you really sure they are?

Yes indeedy, we use an application called Mandrill to send our Delayed order emails and I can see the open rates and data on individual emails.
Over 70% are opened - that's in a normal client - and that doesn't include previews. 99.9% of them are delivered.

Since you're hitting on an area I'm intimately familiar with, I'm curious about those numbers.

http://mandrill.com/

Is that what you mean? A delivery of 99.9% is pretty high and I'm curious as to how they calculate those numbers.
And it's simply not possible to know that 70% of them are opened. At best it's a misrepresentation of other data.

Emphasis mine. It's trivially easy to detect if they've been opened now; just add some unique id into an img source and update the database when it's viewed. You won't catch people who have remote images removed, but that just means you're reading low.

Herzlos wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:

rich1231 wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:

rich1231 wrote:
The thing is emails are sent out when there are delays.

A large percentage of people in this thread are saying they aren't.
Are you really sure they are?

Yes indeedy, we use an application called Mandrill to send our Delayed order emails and I can see the open rates and data on individual emails.
Over 70% are opened - that's in a normal client - and that doesn't include previews. 99.9% of them are delivered.

Since you're hitting on an area I'm intimately familiar with, I'm curious about those numbers.

http://mandrill.com/

Is that what you mean? A delivery of 99.9% is pretty high and I'm curious as to how they calculate those numbers.
And it's simply not possible to know that 70% of them are opened. At best it's a misrepresentation of other data.

Emphasis mine. It's trivially easy to detect if they've been opened now; just add some unique id into an img source and update the database when it's viewed. You won't catch people who have remote images removed, but that just means you're reading low.

He said that doesn't include previews, which that would.

I've had a reasonable enough experience with Wayland. I've had occasions where the order has taken 2 weeks and some where its been just one, even with GW.

Honestly, what do you expect? Any company will be running a tight ship in regards to stock levels. Companies offering a product-wide discount like Wayland doubly so. You can, in a way, see it as the "price" you pay for the discount. You can order straight from Games Workshop and get your stuff fast. Or you can save a few bucks and wait for a while.

Only I'm not saving money because of the shipping costs, I've already looked at other sources whilst waiting and found that for 60p more than I paid I would have had my order within 3 days.

Kickstarter is hardly an equivalent to running a store, it's closer to securing an investment from an independent party (ie Dragon's Den) where the offer is advance, discounted or exclusive products in place of a percentage ownership.

The closest equivalent is walking into an appliance shop, purchasing a dishwasher and being told that it should arrive within the following 3-9 working days even though all they have is a pretty picture/standee, none in stock, none on order and the supplier may need in excess of 9 working days to acquire said order.

That said Rich has been in contact and it is being sorted via PM so I'll withdraw from this discussion.

In closing however I will state that Wayland has an excellent customer service team who are friendly and happy to help.

 notprop wrote:

 Pacific wrote:

 Eggs wrote:
It may be worth checking your email system. As I said earlier, I've used Wayland a lot in the last 18 months, and there have been a couple of orders that have taken well over a month, with no email recieved other than when I've chased the order. After the first one that took a while, I accepted that any GW orders may take a long time, and I don't mind that, but it may put others off using you. Fortunately, I'm patient.

On a different note, have you ever thought of introducing a loyalty card or something? I've probably spent around 1k with you in the last wee while, and a freebie or two wouldn't go amiss.

Now that would be a great idea!

Do you know, I'm amazed more sites don't do something like this.. only one I can think of is Antenociti'w Workshop.

Maelstrom used to do this too.......

Ah yes that's true! I think I still had some unspent points when they went belly-up...

I ordered some Dropzone Commander from Wayland early February.

I've since had 4 emails stating that the items still have not come into stock, which is pretty good in my opinion, even if they are clearly automated & unspecific, I get to assume that something in their computer system is flashing away keeping my order at the top.

The waits a bit of a shame, I planned to buy the Rulebook early Feb & had hoped to have had it in time to work out what else I wanted to buy before the end of Feb (to take advantage of the shipping deal). Now I won't place an order until/unless there is another deal like that again, but whenever they want my money.. they know what to do

I just ordered a big pile of bases from them, so I'm hoping that they reach me soon.

