Anyone else cheesed off about the new plasma obliterator being sold out already? I mean seriously we barely even got a chance to buy it, and I bet a good percent of the people who did are just gonna throw it up on ebay for $200. (like the void shield generator). They really should just keep producing these fortifications because they'd make so much more money. Then again, I am trying to understand the business practices of Games Workshop.
Did anyone who is going to USE the model actually grab one before they were gone?
While not wanting to come across as blaming the victim, which is absolutely not what I believe, it is the consumer that's rewarding this behaviour by buying them in this case.
Businesses are like dogs, they react to very simple stimulus. If you wish to reward good behaviour you should give them a treat (money) and if you wish to reinforce what is unacceptable you smack them over the nose with a newspaper (withhold money.)
Unfortunately, while a normal company would have channels open to understand they were likely pissing off as many, if not more, people than they were selling to with this behaviour, GW do not.
This, along with a hard core of customers who seem to swallow whatever GW serves up every week (and one or two with poor impulse control on releases like this) means that a release like this is simply a guaranteed sum of money for GW whenever they choose to release it (remember, the game is not their priority, your cash is.)
All you can do is spend as little cash with them as possible, until their sales drop sufficiently that they sully themselves by communicating with their customers and deign to find out what we think (and get out of the mindset that they know what we want better than we do.)
If they had Facebook, Twitter, Focus Groups, Beta Testing and any other number of traditional customer feedback mechanisms, they'd probably be able to figure out roughly how many to produce, even if they still insisted on a limited run, more accurately.
The only ray of hope I can offer in this instance is this isn't a LE, it's a while stocks last, and it may be that the website allocation is sold out, there is stock allocated to stores which may give you a chance to grab one.
It was supposed to go on sale at 12AM tonight too just like the Void shield. And yeah if only they had some form of social media to communicate with us, it would hopefully help..
With some Kickstarters, I've had to hold myself back simply because I liked some of the offerings of the limited release, and I doubt you'll see a chance at them in the future. However, the fact that I'll pretty much never be able to convince someone to play those games makes me shrug and resist purchasing them.
With GW, it's incredibly easy to resist because they've devalued their limited edition stuff to the point of meaninglessness. The limited editions of the rules are nearly pointless unless you're interested in the art, because the rules will most likely be invalid in two years.
The models that are limited are in such small supply that nobody in their right mind expects people to have the actual model for whatever unit it is (ex. Void Shielf Generator).
And some of their releases they just do again. And again. Point: Space Hulk- somehow that's magically popped up like on three separate occasions.
If you like the model for what it is, great, buy it. But if you feel some sort of "ohh, gotta get this before it's gone!" or "people will think it's cool that I'm the only one that got this" step away from your computer, slap yourself, and realize your thinking about small, nearly valueless pieces of plastic.
Oh, I know. My comment was more just to anyone overcome with the urge of picking up something because it's Limited Edition and not on its merits. And trust me, I've done it before- bought the nice limited edition rulebook of 6th edition 40k, only for it to become valid in the half the time of any previous edition!
Azreal13 wrote: If they had Facebook, Twitter, Focus Groups, Beta Testing and any other number of traditional customer feedback mechanisms, they'd probably be able to figure out roughly how many to produce, even if they still insisted on a limited run, more accurately.
Hell, if they simply had pre-orders more than one week from the release that would probably help them out a lot.
Hell, if they simply had pre-orders more than one week from the release that would probably help them out a lot.
this, pre-orders a week in advance does nothing. a month (or more) in advance or more allows em to PRODUCE MORE, if a product turns out to be more popular then expected.
Also unless I'm mistaken usually preorders don't tend to count for actual stock. They're additional. So preorders will never reduce stock to zero before the release date. Yet all these things have been totally sold out on preorder alone.
I'm confused they're showing as available for pre-order still for me, though I completely agree that the trend of making any piece with rules a limited release is ridiculous. Unless of course it's like Infinity, where it's not really a limited as such, more of a slightly exclusive alternative sculpt since they do generics for pretty much everything at some point.
Edit: Just realised as I was hitting the post button, US is indeed sold out but UK still has stock, not that it helps you unfortunately.
WayneTheGame wrote: Also unless I'm mistaken usually preorders don't tend to count for actual stock. They're additional. So preorders will never reduce stock to zero before the release date. Yet all these things have been totally sold out on preorder alone.
