just had a pretty awful experience with these guys and just wanted to see if its just me, or whether other people have had hassle with them before?
(this is my first time using them, and on the basis of this experience, i wont be using them again)

pre-ordered an item, and for some strange reason expected that this would mean that the item would be dispatched sometime around the release date...?
but over a week later I had heard nothing from them, so opened a support case to enquire what was going on. got a reply back basically saying it wasn't their fault, supplier blah blah, but not actually apologising or anything.

they did however say that their delivery would be in the next day, so i didn't think much more of it.

3 days later it still hadn't been dispatched and again, had heard nothing to let me know what was going on.
by this point i was pretty pissed off and just decided to cancel the order and get the item from my flgs (as the item was now released and in stock) - found that I couldn't cancel order through their site, so updated the support case asking for them to cancel.

heard nothing back from them today, and now have just received an email saying its been dispatched!
useless, and terrible customer service/communication imo

would warn people off using them, unless you all can convince me I've just been unlucky or something...?

Perhaps you were just unlucky, I ordered some space wolves and got them after just a week or so.

Perhaps slow-down is expected with popular items, pre-orders or very large orders?

I had a bad order last year, when I ordered a load of GW stuff.

Non-GW went well, but GW orders were slow.

they have just emailed me saying that they had stopped my item from being despatched, if i did still want to cancel, so no real harm done in the end.

but that pretty much admits that when they send you an email to say its been dispatched, tat it hasnt actually been posted, otherwise how could they cancel it...?
just seems like they have a pretty poor service/support to me.


tbf, this my first time pre-ordering anything modelling related, but have pre-order loads of video games/dvds/blu-rays/music from lots of different companies, and everything else has turned up either on the day of release or within a couple of days of it. some things have even turned up before the release date - i remember having finished the Modern Warfare 2 campaign before any f my mates even owned it lol.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
also, as I pointed out to them, surely one of the advantages of doing pre-orders is that you know what quantities of an item to order in...?
(don't think I mentioned it above, but this was their excuse for it having not shipped - they had sold out, and were waiting for restock delivery)

just really unimpressed overall, especially as in between all this, I ordered a loads of stuff from Anvil industries and it turned up in a couple of days, no hassle, great coms, etc.
such a contrast to dealing with wayland. will not be using them again.

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.

Rich - the owner of Wayland posts on Dakka. If he spots this he will probably respond to you.

Personally I have never had a bad experience with Wayland but I never use them when I need something quickly nor do I use the for pre orders.

I've found them excellent to respond to e-mails. There's also a phone call that helped me sort my issues.

yeah, maybe I've just been spoilt by companies with excellent service.

ordering things off ebay and them being posted the next day, etc

ordered some stuff from a bitz site once, and had a problem with the order - mailed the guy after midnight, he responded at 7am, and had the replacement bit the next day, along with a couple of extra bitz as an apology. amazing.

tbf if it had been shipped today, thats only about 10 days after the release date, so well within the usual 28days delivery time, i suppose.
just doesn't inspire confidence.

A friend of mine pre-ordered the Iyanden Codex from Wayland, and he's still waiting.

I think as has been said this is normally a problem with GW products specifically and I have never really had a problem with Wayland.

However I always use dark Sphere now as they have always been great, but they also have problems from time to time with GW new releases.

It is GW supplying its own stores first, or not packing stuff properly which arrives to independents damaged.

Keyword with Wayland is patience. They seem to be rather optimistic about when stuff will be back in stock again and how available something actually is. I only order there if I don't need anything quickly (and if there's a free shipping coupon but ok :p), sort of order and forget.

If you need something reliably fast, I tend to go for other stores (trolltrader is pretty fast for one, dark sphere is good aswell from what I've heard so far but haven't used them yet). As it comes to GW stuff, seems most stores struggle with that so the problem might be more on Gws side than the store's side.

In general wayland have pretty bad shipping times, though they do have a great selection so sometimes they're the only people who have certain things.

Nicky J wrote:
by this point i was pretty pissed off and just decided to cancel the order and get the item from my flgs (as the item was now released and in stock) - found that I couldn't cancel order through their site, so updated the support case asking for them to cancel.

Trying to skrew you FLGS can be tough sometimes

Used them lots of times with no issues.

The problem, as has been stated by others, is generally when ordering GW stock, sometimes Privateer Press I have heard also. Essentially GW treats independents horrendously, not filling orders and not communicating these orders. We dont know if this is deliberate or just through incompetence, but the end result is the same; frustrated customers are forced back to direct purchasing and full RRP.

As one of the biggest retailers you would assume Wayland carry a bit more weight and are messed around less, but in any case best advice is to check stock levels in advance if you buy anything GW.

 Kroothawk wrote:

Nicky J wrote:
by this point i was pretty pissed off and just decided to cancel the order and get the item from my flgs (as the item was now released and in stock) - found that I couldn't cancel order through their site, so updated the support case asking for them to cancel.

Trying to skrew you FLGS can be tough sometimes

Seriously Kroot?

Wind your neck in, jumping all over a new user and then adding a wink doesn't take as much of an edge off your comments as you seem to think it does.

Did you stop to consider that he may not have a FLGS? Showing a UK flag means that there's a higher than average chance he lives nowhere near any sort of independent store, or worse his only option is a GW.

Something to bear in mind with pre-orders for gaming stuff is that release dates in this industry are nowhere near as set in stone as they are with videogames or DVDs. In those industries the release date may well be set and advertised before the product is even finished, and making that date is the priority. The whole industry will be geared up to making a particular release date, and coordinating midnight openings all over the world for AAA titles etc. With tabletop gaming that's much less the case - stuff tends to get released when its finished, rather than on a particular date. Particularly with GW, retailers don't even know more than a couple of weeks in advance what is likely to be released, and on several recent occasions many indie retailers have been short shipped, getting far less product than they have ordered.

pgmason wrote:
Something to bear in mind with pre-orders for gaming stuff is that release dates in this industry are nowhere near as set in stone as they are with videogames or DVDs. In those industries the release date may well be set and advertised before the product is even finished, and making that date is the priority. The whole industry will be geared up to making a particular release date, and coordinating midnight openings all over the world for AAA titles etc. With tabletop gaming that's much less the case - stuff tends to get released when its finished, rather than on a particular date. Particularly with GW, retailers don't even know more than a couple of weeks in advance what is likely to be released, and on several recent occasions many indie retailers have been short shipped, getting far less product than they have ordered.

yeah, that's fair enough, but how about an email to explain where my order is, over a week after the expected release date...?
again, maybe I've just been spoilt by companies with excellent service recently.

I work in a customer facing job, and always go out of my way to keep customers in the loop with whats going on with whatever I'm dealing with - how long does it take to type one or two sentence email explaining the situation...?

Your experience is pretty normal for Wayland.

Example: I placed an order with them on Jan 30th, all items listed as Available. I got the dispatch notice today.

The problem here lies not with Wayland Games, but with GW as a company. They're have been rumors floating around (sorry, cannot remember who said them originally) that GW on purposely will take a while to supply sellers of their products, making customers wait longer to receive the product then if they were to go into a brick and mortar store or order of the GW site directly. I've found that if I order other companies models of independent sellers, I'll get them fairly quickly but if I order GW models I tend to have to wait a week to two weeks max normally.

That really is a problem with Wayland (and almost any other wargame seller for that matter), in that they advertise stock they do not possess, If they do not invest in inventory you get these issues. Customers money effectively acts as a short term loan to enable them to get additional stock.

There is a secondary problem and that is the customer. Many would compare WG to Amazon or the like that will facilitate quick deliveries from their million square feet distribution centres and complain that they don't have x tomorrow.

Two words for you OP: DARK SPHERE

Not really on topic, but has Dark Sphere not been working recently?

 tomball0706 wrote:
The problem here lies not with Wayland Games, but with GW as a company. They're have been rumors floating around (sorry, cannot remember who said them originally) that GW on purposely will take a while to supply sellers of their products, making customers wait longer to receive the product then if they were to go into a brick and mortar store or order of the GW site directly. I've found that if I order other companies models of independent sellers, I'll get them fairly quickly but if I order GW models I tend to have to wait a week to two weeks max normally.

In that case: why are Dark Sphere accurate about what GW product they have in stock, and accurate about when it will be delivered. I have nnever, ever had problems like those the OP described with Dark Sphere - but I certainly have with Wayland.

I've been ordering X Wing stuff from all manner of online retailers recently.

Troll Trader, Gadgetsville and Valiant Wargames all came up with the goods they claimed to stock and were pretty prompt.

I confess I avoid Wayland because their stock system bemuses me. Everyone else manages to be fairly black and white (i.e. it's either in stock or it isn't), but Wayland always comes across as a bit vague.

 Nicky J wrote:
just had a pretty awful experience with these guys and just wanted to see if its just me, or whether other people have had hassle with them before?
(this is my first time using them, and on the basis of this experience, i wont be using them again)

pre-ordered an item, and for some strange reason expected that this would mean that the item would be dispatched sometime around the release date...?
but over a week later I had heard nothing from them, so opened a support case to enquire what was going on. got a reply back basically saying it wasn't their fault, supplier blah blah, but not actually apologising or anything.

they did however say that their delivery would be in the next day, so i didn't think much more of it.

3 days later it still hadn't been dispatched and again, had heard nothing to let me know what was going on.
by this point i was pretty pissed off and just decided to cancel the order and get the item from my flgs (as the item was now released and in stock) - found that I couldn't cancel order through their site, so updated the support case asking for them to cancel.

heard nothing back from them today, and now have just received an email saying its been dispatched!
useless, and terrible customer service/communication imo

would warn people off using them, unless you all can convince me I've just been unlucky or something...?

Hi Nicky,

Rich owner of Wayland here, I am intrigued by your post, can you please PM me your order number and support ticket number so I can investigate please to find out what happened to your order. Generally regarding Pre orders we order enough to cover pre orders from customers and extra stock. Sometimes we have to estimate the numbers required without much information to base the numbers wrong and under estimate/over estimate the quantities. GW require us to confirm numbers almost 2 weeks in advance and before we have taken any orders, and even before the products have been revealed so its a crystal ball exercise.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Nicky J wrote:
they have just emailed me saying that they had stopped my item from being despatched, if i did still want to cancel, so no real harm done in the end.

but that pretty much admits that when they send you an email to say its been dispatched, tat it hasnt actually been posted, otherwise how could they cancel it...?
just seems like they have a pretty poor service/support to me.


tbf, this my first time pre-ordering anything modelling related, but have pre-order loads of video games/dvds/blu-rays/music from lots of different companies, and everything else has turned up either on the day of release or within a couple of days of it. some things have even turned up before the release date - i remember having finished the Modern Warfare 2 campaign before any f my mates even owned it lol.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
also, as I pointed out to them, surely one of the advantages of doing pre-orders is that you know what quantities of an item to order in...?
(don't think I mentioned it above, but this was their excuse for it having not shipped - they had sold out, and were waiting for restock delivery)

just really unimpressed overall, especially as in between all this, I ordered a loads of stuff from Anvil industries and it turned up in a couple of days, no hassle, great coms, etc.
such a contrast to dealing with wayland. will not be using them again.

Re the dispatch email and manage to stop it leaving the warehouse. Your ordered is picked and packed. We dont have a courier/RM van waiting to take every order individually away to a hub the moment its packed. The packed packages get sorted based upon destination and service and wait collection by their particular service. It means that it is possible to intercept packages before they leave after packing. We can sometimes do it in transit as well though never 100% successful.

Yeah. Ordered a few DreadBall decals and a DreadBall MvP from them.

Nothing happened for weeks. I emailed them, asking what's going on and they said were waiting for stock from Mantic.

Another week or so, they emailed me, saying they'd gotten a bit of Mantic stuff, but just enough to fill the orders placed "before mine", and I'd would have to wait another few weeks for the next Mantic shipment. At that point, I canceled.

Overall, poor experience and not with GW-product either.

StraightSilver wrote:
A friend of mine pre-ordered the Iyanden Codex from Wayland, and he's still waiting.

I think as has been said this is normally a problem with GW products specifically and I have never really had a problem with Wayland.

However I always use dark Sphere now as they have always been great, but they also have problems from time to time with GW new releases.

It is GW supplying its own stores first, or not packing stuff properly which arrives to independents damaged.

No your friend didnt order that product from us, we have never listed or stocked it. Your friend is mistaken.

 azreal13 wrote:

 Kroothawk wrote:

Nicky J wrote:
by this point i was pretty pissed off and just decided to cancel the order and get the item from my flgs (as the item was now released and in stock)

Trying to skrew you FLGS can be tough sometimes

Did you stop to consider that he may not have a FLGS? Showing a UK flag means that there's a higher than average chance he lives nowhere near any sort of independent store, or worse his only option is a GW.

Did you stop to actually read the post? He says he finally bought the item at his FLGS who sold it on release.
And there is no country on earth with a higher density of stores stocking GW products.

I have found wayland fine when ordering anything non gw. that said their communication in general could use some work for the most part. maybe the live chat will help.

I have ordered a few things from Wayland, none of it was from GW, and I have always found them slow, everything has arrived in good order but it generally took a while.

Since their new stock system came in I've been very happy with Wayland's service for in-stock items

no experience with pre-ordering though

(this is a major improvement over the old traffic light system)

 Kroothawk wrote:

Did you stop to actually read the post? He says he finally bought the item at his FLGS who sold it on release.
And there is no country on earth with a higher density of stores stocking GW products.

Generally speaking, I find Games Workshops severely lack the F part of FLGS.

But yeah, the Dropzone Commander order I made with Wayland this year has been fine. Not ordered anymore because, well... I try to avoid doing £80 orders of toy soldiers every few weeks...

 Kroothawk wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

 Kroothawk wrote:

Nicky J wrote:
by this point i was pretty pissed off and just decided to cancel the order and get the item from my flgs (as the item was now released and in stock)

Trying to skrew you FLGS can be tough sometimes

Did you stop to consider that he may not have a FLGS? Showing a UK flag means that there's a higher than average chance he lives nowhere near any sort of independent store, or worse his only option is a GW.

Did you stop to actually read the post? He says he finally bought the item at his FLGS who sold it on release.
And there is no country on earth with a higher density of stores stocking GW products.

Only as well as you, clearly, as nowhere does he state, in the OP or elsewhere, that 'the item' he ordered was GW, that's just an assumption made because they are well known for fething people about with supply of stock.

He might indeed be referring to his local GW as his FLGS, or he might be referring to an Indy, regardless the density of GW stockists is down to the number of GW stores, Indy stores are scarce in the UK outside of city centres.

All of which is largely incidental to my main point, which was unfortunately undermined by a little cognitive dissonance on my part, which is posting harsh gak, especially aimed at new users, and adding a smiley is an unpleasant habit that I would heartily encourage people to avoid.

It is entirely his right as a consumer to spend his own money wherever the hell he likes, and not be criticised by some random on the Internet for it. It is the business' job to persuade the consumer that the right place to spend it is with them. Your response just came over as trollish and/or condescending and no amount of my missing a piece of info in the OP really changes that.

The one and only thing I ordered from Wayland was delayed by about ten days because they were waiting on an overdue delivery from GW (it being a GW product I'd ordered.)

If I knew I'd have to wait so long for an online purchase to come I'd have paid the extra £2 or so (that I'd saved by shopping online) and gone direct to the GW store.