Vrashnar,

It's strange that your order has not been shipped out yet, as we hold a healthy stock of Dropzone Commander, contact our helpdesk and we will have a look in to this for you.

Regards
Jake @ Wayland

I find Wayland Games to be pretty terrible at both having transparent stock levels and communication in general. I don't order GW or PP items, so I can't blame someone else. Very happy to take your money and hold it for months with no update. When you ask for updates you get ignored or spoken to like a child. On the plus side, Barrie is a very helpful member of staff.

I've ordered from Wayland quite a bit, mostly they're pretty good. I have no complaints about ordering from them at all if I need anything else.

I ordered a Tau Riptide when they had a 30% off on the pre-order weekend, but Tau stuff was in stupidly high demand so it took a few weeks but I got 30% off a model. I can't really complain.

I ordered some paints and brushes, one of the brushes cost was refunded because they didn't have it in stock, I only found out because when it wasn't included in the delivery so checked my order.

I've ordered some Dropzone Commander stuff, Bolt Action stuff, Secret Weapon paints and pigments, more brushes etc and absolutely spot on with all of those.

The major negative was that I ordered two ships for X-Wing in September 2013 and they were waiting for a restock, I had to eventually cancel it at the end of December without any communication about stock updates or any delays.

The refund was given right away, and I used that to buy some Bolt Action which arrived a few days later.

You're always going to get some kind of a hitch every now and then, it's just one of those things sometimes.

Zond wrote:
I find Wayland Games to be pretty terrible at both having transparent stock levels and communication in general. I don't order GW or PP items, so I can't blame someone else. Very happy to take your money and hold it for months with no update. When you ask for updates you get ignored or spoken to like a child. On the plus side, Barrie is a very helpful member of staff.

Zond,

I respectfully disagree, I believe we are as transparent as we can be. We do not hide any information and we are always happy to answer any questions that anyone may have regarding their orders. We place orders with multiple suppliers daily and 99% of these orders arrive on time. Unfortunately as stubacca said there can be some delays every now and again.

Unfortunately it is much easier for the customer who has had a 1 bad experienced out of a thousand orders to voice it on a forum.

In regards to Games Workshop items, we order once a week from them, as this is the limit placed on us by our current Trade terms, this can cause the odd few orders to take a day or 2 longer then the typical 3-9 working days. Again this is just something that we can not change.

Release dates for products including the very popular X-Wing range are controlled by the manufacturer, and we are only able to pass on the information once we have received it.

We are working on upgrading systems and process to help improve our service, and all constructive criticism is appreciated and taken on board.

Regards
Jake @ Wayland

Paradigm wrote:I've used them a couple of times in the past, and both times it's been GW-related orders. They took 2 weeks both times, so I won't be using them again.

Just as a word of general advice, buying GW from discounters almost always involves waiting a long time. Wayland and Total Wargamer both have a couple of weeks as a minimum wait for GW, but when I've ordered Mantic stuff it's arrived in days. I've yet to find anywhere that does GW cheap and fast, although I hear DarkSphere are quite good.

Regarding Pre-orders, there have been cases in the past where GW have supplied their own stores and orders first and retailers have got the 'second wave' of production and shipping. I don't know if this is still an issue, but it may well be.

There's a pattern here. People take a long time to get GW orders from stockists. Is this not an attempt by GW to make stockists inconvenient and force them out of more income?

If the stock takes longer from GW, then you need to change your average delivery times when selling them and tell the customer. It shouldn't take someone moaning on a forum/facebook/twitter for you to act. Honesty will stop this negative reaction.

The company I buy from have always been 100% honest about stock and delivery times. I know it'll take a little longer, because of how restrictive GW are and that's fine because I've been told. I have ordered from both yourselves and Total Wargamer (spits) and it was a shambles, TW more so.

 Scipio Africanus wrote:

Paradigm wrote:I've used them a couple of times in the past, and both times it's been GW-related orders. They took 2 weeks both times, so I won't be using them again.

