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I thought I read GW was on the climb since mid 2010's? They were hiring all over the global last I looked end of the year.

They need a block buster.

Yeah and they had a huge climb in the pandemic which was artificially high. Which is part of why they hit the top of the UK stock market; but also why GW stock went down in value later because that growth was unsustainable and a one-off.

Best case is that GW retains the majority of that growth and continues to make steady growth. But as I said one never knows and it just reinforces the angle of GW remaining in-house and keeping their expansion under direct control .

I'm personally am up to here with outsourcing in general, being on the customer end of things as well as seeing it at work.

Seeing rando companies pushing bodies to provide rando support to multiple corporations at once with people on the phones forgetting who they're working for, disloyalty, corners cut, and on and on.

That and there are also social/work issues in factories in places like china which can cause huge problems. Such as the way problems are often not reported because lower level staff don't want to be blamed. So the problems are seen, but never resolved until everything goes pear-shaped because a whole shipment is sent out to customers with faults.

There are good firms to work with of course; but there are enough risky ones for it t obe a a concern. Esp in a market where high precision is required.

Add to that timezone differences, vast distances and language barriers/issues.

You can overcome them and deal with them ,but its yet more complications.

 Dryaktylus wrote:

 kodos wrote:
Yeah, that was why we could order individual plastic frames, because this only works with metal

Metal bits were the minority of stuff ordered from the bits store

Maybe a personal experience, but I ever only ordered metal parts and old miniatures. Sure, I got plastic arms and weapons for some models too (since a lot of 40k models were metal body + plastic sprue) as part of the order, but for plastic miniature sprues it was usually way cheaper to buy the whole box in Germany than to order in the UK (unless there was a GW store in town - in my case not). Old plastic sprues also became mostly OOP when not used in recent products, whereas they still casted old metal miniatures.

you did not need to order directly in the UK, GW Germany took orders on bits as well
the local game store had a monthly bits order and it was mostly plastic what people wanted because it was cheaper to order a single frame for conversion than buying the whole box or to buy the weapon frame from one kit to replace the metal parts from another
stuff like the imperial guard or sisters of battle tank upgrade frame, heavy weapon frames, marine upgrade frames (like the SW ones) or jump pack frame (as it was cheaper to buy 10 jump packs and a box of Marines than 2 times the assault marine box)

I understand why GW is not doing that any more, but "not possible with plastic" is not even close

Sprue isn"t bit though. I'm talkng about BIT sale. You know? Individual parts. Which would need to be cut. Manual work. And rest of sprue thrown to bin.

Whole sprue then runs into issue that often part a is on sprue 1 and connecting part b is on sprue 2. And buying those 2 sprues get you whole kit to begin with.

Generally with 2 sprue boxes you would end up paying 60-70% of box price anyway. Not really effective.

tneva82 wrote:
Sprue isn"t bit though. I'm talkng about BIT sale. You know? Individual parts. Which would need to be cut. Manual work. And rest of sprue thrown to bin.

Whole sprue then runs into issue that often part a is on sprue 1 and connecting part b is on sprue 2. And buying those 2 sprues get you whole kit to begin with.

Generally with 2 sprue boxes you would end up paying 60-70% of box price anyway. Not really effective.

With metal it was feasible because metal was almost infinitely, and losslessly, recyclable: just chuck whatever you don't need back into the smelter and you're good to go. This does not work with plastics at all, which compounds all the issues you already mentioned.

It's technically possible, but it's incredibly wasteful on all fronts.
So infeasible it's practically impossible.

the main reason that it is not possible any more is that there are no single frames with add-on
by now one box is one large frame cut in have, so there are none they can sell extra, and if there is one, it is still available to buy (like the Guard tank upgrade sprue)
the main reason GW is not selling bits any more is that they don't produce bits to sell any more

tneva82 wrote:
Sprue isn"t bit though. I'm talkng about BIT sale. You know? Individual parts. Which would need to be cut. Manual work. And rest of sprue thrown to bin

ok, GW never did that at all, as also with the metal parts you needed to buy the whole frame

you always needed to buy the full casting part even if you just wanted 1 thing and throw the rest into the bin
wanted a single Chaos Space Marine Melter, needed to buy 5 because there were 5 metal ones on one frame

