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.

 MadCowCrazy wrote:
This is not really a new thing.

Maybe in the past, but they had stopped sending 40K kits to direct only in any major way for quite some time. That new wave was quite a nasty surprise, especially since it doesn't appear to specifically target poor sellers. But I won't exclude the possibility that these kits disappearance in only temporary, not only is GW open to feedback from stores (the Wave Serpent going direct then coming back is an example, and I know that even as soon as Monday there had already been a decent amount of negative feedback from stores regarding the Baneblade disappearance), but we also have some kits that have spent ages as direct only recently coming back out of the blue (DE Succubus?).

... Wait a second... why is it that you have a nice list of all of the changes while I have to manually track them down by comparing older order forms. What is this treachery? Next you'll tell me that the order form they send you is actually structured and readable and not a total random mess that makes no sense?

More seriously, I see that the Wraithknight is listed as Direct Only on it but it actually was repackaged and shall be currently available. It appears that GW is repackaging all of the boxes that were lacking a plastic wrapping, which makes me happy. On the other hand I was also told that the Galvanic Servo Haulers or whatever they are called are about to be removed from our lists.

 Wulfson_40K wrote:

... Wait a second... why is it that you have a nice list of all of the changes while I have to manually track them down by comparing older order forms. What is this treachery? Next you'll tell me that the order form they send you is actually structured and readable and not a total random mess that makes no sense?

You mean like this?

 Tamereth wrote:
This is just old (stupid) GW.

Making a kit direct order only is to try to move sales of those lower volume kits through the channel were GW make the highest profit margin. It will however have the knock on effect of lower sales of those kits even more.

For example I've always planned to buy a second baneblade to make a shadowsword, but it has never made the top of my to buy list. The effective 20% price rise by making it direct only means the chances of that idea becoming a sale for GW have just dramatically lowered. If I ever do it will probably because I manage to pick one up cheap on ebay. Guess how much money GW make out of me buying one from ebay?

try an online retailer like Goblin gaming.....

Edit: found it, mea culpa

If things won't be priority for a while it makes sense to rejig a range. Easy to up production and roll them out again later. If the focus is on Spehss Muhrines and Chaos for next couple of months they want that stock in to sell off the back of marketing, not hope someone thinking of buying a Baneblade finally does...

 His Master's Voice wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
Further, there's no actual reason that FLGS shouldn't be able to order Direct products in exactly the same way and with exactly the same discount as for any other product

Direct only items can be stocked at much lower levels compared to general sale products. In order to keep them available for FLGS, GW would need to maintain much higher stock levels for little return (I assume Baneblades and Stompas don't move high numbers).

Rubbish, just increase the potential order time on those products, then customers have a choice between buying direct for immediate gratification or ordering locally with a discount on the understanding it might take a few weeks to show up. It's not customers' or FLGS' fault that GW are too cheap to function like a proper modern company that can shift their production based on demand.

Warhams-77 wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:

Warhams-77 wrote:
This is neither a change in policy nor a new thing. GW always had in their portfolio that they had to stop selling via shops. The Eldar Serpent, Skyshield landing pad and the SM Whirlwind for example have been direct-only since mid 6th edition, basically. Why is that the case with kits like these? Let's be honest, we dont know. So why dont you contact GW and ask them about the reson behind this change in availability? Try to buy Privateer Press products in europe and you will suddenly release this is not a GW-only situation

Ah yes, whataboutery, breakfast of champions.

Lets be real here, no matter who does it, it's bad for the customer and so nobody who does it gets a pass. Further, there's no actual reason that FLGS shouldn't be able to order Direct products in exactly the same way and with exactly the same discount as for any other product other than GW wanting to drive traffic to their own stores & webstore, it would cost GW almost nothing in terms of costs to continue to allow FLGS to carry a range(in addition to "must stock" items, obviously) that they feel best suits the needs of their own customer base, regardless of what reason GW might think or pretend they have for choosing this or that kit to go Direct Only. They choose not to permit that, so they deserve every bit of flack they get for decisions like this.