Pre-orders won't count against stock shipping out to stores. But for a one-off release, they will account for all of the webstore stock, unless they pull some stock back from stores. And that does seem to happen... we've had a few stories over the last couple of years of stores not receiving their full order, or not receiving anything at all, on popular new releases.
WayneTheGame wrote: Also unless I'm mistaken usually preorders don't tend to count for actual stock. They're additional. So preorders will never reduce stock to zero before the release date. Yet all these things have been totally sold out on preorder alone.
Pre-orders won't count against stock shipping out to stores. But for a one-off release, they will account for all of the webstore stock, unless they pull some stock back from stores. And that does seem to happen... we've had a few stories over the last couple of years of stores not receiving their full order, or not receiving anything at all, on popular new releases.
It's worth noting that it is not unheard of for the stock levels allocated to GW stores to get reduced because of lack of preorders, and that stock to get reallocated to stores that did get preorders.
I legitimately had no clue about this model. I usually check out GW's website every morning real quick to see if the White Dwarf Daily is any good.
I did this literally at 6 AM my time. I am never up this early. And they are already out of stock.
I get limited edition releases and what not, but Jesus Christ. This is ridiculous. There's no possible way for the regular consumer to have got one without going second hand.
SRSFACE wrote: I legitimately had no clue about this model. I usually check out GW's website every morning real quick to see if the White Dwarf Daily is any good.
I did this literally at 6 AM my time. I am never up this early. And they are already out of stock.
I get limited edition releases and what not, but Jesus Christ. This is ridiculous. There's no possible way for the regular consumer to have got one without going second hand.
I'm generally in store when the pre-orders get released, and they have to have a team doing them, from the second they're availiable, to try and push enough through for people to get what they want on limited runs
Exactly, Statu. You'd need to be lined up at the store the day new things typically get released, and if you weren't there, you'd miss out entirely. That's ludicrous business practices. Creating panic in your consumer base that they can't get what they want is absurd.
GW's entire business model lately has been "We're going to scare our own consumer base into not knowing what we want to do so they panic and buy things they think they'll never be able to get again." It's so anti-consumer, it blows my mind.
The concept here is that you produce the amount of goods you can definitely sell, and you know your investment requirement and profit that will be made.
So as a company you can be pretty sure you will sell let's say 20 limited edition kits a year, selling through 100,000 units of each and making £1 million profit on each release. That should cover up the declining sales of core items.
Loads of people aren't going to want the plasma tower, or the spiky pipelines, so it doesn't make good sense to keep them in stock for ever.
wuestenfux wrote: Business practice is to keep the stock-holding as cheap as possible.
Good business practice is not to leave money on the table. If you had perfect stock management, your last item would be sold to the last consumer who wanted it, but as that is impossible to predict, most businesses would prefer to have a few left over than have unfulfilled demand, not only because that's generally the most profitable scenario (especially with something with the mark up of models) and it also avoids the negative psychological impact not getting something they wanted will have on your customers.
If I was selling something and ran out 15 minutes before closing, I'd probably feel pretty good about things, if I ran out before lunch time, I'd be kicking myself.
In GW's case having a profit margin of 10% and a cost of goods of 25% they cannot afford to carry much overstock in the hope of selling some more units to avoid leaving money on the table, because a relatively small unsold stock eats into the overall profit margin quite considerably.
If they, I don't know, maybe communicated with their customers, did market research and didn't keep us in the dark about new releases until 0 hours, they could predict how many they would sell. Instead, they make everything so limited that 75% of the people who wanted it can't get it. That's not good business, and their yearly financial report shows just what their customer base thinks of their business practices. Oh well, back to painting my cryx.
wuestenfux wrote: Business practice is to keep the stock-holding as cheap as possible.
Good business practice is not to leave money on the table. If you had perfect stock management, your last item would be sold to the last consumer who wanted it, but as that is impossible to predict, most businesses would prefer to have a few left over than have unfulfilled demand, not only because that's generally the most profitable scenario (especially with something with the mark up of models) and it also avoids the negative psychological impact not getting something they wanted will have on your customers.
If I was selling something and ran out 15 minutes before closing, I'd probably feel pretty good about things, if I ran out before lunch time, I'd be kicking myself.