you were never ever able to order just a single bit from GW unless that single bit was the full frame, what you are talking about are bits selle that sell the parts of models on ebay, and GW never did that, they never cut a frame into single parts and sold them off, not even with metal either

 kodos wrote:

you always needed to buy the full casting part even if you just wanted 1 thing and throw the rest into the bin
wanted a single Chaos Space Marine Melter, needed to buy 5 because there were 5 metal ones on one frame

you were never ever able to order just a single bit from GW unless that single bit was the full frame, what you are talking about are bits selle that sell the parts of models on ebay, and GW never did that, they never cut a frame into single parts and sold them off, not even with metal either

Maybe not in all regions, but in the US you absolutely could order individual parts as "just that bit" for quite some time in the late 90s/early 2000s. They even had a van that would drive around stocked full of parts that would stop by local game stores as a sort of event and you could buy specific guns and arms basically over the counter instead of waiting on mail order. The van got stolen and then that stopped, but most metal parts could be had individually if that's what you wanted. In the long-term however, it's a ton of cost for not a lot commercial gain so it's not wholly-surprising that it went away. I know there was a huge shelving collapse at one of the warehouses and I think it was the US where they just bagged up the bits on the floor and sold them as-is because it'd be too much labor to sort them back into bins. Vague recollection is that the service was discontinued not terribly long afterwards.

On a different topic, the outsourcing to China is seemingly their production bottleneck more than anything else. The one thing they don't have internally is printing and that seems to be the part that hamstrings releases. That makes sense considering if they wanted to run another thousand sprues of Kasrkin that's probably a few hours of machine time, but getting the printed boxes to put them will require a boat from China. Reportedly they're also switching their "generic" boxes to black Warhammer branding instead of the white boxes, which likely further exacerbated things. Cursed City had it's whole kerfuffle which seemed to revolve around the printed components and not anything related to the models. I get why they outsource that, but it does seem like it bites them in the butt from time to time when whoever's nephew that they shoved in the estimation room wildly fails to understand likely demand for a given kit...

and since the printing is outsourced and GW isn't going to be a big enough customer to really dictate terms it might not even be a case of them underestimating demand,

it could be that they can only order say 20,000 copies of something for delivery within the time frame that they require as that's the most that the printing company can squeeze in between larger orders

While printing does seem to be something they can't do in house, according to Peachy on the Painting Phase GW had a significant lead time (IIRC something like 19 weeks) on printing from China, and if they missed the deadline for production reasons (which wasn't... unknown) then they had to use a local printer. He said that was more expensive and impacted margins but happened sometimes irrespective.

Given that process exists, I'd be surprised if that was genuinely the bottleneck - it's probably a factor on if reprints happen on edge cases, but it is better to slightly affect margin and have stock to sell than it is to maintain pure margin and run out entirely.

But sometimes internal processes might make a "common sense" approach harder than it might be. I suspect just the actual ERP logistics might be more of an issue in practice.

 xttz wrote:
Source: I've worked on over a dozen (successful) ERP system launches as a consultant, plus many smaller projects.

Any successful Oracle Fusion implementations?

We're starting work on one now and I'm hearing lots of horror stories, but very few reports of ones that went well.

Came on here to get away from work as well!

 kodos wrote:

you were never ever able to order just a single bit from GW unless that single bit was the full frame, what you are talking about are bits selle that sell the parts of models on ebay, and GW never did that, they never cut a frame into single parts and sold them off, not even with metal either

In the UK back in the metal era you 100% could order individual metal parts from GW. They even produced an annual book which had every single model they produced alongside all the parts and the code numbers/names for those parts to help facilitate ordering individual parts. This was way back in the pre-internet and early internet years when the net just wasn't used for such resources - heck you had to pay per minute you were online so spending hours browsing online wasn't really something people did as much of (esp if they only had one phone-line to the house - and mobile phones weren't a thing etc....).

 kodos wrote:

you always needed to buy the full casting part even if you just wanted 1 thing and throw the rest into the bin
wanted a single Chaos Space Marine Melter, needed to buy 5 because there were 5 metal ones on one frame

you were never ever able to order just a single bit from GW unless that single bit was the full frame, what you are talking about are bits selle that sell the parts of models on ebay, and GW never did that, they never cut a frame into single parts and sold them off, not even with metal either

So what you think all the mail order forms with individual bits with order codes were? Elaborate lies? You ordered individual bit and got more than you ordered?