Let's assume the reason is they did not sell well enough. So they should keep selling them with a discount to retailers even though it is making them losses? Do you have to simplify every reason why things happen into claims like "GW screwing everyone" and "Not in the customers' best interest". If other companies' product does not sell well - look at Mantic's Battlezone scenery as an example, or their Ork vehicle kits - the range just gets cut and goes OOP. This is basic math, and not surprising at all

Also see the changes with all these currently OOP Start Collecting sets and the Land Raider Redeemer/Crusader kit. According to a few posts I read in the last days GW may be adding 8th Ed rules to some sets too.

Just be patient and dont jump to conclusions. There could be a good reason behind some of this

Oh pull the other one, it has got bells on. GW is not some wee garage producer, their entire production line is in-house and these kits will have already paid for their fixed r&d and tooling costs long, long ago - essentially every frame they stamp out costs them nothing more than a few pennies of plastic and the warehousing. Which, as I've already pointed out above, is only an issue if GW are still running their stock backend like it's the 90's - they don't need to sit on huge stacks of these kits to keep them available, they merely need to produce them on-demand and be up front that it could take some time to do that. And anyway, if they're making this stuff direct only because it's selling so poorly, why do they need to keep tons of it on-hand?

I mean, they'll still need to produce and store some stock for their own webstore, and the only difference between selling that stock through a transaction on their own site or through a purchase via a third party retailer is the margin and again, if these kits are more than a couple of years old, which direct only stuff usually is, their main costs will have long since been paid off, so we're talking about a margin on essentially pure profit. So we roll right back around to naked greed.

But I'm sure if there are so many possible good reasons behind the direct only system, you'll be able to propose a few.
...
...
...

 Yodhrin wrote:
Rubbish, just increase the potential order time on those products, then customers have a choice between buying direct for immediate gratification or ordering locally with a discount on the understanding it might take a few weeks to show up.

The schedule on GW plastic production is measured in months, not weeks. Plastic on demand doesn't seem like a feasible solution here.

 Tamereth wrote:
This is just old (stupid) GW.

Making a kit direct order only is to try to move sales of those lower volume kits through the channel were GW make the highest profit margin. It will however have the knock on effect of lower sales of those kits even more.

For example I've always planned to buy a second baneblade to make a shadowsword, but it has never made the top of my to buy list. The effective 20% price rise by making it direct only means the chances of that idea becoming a sale for GW have just dramatically lowered. If I ever do it will probably because I manage to pick one up cheap on ebay. Guess how much money GW make out of me buying one from ebay?

I'm sure they are really broken up about someone buying a bane blade from and online retailed "one day". That's what, $50 at most to them? Meanwhile those kits are taking up large amounts of shelf apace while people "think about buying it one day" when they could put 2-4 fast selling kits on the same shelf space.

FLGS ordering direct only? Forget that. They're having trouble ordering regular stock. In fact, The Combat Company, one of the bigger stores here in Oz, is straight up ditching GW over this:

The Combat Company Newsletter wrote:Unfortunately we have made the difficult decision to discontinue the majority of the Games Workshop range. Many among you may have already noticed the range has been difficult to aquire from us for quite some time now and there are numerous reasons why this has happened. However, rather than go into the specifics we'll just say this; we started this business because of our passion for Games Workshop products and while we would love to sell and stock their range Games Workshop have made such actions extremely difficult for us independent retailers.

We believe that we are no longer able to distribute this range to the standards our customers deserve and thus we are going to call it a day and clear it all out. Going forward we will continue to promote and sell ranges that you enjoy, ranges that have passionate manufactures that want to see you using their products and have the same respect for the stores selling their products as the stores do for them. We would like to thank all of the community for their support along the way.

Such smoke. Many mirrors. Wow!

Some are. Others are thriving. Your one example is not a pattern.