I understand GW prioritising the supply of stock to their own stores first, but to screw around the big independent sellers isn't good practice.

I'd probably shop with Wayland again, but not for GW products.

I've never pre-ordered from Wayland but I have used them several times to purchase Citadel and non-Citadel models and I've never had any problem with them.

Chrissy_J wrote:
The one and only thing I ordered from Wayland was delayed by about ten days because they were waiting on an overdue delivery from GW (it being a GW product I'd ordered.)

If I knew I'd have to wait so long for an online purchase to come I'd have paid the extra £2 or so (that I'd saved by shopping online) and gone direct to the GW store.

I understand GW prioritising the supply of stock to their own stores first, but to screw around the big independent sellers isn't good practice.

I'd probably shop with Wayland again, but not for GW products.

It worked though, didn't it?

Wayland? Never did get my zombie from them.

All in all though> they seem friendly enough in thier e mail adverts.

I bought a FoW army, making sure all of the items were listed as in stock as I wanted it to arrive reasonably quickly for an event. Heard good things about Wayland and gave them a go.

Turns out I had a months wait with no notification because none of it was in stock. Chap at the other end of the email line got a bit miffed when I pointed this out after making contact to find out where my stuff was. Parcel arrived a few days later.

This is a few years ago and I've never used them since, even when they've had supplies of stuff I was after which I couldn't find elsewhere.

In stock/Not in stock..............its not difficult, is it?

never had an issue with weyland but just because you pre order doesn't guarantee you get the stuff dispatched on release date. sometimes suppliers are slow, distribution isn't without its difficulties. sometimes you just get unlucky.

Used them a few times - once in person at the old 'store' and other mail orders. Got seriously hacked off after going into store, putting several hundred quid behind till and then got the guy in the warehouse barking at the till guy to stop talking to me and get out back - fine, but it cost them quite a lot more 'on the spot' sales as he was talking me into buying when I was in a splash the cash mood.

Stopped using them forever after they failed to deliver non GW products in time for xmas, despite loads of advance ordering and it showing as being in stock. Lied to me repeatedly about what was going on, messed up the refunds and took ages to do simple customer service.

Refuse to have anything to do with them again as in my experience they are utterly inept liars who don't want people in their physical store spending lots of money.

I bought a bunch of Mantic clearance items from them and they showed up within a week to the US. I was perfectly happy with them. A week from UK to USA isn't bad.

Wayland Games came through for me at the weekend, they a) had the Dwarf book in when I dropped by and b) have an echo-y games area that my two kids ran around screaming and generally enjoying the acoustics in for five minutes while I chatted stunties with the guys at the till.

Now some players might complain about that, me I call that good service.

I've spent a considerable amount with wayland in the last year or so. Quite a few £150-200 orders. So much so, I wish they had a loyalty scheme!

They can take a bit of time, particularly with gw stuff, which is frustrating, but they are generally the cheapest out there, and have a massive array of stuff on there.

Ordered some x-wing stuff last month, two separate orders, and both arrived within a couple of days.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
I bought a bunch of Mantic clearance items from them and they showed up within a week to the US. I was perfectly happy with them. A week from UK to USA isn't bad.

This was my own experience as well - also ordering Mantic clearance. Stuff that they actually have in stock seems to ship very fast.

Pre-orders... are dicier, especially with GW's current policies.

On the other hand, I have pre-ordered non-GW product from them with no problem. (Which may just meant that I am lucky, or that some companies are more accurate when guessing delivery dates than others.)

And anybody is better than New Wave.

The Auld Grump

*EDIT* Anybody else remember New Wave?

 Kroothawk wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

 Kroothawk wrote:

Nicky J wrote:
by this point i was pretty pissed off and just decided to cancel the order and get the item from my flgs (as the item was now released and in stock)

Trying to skrew you FLGS can be tough sometimes

Did you stop to consider that he may not have a FLGS? Showing a UK flag means that there's a higher than average chance he lives nowhere near any sort of independent store, or worse his only option is a GW.

Did you stop to actually read the post? He says he finally bought the item at his FLGS who sold it on release.
And there is no country on earth with a higher density of stores stocking GW products.

You're assuming it's a GW product there. He hasn't said yet what he ordered, unless I'm blind.

 -Loki- wrote:

 Kroothawk wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

 Kroothawk wrote:

Nicky J wrote:
by this point i was pretty pissed off and just decided to cancel the order and get the item from my flgs (as the item was now released and in stock)

Trying to skrew you FLGS can be tough sometimes

Did you stop to consider that he may not have a FLGS? Showing a UK flag means that there's a higher than average chance he lives nowhere near any sort of independent store, or worse his only option is a GW.

Did you stop to actually read the post? He says he finally bought the item at his FLGS who sold it on release.
And there is no country on earth with a higher density of stores stocking GW products.

You're assuming it's a GW product there. He hasn't said yet what he ordered, unless I'm blind.

no, dont think i did say anywhere what it was, but it was one of the new gw dwarves.

and krookhawk, i took your orig comment about screwing the flgs in the way it was intended - as a joke - thats what winking smileys are for, right?
i might be new to dakka, but i'm not new to forums

 Nicky J wrote:


no, dont think i did say anywhere what it was, but it was one of the new gw dwarves.

and krookhawk, i took your orig comment about screwing the flgs in the way it was intended - as a joke - thats what winking smileys are for, right?
i might be new to dakka, but i'm not new to forums

Which is precisely why GW mess around the independents supply lines. You bought it direct (I presume the local store was a GW one) and wayland still buy the one you were initially going to get.

This isnt new, the reason GW stores outnumber independents throughout the UK is because this is precisely how GW have operated from the mid 90's(usually combined with opening their own store, which did get everything launch day, on the same street), and they put an awful lot of local stores out of business doing it.

The notion GW have only recently become a ruthless profit at all costs enterprise always astounds me.

Rules of thumb with Wayland:

- if it says the item is in stock then you should be fine
- anything else, put the kettle on

I use them almost exclusively for buying my hobby supplies and when it's just paints and brushes I rarely wait more than a week.

I can confirm that Wayland Games orders require lots of patience. On my (few) past orders I had to wait between 1 and 5 weeks for stuff to arrive.

If and when they offer free shipping, I am usually OK with that.

However, my last order in 2013 (with zero GW products and no pre-orders) had not been shipped after 40 days and so after writing to them I opened up a Paypal case (I am burned child after what Maelstrom Games did).
Their response was that they would not send an order while a Paypal dispute was open.

I can understand that they want to protect themselves, but if I had closed that case, and for some reason or another they would not have managed to deliver, my money would have been gone for good - so it was my protection against theirs (due to their inability to deliver within 45 days, mind you!) and I declined and they cancelled the order and refunded the money. Fair is fair.

I made a new order 3 weeks ago, with all items "available" (this time I was sure to check). And I am still waiting...

In short, their communication and service is generally not a problem. You just CANNOT trust their availability indications - or their distribution agreements, apparently. No shop should need more than 40 days to get items back in stock in this day and age.

treslibras wrote:
I can understand that they want to protect themselves, but if I had closed that case, and for some reason or another they would not have managed to deliver, my money would have been gone for good - so it was my protection against theirs (due to their inability to deliver within 45 days, mind you!) and I declined and they cancelled the order and refunded the money. Fair is fair.

You made the right call. I've been shopping online for 10 years and I took a couple of losses for giving people the benefit of the doubt before I learned that once you give up Paypal protection, sellers just assume that you want them to keep the money and the goods! Maybe it's a UK cultural thing, I dunno.

I've only ordered once from them so far, and it did take a long time to get dispatched - hasn't arrived yet, though it's got a distance to come.

I have had more issues with Total Wargamer tbh - I'm not using them again.

One thing I need to look more closely at next time that I order is if I'd be better off just ordering direct from GW - they have free postage on orders over £40. The postage on an order can easily add up to more than the 10-20% you were supposedly saving from ordering from an independant - and it's likely to be faster delivery.

Hi all,

I just thought I would put up a post to try and answer some of the points raised and clear some things up.

As an independent retailer in the Wargames and miniatures market it can, at time be very difficult to get some items from some suppliers or manufacturers. Due to the nature of the market some manufacturers work on a small scale or have very limited warehouse space, so items have to be cast to order or have to wait while others are being cast. This combined with what can only be described as sparse information regarding product availability can cause delays. In an ideal world we would be able to manufacture items ourselves to stop these delays, as I'm sure you are all aware this is just not possible.

In regards to Games Workshop products we do place large pre-orders for almost all items that are being released as soon as we are able. We try to judge the quantity as best as we can, but sometimes, because of limited release information and the tight window of promotion available to us, the popularity of certain items can require us to order more in almost immediately. Our normal orders from Games Workshop are placed once a week (we are not permitted to place more than one order a week). There are items that are made unavailable to trade customers and at times we only find this out once they do not arrive in our orders.

We moved to a new, bigger warehouse two years ago which includes a huge gaming hall and shop, we have doubled our staffing level and improved our processes. I know we are not perfect and we can always improve. To anyone that has had a bad experience before I welcome you to try us again and contact us if they have any problems or questions at all. We will always be open and honest with you. I appreciate that if you are not happy with the reasons for delays, or it does seem possible you may think that we are lying but I promise you we will never lie.

There are a few product availability statuses, as we offer over 26,000 products, if we listed them as out of stock they would never be ordered, even though we do receive and ship out well over 95% of them in the typical 3-9 working days advertised. The Two main statuses we use are, ✔ Available (Typically Ships in 3-9 Working Days) this means the item is available for us to order and are normally shipped out within this time frame. If a product is listed as ✔ Available (‘X’ Ready to Ship!) that means we have the stated number of that product available in our warehouse. A full list of our product statuses can be found on our FAQ page here http://www.waylandgames.co.uk/faq/info_6.html

Regards
Jake @ Wayland

I've just cancelled a couple of orders as the 9 days passed and I've got an email from them today which says it will probably be another week, I will get the items elsewhere this time, though I do appreciate the 9 day mail being sent.

As mentioned previously, if you are willing to wait to prices are often very good.

I have previously purchased products and been very happy with the service from Wayland however my most recent purchase will be the last.
After waiting 10 working days I contacted Wayland via their online chat only to be informed that my order may take yet another week to complete:-
Order placed February 4th (1 item marked as available ship immediately, 3 items marked as available 3-9 working days)
Contacted Wayland February 19th (10 working days after placement of order)
Informed that stock delivery due 19th hadn't arrived and when it did there would still be a chance that my order would not be a part of the shipment.
Informed during same chat that next stock shipment is due 26th February and another on 28th February.
When I informed the rep that I would cancel if my order was not a part of the 28th February stock delivery he replied that it would be understandable and for the best (28th February marks 19 working days after order placed)

I ordered through Wayland due to an inability to find a Foxtrot Ranger (sniper) via eBay and made the order larger to reduce shipping costs.
I believe that if the stock levels contained more accurate information (ie may take in excess of 15 working days) I would have tried harder to locate the Ranger through other stores even if it meant paying a premium.
As such I will no longer be a customer of Wayland and will no longer recommend their store to friends.

Foxfyre wrote:
I have previously purchased products and been very happy with the service from Wayland however my most recent purchase will be the last.
After waiting 10 working days I contacted Wayland via their online chat only to be informed that my order may take yet another week to complete:-
Order placed February 4th (1 item marked as available ship immediately, 3 items marked as available 3-9 working days)
Contacted Wayland February 19th (10 working days after placement of order)
Informed that stock delivery due 19th hadn't arrived and when it did there would still be a chance that my order would not be a part of the shipment.
Informed during same chat that next stock shipment is due 26th February and another on 28th February.
When I informed the rep that I would cancel if my order was not a part of the 28th February stock delivery he replied that it would be understandable and for the best (28th February marks 19 working days after order placed)

I ordered through Wayland due to an inability to find a Foxtrot Ranger (sniper) via eBay and made the order larger to reduce shipping costs.
I believe that if the stock levels contained more accurate information (ie may take in excess of 15 working days) I would have tried harder to locate the Ranger through other stores even if it meant paying a premium.
As such I will no longer be a customer of Wayland and will no longer recommend their store to friends.

I have no financial motivation or otherwise to defend Wayland, but I have run a small business, much smaller than WG, and I do sympathise with their position.

I will simply ask this question,
"if your business relies on buying from a manufacturer/wholesaler/distributor and selling to a customer, and the person you're buying stock from gives you assurances over timescales, availability etc and let's you down, what do you do?"

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Your experience is pretty normal for Wayland.

Example: I placed an order with them on Jan 30th, all items listed as Available. I got the dispatch notice today.

Delivered yesterday and incomplete with a note saying that the rest is "to follow."

This after taking 18 days to dispatch in the first place

An apology or update would be nice, just an informative email stating that unforseen issues have arisen and the order may take longer than anticipated.
3-9 days is a reasonable window and of course I have no complaints having placed an order with items having that window. Exceeding that by a week (5 working days) is understandable, problems arise all the time but exceeding it by a fortnight (10 working days) with no news is worrying. Even moreso when there is further uncertainty on fulfilling the order within that exceeded fortnight.
I'm sure anyone'd be hard pressed to sell items if they were advertised as Available (3-9 working days but could be 21+ working days).

I'm not saying there's a solution, I'm not even saying I don't sympathise but sympathy is hard earned when they have my money and I have nothing to show for it.

 azreal13 wrote:

"if your business relies on buying from a manufacturer/wholesaler/distributor and selling to a customer, and the person you're buying stock from gives you assurances over timescales, availability etc and let's you down, what do you do?"

Stop selling stock you don't have?

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

"if your business relies on buying from a manufacturer/wholesaler/distributor and selling to a customer, and the person you're buying stock from gives you assurances over timescales, availability etc and let's you down, what do you do?"

Stop selling stock you don't have?

A splendid idea in a vacuum.

 Grot 6 wrote:
Wayland? Never did get my zombie from them.

All in all though> they seem friendly enough in thier e mail adverts.

We only sent out around 8000 of them. However about 200 came back with incorrect addresses, and any that registered multiple times at the same address or all the houses etc down the same road were deleted too, there were quite a few people who tried to get a free army of Zombies by registering their entire street


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Foxfyre wrote:
An apology or update would be nice, just an informative email stating that unforseen issues have arisen and the order may take longer than anticipated.
3-9 days is a reasonable window and of course I have no complaints having placed an order with items having that window. Exceeding that by a week (5 working days) is understandable, problems arise all the time but exceeding it by a fortnight (10 working days) with no news is worrying. Even moreso when there is further uncertainty on fulfilling the order within that exceeded fortnight.
I'm sure anyone'd be hard pressed to sell items if they were advertised as Available (3-9 working days but could be 21+ working days).

I'm not saying there's a solution, I'm not even saying I don't sympathise but sympathy is hard earned when they have my money and I have nothing to show for it.

The thing is emails are sent out when there are delays. Despite reading here, a massive overwhelming proportion of orders ship in the advertised timescales, and many same day. However, where we don't know when an purchase order will arrive to restock and we are relying on a third party to tell us, would you prefer we pass on inaccurate information and promise a date or pass on in many cases vague information? Some will castigate us for one approach some the other.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Your experience is pretty normal for Wayland.

Example: I placed an order with them on Jan 30th, all items listed as Available. I got the dispatch notice today.

Delivered yesterday and incomplete with a note saying that the rest is "to follow."

