Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

To be fair they did move at least twice in that time.

 Ouze wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Haven't they been "moving warehouse" for like 5 years? At some point that stops being a reason and starts being an excuse, and that point came around 2009, in my opinion.

You're thinking of Wayland Games there.

Yes, quite possibly. I'll edit my post.

We have moved 4 times since we opened in 2008.

I understand that they are having a stock clearance. But why are they having a stock clearance?

What do you guys believe is their margin on their stock, why is it worth their time to sell their stock at such a high discount. Where are the external pressures coming from that means that they have to offer such a high discount.

People here have said that the offer is related to their move. Why does it make sense for a business where the stock does not expire to sell the stock at such high discount where the cost of moving the stock to a new venue nearby would be a few £100 pounds for a van hire for the day. Why forgo all of the profit on that stock that you could make if you retained it for not wanting the hassle of paying someone a few £100 pounds.

This is a giant cash generation exercise. Businesses do these when they have a cash flow problem. That means that they have liabilities that they are trying to meet by generating cash from their assets. When businesses try and generate cash in this way they do so at the expense of profit, when businesses operate at the expense of profit they go bust.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
I still find OP's gripe ridiculous. Stock clearance always has and always will mean "leftovers".

If you go into a shoe shop that's clearing stock are you really surprised when the shelves are half empty and the stuff you like isn't available in your size?

I think his issue is you don't see what's in stock unless you select the item. I think it's clear only leftovers are discounted.

But imagine going into that shoe shop. The shop is full of boxes and now your about to grab a box, saying : "Nice ! Exactly what I've been looking for". Just to realise that box is empty. And now you have to figure out which boxes are empty among the piles of boxes.

Most of the time, people don't go to the boxes, they go to the display shoes and find a pair they like. They go "Nice ! Exactly what I've been looking for." Then they look up or down and try to find a box in stock in their size.

So yes, it is pretty much exactly the same. I find Maelstrom's search function works well. And you don't have to click on an item to see it's stock status. It gets displayed when you search or when you browse by either the banners at the top or the lists on the right.

As for clearing stock before you move? This can save a lot of money in employee costs in terms of moving, sorting and re-shelving at the new location.

As for Wayland? 4 moves in 4 years! Wow.

hrrmmm. First time ive ordered from them.. Placed order on Saturday, no progress yet. I ordered malifaux... All the items were supposed to be in stock... Should i be concerned?

I've ordered 4-5 times from them, and received all of my orders in a fairly short time frame. Have you checked the order status with your login?

If the items were marked as being 'in stock' I wouldn't worry about it too much for the time being!

 brainscan wrote:
hrrmmm. First time ive ordered from them.. Placed order on Saturday, no progress yet. I ordered malifaux... All the items were supposed to be in stock... Should i be concerned?

After only four days i would not be concerned, they are a reputable company and will not rip you off.

Hopefully you don't have to be concerned... however, I've been waiting since the 9th of this month for any kind of information regarding the victorian zombies I ordered. No emails, no restock, nothing.

So they got the "stern email" treatment.

-Vilegrimm

 Vilegrimm wrote:
Hopefully you don't have to be concerned... however, I've been waiting since the 9th of this month for any kind of information regarding the victorian zombies I ordered. No emails, no restock, nothing.

So they got the "stern email" treatment.

-Vilegrimm

That's pretty much how every single one of my orders go with Maelstrom. Then I get told they're restocking this week, and two weeks later the order is still not filled.

And yet I keep inflicting this on myself because they have a good selection of products.

 brainscan wrote:
hrrmmm. First time ive ordered from them.. Placed order on Saturday, no progress yet. I ordered malifaux... All the items were supposed to be in stock... Should i be concerned?

I don't think you should be worried yet. As others have said, they are a reputable company.

Also,credit where credit is due - I ordered the last 2 Melusines to finish my counts-as Wracks squad on Monday and on Tuesday they were already shipping.

They were not part of the 30% sale, unfortunately and they were listed as "in-stock".

Many of the problems with people's orders are when items "in-stock" are not actually in-stock and you have to wait on them to ship. This has led to my orders being split in the past when I had to wait for a specific box longer than usual.

I was contacted today by email saying that there is a 2 week delay from their supplier. Ive cancelled and looking to source elsewhere.

 Von Skyfury wrote:


I think his issue is you don't see what's in stock unless you select the item. I think it's clear only leftovers are discounted.

But imagine going into that shoe shop. The shop is full of boxes and now your about to grab a box, saying : "Nice ! Exactly what I've been looking for". Just to realise that box is empty. And now you have to figure out which boxes are empty among the piles of boxes.

Absolutely correct! That's exactly what my gripe is. It may be a "small" thing in the grand scheme of things, but because you have no idea what's in stock and what's not, you ned up going from page to page "hunting".

A simple function which allows you to filter "In stock" items would solve my problem from the get go. At a glance I caould go to the site, hit the filter and see whether it was worth staying on that website or not. Companies like E2046.com offer this simple facility and it really takes the pain out of surfing their site.

