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They just posted the announcement on the Seattle Bunker's FB page. The message said go to FW's FB page and wait for more detailed info there.

It's going to be available everywhere....

Not news. GW hasn't sold FW in US stores in like 2 years.

What SOME stores did, was organize group buys so we could get a large enough order with a few other customers in order to have a large enough order to get free shipping, then it would ship to the store. Usually this was done by an employee on his own dime on behalf of the people in the store. Basically one person bought everything, everyone paid him back.

I guess they finally had enough problems with people not paying that employees who were willing to manage the bullcrap simply stopped bothering.

Lesson? Make a few friends, organize your own group buy, get free shipping and everyone can have their resin without needing GW.

I don't think you had to do a group-buy to buy Forgeworld products through a Bunker, nkelsch... probably why they're getting rid of that option now

redcapscorner wrote:

Perhaps FW is ignorant of the fact that Hong Kong and Russia are producing large portions of the 40k model lines and selling them at better prices with reasonable shipping.

I think what you mean is pirates in those countries are illegally copying their designs.

Seriously, FW isn't making bread or cancer drugs, they make toys. If you can't afford them don't buy.

RiTides wrote:I don't think you had to do a group-buy to buy Forgeworld products through a Bunker, nkelsch... probably why they're getting rid of that option now

I tried to buy FW from bowie bunker last year when they first opened, and that is how they were doing it. They said everyone bring cash on saturday, they wrote up an order, and then get free shipping. The guy said he placed the order himself on his card and got the 'rewards' for it.

I declined to participate, I remember when the Glen burnie location straight up had resin and I bought most my forgeworld from Glen burnie.

Breotan wrote:They just posted the announcement on the Seattle Bunker's FB page. The message said go to FW's FB page and wait for more detailed info there.

I saw that. It's now making me look REAL HARD at those Forge World Apothecaries to see if I REALLY need them.

This might be local to the area since the Seattle Battle Bunker has done nothing but promote events that are FW friendly.

However, I just read about reading their FB page. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....

From the information I got, they are stopping because of customer service issues. The bunker would order the pieces, tell the customer it would be there in 3-5 days (or whatnot), no tracking numbers were issued, and the orders would get held up in customs for days with no notice to the customer. They decided to just drop the service instead of creating bad blood.

Kroothawk wrote:

ajefferism wrote:By the way the grammar in their post is pretty horrible:
"threw" instead of through
"buy" instead of by
Not to mention all the run-on sentences. You'd think they'd get someone who knows the English language better for their PR announcements.

Oh, and I thought this was American English.

Now that's unnecessary.

I do wish FW would remove the VAT for buyers outside of the UK though.

If they removed the VAT, they'd hike the shipping. You have no idea just how expensive shipping out of the UK is compared to say the US.

LavuranGuard wrote:If they removed the VAT, they'd hike the shipping. You have no idea just how expensive shipping out of the UK is compared to say the US.

So you're saying FW are making a loss on shipping to customers outside the UK but recouping that loss from VAT that they should not have charged?

They are charging 15% for shipping on the value of your order and not by weight. Resin is pretty light so I'm not so sure if they'll make a loss. Probably if the destination's far away like Japan or Hong Kong, their shipping charges are comparatively cheaper than the standard shipping charges you get from other online sellers.

However, VAT in the UK is 20%. I doubt they have undercharged shipping by that much even to far away customers.

I just find it odd that FW are not excluding VAT from their prices to non-UK customers, unlike GW's online store.

I just got back from having this discussion with the LA Bunker people. What has been said so far, is essentially true. Between shipping delays, poor QC on models, and orders routinely getting screwed up, it was decided it was not worth it to allow Forgeworld models to be ordered through the bunkers.

Instead, Forgeworld will have booths at a larger number of events (Strategicon was mentioned specifically), to try and provide an alternative to those who ordered from the bunkers.

this stinks.

This really frakking stinks.

GW/FW/Citadel whatever is definitely trying to rebuild their infrastructure and cut out all of the middlemen and become the direct seller. In theory, we SHOULD see a drop in prices once they become sole distributor, but there's no way in seven hells and all thats above that they will lower prices once they realize just how much more money they are making. Seems to me like they are trying to bring FW into the fold.

That's not the way it seems, at all.

Forge World orders through official shops, if they are not set up in such a way that the customers can track their product the whole way are asking for trouble when customs gets involved.

It's very much a GW method to simply cut out potential problems after minor complaints.

Alpharius wrote:I do wish FW would remove the VAT for buyers outside of the UK though.

I'm not sure they can. I looked into recovering what I paid in VAT and found out that you can't get a refund for mail order or internet sales. This suggests to me that the VAT is collected from FW for those types of goods.

darthtong wrote:

So you're saying FW are making a loss on shipping to customers outside the UK but recouping that loss from VAT that they should not have charged?

They are charging 15% for shipping on the value of your order and not by weight. Resin is pretty light so I'm not so sure if they'll make a loss. Probably if the destination's far away like Japan or Hong Kong, their shipping charges are comparatively cheaper than the standard shipping charges you get from other online sellers.

