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 wuestenfux wrote:
The new Stormclaw box in 40k is limited edition as were other products of GW in the past.

What's the whole thing with impuls buys? Does it make sense in the miniature market? I don't get it.

Your talking GW.... DO you really need an explanation?

They put that "Limited Edition foolishness in there to make dupes think they are getting something special, and then the dupes ignore the outrageous over the top prices.

It is sales 101 from a bean counters point of view. SOP Corporate ass-clown tactics from GW at its best.
When I saw it, in person, I didn't even believe that they had sunk this low.

The last dance is coming sooner then I really thought possible.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I think it also primes the market to expect more similar products which people will jump on quickly to avoid missing out.

I can't tell if that is deliberate for them or a happy side-effect, which is only going to get worse with the short stock windows. GW would love it if everying is sold out in the first week by people panic buying speculatively for projects they may do so they don't need to get them on ebay for a 300% markup.

A local game store has 20-30 copies of this. From the furor on here I thought people would be tearing the doors off hinges to get 'em but there wasn't a ton of excitement that I could see.

Comics, figures, books, DVDs... limited edition collectable is nothing new. I don't understand the issue with the Stormclaw release at all.

They limited the amount sold online to encourage more people to go into the store to buy them and hopefully buy something else while there. Even if each stormclaw buyer only picks up a pot of paint, if they sell 1,000 sets in store that's $4,000 of extra revenue. My local GW got 24 stormclaw boxes. Haven't talked to my local FLGS' about exact numbers but I know they all got some too. Just because you didn't pre order one online doesn't mean you will never be able to get one. From a business owner's perspective, the way they did this makes the most sense. Why would you want thousands of unsold boxes laying around taking up warehouse space? Does anyone remember the number one reason the old D&D makers finally went under? They were forced to buy back massive amounts of unsold inventory which bankrupted them.

 Ugavine wrote:
Comics, figures, books, DVDs... limited edition collectable is nothing new. I don't understand the issue with the Stormclaw release at all.

Because with Comics, figures, books, DVDs, usually have a regular edition also.

Toofast wrote:
From a business owner's perspective, the way they did this makes the most sense. Why would you want thousands of unsold boxes laying around taking up warehouse space? .

From a business owner's perspective, having an item sell out within hours of it going up on the website means it was underproduced and you're losing out on sales.


Yes, you don't want unsold inventory sitting around. But unless you're selling it at a loss, you also don't want to only sell 1000 copies of something when you could have sold 2000 instead.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:

 Ugavine wrote:
Comics, figures, books, DVDs... limited edition collectable is nothing new. I don't understand the issue with the Stormclaw release at all.

Because with Comics, figures, books, DVDs, usually have a regular edition also.

Or to put it another way, if everything is limited then nothing is limited.

 insaniak wrote:

Toofast wrote:
From a business owner's perspective, the way they did this makes the most sense. Why would you want thousands of unsold boxes laying around taking up warehouse space? .

From a business owner's perspective, having an item sell out within hours of it going up on the website means it was underproduced and you're losing out on sales.


Yes, you don't want unsold inventory sitting around. But unless you're selling it at a loss, you also don't want to only sell 1000 copies of something when you could have sold 2000 instead.

This is correct.

I think GW's strategy is to guarantee selling 10,000 units produced with a fixed budget and not worry about 2,000 possible missed sales that would definitely have lifted the production budget by a fixed amount.

Yeah, this is the hole that GW have dug for themselves with the one-week pre-order policy.

If you take pre-orders far enough out, you can adjust your production run to take them into account.

If you take pre-orders a week before the product is released, you have to just guess how many of them you are likely to sell.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:

 Ugavine wrote:
Comics, figures, books, DVDs... limited edition collectable is nothing new. I don't understand the issue with the Stormclaw release at all.

Because with Comics, figures, books, DVDs, usually have a regular edition also.

Or to put it another way, if everything is limited then nothing is limited.

I've worked in a place selling a lot of limited edition Die-cast vehicles, prints and things like that - At least in the UK, the trading standards laws are actually quite specific about what is 'limited' and what is not.

The clincher is whether the article comes with documentation that proves it as being 'x of 1000' or whatever. If you do have the documentation, then you are limited to that number. If it doesn't, you can still write 'limited edition' on the box, but technically it won't be regarded as a limited production. I'm guessing the new 40k boxset doesn't, and so it's limited edition in name only, and GW are free to make and release as many as they like.

If it does have the documentation, the company has to be careful about how they handle additional production. I remember Corgi getting a lot of criticism for releasing a 'limited edition' (say 1000), but then if the item sold out very quickly, they would do a further production run. They would send out communications instructing shops to remove the limited edition certificates from the boxes - if they didn't, trading standards would be on their case.

 notprop wrote:
...

Finally, I walked into an independent store here this lunchtime and managed to buy one of these boxes albeit I can't collect it until Friday at midnight. Cost me less that Wayland, GfG and Dark Sphere to boot.

I'm not sure this limited product is as limited as some might believe.

Listen to this bloke he knows what he's talking about.