The following argument is predicated on the idea that the Plasma Obliterator is a plastic kit:
I can understand limited editions/quantities when you have to order something ahead of time from a factory in China and have it shipped to you overseas. But GW makes this kit themselves. They have the molds sitting in their own factory in the UK. There is no excuse, ever, for them to do a limited run on a plastic kit, especially when they like to tout how much it costs to create plastic kits. You run out, you make more. It's like GW decides they only want a certain amount of money, even though they could easily have more. "Nope, sorry, I only want to make $10,000 in sales today, even though I've got customers lined up ready to spend $20,000." Besides, isn't one of the primary purposes of pre-ordering to determine how much product you will need to produce to meet demand?
Although, to be honest, I wasn't going to buy this particular model anyway. I think it's stupid that it costs 200+ points and has the Gets Hot! rule. So, invariably, I will be rolling a "1" on the first turn in every game I would use it.
Kilkrazy wrote:In GW's case having a profit margin of 10% and a cost of goods of 25% they cannot afford to carry much overstock in the hope of selling some more units to avoid leaving money on the table, because a relatively small unsold stock eats into the overall profit margin quite considerably.
No, but there's all sorts of methods they could employ to better estimate demand. Selling out within hours, and people complaining they couldn't get one suggests they haven't got it right. Equally, there's a very real chance they've only allocated X to the webstore, and will send stock out to stores, only for those not to be distributed in line with demand, leaving, again, unfulfilled demand. Either way, it's poor stock management.
Toofast wrote:If they, I don't know, maybe communicated with their customers, did market research and didn't keep us in the dark about new releases until 0 hours, they could predict how many they would sell. Instead, they make everything so limited that 75% of the people who wanted it can't get it. That's not good business, and their yearly financial report shows just what their customer base thinks of their business practices. Oh well, back to painting my cryx.
Yet, conversely, there was such strong feeling when Black Library did LE books this way that they changed and made the books a limited time, rather than limited number, availability and then everyone is happy. Yet another example of the subsidiaries showing Pappa GW how it's done I suppose.
Azreal13 wrote: While not wanting to come across as blaming the victim, which is absolutely not what I believe, it is the consumer that's rewarding this behaviour by buying them in this case.
To be fair, at a guesstimate GW probably have 500,000 to 1,000,000 potential customers, how many of these things are they actually making? A few hundred? a couple of thousand at most? It's a tiny subset of the customer base. It's hard to blame the customer for doing the buying when it's only 1 in 100 customers who are actually doing the buying.
Somewhere in the region of 1000000 seems about right, perhaps a little pessimistic, that'd be a little over £100 a year average spend, which probably averages out those who buy a few paints to those who habitually buy every release.
I wasn't just including those people though, there's also the "I know that buying a hideously overpriced LE codex is a ridiculous waste of money, but because they've done it for my faction, I couldn't help it" crowd, as well as the "this new model is hideous, so I'll just buy two" club and the "I don't like this model, but if I spend another £X on a variety of other kits, I can convert it to look distinctly OK" society.
I know you'll have seen these sorts of posts, and until they're all inducted into the "this is poor, I won't be buying it" association then this situation will repeat itself.
I may be missing something here, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but having just checked the GW site again the Promethium pipeline appears NOT to be in the same bracket as the Plasma annihilator, I.e while stocks last (not quite the same as a limited edition to my mind but that's a different argument). Anyway, my point being: does this mean that the pipelines, like other 40k terrain kits are here to stay? If so, then I agree it's pretty stupid to have made the annihilator limited unless they plan to produce/release more in the future, on the basis I can see waaaaaay more people wanting that than the pipes...
Mind you, I'm the type of sad git that was drooling over the Gorgonum Purgamentorum display more than anything else in the latest WD, and wondering how much I (can't) afford to spend on spiky pipes....
insaniak wrote: Mind you, in that situation I'm not entirely sure just what the point of the pre-order is...
To get people to commit their money before they can decide they don't want the new thing after all. Even GW can't stop leaks until release day, and the last thing they want is for people to see pictures of the new stuff and then lose their initial enthusiasm before they hand over their credit cards.
insaniak wrote: Mind you, in that situation I'm not entirely sure just what the point of the pre-order is...