Thing with metal is that they were able to melt the metal and do away. No need to throw entire sprue minus 1 part into bin.

just look up the old catalogue, they listed only those things own their own that were cast on their own

CSM Terminator heavy flamer, could order that
CSM Terminator Trophies, needed to order 2 because there are 2 on one frame
Obliterator weapons, you wanted more Plasma guns, you needed to order the full frame with 5 different weapons as this was 1 frame and they never clipped parts from the frames

and still, you could order plastic as small as a single frame was the same way as you could order metal parts
just that there were more single metal bits on their own than there was plastic

hence the plastic bolt pistol also came with the chainsword and the arms, because both were in the same frame and you could order that
the same way you could order a single plastic jump pack, because there was 1 per frame

if you want to go down that rabbit hole that you were never able to order individual plastic bits because those are not "bits" but "frames"
you were also never able to order metal "bits" because you needed to order the full frame, that most metal bits were 1 per frame does not matter here

tneva82 wrote:

 kodos wrote:

you always needed to buy the full casting part even if you just wanted 1 thing and throw the rest into the bin
wanted a single Chaos Space Marine Melter, needed to buy 5 because there were 5 metal ones on one frame

you were never ever able to order just a single bit from GW unless that single bit was the full frame, what you are talking about are bits selle that sell the parts of models on ebay, and GW never did that, they never cut a frame into single parts and sold them off, not even with metal either

So what you think all the mail order forms with individual bits with order codes were? Elaborate lies? You ordered individual bit and got more than you ordered?

Thing with metal is that they were able to melt the metal and do away. No need to throw entire sprue minus 1 part into bin.

There's also the nature of putting together blisters. In general what I've seen with metal models is that they have containers full of 1 part from the casting (Even if multiple are cast on the same mould). So pickers are just tasked with picking specific parts to put in a blister pack for sale. So with such a system you can easily just run through a series of 1 part orders and the picker just selects out the 1 part from the box. End of the day/production run you just toss any excess parts back in the hopper and melt it down. You'd be doing that anyway if you got failed castings that were identified during picking.

With plastic sprue you get 1 model printed out in bulk so the picking and packing is basically 1 model sprue into 1 box. There's no real system for splitting out individual parts nor, as noted, in then recycling the plastic after in an efficient manner.

It's why even if you get 1 misscast part in plastic, GW will just replace with a whole model rather than spend time clipping out the individual part and all.

You also have to consider scale of operation - GW is big and that means a LOT of customers. At some point picking out individual parts can end up costing them more in lost time, lost packing space and all.

as i wrote above, that GW stopped doing it is because they produce things in a different way now
you cannot order a specific frame from the new Dorn tank because there is non that is added as extra, while the old Leman Russ tank accessory sprue is still there on the website for 12€, same as the plastic jump packs, 5 for 8€ (which is pretty cheap for the stuff you get)
if you want a dozer blade for your tank, you can still order one the same way you could 20 years ago because they produce that one the same way they did back than

it is not that it is not possible with plastic, it is not possible with plastic the way GW produces things now with the exception if there is an extra frame and there is demand, you can still buy it

 Overread wrote:

 kodos wrote:

you were never ever able to order just a single bit from GW unless that single bit was the full frame, what you are talking about are bits selle that sell the parts of models on ebay, and GW never did that, they never cut a frame into single parts and sold them off, not even with metal either

In the UK back in the metal era you 100% could order individual metal parts from GW. They even produced an annual book which had every single model they produced alongside all the parts and the code numbers/names for those parts to help facilitate ordering individual parts. This was way back in the pre-internet and early internet years when the net just wasn't used for such resources - heck you had to pay per minute you were online so spending hours browsing online wasn't really something people did as much of (esp if they only had one phone-line to the house - and mobile phones weren't a thing etc....).