While everyone would like everything to be available everywhere all the time, this is not always practical for the store or GW. You can put several other sets in the same space that Baneblade or Stompa was sitting, and turn them over several times before you would the big stuff even once.

While not ideal, there is a little more to it than 'Dur, GW are being ***** again....'.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
FLGS ordering direct only? Forget that. They're having trouble ordering regular stock. In fact, The Combat Company, one of the bigger stores here in Oz, is straight up ditching GW over this:

The Combat Company Newsletter wrote:Unfortunately we have made the difficult decision to discontinue the majority of the Games Workshop range. Many among you may have already noticed the range has been difficult to aquire from us for quite some time now and there are numerous reasons why this has happened. However, rather than go into the specifics we'll just say this; we started this business because of our passion for Games Workshop products and while we would love to sell and stock their range Games Workshop have made such actions extremely difficult for us independent retailers.

We believe that we are no longer able to distribute this range to the standards our customers deserve and thus we are going to call it a day and clear it all out. Going forward we will continue to promote and sell ranges that you enjoy, ranges that have passionate manufactures that want to see you using their products and have the same respect for the stores selling their products as the stores do for them. We would like to thank all of the community for their support along the way.

Such smoke. Many mirrors. Wow!

That's going to hurt GW's sales in the region. IIRC they're the biggest online store in Australia. They move, or used to move, a lot of GW stock.

It's not surprising. When I walk into their warehouse outlet, there's fully stocked ranges from every major, and a lot of minor publishers and companies. Entire, fully stocked range selections (it's a fairly big warehouse). They've been expanding their boardgame selection and it's constantly selling out.

But their GW section has been shrinking every month or so I go in there. It sells, but what they had available is less and less every time. And this is from a company that got its start selling discount GW during the dark ages.

Though I guess it's comforting to know that the rest of the hobby has matured to the point where the biggest online retailer in the region can comfortably survive without GW's products.

 Tamereth wrote:
This is just old (stupid) GW.

Making a kit direct order only is to try to move sales of those lower volume kits through the channel were GW make the highest profit margin. It will however have the knock on effect of lower sales of those kits even more.

For example I've always planned to buy a second baneblade to make a shadowsword, but it has never made the top of my to buy list. The effective 20% price rise by making it direct only means the chances of that idea becoming a sale for GW have just dramatically lowered. If I ever do it will probably because I manage to pick one up cheap on ebay. Guess how much money GW make out of me buying one from ebay?

I just want to point out one thing: it isn't a 20% price hike. It's a 25% price hike. $100 is 125% of $80.

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Some are. Others are thriving. Your one example is not a pattern.

You think this is the only example of GW short-stocking FLGS? What rock have you been under sunshine?

The Deathwatch line is all but obliterated and gone here in Canada and the prices are rising and I don't think some of the kits will be coming back. Yeah you can buy a normal space marine bike and DW spru but the cost increase is insane.

I don't know of any other faction suffering from this.

Did the Deathwatch vehicles come with spru upgrades too? If so those are also gone.

 Gamgee wrote:
The Deathwatch line is all but obliterated and gone here in Canada and the prices are rising and I don't think some of the kits will be coming back. Yeah you can buy a normal space marine bike and DW spru but the cost increase is insane.

How does one "obliterate" a product line that only has 3 kits? The Deathwatch Terminator Captain/Regular Captain/Bikes/Terminators/Transport/Land Raider were never going to be around for long.

Have they stopped selling the Kill Team Veteran kit? The Blackstar? Mr. Guardian Blade?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
The Deathwatch line is all but obliterated and gone here in Canada and the prices are rising and I don't think some of the kits will be coming back. Yeah you can buy a normal space marine bike and DW spru but the cost increase is insane.

How does one "obliterate" a product line that only has 3 kits? The Deathwatch Terminator Captain/Regular Captain/Bikes/Terminators/Transport/Land Raider were never going to be around for long.