This after taking 18 days to dispatch in the first place

Hmm, apologies, we know waiting for stuff is frustrating. I don't know your specific order. But I know exactly what will have happened. One of our staff will have viewed your order and for the item that was not available made a judgement that you had waited long enough and split your order with the rest to follow asap.

We have a system limitation, as ideally on a split you should receive one email, with an invoice with a section on the same document to detail what was to follow, a reason and estimated delay.

We are moving to yet another Order management system/ERP in the next few months which will grant is more flexibility.

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?

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.

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?

Indeed. Games Workshop has been waging a war on the indy-stores (freeloaders, as they call them) for years now. They would much rather see you pay full retail price at their own webshop than get a slight discount elsewhere.

I disagree. When something is in stock, it is listed as in stock, with the number of units they have. If it's not in stock, it is listed as either available or unavailable, depending on, well, availability...

Seems clear enough to me.

 Eggs wrote:
I disagree. When something is in stock, it is listed as in stock, with the number of units they have. If it's not in stock, it is listed as either available or unavailable, depending on, well, availability...

Seems clear enough to me.

^this

Available just means they can get them in from GW, not that it's in their stock. Usually this is items that are not commonly sold (HQ's, vehicles, etc) I presume.

 Eggs wrote:
I disagree. When something is in stock, it is listed as in stock, with the number of units they have. If it's not in stock, it is listed as either available or unavailable, depending on, well, availability...

Seems clear enough to me.

Not entirely clear to me, I must admit.

As I see it, you either have a product available for order (though with a delay if you don't have it stocked) or you don't have it on your webpage.

Perhaps it's just that English is not my native language, but when I see "available" I think "in stock and ready to ship". If it was not, then I would expect there to be an "no stock currently available - x days delivery" marker instead.

Of course, once you've gotten used to Wayland's shop it starts to make a bit more sense. But I can understand why people might find it confusing at first.

f2k wrote:
As I see it, you either have a product available for order (though with a delay if you don't have it stocked) or you don't have it on your webpage.

This exactly. The reason "Available" is silly is because why would you list things the customer cannot purchase?
So really you should have 2 stock levels - In Stock, or Out of Stock. You could be nice and put Backorder for things that are Out of Stock that someone has ordered as well.

I have been ordering the new dwarf releases from wayland, since well... you get a 40% discount comparing my Swedish stores.

I've recived good customer service, the only thing that irks me is the delay for shipping.
First order was 6 days and now the second order is 7 Days and encounting.
But, as long as it is within their specified amount of time (9 Days) I find it acceptable.

If they breach that timeframe im gonna drop them like a bag of rocks.

 Nicky J wrote:
Over a week later I had heard nothing from them...

Had heard nothing to let me know what was going on.

Heard nothing back from them today.

Personally I found this to be the most annoying issue when dealing with Wayland, and the thing that had the most negative impact on my level of satisfaction.

I think that I (along with most other people) understand that delays happen, and am willing to forgive and wait patiently for an order. However! that is only the case when I know what is going on and feel I'm being kept in the loop.

In my dealings with Wayland, I often had this uneasy feeling that I had just been forgotten about, or that there was some huge problem with my order that they weren't telling me about, or that they just weren't interested in sorting out my order and were going to make me wait indefinitely, or that it had been lost in the post weeks ago and I just didn't know.

I'm not saying any of this is true, but when you don't hear anything it is disconcerting. I don't want to have to keep raising a ticket just to reassure myself that Wayland hasn't forgotten about me, or that they care about my order. I would like them to at least 'seem' like they are doing everything they can to get my order out. Maybe they are, but when I don't hear anything I just imagine them goofing off and generally being incompetent and it makes me feel angry.

Just wanted to post an update.

I mentioned a couple of days ago I was waiting on Dropzone stock.

I have since been contacted directly and explained that the delay was due to there being a new rulebook coming out and I have been automatically upgraded to get that.

So while it would have been nice to know this sooner, I can hardly blame Wayland for it, I should have done my research and worked it out for myself too.

Still happy with the communication and looking forward to buying more from Wayland when the shipping to NZ isn't insane (again, not Waylands fault, NZ is pretty isolated).

 Smacks wrote:

 Nicky J wrote:
Over a week later I had heard nothing from them...

Had heard nothing to let me know what was going on.

Heard nothing back from them today.

Personally I found this to be the most annoying issue when dealing with Wayland, and the thing that had the most negative impact on my level of satisfaction.

I think that I (along with most other people) understand that delays happen, and am willing to forgive and wait patiently for an order. However! that is only the case when I know what is going on and feel I'm being kept in the loop.

In my dealings with Wayland, I often had this uneasy feeling that I had just been forgotten about, or that there was some huge problem with my order that they weren't telling me about, or that they just weren't interested in sorting out my order and were going to make me wait indefinitely, or that it had been lost in the post weeks ago and I just didn't know.

I'm not saying any of this is true, but when you don't hear anything it is disconcerting. I don't want to have to keep raising a ticket just to reassure myself that Wayland hasn't forgotten about me, or that they care about my order. I would like them to at least 'seem' like they are doing everything they can to get my order out. Maybe they are, but when I don't hear anything I just imagine them goofing off and generally being incompetent and it makes me feel angry.

I get the impression that you fellers are emailing Wayland, why not call them?

Emails while instantaneous in delivery are not differant than traditional mail; if there lots it needs to be cleared. Call and get imediate answers. I often call them (mostly to check availability before driving there) and the Wayland team are always very helpful.

To dismiss their staff as incompetent is wildly inaccurate and the diametric opposite of all my experiences using Wayland. Hell I can't think of any other companies that regularly post on forums to deal with issues raised.

Ranor wrote:

 Eggs wrote:
I disagree. When something is in stock, it is listed as in stock, with the number of units they have. If it's not in stock, it is listed as either available or unavailable, depending on, well, availability...

Seems clear enough to me.

^this

Available just means they can get them in from GW, not that it's in their stock. Usually this is items that are not commonly sold (HQ's, vehicles, etc) I presume.

We generally have a lot more stock than indicated, we have on site on average at any point over the last year nearly £750,000 of stock at cost price. Its just its allocated to orders already. If there is a specific number then there is unallocated stock available that if ordered should dispatch by the next day. We do have stock errors, but they are a very small % of the items we stock. An item might have been picked wrongly or put away in the wrong place. Mistakes do and will always happen, especially where only a fraction of the items in this industry do not have proper product codes or barcodes.

 Eggs wrote:
I disagree. When something is in stock, it is listed as in stock, with the number of units they have. If it's not in stock, it is listed as either available or unavailable, depending on, well, availability...

Seems clear enough to me.

Its funny, but I would have thought this too. Only I ordered FoW stuff that was all listed as "in stock" making sure to only select "in stock" items as I wanted them quickly and NONE of them were actually in stock!

rich1231 wrote:

Ranor wrote:

 Eggs wrote:
I disagree. When something is in stock, it is listed as in stock, with the number of units they have. If it's not in stock, it is listed as either available or unavailable, depending on, well, availability...

Seems clear enough to me.

^this

Available just means they can get them in from GW, not that it's in their stock. Usually this is items that are not commonly sold (HQ's, vehicles, etc) I presume.

We generally have a lot more stock than indicated, we have on site on average at any point over the last year nearly £750,000 of stock at cost price. Its just its allocated to orders already. If there is a specific number then there is unallocated stock available that if ordered should dispatch by the next day. We do have stock errors, but they are a very small % of the items we stock. An item might have been picked wrongly or put away in the wrong place. Mistakes do and will always happen, especially where only a fraction of the items in this industry do not have proper product codes or barcodes.

If it's allocated to orders already I'd say it's slightly disingenuous to call it "stock".
Or do you mean the allocated stuff doesn't make an item show up as "In Stock"? If that's the case then never mind.

 notprop wrote:

I get the impression that you fellers are emailing Wayland, why not call them?

Emails while instantaneous in delivery are not differant than traditional mail; if there lots it needs to be cleared. Call and get imediate answers. I often call them (mostly to check availability before driving there) and the Wayland team are always very helpful.

To dismiss their staff as incompetent is wildly inaccurate and the diametric opposite of all my experiences using Wayland. Hell I can't think of any other companies that regularly post on forums to deal with issues raised.

Calling isn't always an option. Wayland like many companies operate their phone lines during normal hours of business which also coincide with any working individual's hours of employment plus travel. I actually find the Wayland staff to be some of the best I've dealt with and I cannot fault their customer service once I get in touch with them, but it's the getting in touch with them that's part of the issue. Once I place an order I expect the company to process that order without me sitting over their shoulder badgering them about the status of said order. Once the window of time to be expected has been exceeded with no information then people will start to feel uneasy even more so if the item they ordered is marked 'Available'. A simple rule should be that unless you can pick an item off the shelf and drop it in a box or are otherwise expecting the item to be delivered in a forthcoming stock delivery (within 7 days) then the item isn't 'Available' it's 'Available to Order (typically 7-21 working days)'.

What most are asking for is an email update should the expected time window elapse (ie. order not dispatched/arrived at Wayland within 3-9 working days) and from Rich's answers and request this seems to be an issue with their automated email system.

I will say that since my previous post my order was confirmed to have arrived at Wayland and I received it the next working day (thanks Rich for sending the parcel via next day, it was very much appreciated).

So after 2 weeks of waiting for wayland to ship me dwarfs im officially done with them. Isnt there a reliable EU based webstore out there?

Dark sphere was mentioned, so maybe a alternative?

 Bla_Ze wrote:
So after 2 weeks of waiting for wayland to ship me dwarfs im officially done with them. Isnt there a reliable EU based webstore out there?

Dark sphere was mentioned, so maybe a alternative?

Nothing but good things from Triple Helix and Element games here, more limited choice and still takes a while but it got here.

 Bla_Ze wrote:
So after 2 weeks of waiting for wayland to ship me dwarfs im officially done with them. Isnt there a reliable EU based webstore out there?

Dark sphere was mentioned, so maybe a alternative?

Surely this isn't possible - you were of course emailed about the delay, right?

I've just received an email telling me that the order for some bases I placed almost twelve days ago is not actually in stock right now, and that sadly, this means I won't be receiving my item within the usual 3-9 working days.

I can't say I'm impressed. Considering I need these for Adepticon, I'm genuinely hoping that they arrive on time.

Ranor wrote:

 Bla_Ze wrote:
So after 2 weeks of waiting for wayland to ship me dwarfs im officially done with them. Isnt there a reliable EU based webstore out there?

Dark sphere was mentioned, so maybe a alternative?

Nothing but good things from Triple Helix and Element games here, more limited choice and still takes a while but it got here.

Another for Triple Helix here.

 Bla_Ze wrote:
So after 2 weeks of waiting for wayland to ship me dwarfs im officially done with them. Isnt there a reliable EU based webstore out there?

Dark sphere was mentioned, so maybe a alternative?

Troll Trader. But then they don't stock GW, so this advice may be of zero use to you.

Hi Guys Jake from Wayland here.

Just to clarify some points here.

As we are not a manufacturer we do have to reply upon a supply chain for items to fulfil orders. Sometimes Restrictions in Trade Terms, production delays or even items having to wait to clear customs can cause delays. Unfortunately if this does happen then your orders may be delayed. We do work closely with manufacturers and suppliers to minimise these delays, but they can still happen. It's not a perfect system and to be honest I don't think it ever will be, but we do everything in our power to make this as flawless as possible.

The automated email system is there to keep you up to date with your order. We feel it is better, as I am sure everyone would agree, to keep customers updated instead of letting them feel like they are sitting in the dark. We always welcome being contacted regarding orders, to either remove items to speed up the delivery or just to ask what items are missing. We will always do out best to answer any question as quickly and efficiently as possible.

I welcome anyone to contact us if they have a question regarding their order.
http://waylandgames.freshdesk.com/support/home

Regards
Jake

If the automated email service doesn't respond to tell me items are not in stock until nearly a fortnight after the order has been placed, it's a pretty poor system.

 Ketara wrote:
If the automated email service doesn't respond to tell me items are not in stock until nearly a fortnight after the order has been placed, it's a pretty poor system.

Yup. Simply hiding behind a third party email system (and making literally impossible claims) is clouding the already annoying issue about how they tag things available or not.

Clearly if something doesn't meet the 3-9 day window it should be changed to unavailable, right? Are those bases still listed as available?

 Ketara wrote:
If the automated email service doesn't respond to tell me items are not in stock until nearly a fortnight after the order has been placed, it's a pretty poor system.

The automatic email system will email you once the advised nine working days has passed. Within that timeframe we would still fully expect to be able to get the product out to you. We are looking at improving our communication even further by having the email let you know exactly what items are missing from your order.

rigeld2 wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
If the automated email service doesn't respond to tell me items are not in stock until nearly a fortnight after the order has been placed, it's a pretty poor system.

Yup. Simply hiding behind a third party email system (and making literally impossible claims) is clouding the already annoying issue about how they tag things available or not.

Clearly if something doesn't meet the 3-9 day window it should be changed to unavailable, right? Are those bases still listed as available?

If an item has not been delivered to us by our suppliers within the usual 3-9 working days it does not meant that it is unavailable, it has simply been delayed and the customer would have been sent an email to that effect. If an item is no longer in production or has been discontinued this is when it will be set to unavailable. Also any customer that is affected by an item becoming unavailable will be emailed directly and an alternative or refund provided.

Take the painted river set by Pegasus Hobbies for example. We do not currently have that product in our warehouse so it is not listed as Available (X Ready to Ship!). Not only that but it has to arrive via quite a convoluted supply chain and so is not set as Available (Typically ships in 3-9 working days) either. Instead we have given it the Special Order Item (Shipping Times May Vary) indicator.

We really do try and make things as clear to customers as we can, and yet even in this thread we have claims that things were listed as 'In Stock'. That description is not one we use. The closest to 'In Stock' would be the Available (X Ready to Ship!) which tells you we have available stock in our warehouse. But such is the quality of our supply chain and the excellent relationships we have with most of our suppliers that the Available (Typically ships in 3-9 working days) is in many cases just as reliable an indicator. This is evidenced by the hundreds of orders we pack and ship daily to our many satisfied customers.

We actively get involved in forums because this is the place that a vocal minority wish to communicate their thoughts (both positive and negative). But don't confuse the handful of commentators here as being a proportionate sample of our customers as a whole or we would have suffered the same fate as Maelstrom long ago.

We are one of the largest tabletop games retailers in the world and with that comes a responsibility to strive to improve the customer experience. By working hard to connect with our customers and being open and honest about learning from mistakes we have made, we aim to do just that. If this industry proves one thing, its that arrogance and complacency are guaranteed one way tickets to misfortune.

Regards
Jake @ Wayland

 Jake-Wayland wrote:
Take the painted river set by Pegasus Hobbies for example. We do not currently have that product in our warehouse so it is not listed as Available (X Ready to Ship!). Not only that but it has to arrive via quite a convoluted supply chain and so is not set as Available (Typically ships in 3-9 working days) either. Instead we have given it the Special Order Item (Shipping Times May Vary) indicator.

Even if it's a direct supply chain, how many times does the 3-9 working day (two week) window have to be missed for a specific product before it slips from Available to Special Order (which, in reality, is what all of the 3-9 day products are)?

We actively get involved in forums because this is the place that a vocal minority wish to communicate their thoughts (both positive and negative). But don't confuse the handful of commentators here as being a proportionate sample of our customers as a whole or we would have suffered the same fate as Maelstrom long ago.