difference here is simple that for metal parts there were more often just one per frame with some exception
same as back in those days you could order single plastic parts of those were just 1 part per frame

it was always that you needed to buy the frame, if the frame was 1 piece you got that one piece, of the frame was 5 needed to buy that 5 even if you just wanted 1
and I still have plenty of leftover metal parts from that days were we ordered the metal weapon bits to build our armies

* Adds 'bits ordering didn't really exist' to 'nobody took upgrades in 40k before 10th ed' in things we're only now learning about the past *

 kodos wrote:
as i wrote above, that GW stopped doing it is because they produce things in a different way now
you cannot order a specific frame from the new Dorn tank because there is non that is added as extra, while the old Leman Russ tank accessory sprue is still there on the website for 12€, same as the plastic jump packs, 5 for 8€ (which is pretty cheap for the stuff you get)
if you want a dozer blade for your tank, you can still order one the same way you could 20 years ago because they produce that one the same way they did back than

 Overread wrote:

 kodos wrote:

you were never ever able to order just a single bit from GW unless that single bit was the full frame, what you are talking about are bits selle that sell the parts of models on ebay, and GW never did that, they never cut a frame into single parts and sold them off, not even with metal either

In the UK back in the metal era you 100% could order individual metal parts from GW. They even produced an annual book which had every single model they produced alongside all the parts and the code numbers/names for those parts to help facilitate ordering individual parts. This was way back in the pre-internet and early internet years when the net just wasn't used for such resources - heck you had to pay per minute you were online so spending hours browsing online wasn't really something people did as much of (esp if they only had one phone-line to the house - and mobile phones weren't a thing etc....).

difference here is simple that for metal parts there were more often just one per frame with some exception
same as back in those days you could order single plastic parts of those were just 1 part per frame

it was always that you needed to buy the frame, if the frame was 1 piece you got that one piece, of the frame was 5 needed to buy that 5 even if you just wanted 1
and I still have plenty of leftover metal parts from that days were we ordered the metal weapon bits to build our armies

This sounds like either you were buying from 3rd parties or GW was using a different policy overseas. UK side you could mostly just get individual parts on their own. There might well have been some sold in packs as well, though my memory is less firm on that.

There might also have been a time where GW was shifting how bits were sold and you were in a spot where they did shift to selling multi-part packs instead for a short while before the service was retired.

 Overread wrote:

 kodos wrote:

you were never ever able to order just a single bit from GW unless that single bit was the full frame, what you are talking about are bits selle that sell the parts of models on ebay, and GW never did that, they never cut a frame into single parts and sold them off, not even with metal either

In the UK back in the metal era you 100% could order individual metal parts from GW. They even produced an annual book which had every single model they produced alongside all the parts and the code numbers/names for those parts to help facilitate ordering individual parts. This was way back in the pre-internet and early internet years when the net just wasn't used for such resources - heck you had to pay per minute you were online so spending hours browsing online wasn't really something people did as much of (esp if they only had one phone-line to the house - and mobile phones weren't a thing etc....).

Didn't they also take bitz to events, conventions and such in their Battle Wagon here in the US?

 Overread wrote:

 kodos wrote:
as i wrote above, that GW stopped doing it is because they produce things in a different way now
you cannot order a specific frame from the new Dorn tank because there is non that is added as extra, while the old Leman Russ tank accessory sprue is still there on the website for 12€, same as the plastic jump packs, 5 for 8€ (which is pretty cheap for the stuff you get)
if you want a dozer blade for your tank, you can still order one the same way you could 20 years ago because they produce that one the same way they did back than

 Overread wrote:

 kodos wrote:

you were never ever able to order just a single bit from GW unless that single bit was the full frame, what you are talking about are bits selle that sell the parts of models on ebay, and GW never did that, they never cut a frame into single parts and sold them off, not even with metal either

In the UK back in the metal era you 100% could order individual metal parts from GW. They even produced an annual book which had every single model they produced alongside all the parts and the code numbers/names for those parts to help facilitate ordering individual parts. This was way back in the pre-internet and early internet years when the net just wasn't used for such resources - heck you had to pay per minute you were online so spending hours browsing online wasn't really something people did as much of (esp if they only had one phone-line to the house - and mobile phones weren't a thing etc....).

difference here is simple that for metal parts there were more often just one per frame with some exception
same as back in those days you could order single plastic parts of those were just 1 part per frame

it was always that you needed to buy the frame, if the frame was 1 piece you got that one piece, of the frame was 5 needed to buy that 5 even if you just wanted 1
and I still have plenty of leftover metal parts from that days were we ordered the metal weapon bits to build our armies

This sounds like either you were buying from 3rd parties or GW was using a different policy overseas. UK side you could mostly just get individual parts on their own. There might well have been some sold in packs as well, though my memory is less firm on that.