Just as a word of general advice, buying GW from discounters almost always involves waiting a long time. Wayland and Total Wargamer both have a couple of weeks as a minimum wait for GW, but when I've ordered Mantic stuff it's arrived in days. I've yet to find anywhere that does GW cheap and fast, although I hear DarkSphere are quite good.

Regarding Pre-orders, there have been cases in the past where GW have supplied their own stores and orders first and retailers have got the 'second wave' of production and shipping. I don't know if this is still an issue, but it may well be.

There's a pattern here. People take a long time to get GW orders from stockists. Is this not an attempt by GW to make stockists inconvenient and force them out of more income?

This is confusing an unreliability issue with a GW issue. Reliable service is being honest about stock levels - as Dark Sphere always seem to be. If you list a product in stock, but it isn't in stock, that's not GW's unreliability, it's yours.

But usually, Wayland don't list it as 'in stock', they list it as 'available'. This is a copy+paste of a product on their site right now:

✔ Available (Typically ships in 3-9 working days)

And that's why they get a bad rep to be fair.

 Jake-Wayland wrote:

Zond wrote:
I find Wayland Games to be pretty terrible at both having transparent stock levels and communication in general. I don't order GW or PP items, so I can't blame someone else. Very happy to take your money and hold it for months with no update. When you ask for updates you get ignored or spoken to like a child. On the plus side, Barrie is a very helpful member of staff.

Zond,

I respectfully disagree, I believe we are as transparent as we can be. We do not hide any information and we are always happy to answer any questions that anyone may have regarding their orders. We place orders with multiple suppliers daily and 99% of these orders arrive on time. Unfortunately as stubacca said there can be some delays every now and again.

Unfortunately it is much easier for the customer who has had a 1 bad experienced out of a thousand orders to voice it on a forum.

In regards to Games Workshop items, we order once a week from them, as this is the limit placed on us by our current Trade terms, this can cause the odd few orders to take a day or 2 longer then the typical 3-9 working days. Again this is just something that we can not change.

Release dates for products including the very popular X-Wing range are controlled by the manufacturer, and we are only able to pass on the information once we have received it.

We are working on upgrading systems and process to help improve our service, and all constructive criticism is appreciated and taken on board.

Regards
Jake @ Wayland

It's much easier to get a hold of a company representative by posting negative feedback on a public forum, and getting your resolution, rather than contacting Wayland games directly. Which I think is a problem, ymmv. Whilst you don't hide information, your... unique stock levels obfuscate things. I've had more than one bad experience with Wayland, if you care to give me a good one I'll happily sing your praises on a forum.

The Division Of Joy wrote:
And that's why they get a bad rep to be fair.

I don't follow. They're upfront about the fact they need to order in certain stock as and when it's ordered, make that information available at the point of purchase, and that gives them a bad rep?

Given one previous complaint was a lack of transparency, another was the fact that things listed as 'in stock' aren't, it seems to me that a few people on this thread seem to just be moaning for the sake of it at this point.

Keep on going guys, I'll keep ordering from Wayland (amongst others, Troll Trader is still my preferred supplier but they don't have Wayland's range).

 Riquende wrote:

The Division Of Joy wrote:
And that's why they get a bad rep to be fair.

I don't follow. They're upfront about the fact they need to order in certain stock as and when it's ordered, make that information available at the point of purchase, and that gives them a bad rep?

Given one previous complaint was a lack of transparency, another was the fact that things listed as 'in stock' aren't, it seems to me that a few people on this thread seem to just be moaning for the sake of it at this point.

Keep on going guys, I'll keep ordering from Wayland (amongst others, Troll Trader is still my preferred supplier but they don't have Wayland's range).

They're not upfront. If a significant portion of their stock listing is "Available (Typically ships in 3-9 working days)" that implies they have it and it takes that long to pack. I can understand that - it makes sense.
It doesn't make sense to (essentially) say "We can order this like anyone else can and ship it when it comes in which could be literally any time" and call that "Available"
What most other (sane) shops do is call that Out of Stock - because it is. They don't have any in stock, they have to order it. Calling it something else is obfuscating the fact that they have to either drop ship or make a special order.

Just my opinion.