Oh, I'm not. At all. Never said that. The fact that you're in business shows that the forums are a vocal minority.
That doesn't mean that I should just let silly things like your stock status and literally impossible email claims pass by though.

I think a lot of the frustration is that buying things listed as Available (regardless of the caveats) shouldn't be a gamble, and right now it is.
You have no idea when it's going to arrive at Wayland so the 3-9 working days is a "best guess" and a consumer has to just hope.
To me, that's dishonest. Not in a "Steal all the monies!" way, so please don't take it like that.

rigeld2 wrote:

We actively get involved in forums because this is the place that a vocal minority wish to communicate their thoughts (both positive and negative). But don't confuse the handful of commentators here as being a proportionate sample of our customers as a whole or we would have suffered the same fate as Maelstrom long ago.

Oh, I'm not. At all. Never said that. The fact that you're in business shows that the forums are a vocal minority.
That doesn't mean that I should just let silly things like your stock status and literally impossible email claims pass by though.

I think a lot of the frustration is that buying things listed as Available (regardless of the caveats) shouldn't be a gamble, and right now it is.
You have no idea when it's going to arrive at Wayland so the 3-9 working days is a "best guess" and a consumer has to just hope.
To me, that's dishonest. Not in a "Steal all the monies!" way, so please don't take it like that.

The 3-9 Working days is not a best guess, though you may seem that way, It is based on Sales Data and experience from thousands of previous orders and transactions. We aim to keep a standing stock of all main and most popular ranges, we would love to have the space and funds to keep everything in stock at all time. As this is not possible the typically ships in 3-9 workings days status is required.

We do not aim to be dishonest in any way, and feel that we are one of, if not the most approachable and open company in this market. Again if anyone has any questions regarding their order, we welcome them to contact our helpdesk system (http://waylandgames.freshdesk.com/support/home) and we will be happy to answer them as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Regards
Jake @ Wayland

I've had pretty good experience with Wayland. I recently had to make a couple of arrangements regarding my order with the customer service, and they were responded the next day and handled well.

If I'd make some suggestions, Wayland could be a bit more active in splitting the order in two packages if some of the stuff is delayed. I faced the situation that half of my order was in stock, while other half was delayed over the usual 3-9 days. I'd also like to see 'usual stocking delay' per manufacturer, as mentioned for GW in this thread. For example, FoW has experienced some stock supply issues lately, so it would be nice to see what can be expected and if there's a situation that's unusual.

Also, thanks to Wayland staff for taking time to answer questions on a forum such as this, I'm always happy to see there's communication between staff and customer base.

 Jake-Wayland wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
If the automated email service doesn't respond to tell me items are not in stock until nearly a fortnight after the order has been placed, it's a pretty poor system.

The automatic email system will email you once the advised nine working days has passed. Within that timeframe we would still fully expect to be able to get the product out to you. We are looking at improving our communication even further by having the email let you know exactly what items are missing from your order.

I'm sorry Jake. It's still poor customer service however you put it. Why? Because in a nutshell, it took you a week and a half after taking my money to tell me that you do not have the goods that I have just bought from you, and informed me of this in a highly impersonal way. It's as simple as that. Allow me to illustrate a similar experience I had with one of your competitors, Dark Sphere. About a year ago, I ordered a batch of GW Imperial Guard kits from them. Four days later, I had a polite gentleman ring me up, and tell me that half of my order was not in stock. He apologised profusely for the inconvenience, and gave me a range of options. He asked me if I wanted them to ship out what they had now and the rest later, ship it all together, or for them to refund me for what they did not have at the time.

I chose to wait for the whole batch, but I was a happy customer. Why? Because I was kept informed, the business seemed to care about retaining my custom, and I got offered a choice of ways to resolve the situation to my satisfaction. Comparatively speaking, Wayland has so far waited a week and a half, and then sent me an automated email.

Now this might be a one off, and so I've placed a second order with you chaps for roughly the same value as the first (around the sixty pound mark each). I'm interested to see if I hit the same snag. If so, I'll just order elsewhere in future, and will recommend to my friends that they do the same. Having said that, I do appreciate you engaging with me here on this Jake, but unfortunately, in the world of commerce, actions speak louder than words. Hopefully my second order will come through fast and with no problems, and then I can post to that effect.

Although I am planning on using my stuff over at Adepticon, so if I'm unable to get it dispatched within the next week or so, I'll simply have to cancel my order, request a refund, and buy elsewhere.

Excellent and speedy dispatch of items to the great white north! I ordered from them some Perry Mini's and some Hasslefree, no problems however a day later Wayland had a Heavy Gear sale, and I could NOT miss that one!
They ship fast and package well [A+++ and all that], both orders arrived within 2-3 days of each other + customs fee's for the Heavy Gear because the post office thought I was greedy, oops.

I find the store easy to navigate, excluding that stupid, GIGANTIC! drop-down menu that I always accidentally open, which blocks my view of what I'm looking at or even worse, makes me click on something that I don't want to.
Otherwise, they're great.

I previously posted in this thread with a rather positive leaning opinion of Wayland Games, but as I've just been told that having waited several months for a weekend based event till February at its gaming branch, only to be to told it was postponed to this weekend, and then have it postponed with no new date listed and with no explanation, I am extremely disappointed with Wayland.

The issue I have also extends to the fact that the managing of the event before it occurred was a joke - there was no PDF, only an event description with a basic outline of the overly complicated and unusual principle behind the campaign, missing information that is practically mandatory for running an event, such as the full extent of the permissions - for instance, there was no comment on whether data slates were allowed, and I only found out they weren't after I received a reply quite some time after I asked.

This is the second part of the event. You can see how poor the information is given quite clearly.

http://tabletopnation.simpletix.com/EventDetails/103/Time/91/

Your will need to bring your own troops; each army should consist of primary force of 1,500 points, with a secondary/reserve force of another 1,500 points.

From this you would never ascertain that all losses were permanent, and that all models in the secondary force would be rolled for to join the first - this is unexplained, and not well thought out, since there is no clause telling you that you can't exploit this to add a unit from the reserve force of greater points than what was lost, for example.

And call me blind and stupid, but 2-3 months ago I failed to attend a Kill Team event because at no point in the entire event description (essentially copy and pasted from GW's PDF) or event title was the 3 letter abbreviation "SAT" for saturday, or the word itself. Because of immense stress from unrelated circumstances at the time I then went on to miss the event, having fabricated the misconception that it was on a sunday on the same weekend instead.

There's another one right here with a duplicate description as well, to illustrate that I am not kidding.

http://tabletopnation.simpletix.com/EventDetails/108/Time/96/

At no point in the description does it tell you the day, just the date.

Frankly this is unacceptable.

You are correct OP, fayland games are indeed literally useless.

The delivery times are just terrible. I have made 3 orders with this company, each time I payed more for delivery than from most other retailers. The order took at least half a month to come. I particular my last order was made on 24th December and came on 24th man, both items in it were in stock at fayland. I currently have an order made last week that the shop appears to have no interest in sending me.

Wayland appears to have done away with giving the customer real information about what is in stock and what is not. For a brief time, they had information about whether or not a given product was in stock.

I've worked with inventory management systems and know how easily things go wrong and numbers get out of whack. So I get the challenges involved.

The problem is that once you have a delayed order or two, you learn that you only ever want to order what is in stock. So now without any confirmation that Wayland actually has the product, how can I place an order with any confidence?

It's entirely possible that 99%+ orders ship within 9 business days, but once you are one of the 1% and have a delayed order you totally and completely lose confidence that "✔ Available (Typically ships in 3-9 working days)" means anything at all.

So how do other online stores list their in stock products?

War Store:
Regular Stock, Usually Ships in 1 Business Day.
Out of Stock, watch the site for new availability

Miniature Market:
Quantity In Stock: X

Troll Trader:
New, X in Stock

Triple Helix:
No stock information whatsoever :(

Dark Sphere:
Regularly Stocked (1-5 days)
Ordered in (2-7 days)

Seeing other companies have specific numbers or at least honestly telling you when they have to order it in makes me cringe when I read "✔ Available (Typically ships in 3-9 working days)". It's become a meaningless statement that gives me no information about whether or not Wayland actually has the product.

Literally, It's not meaningless.

Literally literally seems to have no longer have a meaning to some.

Why do you not have the same issue with the Warstore? They either usually ship in 1 day or don't have it (this was a better example to use literally with btw).

I think the internet is broken....that or some people will moan about anything. It's literally one thing or the other.






(Guess what one word I think is over used all the time and has become somewhat of a bugbear )

I'm sorry your pedantry over one word got in the way of your engaging with my post. I'll edit it out and you can try again.

Getting so worked up about me using a word in the way you didn't like also seemed to have caused you to miss the key distinction for The War Store. They have one status that tells me it is in stock and will ship the next business day and another that tells me it won't.

The War Store consistently delivers and Wayland doesn't. The War Store can promise next day shipping and actually ship the next day. This is a perfect illustration of the difference. Wayland wants to imply that they have it in stock to induce me to order and then hope they get it in before I wonder why it hasn't shipped yet. The War Store has got their inventory and shipping figured out to the point that they can confidently say which items are actually on site and will ship the next day.

Same with Troll Trader and Miniature Market, Discount Games Store and Discount Games Inc and many others.

These threads about Wayland pop up here for a reason. People aren't getting their orders in the time frame they were told they would and feel like they were deceived about the stock status of the order.

.

In my experience, Wayland Games has been garbage for years. Since I found Dark Sphere I've never had cause to go back to them. When DS stopped mailing briefly (they started again now) I found Triple Helix. Both beat Wayland in every meaningful way

 Davylove21 wrote:
Both beat Wayland in every meaningful way

Meaningful according to your specific metrics. I've just looked at both and Triple Helix have a pitifully small range that barely covers anything I'd want to buy (literally just paints and maybe some Perry stuff), and whilst Dark Sphere is better there are still a few gaps where I'd have to go and order from Wayland/Troll Trader anyway, so might as well just do that.

I've just had a notification that my Warmachine Cyriss tokens have been despatched, I ordered them last weekend, well within the 9 working day day turn around.

I think people are expecting too much, I mean, Wayland offer far larger range of products than quite a lot of other companies out there. They seem to be a hell of a lot bigger than Dark Sphere, so of course you're going to get a more personal touch from a store that doesn't handle anywhere near the amount of orders.

For Wayland to hold 'x amount' of stock for each individual item is insane, that's so much "dead money" just sitting on shelves, it isn't a good way to run a business.

I'm only going off my own experience of working in a store that ran online sales, I set it all up and yeh, buying loads of stock in would be ideal if companies like GW didn't want their invoice within 30 days, regardless of how much you've sold.

I've had issues with Wayland before but they're on the products that were most in demand, like the new Tau units and the x-wing minis.

I can see both sides of the story but if I'm getting stuff at a discount, I can't complain too much at any slight delays.

I have used all the major players in the online discount store market and experienced issues from time to time with all of them. The main issue is that we are all a bit spoiled really these days and expect every web vendor to provide an Amazon-like experience without stopping to consider that Amazon are able to provide that service because they have billions sunk into their business and infrastructure.

Wayland remain one of my personal choices for wargaming supplies simply due to the fact that they offer such a wide range of products in one place. I don't necessarily expect and nor does it necessarily follow that ordering stuff online means it will arrive within 1 or 2 working days. It's annoying to have to wait; and I hate it just as much as the next person, but it is a fact of life with any web retailer. The fact that person A ordered something from Dark Sphere and that arrived quickly doesn't mean that Dark Sphere are any better - it could juts have easily been that the particular item was in stock or the order was placed in synchronicity with a restock.

Most people aren't complaining here about shipping times.
They're complaining about the perception that "Available" gives them vs the reality that it might not even ship for two weeks, and you won't know until it either ships or the two weeks is up.

You give me $20. I tell you that the thing you want is available - just wait for it. 5 days later - no communication. 10 days later, I finally tell you it'll be another 10 days before I can even send your thing, regardless of how long it'll actually take to ship. A the initial estimate of 3-9 working days plus shipping has about doubled and you weren't aware until it was far "too late".

Even an email the next day to say "yes, this is in the warehouse" or "we ordered the part, era of blah" or "we must wait to order this part until blah" would go over massively better than the status quo.

Just my opinion.

 stubacca wrote:
I

I think people are expecting too much, I mean, Wayland offer far larger range of products than quite a lot of other companies out there. .

Quantity does not equal quality.

 sing your life wrote:

 stubacca wrote:
I

I think people are expecting too much, I mean, Wayland offer far larger range of products than quite a lot of other companies out there. .

Quantity does not equal quality.

And also, with such a large amount of products, you'd expect a much more organised stock tracking system to be used.

Problem is with Wayland they claim a lot but don't always deliver what they say - just look at what they've said about Salute "representing" companies on their stand when they are only selling the products and maybe doing a demo - the actual representatives are at other stands at Salute as well!! That's a PR disaster waiting to happen. They should only claim what they can actually do especially for shipping and stock - not make claims to big themselves up when they are only going to disappoint people on th day

 sing your life wrote:

 stubacca wrote:
I

I think people are expecting too much, I mean, Wayland offer far larger range of products than quite a lot of other companies out there. .

Quantity does not equal quality.

I read that in Banes voice:p

 SoulDrinker wrote:
Problem is with Wayland they claim a lot but don't always deliver what they say - just look at what they've said about Salute "representing" companies on their stand when they are only selling the products and maybe doing a demo - the actual representatives are at other stands at Salute as well!! That's a PR disaster waiting to happen. They should only claim what they can actually do especially for shipping and stock - not make claims to big themselves up when they are only going to disappoint people on th day

SoulDrinker, not sure who you've been speaking with (maybe your contacts are a little out of date) but Knight Models, Privateer Press, and Corvus Belli are indeed with us for Salute. You should have saved yourself several phone calls and emails and just asked us.

Although we originally hoped to have some of our friends from Corvus Belli to be with us on the day, travel commitments have meant that the studio guys couldn't be with us this year, so they and their buddies at Bandua have sent in their place some of their gorgeous studio painted minis to showcase as well as some of their fantastic terrain to play on. We also have the game designers sending us some cool goodies to give away on the day. You won't be disappointed!

Knight Models (who we distribute for) are sending one of their main guys to spend the day with us chatting to customers about the coolness that is Batman the Miniatures game as well as discussing all the other fantastic miniatures they offer. We have a range of demos of the game using their stunning miniatures and terrain too, so quite an experience!

Privateer are being represented by Wayland again this year (as we successfully did last year too) with a whole bunch of demos and brilliant offers to get players (new and old) really excited about Hordes and Warmachine.

But you are right we aren't just doing what we claimed... We're doing more!

We also have the guys at Esdevium Games with us running some board game demos and showcasing some great card games and party games too - to really get you buzzing.

We hope to have some surprises on the day from the guys at Spartan Games along with demos of the amazing Firestorm Armada as well as some great offers on getting started (Zenian League all the way of course!)

Finally our friends from Battlefront will be showing off the brilliant new Dust Tactics game at the show and we'll be keen to show off the whole range available at show stopping value (the new starter sets are terrific).

So no false claims (we're far too professional for that) - just lots of exciting hobby activity and a great opportunity to meet up with like-minded gamers. If you're an Infinity, Batman, Spartan, Warmachine, Hordes or boardgames fan, make Wayland's stand the place to meet up and chat - you can't miss us, we're the biggest (and we hope friendliest) stand at the show, just over from our old friends at SMG.