However, VAT in the UK is 20%. I doubt they have undercharged shipping by that much even to far away customers.

I just find it odd that FW are not excluding VAT from their prices to non-UK customers, unlike GW's online store.

That's how other 40k online retailers work. Also the weight of resin is not the total issue, as international shipping often uses volumetric weight, which basically screws you if you send a bulky, but light package. I know when I lived in the UK international shipping was a killer, yet the same items could be sent to me by return of post for a fraction of what I paid.

I heard an interview on Ohiohammer with a FW chap at Adepticon and he said they were trying to get to more US events (other than Adepticon and Games Day). I'll be interesting to see if you can order stuff for those conventions in advance and avoid shipping costs also avoiding the massive queue on the day. If they are getting a better convention presence then that might be why they are cutting back on the battle bunkers. That said, the anecdotes here make it appear that it was an unofficial service that they turned a blind eye to. That could be a pain in the butt if someone had to return a figure or ask for replacement parts.

makes sense to me for 2 reasons.

1) No shipping cost from the UK? I know the FW stuff costs a fortune to buy, but GW eating an overseas shipping cost for an order seems like a loser for them. Also, when you direct order normal stuff in the store, I believe it comes with their normal weekly shipment...so free makes sense.

2) I understand that FW doesn't know their a** from their elbow and ships stuff all wrong, too much stuff, not enough stuff, duplicates, wrong stuff. No reason why the US stores should have to waste their time and effort on something they get no sales credit for, eat the shipping for and that is often an issue they have to resolve with the customer.

For the record, their models are AWESOME, guess they just don't know how package and ship stuff in the UK.

deggreg@yahoo.com wrote:makes sense to me for 2 reasons.

1) No shipping cost from the UK? I know the FW stuff costs a fortune to buy, but GW eating an overseas shipping cost for an order seems like a loser for them. Also, when you direct order normal stuff in the store, I believe it comes with their normal weekly shipment...so free makes sense

They were NOT eating the shipping costs on every individual order, they were just offering it via the usual Forge World method for doing so. What they were doing was combining customer orders together to break the 250 pounds barrier where Forge World offers free shipping all the time anyway.

biccat wrote:

Alpharius wrote:I do wish FW would remove the VAT for buyers outside of the UK though.

I'm not sure they can. I looked into recovering what I paid in VAT and found out that you can't get a refund for mail order or internet sales. This suggests to me that the VAT is collected from FW for those types of goods.

I don't know if that's true. When I order from Warlord Games (in the UK), they deduct VAT from my purchases because I'm ordering from the States. That's an "internet sale" to me.

And I only question it as I'm someone who orders from forgeworld when I reach the 'free shipping' level, and would love to be able to recoup VAT.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:

redcapscorner wrote:

Perhaps FW is ignorant of the fact that Hong Kong and Russia are producing large portions of the 40k model lines and selling them at better prices with reasonable shipping.

I think what you mean is pirates in those countries are illegally copying their designs.

Seriously, FW isn't making bread or cancer drugs, they make toys. If you can't afford them don't buy.

Truth.

A: are things so slow that all of you business "experts", that all you can cling to in this weeks slam on GW is to target some random mangers posting?
B: Big deal that they arent selling Forge World at the Battle Bunkers. As it was said before, the managers might take a community order to save on shipping. At the Tomball Crossing store in Houston the manager will do that for his customers. Does he have to? Nope but he does it to help his customers...who arent ungrateful wretches.
C: Any miniuature game falls under luxury items. They are not needed to survive. If you cant afford them then dont buy it, save your money for something else.
D: I love that DakkaDakka has a lot of interested parties that post news like this but sometimes it should just be a sticky or closed post so people dont have to scour through the post to see if there is something actually worth reading about.

BC here confirming our bunkers cant let customers or even own staff to piggyback FW orders.

Well, at least this thread is not about Forge World models being banned from use at Bunkers. That would really be a kick to the nads.

Keep squeezing milk from a stone GW.

Balance wrote:

ajefferism wrote:

Not to be a grammar/spelling nazi, but they an official publication from a huge company like GW should hopefully get threw/through and buy/by correct...

Not to be a grammar/spelling nazi, but you left out the word "are."

Boss_Lugbitz wrote:

Balance wrote:

ajefferism wrote:

Not to be a grammar/spelling nazi, but they an official publication from a huge company like GW should hopefully get threw/through and buy/by correct...

Not to be a grammar/spelling nazi, but you left out the word "are."

And you broke quoting.

I can understand this; I had ordered a few items in the past from a store, and there were problems - this lead to them having to play middle man - especially on a product where there was no profit margin for them (birds gotta eat, fish gotta swim, clerks gotta be paid...).

My friends and I get together and order every few months, and we easily get free shipping.

Of thousands of dollars over the past few years, we have only had two issues, and those were VERY quickly corrected by FW and some excellent service.

Now, your experiences may vary, but ours has been overwhelming positive.