Have they stopped selling the Kill Team Veteran kit? The Blackstar? Mr. Guardian Blade?

Not yet at least. Still it's making it hard to collect an army when they said all armies would continue to be supported and yet the range's is getting harder and more expensive to collect. It's disrupted my yearly purchase a lot since I need to make emergency buys before it's all gone or priced so high it's impractical to collect them here.

 Gamgee wrote:
Not yet at least. Still it's making it hard to collect an army when they said all armies would continue to be supported and yet the range's is getting harder and more expensive to collect. It's disrupted my yearly purchase a lot since I need to make emergency buys before it's all gone or priced so high it's impractical to collect them here.

"Not yet at least."

So... 'no', is the answer then.

And how is it getting hard to collect a Deathwatch army? They haven't stopped selling this.

Need to buy a Baneblade real quick, then. Should've bought one when the Euro was beasting years (and several price hikes) ago.

I never actually bought Stormboyz, pistoleers, boar boyz, Kroot and several other kits because I couldn't buy them with my normal FLGS orders.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
Not yet at least. Still it's making it hard to collect an army when they said all armies would continue to be supported and yet the range's is getting harder and more expensive to collect. It's disrupted my yearly purchase a lot since I need to make emergency buys before it's all gone or priced so high it's impractical to collect them here.

"Not yet at least."

So... 'no', is the answer then.

And how is it getting hard to collect a Deathwatch army? They haven't stopped selling this.

DW biker kit 70 cad. two space marine bikers 110. Sprue 10 dollars. Over 50% cost markup. That's insane for 6 guys. To put that into perspective I can get Riptide for that or any races start collecting for cheaper. I can't even get my usual discount on them anymore since GW being greedy again. It takes me an entire year to save up for what IO'm going to order so I can't just be picky and choosy like some people and I have to finish everything to completion to get my dollar out of it. I'm not that rich. So now I have to scramble to get things as cheap as I can and I wanted to start a Khradron Overlords this year, but I might have to put it on the back burner now because of this. Thanks GW and your bizarre policies. Your PR team isn't fooling me. Your still the same draconic lizard person who thirsts for money as always and would love to devour us for all our money free of charge if you could.

Every once in awhile the mask slips.

CC has been having trouble with GW for basically forever though, and aren't they known for being total poopooheads to other distributors?

 Gamgee wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
Not yet at least. Still it's making it hard to collect an army when they said all armies would continue to be supported and yet the range's is getting harder and more expensive to collect. It's disrupted my yearly purchase a lot since I need to make emergency buys before it's all gone or priced so high it's impractical to collect them here.

"Not yet at least."

So... 'no', is the answer then.

And how is it getting hard to collect a Deathwatch army? They haven't stopped selling this.

DW biker kit 70 cad. two space marine bikers 110. Sprue 10 dollars. Over 50% cost markup. That's insane for 6 guys. To put that into perspective I can get Riptide for that or any races start collecting for cheaper. I can't even get my usual discount on them anymore since GW being greedy again. It takes me an entire year to save up for what IO'm going to order so I can't just be picky and choosy like some people and I have to finish everything to completion to get my dollar out of it. I'm not that rich. So now I have to scramble to get things as cheap as I can and I wanted to start a Khradron Overlords this year, but I might have to put it on the back burner now because of this. Thanks GW and your bizarre policies. Your PR team isn't fooling me. Your still the same draconic lizard person who thirsts for money as always and would love to devour us for all our money free of charge if you could.

Every once in awhile the mask slips.

yet again the point stands, death watch continues to be supported, they're just not offering the rediculasly cheap death watch package deals anymore.

Specific to the Deathwatch Bike issue, for me, was the basing difference. The Deathwatch Bikes set came on the larger 75x42 bases.

The Space Marine Bike squad comes on 70x25 bases.

I have no problem buying the SM Bike set and turning them into DW bikes. The DW KT sets come with more then enough extra bits to do so.

But it is a pain to have to order the larger bases separately just to have them properly based as the "official" models were.