For anyone doubting the validity of selling stock prior to moving versus just moving it all not being cheap, I can attest to that being a fact. Having worked in a warehouse and doing such a move myself.

I'm not taking a stance on whether the clearance is for that reason, or cash generation as some have speculated, but merely giving a few facts based on my experience.

Moving warehouses is not a simple task for even the most well oiled and organised business. Even assuming your stock is all shrink wrapped and on palettes already (which it wont be), you still need to move that stock into trucks palette by palette, then unload and re-store them on the other side. This takes time even for a large group of people to do it with, and the more people you use the more wages you have to pay, and this kind of labor is not cheap either.

So on top of the actual transport cost you have all those labor wages on both sides you need to pay. And the more stock you have, the more time it takes, meaning more labor costs.

You also need to keep using the warehouse you have to move stock out to customers right up until you have finished the move. Which is why many times these things are carried out on weekends to avoid the daily shipments, which incurs penalty rates for your workers so you are even more out of pocket. Or you bring in outside hires specifically for this, which cost even more than normal.

Before you do these sorts of moves one usually wants/needs to do a stocktake of the existing warehouse. Warehouse stock levels are NEVER 100% accurate until you do these, and not doing them can have snowball effects later on. Especially if you have big discrepancies which is far from uncommon. Once again, time and wages.

Once you finally have everything in the new warehouse you generally have to do a stocktake again to make sure everything made it (and undamaged at that). Though this can be circumvented in some cases depending on how reliable your transport is, and how closely it has been managed during the offload.

All of this is time and money, usually on top of your existing overheads unless you pull existing resources away from your active business. And is far from something as simple as hiring a van on the weekend and having a single bloke ferry loads between the two sites.

So please stop with the flawed logic that it would cost less to just move the stock than sell it off. It is simply wrong. Every bit you sell out of the warehouse prior to move is some less time that needs to be taken to do the move, which ultimately costs you less overall.

As for my thoughts on their emails, and interface, and lack of communication on orders, I can see where the frustration is coming from. They aren't doing themselves any favors, which is a pity since our experience down here for the most part was excellent prior to the GW embargo. There are more than a few things they could potentially be doing to correct these perceived issues, and avoid generating more toxic customers, but not being privy to the info on their current Customer Service resources I don't feel it is my place to get on my soap box about that despite it being an area I am more than familiar with.

Personally I hope they do manage to come out of this whole thing ok, and stronger for it. They helped our region immensely when it came to getting GW at a reasonable price, and I would hate to see them go down in such a manner. Or to quote Mouse from the Matrix, "Not like this. Not like this. *Dead*".

I received a refund as well from Maelstrom, as their supplier of the Victorian Zombies has issues with receiving and shipping product.

At least they were very prompt with the refund, so kudos to Maelstrom for that.

Time to go right to the source...

-Vilegrimm

30% off = NO PROFIT MARGIN

I wrote a post on this in the last 3-4 months back when I noticed that Maelstrom has a turnover of £2million+ in 2010 -11 yet had a company of Value of £500 based around Goodwill.

I have searched the forum but cannot find it, anyway if someone with better searching skills finds it well done! I speculated at the time that their lack of stock and shortage of lines in store combined with long lead-in times for purchasing out of stock items indicated deeper rooted problems, for a company which should be comfortably netting £500,000 pa from a Retail operation turnover of £2million. It's net worth is £729 so if you liquidated everything you would be left with this, bare in mind that Goodwill is a part of this. Gross and mean GROSS, mis-management is the only way to explain this, the standard Retail mark up is 35%, they discount heavily but even at a 20% margin they should have netted £400,000 and been taxed on it 20%, or potentially reinvested it into the business or as assets to avoid Profits and therefore tax. They have grown too fast, taken on too many liabilities, the mill is lovely but with my business head on, I couldn't see how they could make back the money without having constant footfall (especially on a listed building and the superb level of decorating, Bar, Catering and Warehouse all rolled into one site). The world wide distribution was good while it lasted but the bigger companies clamped down hard and the primary revenue stream (based on the world wide distribution model) was reduced to just Europe with GW and Battlefront with FOW also threw a spanner in the works. They still distribute World wide but on much less lucrative niche lines. It was good while it lasted, they may yet survive if an investor came in and bailed them. It could be a going concern if someone with half a business brain went in and sorted out the finances or even the buy the whole thing lock stock and barrel but the liabilities look insurmountable.

http://companycheck.co.uk/company/04724863

I believe this company is not going to survive (certainly not in it's current form), I take no pride in predicting this a number of months ago, but the figures don't lie.

The Mill is quite literally the "Mill Stone" around their neck.

They are moving warehouse. It is stated in their emails and I have spoken with their staff in the flesh.

You numpty.

Where to? So they will increase their liabilites by having another site to rent? If it is the case, I have read their Website and there is no talk or mention of it. But taking what you have said is in an E-mail as gospel, how will this make their Company more profitable?