I just picked up my Stormclaw box safely stored behind the counter, over on the shelf there were a dozen or so Stormclaw boxes ready to be purchased.

Now I don't know if this is the case everywhere but this really doent appear to be that hard to get at the moment if you were part of the teeth knashing brigade that said they missed out.

Removed by insaniak. Please see Dakka's Rule #1.

 notprop wrote:

 notprop wrote:
...

Finally, I walked into an independent store here this lunchtime and managed to buy one of these boxes albeit I can't collect it until Friday at midnight. Cost me less that Wayland, GfG and Dark Sphere to boot.

I'm not sure this limited product is as limited as some might believe.

Listen to this bloke he knows what he's talking about.

I just picked up my Stormclaw box safely stored behind the counter, over on the shelf there were a dozen or so Stormclaw boxes ready to be purchased.

Now I don't know if this is the case everywhere but this really doent appear to be that hard to get at the moment if you were part of the teeth knashing brigade that said they missed out.

I don't think the issue is that people who are aware of the release won't be able to get one on release (there's plenty on eBay already). It's just that in the (estimated) year or 2 between this campaign is sold out and the next one starts, it's not available for any players who get into the hobby. It's not as critical since there's a re-done DV box, but it'll still result in anyone in the interim who wants to start a Wolves/Ork army to wonder why it was a limited release.

 notprop wrote:

 notprop wrote:
...

Finally, I walked into an independent store here this lunchtime and managed to buy one of these boxes albeit I can't collect it until Friday at midnight. Cost me less that Wayland, GfG and Dark Sphere to boot.

I'm not sure this limited product is as limited as some might believe.

Listen to this bloke he knows what he's talking about.

I just picked up my Stormclaw box safely stored behind the counter, over on the shelf there were a dozen or so Stormclaw boxes ready to be purchased.

Now I don't know if this is the case everywhere but this really doent appear to be that hard to get at the moment if you were part of the teeth knashing brigade that said they missed out.

Well, our store owner was told that he cannot re-order Stormclaw boxes.

 insaniak wrote:

Toofast wrote:
From a business owner's perspective, the way they did this makes the most sense. Why would you want thousands of unsold boxes laying around taking up warehouse space? .

From a business owner's perspective, having an item sell out within hours of it going up on the website means it was underproduced and you're losing out on sales.


Yes, you don't want unsold inventory sitting around. But unless you're selling it at a loss, you also don't want to only sell 1000 copies of something when you could have sold 2000 instead.

But if it was a general release sale would people have been in a rush to go out and buy it? No. They sold out so fast due to the reason it sold well at all. Slap a limited edition on something and people want it even if they wouldnt have without the limited edition label. GW are smart enough to see an good oppertunity and profit from it. As a buisness should be.

Surely they should be relying on it being a good product to sell it, not the LE status?

I think what the LE thing does is cause speculators to buy it up to sell or split and causes people to buy this instead of what they were going to, in case they want it later.

So what it does is brings GW's sales forward at the expense of future sales (because maybe they'd sell more if it was deemed good enough value), and causes customer dissatisfaction later (because it's no longer available without paying double the going rate on eBay).

Sometimes I feel like purchasing stuff from GW is very adversarial in nature; most of my purchases over the last few years have been either before something is discontinued or before the price goes up, rather than because I actually want something at that point in time.

Stormclaw isn't stamped as a limited edition. The is no cache being added to the product by such terms.

I may well be limited in production but that is no different in approach to the previous campaign books.

That's poor wording on my part. It's a "whilst stocks last" product, with no re-order option. So it's a limited run with unique mini's but it's not a limited edition.

The "whilst stocks last" thing always grates on me a bit as that's how a lot of these perpetual sales places (like furniture and carpet warehouses) operate and it just feels a bit sleazy.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:

 Ugavine wrote:
Comics, figures, books, DVDs... limited edition collectable is nothing new. I don't understand the issue with the Stormclaw release at all.

Because with Comics, figures, books, DVDs, usually have a regular edition also.

Or to put it another way, if everything is limited then nothing is limited.

Kindof understand what you mean. One of the reasons I stopped buying comics and figures, too many Limited Editions.

But regular 40K editions are available, and it's not like GW release lots of Limited Editions.

 notprop wrote:
Stormclaw isn't stamped as a limited edition. The is no cache being added to the product by such terms.

I may well be limited in production but that is no different in approach to the previous campaign books.

I did try and write and explain about this a few posts up, but my comment seem to have gone un-read!

Great minds and all that!

Yeah but how many people in the world are ever going to want a Space Wolves versus Space Orks focussed campaign?

The only reason GW did it is because Orks is the first new 7th edition codex and Wolves is the second, so they have a crapton of new artwork and models already developed, and it doesn't cost much to slap a bit of fluff together for the b/g. The campaign is almost a freebie for GW to produce.

IG versus Chaos, or SM versus Chaos would be a much more popular product and would not need to be limited in production run.

 notprop wrote:
Great minds and all that!

The great minds are over there in Nottingham and often they don't tell us what they are thinking.