Stuart

I realise we've spoken on this subject before, but if you'd indulge me I think it might be useful in this conversation for me to go over some points if I may.

It is a challenge running a hugely successful business in the wargaming and tabletop hobby world - especially when you get to the size we are at Wayland Games (Europe's largest independent retailer in the industry). This is made more difficult when online behemoths such as Amazon are able to give a distorted set of expectations to customers as to when an order would be delivered. Amazon and their like are massive. Compared to our industry they have a degree of sophistication and logistical support that could swallow all of the major companies involved in wargaming in the blink of an eye. The only company that comes close to them in terms of size is Games Workshop, but then you are comparing a 200 million dollar business with a 70+ billion dollar business. Not even remotely in the same league.

We usually hold the best part of two million dollars of stock at any given moment. That said, with roughly 25,000 product lines available to customers on our store - it is not possible to hold multiple items of each in stock at any given time. We do try and hold some stock of the more popular ranges, but even then restrictions placed on us by key manufacturers on aspects such as the number of times we can order in a week or the amount we are allowed to order, can make maintaining that surplus stock very difficult.

Most of our customers come to our site to purchase, at a reasonable discount, miniatures and games by some of the most well known manufacturers in the industry such as Games Workshop, Battlefront, Privateer Press and others. We are not what most would call a 'deep discounter', nor do we offer large chunks of our inventory at 30% off or more. Though there no doubt is a short term appetite for huge discounts - we don't think they are sustainable either by the industry itself or by any business in particular. Poor financial and stock management has been the downfall of several of the larger retailers in the tabletop gaming market as well as many of the smaller ones.

Providing the most sought after products to a wide customer base is one of the things that Wayland tries really hard to do. When these are supplied by large manufacturers, they have (on the whole) reasonably developed supply infrastructure but are all to often let down by poor stock levels or distant manufacture in Asia which causes certain lines to go out of stock for long periods of time. When this happens there is usually little or no information being passed onto distributors or retailers. Even companies like Games Workshop will on occasion misjudge the popularity of certain products and have difficulty in supplying them (remember the Tau Empire launch issues from last year?)

Delays in supply are not limited to the big boys however.

A key part of our mission is to try and offer as wide a range of products as possible. Many of the products we have on our site aren't available anywhere else, or are difficult to find. We are able to use our position to bring to the community many new ranges that otherwise might not get the recognition they deserve. We have a design and marketing team who work closely with our Operations team to try and show this miniatures in the best light possible - with coverage in newsletters as well as on our site.

This wide range and high profile does come with its own inherent difficulties. Some of these new manufacturers cannot supply the products as quickly as larger companies can (for a variety of reasons). This can cause some delays when such a product is included in an order with ranges that we already have in stock or can get into stock quite quickly (typically 3-9 working days for most of our inventory). Despite their initial confidence and promises, it can mean that these rangers take far longer to materialise (or in some extremely rare cases fail to materialise at all).

Our strategy is one of long term growth and development. We believe that customers need to have a number of retail brands they can trust - and we understand that at times that trust has been sorely tested. We are trying to do better, and although there are doubtless those who will seek any opportunity to throw stones our way, we genuinely want to work to improve things. Because of this we've invested almost 100,000 GBP in staff and technology to improve our customer experience. Regardless, as a retailer we are only able to work with the information we are supplied.

We have an eight person operations team who spend every working hour of every working day communicating to customers, manufacturers and suppliers trying to get new and existing ranges into stock so that we can supply them across the world. As part of Operations we have dedicated customer service staff with tools such as our helpdesk, email, social media and live chat in an effort to make us the most accessible and most communicative retailer in the industry.

We don't always get it right, but we are working hard to try and improve with each customer we speak to. Those who may have had a negative experience in the past I ask to try us again, you will notice a positive change (I hope!).

Thanks for your time.

For what it's worth, WaylandGames have been sending me an email every day for the last 3 days saying. "We're still waiting for parts of your order to come from the supplier."

Admittedly, they could do with telling me *what* parts of the order. In fact, if they're still open, I might ring them up now...

If you didn't catch us we're in from 8:30am (GMT) tomorrow morning.

Maybe my wording was a bit off and for that i apologize......

The contacts were the commercial directors at both, so I'd have guessed they'd know, but the guys at knight models don't have great English and my Spanish is just plain awful! I'm trying to set up a couple of UK events for Corvus Belli so I knew they weren't coming over, so to see you say they would be on your stand sort of set me off a bit.

For me sometimes Wayland come across as the big "I am" with some of the PR so I'm not 100% sure where it's PR to draw people to the stand / website and where it's actual good news for the players/customers. You guys are probably the biggest there - so do you really need to shout the loudest? You could have just said you were doing Infinity demos using cool terrain from Bauda and I wouldn't have even blinked.

So I'll guess I'll just have to visit the stand on the day and see who's there and go visit your friends at SMG too so I can see their demo tables and previews too.

However - I've used you in the past and never had any problems with your service or orders - so you are definitely not as the thread suggests (which I'll now stop Hijacking!!) it's just the PR that sometimes comes across as a bit too much

Apology accepted. No need for anyone to fall out - especially friends.

If you are arranging some UK events, the Wayland Games Centre would be a great place to hold them - we have a fully licensed bar, hot food and capacity for two hundred gamers.

As for Wayland being the big 'I am'... Sorry if that's how our passion and enthusiasm comes across.

We are the largest independent tabletop gaming retailer in Europe and twice as large as any other stand at Salute. We have a stand that size because we want to offer as wide a range of products and activities to our customers. We've given up retail space so we can offer more demos and activities. We love the hobby and are passionate about ever one of the 25,000 product lines we offer to the public every hour of every day. We'll be offering the best deals at the show for the ranges we offer. Knight Models and Infinity customers won't get a better deal anywhere else. We aren't looking to go out of our way to cause offence or difficulty for anyone - but people customers are a smart bunch and tend to go to wherever gives them the best combination of entertainment and value. We have eight demo tables at the stand and nearly thirty staff who will be working long and hard to make sure customers get the best experience they can at the show. I'm not going to apologise for making a big deal about what we are doing because, like most of the companies at the show, too many people have invested passion and enthusiasm for the event to not make a fuss about it!

You mentioned SMG, they're good friends of ours and I'm sure if you speak with our good buddy Graham over there he'll tell you what a lovely bunch we really are (and not the big 'I am' at all). They're in Dorset too, so probably not a million miles away from where you are right now.

I've offered you a beer at our get together on another thread - it'd be great for us to get together. We don't bite!

Well gave Wayland another chance on a boardgame I wanted. I didn't badger or pester and let everything run its course. After a month I recieved notice that the item was not going to be available. I think that's me done, that and my partner is still waiting for items from last Christmas.

Good luck to them.

Gave element games a go last Tuesday and they turned up on the Thursday, great service.

 Riquende wrote:

 Davylove21 wrote:
Both beat Wayland in every meaningful way

Meaningful according to your specific metrics. I've just looked at both and Triple Helix have a pitifully small range that barely covers anything I'd want to buy (literally just paints and maybe some Perry stuff), and whilst Dark Sphere is better there are still a few gaps where I'd have to go and order from Wayland/Troll Trader anyway, so might as well just do that.

My metrics are price and service. YMMV. Dark Sphere smashes Wayland Games. As does TH and Gifts for Geeks, who helped me out a lot with an X Wing order on Friday, getting it to me the next day.

I'm the guy the started this thread, and just in the interest of fairness, I thought I should post about this:

I just made a second order from Wayland, and this time the service was excellent!
Ordered at about midnight, and as all items were in stock, it was dispatched at about 10am the next day, and I had the items in my hands about 48 hours later.
cannot complain.

I should also prob point out that this order didn't contain any GW stuff, which seems to the main cause of issues looking at this thread, but it was such a complete opposite of my first experience, i just thought i should share

To sum up this thread:

In stock = great
Out of stock = not great
No way to know for sure before you order.

I placed two orders with them mid March.

one was for a variety of stuff (some GW, some from various different basing makers) and am still awaiting stock.


the other I placed a couple days later regarding 2 GW products only (Necron Catacomb Command Barge and Nightscythe).

The latter arrived two days ago, I'm still waiting for the former. And shipping from UK to here usually takes at least a week.

So it really depends on how much "exotic stuff" you've included in your order for longer waiting times.

They're still better than totalwargamer, though

Lol, if you PayPal me the cash, I go to my nearest GW then WALK the order to Austria, I'll be better than TWG

My first experience with wayland games and it not a positive one so far, Placed an order for Wild West exodus starter sets for me and my gaming group to get started saw that Wayland was doing a free shipping promotion if you send over said amount
now as an Aussie we down here have to for these gems regarding shipping its our biggest issue imo. also as stated by some of you i was also drawn in by the fuzzy logic of the availability icon as well "they got me"

i see wayland games people posting in this thread and it is my hope to get in contact with them here which i shouldn't have to do imo

i put my order in on Mar 06 2014 and i posted this now and all ive got is a bunch of weekly robot emails telling me they are still getting the stock for my order

i am by and large a patient man and while one week or even 2 weeks is kinda ok a whole month and the biggest online retailer over there cant get hold of my items i find hard to believe

1. if you don't have the items actually in stock DO NOT advertise them as available its simple and to the point

2. Robot emails are a time saver but if its been a month for one of your customers do you think maybe a personal email explaining the hold up in more detail may smooth over raised hackles

im not here to bash and im by no means telling people to stay away from them after all this is my first experience, however first impressions and all that count a lot in this day and age

thank you for reading my terrible grammar and paragraphing
Dakka forever
Lurker 81

Lurker81 wrote:
My first experience with wayland games and it not a positive one so far, Placed an order for Wild West exodus starter sets for me and my gaming group to get started saw that Wayland was doing a free shipping promotion if you send over said amount
now as an Aussie we down here have to for these gems regarding shipping its our biggest issue imo. also as stated by some of you i was also drawn in by the fuzzy logic of the availability icon as well "they got me"

i see wayland games people posting in this thread and it is my hope to get in contact with them here which i shouldn't have to do imo

i put my order in on Mar 06 2014 and i posted this now and all ive got is a bunch of weekly robot emails telling me they are still getting the stock for my order

i am by and large a patient man and while one week or even 2 weeks is kinda ok a whole month and the biggest online retailer over there cant get hold of my items i find hard to believe

1. if you don't have the items actually in stock DO NOT advertise them as available its simple and to the point

2. Robot emails are a time saver but if its been a month for one of your customers do you think maybe a personal email explaining the hold up in more detail may smooth over raised hackles

im not here to bash and im by no means telling people to stay away from them after all this is my first experience, however first impressions and all that count a lot in this day and age

thank you for reading my terrible grammar and paragraphing
Dakka forever
Lurker 81

Luker81,

First of all let me say that I am glad our free shipping promotion has helped getting your club a new game to try.

We feel we are a very approachable company and there is no need to post on a Public forum to contact us, as we have many different tools you can use to get in contact with us. We have a Helpdesk system (http://waylandgames.freshdesk.com/support/home), a phone line and a live chat system (which was live when you posted this comment). All of which are manned during our opening hours. We welcome anyone to contact us via any of these if you have any questions.

I have checked our system and I can not locate your order based on just the alias 'Luker81', so please do contact us directly so that we can chat about your order, and give you more information in a secure way.

We have taken the feedback regarding the information we present to customers about our stock levels and if an item is in stock it is now listed as In Stock ('x' Ready to ship). We offer over 26,000 products and simply do not have the space to hold every item in stock all the time (as much as we would like to). Extremely high demand for an item can cause delays. We do everything on our power to prevent this from happening but unfortunately delays can still occur.

The email notifications are there to keep your mind at ease, and let you know we are still working on the your order. We will never forget about an order and we hope the emails will put your mind at ease. We are working on improving this system to give more personal information.

I hope this answers your questions and that you contact us directly to have a chat

Regards
Jake @ Wayland

You can count on me to get in touch , by phone is not an option and live chat isn't either due to time zone shenanigans , so the email pen pal fun will begin thanks for the quick response though

Just wanted to pop in and say my piece about Wayland.

I've dealt with them on behalf of my 40k club for the past 5 years or so and shop for around 2,000£ every year (or more!).

The wait time is often quite high, taking at least 6 weeks usually. But they never screw you over, they always deliver in the end and they are overall my go-to place for my wargaming needs. Would sum it up like this:

In a hurry? Find somewhere else.
Need it for later? Go to Wayland.

Thats how we use them and it has worked perfectly so far

Cheers

Gorlack

So I decided to take advantage of the free shipping offer and grab myself a few things.

I figured that it would probably take a little longer than usual, all things considered. And the fact that the order contained a Knight probably wouldn't help either.

But it would help test out just how good the feedback was, right?

Well, three weeks and counting - no package, no email, no nothing...

See, this is what people are complaining about. There's absolutely no communication going on. The Knight was, and still is, marked as shipping in 3 - 9 days. But not a single email saying "sorry, but your order will be a little delayed".

So what's going on? When will the package be dispatched? Who knows...?

Posts like these are why I don't even consider ordering from Wayland any more.

Well, that and the shipping prices.

And the time I bought a pile of FoW stuff, one book cover came badly creased and I was told I'd have to pay to return it before they'd replace it or pay for my return shipping - even though it would have cost more for them to cover my return postage then the book was worth (AU post is expensive).

And the "Warjack/Dreadnought" foam I spent $70+ on which is useless for both Warjacks and Dreadnoughts. In fact, I'm not sure what the feth the foam is for.

So, yeah. Troll Trader and Firestorm Games get my business instead.

I have used them a few times, and no complaints really. Good prices and fast delivery. About one and a half week usually, from the time of ordering to me receiving it (in Sweden).

I once ordered a "3-9 working days" item and got (rightly or wrongly) a little impatient after it had gone a bit more than that and requested the order to be cancelled. I had my money back within days of contacting them, so excellent customer service.

That said, it's been a while since I've used them. Maybe things have changed, but I have very little reason not to order from them again.

Hi Guys, Jake @ wayland here.

f2k,
I have sent you a PM as i am eager to look in to this for you. If you drop me a reply I will be able to look in to your order for you, and give you more information.

Azazelx,
We do ship worldwide and automatically discount our customers shipping costs compared to the costs we ourselves have to pay. As I'm sure you are aware shipping items half way around the world is not cheap, regardless of this we always aim to provide our customers with the cheapest shipping methods possible. In fact we are always looking in to new ways to reduce shipping costs so that we can improve value for our customers.

In regards to the creased book we always pack items as safely and securely as possible, once they are passed on to the shipping / postal company we have to have faith that no accidents happen in the transporting of the parcel. Unfortunately these things do happen and stock can get damaged in transit, we know that this can not always be helped. If we asked you to return a parcel then it will have been for a good reason.

We are not a manufacturer ourselves and do not decide what items are suitable to fit in a specific foam tray. Each item is listed following the manufacturers descriptions and specifications. Everyone we build a model in their own way, with their own pose, I am a collector myself and I can't remember I built a model in the exact same pose that was shown on a box.

fishy bob,
We are always striving to improve our customer service and every aspect of our business. If you have any questions you are welcome to contact us if you have any questions. http://www.waylandgames.co.uk/about-us/info_1.html#cu

Regards
Jake @ Wayland.