To get people to commit their money before they can decide they don't want the new thing after all. Even GW can't stop leaks until release day, and the last thing they want is for people to see pictures of the new stuff and then lose their initial enthusiasm before they hand over their credit cards.
Don't know about you filthy colonials, but at no point would GW be legally able to not allow someone to cancel a pre order, in fact, if placed through the website then you'd be entitled to 14 days after receipt of the goods to return them, as long as you'd not built and painted it.
Azreal13 wrote: Don't know about you filthy colonials, but at no point would GW be legally able to not allow someone to cancel a pre order, in fact, if placed through the website then you'd be entitled to 14 days after receipt of the goods to return them, as long as you'd not built and painted it.
So pre orders don't even fulfil that.
Sure, but canceling an order or sending back a product you don't want takes effort. Once you place your pre-order the inertia is now on doing nothing and waiting until your new toy arrives. So yeah, if you have a sudden financial crisis and need the money back you're going to cancel your pre-order, but are you going to cancel it if you just lose a bit of enthusiasm once the "wow new stuff" factor wears off? Are you even going to think about evaluating your purchase decision again before the box arrives? I think the more likely scenario is that you press "buy now" and don't really think about it again until you realize it's a month later and you still haven't even taken the new kit out of the box.
On the other hand, if you don't have pre-orders available as soon as your customers see the new releases the inertia is on doing nothing and not buying. After the initial enthusiasm wears off you have to get your customers motivated to go back to the website/store and place an order. If the new kit doesn't look as interesting after you've had a week to think about it then it's very easy to just keep doing what you're already doing and not bother to buy one.
Given how ridiculously successful Kickstarter is, I don't understand why GW doesn't do a limited splash release, then offer some sort of 'Commit to Buy' button after stocks disappear. If enough people pony up a commitment to purchase, then they do another production run on the sprues.
Hell, they could do this entirely, not even risking the funds on limited release models. It could function as a 'pay up or shut up' system for Sisters fans (full disclaimer: not a SOB fan, but someone who would like to see them in production at GW for others). If something really couldn't generate preorders, then GW could honestly say that there wasn't sufficient demand for it.
Why the heck would you feature this stuff in your weekly magazine, when you were selling out of it before most people even could get the mag? What's the point of that wasted advertising space?
Being very busy i had no idea any special model was coming out. I went to check pre orders like i usually do and saw it there but when i clicked of course it was gone.
funny enough i got the email about being able to pre order it 8 hours after that.
Why not annouce far in advance that a limited model will be for sale? basically the way it is now only a select few (many of which are only going to resell) know about it. I am not even sure if retailers could get this thing.
That's more in the "no longer the case" camp than the "they told us lies" one.
Back in the day, sprue molds really were expensive, but nowadays GW possess both the staff and tech to make them in-house, plus the general cost has fallen overall, so it isn't as relevant as it was.
Azreal13 wrote: That's more in the "no longer the case" camp than the "they told us lies" one.
Back in the day, sprue molds really were expensive, but nowadays GW possess both the staff and tech to make them in-house, plus the general cost has fallen overall, so it isn't as relevant as it was.
That and if you wanted to make a limited edition plastic model you can also use a number of less expensive materials to make the tool from.
Yes, the tools don't last as long as steel but since it's a limited edition models with a smaller run you only need a tool that can last for that number of shots. Even fiber-filled resin tools can last (at least) up to 3,000 shots.
Yea, I'm pretty upset that I can't get one now. I saw the leaked images and thought one would go nicely with my Mechanicus army. I guess I'll never know.
PrehistoricUFO wrote:I bought three and plan to re-sell them for huge profit.
It's funny that GW want people to buy White Dwarf and get their information direct from shops, but that due to their secrecy policies and short supply, people doing the right thing (by GW standards) will only ever hear about these releases after they're all gone! It's only the evil Internet forums discussing rumours who had enough info to stand a chance of buying them.
Howard A Treesong wrote: It's funny that GW want people to buy White Dwarf and get their information direct from shops, but that due to their secrecy policies and short supply, people doing the right thing (by GW standards) will only ever hear about these releases after they're all gone! It's only the evil Internet forums discussing rumours who had enough info to stand a chance of buying them.
There is a thread in N&R about the fact that the timeframe for preorders is changing, sooo...
A 10am Pre order means nobody can buy a WD before the pre order opens anyway, as most GW stores open at 10am, plus, if you're out and about in a town, you're even less likely to be online doing some pre ordering.