Not stated specifically nor have I asked for that much information. They will still be residing within the Mansfield area. I'll ask for the precise location on Saturday when I go down and update in this thread for ye'...

EDIT:

 mwnciboo wrote:
Where to? So they will increase their liabilites by having another site to rent? If it is the case, I have read their Website and there is no talk or mention of it. But taking what you have said is in an E-mail as gospel, how will this make their Company more profitable?

Mate; don't snap at me. I have no idea, I am not economically minded. It isn't stated on the website, why should it be? The store is staying put, along with everything else. The new warehouse will be for an increased stock-line; both store and [new] warehouse will have split stocking levels. I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic but 'gospel' should be considered solid when it comes direct from the company I guess?

-shrug

Well to be fair I didn't snap and you did call me a numpty lol

Gospel comes from a Primary source, not from a secondary anomyous person on a forum quoting what is happening. That's why what I wrote above is verifiable by their own figures they submit and are open source.

Anyway, if they haven't got a site, you don't know where it is but apparently they are moving the Warehouse? Sorry I am not convinced.

Sorry chap; just got in from work.

-offers manhug & a mug of tea

*Accepts cup of tea, and hug*

"Fancy a Custard Cream with that cuppa?" says I.

*Offers biscuit*.

"Aye! That'll do for me. My IBS will play up if I eat any more biscuits today..."

For this polite exchange, I went and found this from an email for you. It is from Maelstrom Games, sent out on the 27th of August.

Hi there,

This is just a reminder to let you know that our awesome 30% off UK RRP stock sale here at Maelstrom Games (www.maelstromgames.co.uk) due to our warehouse move ends tonight - so you'd better get your skates on!!


THE WAREHOUSE IS MOVING!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Maelstrom Games warehouse, which has been crammed to the rafters for a good long while now, is moving from the Eye of the Storm to a new location a couple of miles away in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire. This means we can work more effectively, expand our operation to bring in lots of the superb ranges out there that we don't already stock and, of course, future-proof existing ranges, which seem to grow exponentially every week. The Eye of the Storm, of course, will still retain our amazing shop, gaming hall and bar/restaurant, and you'll still be able to collect in store (either the venue or the new warehouse) should you wish!

The move will occur at some point in September (again, barring unforeseen mishaps) but, to ensure we can execute the move over a weekend and minimise disruption to our customers as much as possible, we're trying to ensure the excess stock we hold on certain ranges is greatly reduced. That means we won't have to take as much to the new warehouse and thus perform the move much quicker!

To that end, we're offering you an amazing 30% off UK RRP on any stock we hold on the following ranges until tonight, Monday, 27th of August 2012 at midnight (GMT) - so not long to get your hands on this little lot:

Thank you for sharing that, it's actually quite useful.

No problem.

Like I said, I'll ask as to where they're moving warehouse on Saturday. I live in Mansfield, I can throw ye' a link to whatever industrial estate//warehouse they'll shift to. Should be quite interesting!

The charts in that link are worrying. Looks like someone took a bite of their assets away in 2011.

The net value might be low because Maelstrom pay high wages/dividends to the owners. However taking cash out to the extent implied by that value is bad management. I'd love to know their current and quick ratios are.

If you follow the link you can see that Rob Lane set up two companies in June 2006. One for the event venue and one for Maelstrom Wargames Limited. I wonder why he did this? It is a classic way of protecting your assets if you are at risk of going insolvent. For those that don't know the assets can be moved around so as to leave the toxic component without any assets that receivers can use to pay off the debts in the event of administration.

While there may be a warehouse move in the offing I still don't buy that as the reason for the sale. A team of 3 (18-21) people working at the minimum wage (I don't believe that warehouse staff are going to be on much above that) is 3x£4.98 an hour. 8 hours a day is £120 a day. Lets say it takes 7 days to move the warehouse (trying to give it an ample timeframe but note that they say in their email that they are doing it in a weekend). That's £840. With a van hire lets say £1200.

£100,000 of stock at RRP sale value sells at a 15% at Maelstrom for £85K. So a discount of 30% forgoes £15K of future profit to avoid £1200 of costs. Even more the discount is so high you are likely to make no profit on the sale.

While those of you commenting on the finances make many valid points. The simple truth is that in the UK the game is to make as little money on paper as possible to minimise corporation tax. Equally, outside of its stock, a company of this nature won't have many tangible assets and will consequently never have a massive value.

Simply a low valuation on high turnover means their accountants know what they're doing!

The corporation tax is a good point but I don't see that here.

In terms of assets, they built their own bespoke gaming hall - yet have a net value of £800, including good will. Where's that asset booked?

That could be fairly simple, that could be owned and operated by a separate company, maelstrom games (gaming) ltd or similar and have no financial connection. Otherwise they may have borrowed more against it than its worth. Which would be a fairly scary place to be in.

True but the last financial report was filed before the Eye of the Storm company was set up. That's going to be the organisation with the asset now but not when these figures were filed.

The only company that Rob was linked to before these accounts were filed before was Mierce Miniatures. That has since gone dormant.