 Jake-Wayland wrote:
Hi Guys, Jake @ wayland here.

f2k,
I have sent you a PM as i am eager to look in to this for you. If you drop me a reply I will be able to look in to your order for you, and give you more information.

Azazelx,
We do ship worldwide and automatically discount our customers shipping costs compared to the costs we ourselves have to pay. As I'm sure you are aware shipping items half way around the world is not cheap, regardless of this we always aim to provide our customers with the cheapest shipping methods possible. In fact we are always looking in to new ways to reduce shipping costs so that we can improve value for our customers.

In regards to the creased book we always pack items as safely and securely as possible, once they are passed on to the shipping / postal company we have to have faith that no accidents happen in the transporting of the parcel. Unfortunately these things do happen and stock can get damaged in transit, we know that this can not always be helped. If we asked you to return a parcel then it will have been for a good reason.

We are not a manufacturer ourselves and do not decide what items are suitable to fit in a specific foam tray. Each item is listed following the manufacturers descriptions and specifications. Everyone we build a model in their own way, with their own pose, I am a collector myself and I can't remember I built a model in the exact same pose that was shown on a box.

fishy bob,
We are always striving to improve our customer service and every aspect of our business. If you have any questions you are welcome to contact us if you have any questions. http://www.waylandgames.co.uk/about-us/info_1.html#cu

Regards
Jake @ Wayland.

Hi Jake,
Not going to have an angry argument with you across a bunch of posts or anything like that, but I'll answer your above post in order to clarify my previous post, then go back to mostly lurking in this thread.

Shipping - I use the companies who offer free shipping. Predominantly Troll Trader and Firestorm. None of them are in Jersey or Guernsey, and so I know that the VAT money is being used to cover shipping. With the stuff I buy, and my pretty decent knowledge of RM, I know that sometimes they make a bit, sometimes they "lose" a bit on it. Either way they have made the decision that the additional money they make from international business is worthwhile, since it encourages people like myself to order from them. While it means their margins on some items might be squashed a little more, it's money they're making in the end that you're not. If you resurrected the 40 quid free shipping on a permanent basis, then this would negate that issue, despite it being a little more than the above two companies. The despatch time would still be an issue, however.

Creased book - it was creased inside the box. Packed with other items. We're talking creased by the packer in this specifc instance (it was clearly bent while being shoved into an internal box inside the shipping box). Not "bent by the postal services". If you ask me to return some faulty product across the planet for replacement, the way to do it is to send my replacement, and then ask for the faulty product to be returned. Not "send it back and then we'll replace it." Especially for a business who takes as long as yours does to ship. The comment "If we asked you to return a parcel then it will have been for a good reason." unfortunately reeks of a condescending tone. While I understand that you may be concerned about being taken advantage of by unscrupulous consumers, I am and have never been one of those, and so find "send it back first" to be insulting and a waste of 4+ additional weeks of transit time for something I've bought and paid for. So it's just simpler to take my business elsewhere/where it's appreciated.

Trays - I might actually take a photo if I get around to it. Your response makes total sense for someone who is simply reading what I posted. If you saw the trays, you might understand my complaint a little better. It's not at all a posing issue - the trays are too short by a solid 15mm to actually fit in a stock standard Dreadnought or Warjack - without standard poles, flags, etc, built in the most boring and standard manner - no arms raised or waving about. So the tops stick out and the trays can then not be stacked, etc. While I don't expect Wayland or any retailer to measure each foam tray or personally examine every SKU from every manufacturer, if something is not fit for purpose, you as the vendor still need to stand behind the product. I didn't complain on this one though, as I've experienced Wayland's brand of customer service - as noted above - so I simply wrote it off as a loss, cross off the "I'll give them another chance" and decided to never to buy from you again.

While you might understandably feel this is unfair, and that I did not give you even an opportunity to resolve the issue (and you'd be correct there), if you're interested in customer service, reputation and customer retention, you might want to look at why I've simply decided not to bother and written off £58.50 (just checked the invoice - so a decent chunk more than the AU$70 I remembered it as) over trying to resolve the issue with you. The answer is because I felt that your customer service would be horrible to try and deal with again, and that you'd refuse to resolve the issue to my satisfaction. So I didn't bother and have been spending my money elsewhere regularly ever since with retailers who appreciate my business and have good and responsive customer service.

The book issue was in October 2012. These two posts are the only time I've ever bothered telling anyone about the trays, BTW. which were bought in Jan 2013. It's not something I've embraced as a Wayland-Martyr or as an axe to constantly grind or anything like that. I thought it worth mentioning in this thread as something to enlighten you in your CSR position about myself as a lost customer and the reasons why, as you appear to be genuine in your interactions here.

 Azazelx wrote:

 Jake-Wayland wrote:
Hi Guys, Jake @ wayland here.

f2k,
I have sent you a PM as i am eager to look in to this for you. If you drop me a reply I will be able to look in to your order for you, and give you more information.

Azazelx,
We do ship worldwide and automatically discount our customers shipping costs compared to the costs we ourselves have to pay. As I'm sure you are aware shipping items half way around the world is not cheap, regardless of this we always aim to provide our customers with the cheapest shipping methods possible. In fact we are always looking in to new ways to reduce shipping costs so that we can improve value for our customers.

In regards to the creased book we always pack items as safely and securely as possible, once they are passed on to the shipping / postal company we have to have faith that no accidents happen in the transporting of the parcel. Unfortunately these things do happen and stock can get damaged in transit, we know that this can not always be helped. If we asked you to return a parcel then it will have been for a good reason.

We are not a manufacturer ourselves and do not decide what items are suitable to fit in a specific foam tray. Each item is listed following the manufacturers descriptions and specifications. Everyone we build a model in their own way, with their own pose, I am a collector myself and I can't remember I built a model in the exact same pose that was shown on a box.

fishy bob,
We are always striving to improve our customer service and every aspect of our business. If you have any questions you are welcome to contact us if you have any questions. http://www.waylandgames.co.uk/about-us/info_1.html#cu

Regards
Jake @ Wayland.

Hi Jake,
Not going to have an angry argument with you across a bunch of posts or anything like that, but I'll answer your above post in order to clarify my previous post, then go back to mostly lurking in this thread.

Shipping - I use the companies who offer free shipping. Predominantly Troll Trader and Firestorm. None of them are in Jersey or Guernsey, and so I know that the VAT money is being used to cover shipping. With the stuff I buy, and my pretty decent knowledge of RM, I know that sometimes they make a bit, sometimes they "lose" a bit on it. Either way they have made the decision that the additional money they make from international business is worthwhile, since it encourages people like myself to order from them. While it means their margins on some items might be squashed a little more, it's money they're making in the end that you're not. If you resurrected the 40 quid free shipping on a permanent basis, then this would negate that issue, despite it being a little more than the above two companies. The despatch time would still be an issue, however.

Creased book - it was creased inside the box. Packed with other items. We're talking creased by the packer in this specifc instance (it was clearly bent while being shoved into an internal box inside the shipping box). Not "bent by the postal services". If you ask me to return some faulty product across the planet for replacement, the way to do it is to send my replacement, and then ask for the faulty product to be returned. Not "send it back and then we'll replace it." Especially for a business who takes as long as yours does to ship. The comment "If we asked you to return a parcel then it will have been for a good reason." unfortunately reeks of a condescending tone. While I understand that you may be concerned about being taken advantage of by unscrupulous consumers, I am and have never been one of those, and so find "send it back first" to be insulting and a waste of 4+ additional weeks of transit time for something I've bought and paid for. So it's just simpler to take my business elsewhere/where it's appreciated.

Trays - I might actually take a photo if I get around to it. Your response makes total sense for someone who is simply reading what I posted. If you saw the trays, you might understand my complaint a little better. It's not at all a posing issue - the trays are too short by a solid 15mm to actually fit in a stock standard Dreadnought or Warjack - without standard poles, flags, etc, built in the most boring and standard manner - no arms raised or waving about. So the tops stick out and the trays can then not be stacked, etc. While I don't expect Wayland or any retailer to measure each foam tray or personally examine every SKU from every manufacturer, if something is not fit for purpose, you as the vendor still need to stand behind the product. I didn't complain on this one though, as I've experienced Wayland's brand of customer service - as noted above - so I simply wrote it off as a loss, cross off the "I'll give them another chance" and decided to never to buy from you again.

While you might understandably feel this is unfair, and that I did not give you even an opportunity to resolve the issue (and you'd be correct there), if you're interested in customer service, reputation and customer retention, you might want to look at why I've simply decided not to bother and written off £58.50 (just checked the invoice - so a decent chunk more than the AU$70 I remembered it as) over trying to resolve the issue with you. The answer is because I felt that your customer service would be horrible to try and deal with again, and that you'd refuse to resolve the issue to my satisfaction. So I didn't bother and have been spending my money elsewhere regularly ever since with retailers who appreciate my business and have good and responsive customer service.

The book issue was in October 2012. These two posts are the only time I've ever bothered telling anyone about the trays, BTW. which were bought in Jan 2013. It's not something I've embraced as a Wayland-Martyr or as an axe to constantly grind or anything like that. I thought it worth mentioning in this thread as something to enlighten you in your CSR position about myself as a lost customer and the reasons why, as you appear to be genuine in your interactions here.

Hi Azazelx,

Shipping costs are a major factor to any on-line business. We offer the best rates that we can on all shipping, and while we would love to be able to offer free shipping on every order we are not always able to do so.

There could be a thousand reasons why an item is damaged before it reaches you, we never have and never will pack and ship any damaged items. Your parcel may have been opened by customs for example. We are happy to pay for return shipping of a damaged item, and for the shipping cost to send you a replacement. These are our terms.

All product data or descriptions are based on the information given to us by the manufacturer or supplier. If you receive an item that does not match its description or specifications, we will chase this matter up and find a solution. If you do not contact us and let us know then we cannot help. If you had contacted us we would have chased the manufacturer directly and found the correct solution.

Saying that our customer service is bad based on a single isolated event is extremely biased and does reflect on the thousands of orders that are placed with us. I am very sorry to hear that you feel that our service is bad just because you did not agree with the process for damaged products but it is simply unfair to claim our service is bad just because we do not operate exactly the way you wish and what, in your opinion, is would be the correct way to proceed.

Regards
Jake @ Wayland

I'm pretty sure customs informs you if they opened your package, I've received a few notifications from them.

Joyboozer wrote:
I'm pretty sure customs informs you if they opened your package, I've received a few notifications from them.

Yeah, you get a note and everything over here if they do that, so Azazel would have known if it was on your end or custom's end.

 Jake-Wayland wrote:

Shipping costs are a major factor to any on-line business. We offer the best rates that we can on all shipping, and while we would love to be able to offer free shipping on every order we are not always able to do so.

There could be a thousand reasons why an item is damaged before it reaches you, we never have and never will pack and ship any damaged items. Your parcel may have been opened by customs for example. We are happy to pay for return shipping of a damaged item, and for the shipping cost to send you a replacement. These are our terms.

Hello Jake.

I've said my piece on shipping. If Wayland disagrees, then c'est la vie. Others are happy to ship differently, after all - and even Wayland manages to offer it from time to time, which as I said negates most of the issue when it's active. I think we can safely agree to let that one rest?

Regarding your shirking of responsibility - Please do not insult my fething intelligence. The book was damaged by your packer jamming it into the cardboard slip that was supposed to protect it. It was not customs. It was not the postal service. On the rare occasion when they open a parcel, they sticker it with a "opened and inspected by Australian Customs" sticker, reseal it with Australia Post/Australian Customs tape and include one of their "protecting our borders" pamphlets. The other Aussies will be able to verify this.

All product data or descriptions are based on the information given to us by the manufacturer or supplier. If you receive an item that does not match its description or specifications, we will chase this matter up and find a solution. If you do not contact us and let us know then we cannot help. If you had contacted us we would have chased the manufacturer directly and found the correct solution.

Saying that our customer service is bad based on a single isolated event is extremely biased and does reflect on the thousands of orders that are placed with us. I am very sorry to hear that you feel that our service is bad just because you did not agree with the process for damaged products but it is simply unfair to claim our service is bad just because we do not operate exactly the way you wish and what, in your opinion, is would be the correct way to proceed.

Regards
Jake @ Wayland

The correct way to proceed on the issue of the book would have been:

a) Wayland apologises, send out a replacement book on proof (photo, etc) of the damaged goods immediately.

b) If Wayland wants it returned, that's fine. You ask me to get you a postage quote with whatever extras Wayland requires (tracking, etc) and then send me the shipping money in advance rather than expecting me to front the additional costs for Wayland's mistake and be out of pocket an additional amount (more than the cost of the book, I might add) until whenever Wayland gets around to reimbursing it - which would obviously be at least the time the book would take to make it back to the UK, plus Wayland's processing time.

c) Basically, when the mistake/damage is on your end, expecting the consumer to pay for, or even be out of pocket for several weeks in order to fix your mistake is poor form of the highest order.

Expecting me to return the book at my own cost and then wait another month at minimum to receive a replacement and reimbursement for the shipping is poor service. It would also be getting towards a 2-month turnaround in order to receive product paid for in good faith. Sorry. Not good enough. I am aware (now) that it's your policy, but my policy is not to deal with companies who treat the customer this way. While the next comment is indeed very reminiscent of Milhouse Van Houten's "My dad is a big wheel down at the cracker factory", I spend many thousands of dollars per year (literally a few hundred quid each week) on hobby-related items. Admittedly, at least half of that goes to Kickstarters and eBay and direct-to-producer items these days. But still, gakky service on Wayland's part simply means that I have taken my retail business elsewhere rather than becoming a regular customer.


With regard to the Battlefoam inserts, as I stated before, yes, it's "unfair" that I didn't give Wayland the chance to rectify the issue, and it's not in any way Wayland Games' fault that Battlefoam labelled their product in a misleading manner, or that I didn't copy down the dimensions and measure them against the figures they were supposedly designed to fit.

The pertinent thing is that based on my previous experiences with your customer service I felt that at the very best I would have been expected to pay upfront to ship them back to you (Australia Post is very expensive, RM is dirt cheap by comparison), and more likely the response would be "measurements are listed, tough luck!" So I basically thought to myself "feth it - it's not worth even trying to deal with them again" and wrote the trays off as a loss, rather than try to deal with Wayland customer service again - along with the idea of dealing with Wayland at all again. The foam inserts are still sitting unused in a pile on top of the wardrobe where I put them, like so much useless crap.

I've just gone through the posts and changed all of the instances of "you" to "Wayland", since it's obviously not you (Jake) who I interacted with with the book debacle. It's not personal, after all (except for the customs bit). Trying to blame customs grates as well, quite frankly. Oh, the box was clearly never opened and resealed, either. Original tape, etc. I took photos at the time. The book wasn't a malicious act on the part of your packer, either. At worst it was careless, but really, just a simple mistake/bump/fold that caused the cover to catch on the cardboard and become damaged. gak happens, after all. It's how people or businesses deal with it when it does happen that really influences my future interaction with them.


Ultimately, I'm not exactly likely to return as a customer at this point. That ship has sailed on my end, and I think that bridge is now pretty much burnt on your end due to this thread. However, if you truly want to improve your customer service, you may want to examine/revisit a), b) and c) above, since those are the main factors that resulted in my writing off a 60 quid loss and giving up on Wayland as a retailer who I deal with.

While I am a huge fan of Wayland and I have never had an issue with them, my own feeling is that there's not a single thing in Azazelx's post there that seems unfair or unreasonable to me.