Independent stockists can still order from Webstore and get their discounts, they just need to have a VAT number.
However, stockists need to gather a certain sum in order not to pay for shipping. This can be problematic to customers who just want one model (i/e, character for 15 euros) and, thus, are forced to wait (unless they want to pay for shipping themselves).
The second bad thing (at least for those who order from "Rest of Europe) was the latest GW pricing policy, that chaged currency from GBP to Euros at a set rate of ~1: 0.7 Which pretty much means that you simply can't make discounts if you want to make some profit.
Lastly, due to GW stock shenanigans, when the store finally decides to make a webstore order, they can see that half of the stuff they wanted to order is temporary out of stock.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Some are. Others are thriving. Your one example is not a pattern.

You think this is the only example of GW short-stocking FLGS? What rock have you been under sunshine?

If you'd like to provide examples we can discuss them, or start a thread if not directly on topic. If you just want to have a go at me that's not on topic, and is against Rule #1.

 doktor_g wrote:
Wait so my FLGS wont get the 30-50% margin. That sucks. Friggin evil empire.

evil empire.... oohkay.

If a FLGS has a trade account, they get roughly 50% off retail and 35% off direct. Additionally, they get free terrain, quarterly budgets for free models (prize support, demo units), and all kinds of fun bonuses. Most FLGS are so poorly run and managed that they don't take advantage of the gak that GW offers them.

If GW is an Evil Empire, Warlord Games is worse, as their retailer starts off at 47% off and 25% for direct.

 Commissar Benny wrote:
GW's biggest mistake years ago was its all out war on FLGS.

=-> One of the single biggest myths/persecution complexes in the history of GW.
They have _never_ wanted FLGSs to go away - just the gakky ones.

Trouble is, most game shops are hobbies for their owners, not businesses. When GW told them how to succeed, they bristled, and it's easier to say that GW hates them to admit that they suck.

Sleboda wrote:

 Commissar Benny wrote:
GW's biggest mistake years ago was its all out war on FLGS.

=-> One of the single biggest myths/persecution complexes in the history of GW.
They have _never_ wanted FLGSs to go away - just the gakky ones.

Trouble is, most game shops are hobbies for their owners, not businesses. When GW told them how to succeed, they bristled, and it's easier to say that GW hates them to admit that they suck.

My old store (this is going back 15 years to the early 2000's) was the biggest selling store in a major metro area in the US.. and GW opened up their second store in the entire state less than a mile down the same road. There was literally no other indy gaming stores within 20 miles at that time so they certainly had plenty of upper middle class suburban area they could have opened in. As soon as they did, fulfillment became spotty and new releases stopped arriving on release day but instead could only be ordered by the store on release day... whereas the GW store had them on the shelves that day. They weren't an online discounter but rather the ideal brick and mortar type of place GW was supposedly trying to help at that time and they tried to screw them over by trying to siphon off the customer base that the store built up over decades. They've been successful and open for 20 years prior to that and the 15 years since by providing good service and lots of choices and were good customers of GW's and the thanks that they got was a big FU. For those of us who actually witnessed the Kirby era dick moves on GW's part, your words ring hollow.

 warboss wrote:

My old store (this is going back 15 years to the early 2000's) was the biggest selling store in a major metro area in the US.. and GW opened up their second store in the entire state less than a mile down the same road.

Same happened here in Australia, very successful Local store for many years selling GW and suddenly GW open a store less than 100m away.

GW have all the FLGS sales data, if they want to open new stores they just have to look at their own data and see which areas are the most ripe to take over. They open their new store, limit the competitions ability to order stock and poach the local purchasing base.

Excuse me, but I don't get it.

On that Excel:

Battlemats will no longer be available? it would be ashame since I loved the Necropolis one.

Also, does that mean that the skirmish bundles will be retired soon?

Because, damn, I haven't had the chance to grab the Bloodbound and Ironjawz ones...