From a GMT perspective, it will be functionally no different.
A 10am Pre order means nobody can buy a WD before the pre order opens anyway, as most GW stores open at 10am, plus, if you're out and about in a town, you're even less likely to be online doing some pre ordering.
From a GMT perspective, it will be functionally no different.
You're telling me you're not planning your life around GW releases? That's your problem right there, mate.
Pre-orders are a way for a company to gauge interest in a product. They get an idea of how many to produce and where to send their product. If one store sells a bunch of pre-orders then a company knows where to send the stock instead of guessing. Allowing only a week for pre-orders is ridiculous as it is a such a great tool.
As for limited editions, well they work for some people or businesses wouldn't keep making them. I mean, its a terrain piece. I never see people buying or using the fortifications in my area but all of a sudden this is limited release and everyone wants one. It stirs up hype. It gets people jumping on their website early in the morning to check it. it's a status piece for people with more money than brains.
If it bothers you don't buy it. Definitely don't buy them second hand on ebay ridiculously marked up. Let the people who buy them all up get stuck with them. Better yet, stop buying from GW all together and stop rewarding their madness.
Just a small point here but, molds are still expensive. A good mold is incredibly expensive but if you make it out of cheap material it will invariably be cheaper as you are knowingly designing a mold to only last X amount of time. I work with injection molding too, it can be cheap if your mold maker uses material that is just as cheap and not complicated to work over.
We wrote: Allowing only a week for pre-orders is ridiculous as it is a such a great tool.
Unless you have no confidence in the quality of your product. If you make a good product that your customers want then yes, having early pre-orders is a great idea. But I suspect GW is depending on the impulse buy because their products aren't good enough to sell on their own merits if their customers have some extra time to think about whether or not they really want the new thing. I'm sure they'd rather skip pre-orders entirely and have the new stuff go up for sale as soon as anyone knows it exists, but even GW can't shut down all of the leaks. GW's pre-orders are less of a useful business tool and more of a concession that a short pre-order period is better than having people see the new releases and not be able to commit their money at all.
As for limited editions, well they work for some people or businesses wouldn't keep making them. I mean, its a terrain piece. I never see people buying or using the fortifications in my area but all of a sudden this is limited release and everyone wants one. It stirs up hype. It gets people jumping on their website early in the morning to check it. it's a status piece for people with more money than brains.
And now many of those people buying them are buying them as a status symbol, compared to the people buying it because it has decent rules and they know there's no second chance to get it if they hesitate even a single day? GW could easily sell more of this kit (making more money in the long run) if they really wanted to, but instead they'd rather have immediate cash and the ability to tell the shareholders "our awesome stuff always sells out".
oni wrote: Yea, I'm pretty upset that I can't get one now. I saw the leaked images and thought one would go nicely with my Mechanicus army. I guess I'll never know.
PrehistoricUFO wrote:I bought three and plan to re-sell them for huge profit.
edited my snark comment of rage fueled jealousy.
Honestly don't even trip over it bro. It's all sold out now or whatever, but you're more than likely going to be able to get them in stores because shops always have some stock allocated to them.
Just hit your GW as fast as possible, and like others have said there will be . . . alternate and cheaper ways to get an item very closely resembling this.
We wrote: I mean, its a terrain piece. I never see people buying or using the fortifications in my area but all of a sudden this is limited release and everyone wants one. It stirs up hype. It gets people jumping on their website early in the morning to check it. it's a status piece for people with more money than brains.
Again this has to be kept in context of how many kits they actually made. Just because people in YOUR area don't buy or use terrain pieces doesn't mean NO ONE does and just because they sell out in 5 minutes doesn't mean EVERYONE wants one.
The amount of kits GW produces for limited runs, you probably only need 1 in every 100 people wanting one for it to sell out quickly and a lot of those people being disappointed.
I'll start with a disclaimer. I love minis, but I've kind of tuned out GW since they went all embargo on Australia a couple of years ago. My facts might be a bit askew, but I think you'll get the gist of what I'm saying.
Didn't GW claim (was it in the Chapterhouse lawsuit?) that they aren't a gaming company, they are a collectibles company? What could be more collectible than a Limited Edition? What could be better to prove that in future court cases than a number of sold out LE releases?