 Compel wrote:
While I am a huge fan of Wayland and I have never had an issue with them, my own feeling is that there's not a single thing in Azazelx's post there that seems unfair or unreasonable to me.

This.

Primarily regarding the book, as mentioned already by other Australians, I'll add it again.

If customs opens your package, they reseal it with customs tape and leave a notification sticker. If Australia Post opens it, they do the same with their own tape or sticker.

What Wayland is suggesting here is Australian customs or Australia Post opened the package as neatly as possible, slid the book out carefully, jammed it back in creasing it, then rummaged around to find the same tape Wayland used to seal it and spent a lot of effort making sure it looked like no one ever touched it. That is absurd.

Even if it was a case of unauthorised opening, take it from someone who works closely with Australia Post and also has seen it happen to their own package - there's no reason to be careful about it. Theives working customs or Australia Post will simply punch a hole in the side and take what they want, then throw the package back in circulation - if they even bother to do that.

Getting a package in neat order, with no Australia Post or Australian customs labels or sealing tape, with a creased book inside? Sorry, that was creased when packing.

 Azazelx wrote:

 Jake-Wayland wrote:

Shipping costs are a major factor to any on-line business. We offer the best rates that we can on all shipping, and while we would love to be able to offer free shipping on every order we are not always able to do so.

There could be a thousand reasons why an item is damaged before it reaches you, we never have and never will pack and ship any damaged items. Your parcel may have been opened by customs for example. We are happy to pay for return shipping of a damaged item, and for the shipping cost to send you a replacement. These are our terms.

Hello Jake.

I've said my piece on shipping. If Wayland disagrees, then c'est la vie. Others are happy to ship differently, after all - and even Wayland manages to offer it from time to time, which as I said negates most of the issue when it's active. I think we can safely agree to let that one rest?

Regarding your shirking of responsibility - Please do not insult my fething intelligence. The book was damaged by your packer jamming it into the cardboard slip that was supposed to protect it. It was not customs. It was not the postal service. On the rare occasion when they open a parcel, they sticker it with a "opened and inspected by Australian Customs" sticker, reseal it with Australia Post/Australian Customs tape and include one of their "protecting our borders" pamphlets. The other Aussies will be able to verify this.

All product data or descriptions are based on the information given to us by the manufacturer or supplier. If you receive an item that does not match its description or specifications, we will chase this matter up and find a solution. If you do not contact us and let us know then we cannot help. If you had contacted us we would have chased the manufacturer directly and found the correct solution.

Saying that our customer service is bad based on a single isolated event is extremely biased and does reflect on the thousands of orders that are placed with us. I am very sorry to hear that you feel that our service is bad just because you did not agree with the process for damaged products but it is simply unfair to claim our service is bad just because we do not operate exactly the way you wish and what, in your opinion, is would be the correct way to proceed.

Regards
Jake @ Wayland

The correct way to proceed on the issue of the book would have been:

a) Wayland apologises, send out a replacement book on proof (photo, etc) of the damaged goods immediately.

b) If Wayland wants it returned, that's fine. You ask me to get you a postage quote with whatever extras Wayland requires (tracking, etc) and then send me the shipping money in advance rather than expecting me to front the additional costs for Wayland's mistake and be out of pocket an additional amount (more than the cost of the book, I might add) until whenever Wayland gets around to reimbursing it - which would obviously be at least the time the book would take to make it back to the UK, plus Wayland's processing time.

c) Basically, when the mistake/damage is on your end, expecting the consumer to pay for, or even be out of pocket for several weeks in order to fix your mistake is poor form of the highest order.

Expecting me to return the book at my own cost and then wait another month at minimum to receive a replacement and reimbursement for the shipping is poor service. It would also be getting towards a 2-month turnaround in order to receive product paid for in good faith. Sorry. Not good enough. I am aware (now) that it's your policy, but my policy is not to deal with companies who treat the customer this way. While the next comment is indeed very reminiscent of Milhouse Van Houten's "My dad is a big wheel down at the cracker factory", I spend many thousands of dollars per year (literally a few hundred quid each week) on hobby-related items. Admittedly, at least half of that goes to Kickstarters and eBay and direct-to-producer items these days. But still, gakky service on Wayland's part simply means that I have taken my retail business elsewhere rather than becoming a regular customer.


With regard to the Battlefoam inserts, as I stated before, yes, it's "unfair" that I didn't give Wayland the chance to rectify the issue, and it's not in any way Wayland Games' fault that Battlefoam labelled their product in a misleading manner, or that I didn't copy down the dimensions and measure them against the figures they were supposedly designed to fit.

The pertinent thing is that based on my previous experiences with your customer service I felt that at the very best I would have been expected to pay upfront to ship them back to you (Australia Post is very expensive, RM is dirt cheap by comparison), and more likely the response would be "measurements are listed, tough luck!" So I basically thought to myself "feth it - it's not worth even trying to deal with them again" and wrote the trays off as a loss, rather than try to deal with Wayland customer service again - along with the idea of dealing with Wayland at all again. The foam inserts are still sitting unused in a pile on top of the wardrobe where I put them, like so much useless crap.

I've just gone through the posts and changed all of the instances of "you" to "Wayland", since it's obviously not you (Jake) who I interacted with with the book debacle. It's not personal, after all (except for the customs bit). Trying to blame customs grates as well, quite frankly. Oh, the box was clearly never opened and resealed, either. Original tape, etc. I took photos at the time. The book wasn't a malicious act on the part of your packer, either. At worst it was careless, but really, just a simple mistake/bump/fold that caused the cover to catch on the cardboard and become damaged. gak happens, after all. It's how people or businesses deal with it when it does happen that really influences my future interaction with them.


Ultimately, I'm not exactly likely to return as a customer at this point. That ship has sailed on my end, and I think that bridge is now pretty much burnt on your end due to this thread. However, if you truly want to improve your customer service, you may want to examine/revisit a), b) and c) above, since those are the main factors that resulted in my writing off a 60 quid loss and giving up on Wayland as a retailer who I deal with.

Azazelx,

I mentioned customs opening the parcel just as an example, I did not say that this is what had happened. There are plenty of other reasons as to how the book may have been damaged. I can not give you the exact reason as I do not know. There is no proof that the book was damaged by our team, all of our staff are dedicated to their jobs and are always very careful to pack a product safely and securely. It is unfair to automatically assume that the fault is ours.
We have a process to deal with damaged products regardless of how they became damaged, again it is unfortunate if you do not agree with this process but it is the way things have to be done. In a perfect world we would be able to take everyone word that they will ship an item back to us if we send a replacement, however this is not a perfect world. I am not trying to say that yourself or any of our customers are untrustworthy at all, and I hope you do not read it in that manner, but we can not simply immediately ship replacement products out to every customer who claims an item is damaged without ensuring we have received the damaged ones first. We have to protect ourselves as well, I sure you can understand that.

 -Loki- wrote:

 Compel wrote:
While I am a huge fan of Wayland and I have never had an issue with them, my own feeling is that there's not a single thing in Azazelx's post there that seems unfair or unreasonable to me.

This.

Primarily regarding the book, as mentioned already by other Australians, I'll add it again.

If customs opens your package, they reseal it with customs tape and leave a notification sticker. If Australia Post opens it, they do the same with their own tape or sticker.

What Wayland is suggesting here is Australian customs or Australia Post opened the package as neatly as possible, slid the book out carefully, jammed it back in creasing it, then rummaged around to find the same tape Wayland used to seal it and spent a lot of effort making sure it looked like no one ever touched it. That is absurd.

Even if it was a case of unauthorised opening, take it from someone who works closely with Australia Post and also has seen it happen to their own package - there's no reason to be careful about it. Theives working customs or Australia Post will simply punch a hole in the side and take what they want, then throw the package back in circulation - if they even bother to do that.

Getting a package in neat order, with no Australia Post or Australian customs labels or sealing tape, with a creased book inside? Sorry, that was creased when packing.

Loki,

I mentioned customs opening the parcel just as an example, there are plenty of other reasons as to how the book may have been damaged. I did not say that this is the exact reason as to how the book may have been damaged.

Regards
Jake @ Wayland.

 Jake-Wayland wrote:

Azazelx,

I mentioned customs opening the parcel just as an example, I did not say that this is what had happened. There are plenty of other reasons as to how the book may have been damaged. I can not give you the exact reason as I do not know. There is no proof that the book was damaged by our team, all of our staff are dedicated to their jobs and are always very careful to pack a product safely and securely. It is unfair to automatically assume that the fault is ours.
We have a process to deal with damaged products regardless of how they became damaged, again it is unfortunate if you do not agree with this process but it is the way things have to be done. In a perfect world we would be able to take everyone word that they will ship an item back to us if we send a replacement, however this is not a perfect world. I am not trying to say that yourself or any of our customers are untrustworthy at all, and I hope you do not read it in that manner, but we can not simply immediately ship replacement products out to every customer who claims an item is damaged without ensuring we have received the damaged ones first. We have to protect ourselves as well, I sure you can understand that.

I mentioned customs opening the parcel just as an example, there are plenty of other reasons as to how the book may have been damaged. I did not say that this is the exact reason as to how the book may have been damaged.

Regards
Jake @ Wayland.

Hi Jake,
You're being a bit ridiculous here. Give us some examples of the "plenty of other reasons as to how the book may have been damaged" within a cardboard wrap inside a sealed and unopened box with other product. Like I said, I believe the damage was accidental and not malicious, but you're just being silly now, and undermining your own credibility.

I can only think of two, besides "the postal service" and "customs".
The obvious (implied) one is that the customer is clumsy, and caused the damage themselves, and than asks for a new one. The darker one (implied more broadly) is that customers will purposefully damage goods in order to get a second, free one.

Now you're attempting to use the burden of proof as your defence, while knowing that it's pretty much impossible to prove something like this in a mail-order transaction, short of every Wayland customer making an unedited "unboxing video" every time they open a parcel from yourselves. While I do understand Wayland's perspective, you'd probably do well to understand mine as well, and just how unreasonable it all is. (8 weeks + being out of pocket just to properly receive items paid for?) If I were malicious, I'd have sent it back via the most expensive option instead of writing the book off. And then done the same with the foam trays. What I probably should have done instead would be to initiate a VISA chargeback on the book, and then not bothered to give Wayland another chance with the trays.

Anyway, I can't really be bothered with this discussion anymore. Hopefully my unfortunate interaction with Wayland then and now (your but no, because reasons argument) can make your present and future customers a little more informed as to what they can expect if they have any issues in their order, so they know what to expect if something should go wrong.

cheerio,

I think you're both being childish here.

Azazelx, just go and take a look at some of the ebay threads on here about some of the scams that go on when selling stuff overseas. Now factor in that for one person it is an annoyance, for a business it can be devastating. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

As for the book, from the sounds of you description, the book was damaged inside it's cover, correct? So was that cover a Wayland cover or a Manufacturers cover?

I have bought, unfortunately, books direct from the printer with creased pages before. the paper had got jammed inside their own equipment, but they still shipped it. So it's perfectly possible that Wayland received damaged stock in the first place and unwittingly shipped it on.

Cheers

Andrew

 AndrewC wrote:
So it's perfectly possible that Wayland received damaged stock in the first place and unwittingly shipped it on.

Well not really, not according to the Wayland rep here.

all of our staff are dedicated to their jobs and are always very careful to pack a product safely and securely.

So why would they pack damaged goods?

That's what I'm trying to find out. Az wrote that it was packing inside a cardboard cover slip before being put into the box mailed to him. Or at least that's how I read it. Some of the printers send out their products already inside these slips to the retailers to sell on. Since I have encountered the exact same damage on a supposedly premium product I am wondering if something similar has happened here.

I doubt that Wayland would open every single item of stock to ensure it is in perfect condition.

Cheers

Andrew

Any number of the explanations give here are plausible. No-one is accusing anyone of lying (and I give an apology if anyone got that impression). We agree with Azazelx - Let's let the matter rest as I think it unlikely that any amount of platitudes or wordplay is going to get this matter resolved to everyone's satisfaction.

Our free shipping promo is back btw!

 Stuart-Wayland wrote:
Any number of the explanations give here are plausible. No-one is accusing anyone of lying (and I give an apology if anyone got that impression). We agree with Azazelx - Let's let the matter rest as I think it unlikely that any amount of platitudes or wordplay is going to get this matter resolved to everyone's satisfaction.

Our free shipping promo is back btw!

along with a stealth price rise (aka discount reduction from 20% to 15%) for most of your line. so the question is, are we really saving anything

Not seeing any price rises on anything I've had an eye on myself.

 Riquende wrote:
Not seeing any price rises on anything I've had an eye on myself.

see http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/593575.page

 AndrewC wrote:
I think you're both being childish here.
Azazelx, just go and take a look at some of the ebay threads on here about some of the scams that go on when selling stuff overseas. Now factor in that for one person it is an annoyance, for a business it can be devastating. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
As for the book, from the sounds of you description, the book was damaged inside it's cover, correct? So was that cover a Wayland cover or a Manufacturers cover?
I have bought, unfortunately, books direct from the printer with creased pages before. the paper had got jammed inside their own equipment, but they still shipped it. So it's perfectly possible that Wayland received damaged stock in the first place and unwittingly shipped it on.
Cheers
Andrew

Hi Andrew,
I'm aware that people can be unscrupulous. Regardless, I find being expected to wear the mistakes of a retailer to be unacceptable. That's not childish. A purchase transaction via mail order requires an amount of trust on both sides. Ultimately, if a retailer wants my business, they can show some trust in me as a customer. If not, then I won't be back. This isn't eBay, and as stated, it would have cost them more to have the book returned than simply to send me a replacement. Except it would have cost me the money until they got around to reimbursing it. And another 4-6 weeks to get the book on top of the 3 it had already taken. So I gave up, and "childishly"(?) wore their mistake and kept the damaged book that any other retailer who I am a regular customer with would have sorted out for me painlessly.

As for the damage. NO. The book was inside a piece of cardboard that was roughly the same size as the book and taped in the middle. Obviously to keep the book safe in the larger box (it was a small part of a larger order). Unfortunately, the book was damaged (cover folded over and torn - obviously when sliding it into the cardboard. If it was not damaged when sliding it in, then it was shipped to me with obvious damage before it was packed - and I'll agree with Jake in that I don't believe that Wayland would have intentionally shipped me damaged merchandise.)

I also believe that It's highly unlikely that the book was packed and stored in brown cardboard (it was in stock) in the Wayland warehouse and then mailed off without checking to see what was inside it. Though it if were stored in that manner, pulling it out and jamming it back in could have caused the damage.






Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Stuart-Wayland wrote:
Any number of the explanations give here are plausible. No-one is accusing anyone of lying (and I give an apology if anyone got that impression). We agree with Azazelx - Let's let the matter rest as I think it unlikely that any amount of platitudes or wordplay is going to get this matter resolved to everyone's satisfaction.

That would have been rather hard - no actual attempt was made by Wayland to resolve it or bring satisfaction in the thread, anyway.

 Sir Arun wrote:

 Riquende wrote:
Not seeing any price rises on anything I've had an eye on myself.

see http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/593575.page

Apparently just GW stuff then. Not "most of their line" at all. Thanks for the needless scaremongering. As I stated, I'm not seeing any rises on anything I usually check out.

Well, sucks to be a GW gamer I guess. For a great many reasons, from what I hear.