They just risk creating a greater market for people supplying models they have made it very clear they will not beyond a short limited run. The Chapterhouse case also showed how weak their IP protection is to things imitating their 'aesthetic', something so nebulous that it cannot be protected but which we know when we see it. Further, companies can be fairly safe stating that their products are 'compatible with warhammer product X', as long as it doesn't look like they are passing themselves off as making officially endorsed GW products. Something which no third party company does anyway.
Aspiring Champion wrote: Didn't GW claim (was it in the Chapterhouse lawsuit?) that they aren't a gaming company, they are a collectibles company? What could be more collectible than a Limited Edition? What could be better to prove that in future court cases than a number of sold out LE releases?
They did. There's more protections for sculptures than toys.
I think the LE thing is going to keep going because it's low effort/cost for them (cheaper moulds, single print runs) and they usually sell out pretty quickly (seemingly mostly to resellers).
They've been on quite a drive to reduce the number of different product codes in stores too, presumably because they are trying to downsize and are running out of shelf space.
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mechanicalhorizon wrote: The limited edition releases that always bothered me were the ones from Kingdom Death.
By the time I got the e-mail for the new models they would already be sold out.
I think maybe now that;s been corrected, but since I missed so many models I stopped trying.
At least in the Kingdom Death case I can understand why - it's a one man operation making incredibly detailed hand cast resin mini's with incredible quality control. He's genuinely limited in how many mini's he can cast without affecting quality, since it's probably 10+ minutes per mini plus curing time (1+ hour).
GW's LE mini's are injection moulded PVC, and is only limited by the mould strength and the number entered into the 'print' command, and can be banged out about 1 per second.
I'm still curious as to whether or not this might mean a repackaged Aquila Strongpoint. It wouldn't be unprecedented for them to do something like repackaging a plastic boxed set, as they did it before with the Baneblade variants.
Email them / write to them / ring them, and tell them what you think of their policy.
Go direct, as I doubt GW store staff can feed back into the system.
I don't buy stuff when it first comes out, so I often miss out. But, they seem to be coming around, as the codex-specific tactics cards are being re-released, along with some other stuff.
I have gotten to the point of ignoring them. They are banking on their IP and the loyalty of the gaming community.
As cool as they are, they are not worth the hassle and ridiculous prices. There's always the budding third party companies, kickstarters, or making your own.
At least in my opinion, GW is shooting themselves in the foot with the level of exclusivity they seem to try to squeeze out of certain products.
Not to the point of ruining GW, but I think in the next couple of years, some companies are definitely gonna start swooping in, offering and cashing in on GW's silliness.
aw_man wrote: Not to the point of ruining GW, but I think in the next couple of years, some companies are definitely gonna start swooping in, offering and cashing in on GW's silliness.
I'd say that we are already seeing this happen and that is is slowly killing GW.
Mantic have had MASSIVE success with their not-BloodBowl, not-Necromunda and the like, taking swaths of market share that GW could easily have maintained if it simply invested a little in it's specialist games rather than let them wither and die for drawing attention away from 40k. GW's bleeding market share left right and center and eventually their (admittedly impressive) accounting skills won't be able to make up the losses. Practically every other major company on the market however seems to be seeing significant growth, almost certainly by taking it from GW.
Believe it or not selling to only 10 people when 20 are trying to give you money is not a viable business strategy
WayneTheGame wrote: Also unless I'm mistaken usually preorders don't tend to count for actual stock. They're additional. So preorders will never reduce stock to zero before the release date. Yet all these things have been totally sold out on preorder alone.
Pre-orders won't count against stock shipping out to stores. But for a one-off release, they will account for all of the webstore stock, unless they pull some stock back from stores. And that does seem to happen... we've had a few stories over the last couple of years of stores not receiving their full order, or not receiving anything at all, on popular new releases.
It's worth noting that it is not unheard of for the stock levels allocated to GW stores to get reduced because of lack of preorders, and that stock to get reallocated to stores that did get preorders.
So you mean the people who ordered this product early were able to secure it? Also, the company made sure that people who preordered the product got the product over a store getting something for general release? For shame GW. You should know your customers are procrastinators and should therefore not fulfill someone who has paid for said product and instead make sure it gets to one of your shops so that someone like me can pick it up on a whim.
WayneTheGame wrote: Also unless I'm mistaken usually preorders don't tend to count for actual stock. They're additional. So preorders will never reduce stock to zero before the release date. Yet all these things have been totally sold out on preorder alone.
Pre-orders won't count against stock shipping out to stores. But for a one-off release, they will account for all of the webstore stock, unless they pull some stock back from stores. And that does seem to happen... we've had a few stories over the last couple of years of stores not receiving their full order, or not receiving anything at all, on popular new releases.
It's worth noting that it is not unheard of for the stock levels allocated to GW stores to get reduced because of lack of preorders, and that stock to get reallocated to stores that did get preorders.
So you mean the people who ordered this product early were able to secure it? Also, the company made sure that people who preordered the product got the product over a store getting something for general release? For shame GW. You should know your customers are procrastinators and should therefore not fulfill someone who has paid for said product and instead make sure it gets to one of your shops so that someone like me can pick it up on a whim.
I think he's saying GW changes stock allocation based off pre-orders, so areas that get a large number of pre-orders also get a larger amount of standard stock of those items.
So you mean the people who ordered this product early were able to secure it? Also, the company made sure that people who preordered the product got the product over a store getting something for general release? For shame GW. You should know your customers are procrastinators and should therefore not fulfill someone who has paid for said product and instead make sure it gets to one of your shops so that someone like me can pick it up on a whim.
I suspect you're reading a negativity into the posts you're responding to that isn't actually there. It was an explanation of the process, not a criticism.
boyd wrote: So you mean the people who ordered this product early were able to secure it? Also, the company made sure that people who preordered the product got the product over a store getting something for general release? For shame GW. You should know your customers are procrastinators and should therefore not fulfill someone who has paid for said product and instead make sure it gets to one of your shops so that someone like me can pick it up on a whim.
You do realize that the whole point of having a retail store and not just selling everything online is so that customers can come in and pick up something on a whim, right? If GW wants to set it up so that customers who shop in their stores have little or no chance of getting new releases then that devalues their own stores and increases the risk of independent stores deciding that if GW wants to take sales out of their store then carrying GW products isn't worth it anymore. If they aren't making enough of a new product to handle both preorders and store inventory then they need to increase the size of their production runs until they're meeting demand.
WayneTheGame wrote: Also unless I'm mistaken usually preorders don't tend to count for actual stock. They're additional. So preorders will never reduce stock to zero before the release date. Yet all these things have been totally sold out on preorder alone.
Pre-orders won't count against stock shipping out to stores. But for a one-off release, they will account for all of the webstore stock, unless they pull some stock back from stores. And that does seem to happen... we've had a few stories over the last couple of years of stores not receiving their full order, or not receiving anything at all, on popular new releases.
It's worth noting that it is not unheard of for the stock levels allocated to GW stores to get reduced because of lack of preorders, and that stock to get reallocated to stores that did get preorders.
So you mean the people who ordered this product early were able to secure it? Also, the company made sure that people who preordered the product got the product over a store getting something for general release? For shame GW. You should know your customers are procrastinators and should therefore not fulfill someone who has paid for said product and instead make sure it gets to one of your shops so that someone like me can pick it up on a whim.
I think he's saying GW changes stock allocation based off pre-orders, so areas that get a large number of pre-orders also get a larger amount of standard stock of those items.
So GW allocates inventory to places it expects to sell products? Not every GW store is equal. I would expect Orlando to get less than Baltimore or Chicago if only because they have more potential gamers.
boyd wrote: So you mean the people who ordered this product early were able to secure it? Also, the company made sure that people who preordered the product got the product over a store getting something for general release? For shame GW. You should know your customers are procrastinators and should therefore not fulfill someone who has paid for said product and instead make sure it gets to one of your shops so that someone like me can pick it up on a whim.
You do realize that the whole point of having a retail store and not just selling everything online is so that customers can come in and pick up something on a whim, right? If GW wants to set it up so that customers who shop in their stores have little or no chance of getting new releases then that devalues their own stores and increases the risk of independent stores deciding that if GW wants to take sales out of their store then carrying GW products isn't worth it anymore. If they aren't making enough of a new product to handle both preorders and store inventory then they need to increase the size of their production runs until they're meeting demand.