Scaremongering and bandwagoning is the lulz though, to be fair.

After my most recent debacle with Wayland, I can categorically say that I will not be using them again.

I had 2 orders sitting with them for X wing stuff. Now I appreciate that X wing restocks are few and far between, which makes the following situation worse;

Contacted them a couple of days ago to find out the stock situation, as rumours were flying that a UK restock was imminent. Was advised they aren't expecting stock until June. Having looked around some other stores, and found that my gifts for geeks order had despatched, I contacted them again, advising if they can't fulfil the order, then cancel it and I'll buy elsewhere. By this stage, other stockists were showing, amongst other things, the rebel transport I'd pre-ordered in stock. Imagine my surprise to hear from wayland; advising, they had actually received a restock, but had sold out of the transport (and interceptors); both items I'd ordered months ago.

If I hadn't raised the help desk ticket, they'd have been happy to just let me wait and wait, until every other stockist had sold out too. I've since ordered elsewhere (despatched immediately), and am waiting on a refund...

Wayland, your customer service really does suck. I won't be using you again in future for leaving me hanging, and probably flogging my pre-ordered transport to someone else. Shame, because I've spend £2-3k with you in the last few years.

To be fair, if they have 100 preorders or backorders for restocks, and only receive 50 of the item, what can they do? They're not necessarily selling 'yours' to someone else, they could just have prior orders to fulfill.

Yeah, I appreciate that, but they should maybe let me know so I can source elsewhere, instead of just expecting me to wait another god knows how many months. If they aren't getting enough stock in, when much smaller retailers are sitting with 50+ in stock, they either need to speak to their distributor or their stock manager.

Digging out this old thread to express my feelings about the service...

I have ordered mixed, non-GW stuff, part of it in stock, part of it in the "3-9 days to ship" category. In a week time after ordering I received a note that the goods will be stocked with at least one week delay, thus meaning 3+ weeks shipment time for goods listed as "Available in 3-9 days".

I like the discount and free shipping, but frankly, if I retained loyalty to local shops, most of the stuff I could get in our country by this or next week paying only a couple % more.

I appreciate personal experience differs case by case, this is just my current feeling.

 gev wrote:
Digging out this old thread to express my feelings about the service...

I have ordered mixed, non-GW stuff, part of it in stock, part of it in the "3-9 days to ship" category. In a week time after ordering I received a note that the goods will be stocked with at least one week delay, thus meaning 3+ weeks shipment time for goods listed as "Available in 3-9 days".

I like the discount and free shipping, but frankly, if I retained loyalty to local shops, most of the stuff I could get in our country by this or next week paying only a couple % more.

I appreciate personal experience differs case by case, this is just my current feeling.

Hi Gev,

✔ Available(Typically Ships in 3-9 Working Days) means the item is available for us to order and are normally shipped out within the time frame shown. The typical 3-9 working days is derived from the thousands of orders that have been placed with us over the years.Turnaround times are indications rather than guarantees as fluctuations in supply and demand can sometimes cause a backlog.

As I have said before we are not a manufacturer so we have to rely on a supply chain for all items. If there is a delay somewhere in the production side of things or even with the couriers it delays us shipping out orders. We do everything that we can to prevent delays but it is not always possible.

If you would like to discuss your order further feel free to PM me email our helpdesk http://waylandgames.freshdesk.com/support/home

Regards
Jake @wayland

I'm not sure if this has been answered so here goes..

I have had 3 orders from Wayland. All three have been delivered later than quoted.

I asked at my local club and there were plenty of stories the same.

So either I live in a black hole, or your estimates are off and you aren't changing them because it would put people off.

Which is it?

I ordered StormClaw over the weekend and got charged P&P when I had thought I wouldn't.

That being the case I raised a ticket found that I was mistaken and cancelled the order as I could get it cheaper elsewhere. I received a refund within minutes of asking.

I actually consider this to be very good service and will continue to use Wayland.

The Division Of Joy wrote:
I'm not sure if this has been answered so here goes..

I have had 3 orders from Wayland. All three have been delivered later than quoted.

I asked at my local club and there were plenty of stories the same.

So either I live in a black hole, or your estimates are off and you aren't changing them because it would put people off.

Which is it?

I don't think I have gotten even a single order from them on time. Orders with Games Workshop products seems to be especially hard hit by delays.

In all honesty, I don't mind the slow delivery - I expect that from places like Wayland and Maelstrom. It's the "price" you pay for the discount offered.

What I do mind is the expected delivery dates (which never seem to hold water) as well as the fact that they try to make it look as though it's in stock, rather than openly admitting that they'll have to order it from a supplier.


I will add though, that even though the orders tend to take their sweet time to arrive, they always do arrive eventually.

Wayland has a very good range of stock and I have always recieved what I have ordered but it has always taken ages to arrive.

I still use it if I am ordering a range of stuff but its not first choice. I made quite a big order last night from a range of manufacturers, lets see how long it takes to arrive

Interesting typo edited out

Even with all the bad feeling this thread seems to be generating about wayland's, this has to be tempting

http://www.waylandgames.co.uk/cat_2514.html

I'm sorry wallet, don't cry.

If I thought it would actually turn up in a reasonable time, I'd buy that in a heartbeat.

Hi Guys,

Just though I would just touch on a couple of the points here.

Stock Deliveries,
We Stock thousands of items and it is impossible to have every item in stock at once. We do place orders regularly and have Multiple deliveries arrive practically everyday. Sometimes the are delays, but these can not always be helped. It could be something as unlikely as a Shrink wrap machine braking down, this can lead to delays, but we will always aim to have the stock in and shipped out as quickly as possible.

This leads to the second topic, Product statuses.
The Majority of products are listed as ✔ Available(Typically Ships in 3-9 Working Days). This do not mean we have an item in stock. It means the item is available for us to order and are normally shipped out within this time frame. please note that it is typically shipped in 3-9 working days, it is not a guarantee that a parcel will be delivered in the that time frame. If a product is listed as ✔ In Stock(‘X’ Ready to Ship!) it means we have the stated number of that product in our warehouse that are not in any other orders, so they are ready to ship.

A full list of the product statuses can be located here http://www.waylandgames.co.uk/faq/info_6.html.

Again if anyone has any questions relating to a specific order please contact our helpdesk. http://waylandgames.freshdesk.com/support/home

Regards
Jake @ Wayland

I've been watching the Tantive IV's that were ordered by customers this morning as the Deal of the Day being packed and are now sitting waiting pick up. Anything you see on Deal of the Day is likely to ship the same day you order (unless you order it with a bunch of items not currently In Stock).

If you are tempted by one of our Deal of the Days, give it a go. You may be pleasantly surprised...

Hi Jake.

My question hasn't been answered really, so I'll give it another go.

I am making the accusation that your 3-9 working day statement is inaccurate. I've had multiple orders go over that (actually 100% of them have) and this is backed up by several members of my club. Others in this thread have said the same.

I appreciate that in this day and age, negativity on the internet can really effect an online store's business, so I'm asking this not to moan, but to attempt to get an answer to something that in my opinion has been skirted around on several occaisons.

Over 75% of orders (excluding pre orders and the like) get shipped in the advertised time scales. A significant number get shipped within 48 hours.

I appreciate your experience (and those of the sample of people you refer to) is different. I also appreciate that rather than seeking an answer, you are in fact seeking an answer that you find acceptable. Any customer experience should of course be looked at and issues addressed (where possible).That said, threads like these will always give a grossly disproportionate cross-section of opinion as the title would have (by its nature) been attractive to those with a negative experience of the named party. Indeed what tends to happen is that one of the quieter majority with great experiences tends to have the audacity to post on the thread that they've had a good experience and rapidly they are either shouted down or efforts are redoubled by certain individuals to ensure that this largely silent majority is overlooked.

Fundamentally, I am sorry if you have not had a great shopping experience. I'd like to speak on the phone to address specific issues (rather than keep skirting around them around on forums) and see what we can do to help get your next order into the 75% group.
A good step in that direction would be taking advantage of the 40% off Tantive IV. It has got to be pretty tempting surely? Come on, our warehouse team are eagerly waiting to send it to you. Go on take the plunge and pop an order in today!

 Jake-Wayland wrote:
This leads to the second topic, Product statuses.
The Majority of products are listed as ✔ Available(Typically Ships in 3-9 Working Days). This do not mean we have an item in stock. It means the item is available for us to order and are normally shipped out within this time frame. please note that it is typically shipped in 3-9 working days, it is not a guarantee that a parcel will be delivered in the that time frame. If a product is listed as ✔ In Stock(‘X’ Ready to Ship!) it means we have the stated number of that product in our warehouse that are not in any other orders, so they are ready to ship.

This has been debated several times before on this thread, but I feel it's worth repeating.

Labeling something as available when it's not is disingenuous. Perhaps it's because I'm a non-native speaker of English, but when I see a product as "available" I assume this means that it's actually in stock. That is: an available product is one where I could walk into your store and pick it off a shelf. The fact that it's written in green only supports that notion.

Writing it in yellow and marking it as "product in backorder - typically back in stock within 3 - 9 days" (or something like that) would be closer to the truth.

f2k. You are absolutely right.

However, people make the mistake (and lets make no bones about this, it is very much in Wayland's interests for YOU to make this mistake) and despite numerous complaints about this (from the noisy minority obviously) it's not getting changed.

Stuart. The whole point of me and others airing these issues on a public and easily google searchable forum is because it's right that prospective customers get both sides of the coin. A phone call with you will benefit your company a lot more than it will benefit the customer.

But yeah, I probably have an issue against the company, and am shouting down all the people in this thread that are clamouring to tell stories of on time deliveries, lovingly wrapped by gaming angels.

The Division Of Joy wrote:
But yeah, I probably have an issue against the company, and am shouting down all the people in this thread that are clamouring to tell stories of on time deliveries, lovingly wrapped by gaming angels.

Unfortunately the gaming angels unionised and wanted longer harp breaks so we had to employ fiendish gaming demons instead. You have to accept the smell of sulphur that permeates the warehouse and the constant clatter of hooves on the floor but overall we find them good fun and hard working.

 Stuart-Wayland wrote:
Over 75% of orders (excluding pre orders and the like) get shipped in the advertised time scales. A significant number get shipped within 48 hours.

There's your problem.

Let's reverse that stat.

Nearly 25% of our orders miss their advertised schedule.

Or to put it another way, we disappoint nearly a quarter of our customers on a regular basis, and we're perfectly happy with that stat.

 Holdenstein wrote:

 Stuart-Wayland wrote:
Over 75% of orders (excluding pre orders and the like) get shipped in the advertised time scales. A significant number get shipped within 48 hours.

There's your problem.

Let's reverse that stat.

Nearly 25% of our orders miss their advertised schedule.

Or to put it another way, we disappoint nearly a quarter of our customers on a regular basis, and we're perfectly happy with that stat.

We are trying really hard to improve that statistic but yes it means that a number of orders that typically ship in 3-9 days actually don't. Nowhere have we said that we are happy with that statistic, in fact we work hard to source stock from all over the world to improve things. We have twenty-odd thousand products on our current site and some of these products are hand made or made to order so it is always going to cause some customer orders to be dispatched later than we would like.

If you added in-stock products to that number (and thereby create a more accurate representation of our daily transactions) that number would shoot up into the high nineties. Still not good enough in our estimation, but we are proud that we do as much as we can and are working hard to achieve even more.

Aaand the 'why are you advertising as available' comment gets deftly skirted around.

I would be happier if you just came out with...

'We say it's available as it's better for sales' as that's the truth.

But it is available for you to order, and they will get it in for you. If Wayland can't get it from the manufacturer/supply chain, then only at that point is it unavailable.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

f2k wrote:


Writing it in yellow and marking it as "product in backorder - typically back in stock within 3 - 9 days" (or something like that) would be closer to the truth.

Would it? Wayland don't keep everything they sell in inventory. A prospective customer might see that and think "I'll check back in a few days, make sure they've got it in", then when they check back it'll stil say the exact same thing, at which point said customer may well come onto Dakka with a "What's up with that Wayland? They never update their stock levels, I can't trust that they'll have anything in stock".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Stuart-Wayland wrote:
I've been watching the Tantive IV's that were ordered by customers this morning as the Deal of the Day being packed and are now sitting waiting pick up. Anything you see on Deal of the Day is likely to ship the same day you order (unless you order it with a bunch of items not currently In Stock).

If you are tempted by one of our Deal of the Days, give it a go. You may be pleasantly surprised...

Insert "challenge accepted" meme here.... Don't suppose you want to get it to me before my game on Thursday, to be especially impressive?

 Stuart-Wayland wrote:

A good step in that direction would be taking advantage of the 40% off Tantive IV. It has got to be pretty tempting surely? Come on, our warehouse team are eagerly waiting to send it to you. Go on take the plunge and pop an order in today!

I have less than zero dogs in this fight but this is a pretty disingenuous thing to say to people saying you have fulfillment issues and you admitting you have supply chain issues and fulfillment issues. "WE KNOW WE HAVE ONE THING IN STOCK SO THIS WILL FIX EVERYTHING!!111!!!!11ONE".

 Stuart-Wayland wrote:


Unfortunately the gaming angels unionised and wanted longer harp breaks so we had to employ fiendish gaming demons instead. You have to accept the smell of sulphur that permeates the warehouse and the constant clatter of hooves on the floor but overall we find them good fun and hard working.

Lol!

I've only bought from Wayland directly on one occasion [for some X-Wing stuff] which was listed as available. I have only just realised [from reading this thread] that that doesn't necessarily mean it is available [just saw the green tick and available, went ahead and bought it]. The stock they were getting was cancelled [twice I believe], so my order placed on the 29th September didn't actually arrive until January/February of the following year. I didn't really mind too much because they were a bit of an impulse buy and I haven't been able to persuade my mates to get involved. Plus I heard there was a worldwide stock shortage. However if it was for something that I really needed then I would have been a lot more peeved.

The biggest issue I have with Wayland Games was the personal attack I received following Salute, after daring to suggest that the discounts on the day weren't particularly appealing, and querying why one of the products was much cheaper on the website than in person. It's great that the management respond to issues raised, but from that day I swore never to buy from Wayland. What's the point of raising issues and then receiving a rant in return? They lost a potentially valuable customer as I spend far too much on games of toy soldiers, so again no skin off my nose, but maybe something for them to think about in the future.

Edit - the reason why I started off by saying 'directly' is because Total Wargamer used Wayland to fill part of my order once!

 Stuart-Wayland wrote:
I've been watching the Tantive IV's that were ordered by customers this morning as the Deal of the Day being packed and are now sitting waiting pick up. Anything you see on Deal of the Day is likely to ship the same day you order (unless you order it with a bunch of items not currently In Stock).

If you are tempted by one of our Deal of the Days, give it a go. You may be pleasantly surprised...

I ordered mine at around 15:45 and got an order dispatched e-mail two hours later. Can't complain with that.

My mate is still rather miffed that, even after I explained what "Available 3-9 days" meant, it's actually going to turn out to be a month, if he's lucky.

I've got to say, I struggled to try to give a reasonable explanation about how 30 days equalled 9.

It seems to me, that the words. "On Order - typically ships in 3-9 days" is far more descriptive than 'Available.'

Well my order is 'awaiting stock'. The clock is ticking gentlemen.

Don't really need 2 threads on this

please use : http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/591332.page

in future.

Thank you.