But if something was limited, why would you expect to be able to pick one up? If you're referencing a general release, yes it will be in stock at a later point in time. I wouldn't expect any store to always have every new thing in stock all the time. If you want something, order it and guarantee that you get it. Why would an independent shop be affected by GW Retail? They would be a third party - if they buy something, they are technically an end customer in GW's eyes. GW retail would be a related party and shuffling product around between their shops does not constitute a sale. They should be getting their product before/simultaneously if it was ordered timely. A FLGS would be responsible for selling the product - not GW. GW assists with selling the product by making the product desirable but the FLGS is responsible for fostering the gaming atmosphere and keeping you coming back. Their success is not tied to GW - most are actually tied to Magic: The Gathering as that usually is a FLGS's top seller.
Limited models are a bummer - I likely would have started Malifaux long ago if I could have snagged the nightmare version of the Dreamer!
I can understand somewhat limited metal or resin... but limited injection molded plastic models just boggle my mind. As someone who has just paid for an injection mold (for the ModCube!) I can't imagine just retiring it after that huge upfront expense! I know GW are many orders of magnitude larger, but I feel like they would make all these initial sales anyway without making the model limited, and so are just limiting later sales.
I know they may also need to cut down on how many SKUs they have, but still, making a brand new injection mold for a sweet model and instantly selling out of it just doesn't seem like the way to go! From the consumer's or the business's perspective...
My question is this, though: Would GW have a legal leg to stand on if someone else released a model with a similar footprint, yet a look that was different enough and marketing that clearly identified it as "not a GW product?"
boyd wrote:
So GW allocates inventory to places it expects to sell products? Not every GW store is equal. I would expect Orlando to get less than Baltimore or Chicago if only because they have more potential gamers.
I think this bears repeating.
insaniak wrote:
I suspect you're reading a negativity into the posts you're responding to that isn't actually there. It was an explanation of the process, not a criticism.
We wrote: So I am seeing a ton of these on eBay, which tells me that people don't care about buying this so much as reselling it for a profit. What a joke.
Yeah, this seems to be the case with these things. If only people wouldn't buy them for their marked-up prices, then we could kill off the scalper market. But I suppose that's not just a problem with tabletop gaming...
We wrote: So I am seeing a ton of these on eBay, which tells me that people don't care about buying this so much as reselling it for a profit. What a joke.
Honestly, I am surprised there is such a low amount. I expected a lot more of them. IE: Sellers with stacks of ten.
I have never been one to buy in (heh!) to the limited release thing. If I really want it I'll hunt for it when the time is right. That being said there are a few impulse buys I've made due to low stock on hand, but they weren't really limited releases. I love both the Warhammer IPs, but I cannot say I'm missing the GW headache.
Coldhatred wrote: I have never been one to buy in (heh!) to the limited release thing. If I really want it I'll hunt for it when the time is right. That being said there are a few impulse buys I've made due to low stock on hand, but they weren't really limited releases. I love both the Warhammer IPs, but I cannot say I'm missing the GW headache.
I bought two, I was going to make a gate. I like the design of this new tower, for a bastion. I use the guns elsewhere, like on my giant carrier project I have planned. That being said, I can't really justify anything else unless it is a limited book, which there are only two that interest me atm.
I kinda feel bad I'm had to sell my second tower now but, it's not like people can get them anymore. I guess YMMV, because for me I only buy what I like.
Right now it's the new shinny building with a giant gun that has amazing power. In 3-5 years we'll have another edition change (maybe even two the way things are going) and the rules will be all wonky, the meta will change and so no one will use it; and at that point... you have yourself a $90.00 piece of terrain. Exactly like what happened with the Void Shield Generator.
Chute82 wrote: If your going to sell it, sell it while it's hot. In a few months you won't be able to give it away something bigger and badder will be released
Yeah, I didn't think of the 40k meta. These were going for 200$ on ebay the first time they sold out. I had a brief window to gleam that much, waited, and now I am stuck competitively priced with all the other ones around 120$, free 2 day shipping, etc.
(Am I justified in charging that much? If I charged the 83$ I paid, I'd be shooting myself in the foot. Any higher than what I wrote above and I am above the current market value. I also notice that ebay and amazon are flooded with these things atm.) Ideally, I think this situation sucks for all, I'm only trying to sell mine due to hard times coming.
If it doesn't sell though, I can paint it up at least, or see to it that my friend's orks get something to tinker with.