There might also have been a time where GW was shifting how bits were sold and you were in a spot where they did shift to selling multi-part packs instead for a short while before the service was retired.

On the off chance it is relevant: in Germany, too, you could order specific parts of models as long as you got your parts number. Usually, the releases of each week were shown in the back of WD in some sort of 'explosion diagram' with all the parts numbered, and these backpages were also released as annual catalogs. If you absolutely wanted to have Ogre Hand Weapon Arm #3, you could absolutely order that. None of that has anything to do with 'frames', and it makes sense that you could order separate casting parts because blisters were largely assembled by hand at that point anyway, some (probably underpaid) person had to get the stuff from bins and do quality control & remove extra casting material, so getting single parts was more or less coincidental to the process in the first place.

That service was put on the back-burner early in the 2000s, when more stuff was being produced in plastic, and abolished iirc 2008 with a bunch of other reorganization stuff, mostly because it was no longer commercially viable - it was getting more expensive by the year anyway, and was not used all that much because the rising cost and alternatives like online bits sellers made it unattractive.

Stuff of Legends has an archive of those old catalogues - here is the Chaos Terminators page from the 2000 catalogue, for example.

beast_gts wrote:
Stuff of Legends has an archive of those old catalogues - here is the Chaos Terminators page from the 2000 catalogue, for example.

Indeed, and e.g. here is a two-page spread that explains their 'Loose Metal Service', which should put this discussion to rest:

 Overread wrote:
Yeah and they had a huge climb in the pandemic which was artificially high. Which is part of why they hit the top of the UK stock market; but also why GW stock went down in value later because that growth was unsustainable and a one-off.

Best case is that GW retains the majority of that growth and continues to make steady growth. But as I said one never knows and it just reinforces the angle of GW remaining in-house and keeping their expansion under direct control .

Interestingly, GW is now almost at the same level as the were at their peak during the pandemic. 11,922 in Sept 21, compared to 11369 now. Compare to recent low of 5805, in September 22.

 Plant wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Yeah and they had a huge climb in the pandemic which was artificially high. Which is part of why they hit the top of the UK stock market; but also why GW stock went down in value later because that growth was unsustainable and a one-off.

Best case is that GW retains the majority of that growth and continues to make steady growth. But as I said one never knows and it just reinforces the angle of GW remaining in-house and keeping their expansion under direct control .

Interestingly, GW is now almost at the same level as the were at their peak during the pandemic. 11,922 in Sept 21, compared to 11369 now. Compare to recent low of 5805, in September 22.

Yeah I figure they gained a lot of fast investment over the pandemic who then left fast when GW stopped rolling in insane sales. Which caused a slump and people more looking for a steady/slow grower started buying in.

Or it’s the same folk who, as you said saw rapid gains to jump on and bailed when, for all we know (GW’s annual results remain pending, but *should* be soon?) have taken a second look, at least some of them, and realised “hey, its not meteoric, but it seems pretty stable and somehow climbing”.

Of course, nobody, including myself, should ever look at a single share price in isolation. Those who dabble, indulge and/or rely on such things tend to take a wider look.

Whether it’s an endorsement of GW’s specific practices, or market spivs banking on a company with (I think no, but if not) very low debt and a stable income, compared to other potential investments? Ask someone’s actually knowledgable.

 Ghaz wrote:

Didn't they also take bitz to events, conventions and such in their Battle Wagon here in the US?

I actually applied to drive the Battle Wagon when it was first introduced (maybe '99-'00?) Went down to Bethesda to interview and everything. Didn't get the job but they did let me pick out 1kg of pewter to take. I've still got like 20 metal gretchin sitting here unpainted from that interview!

angel of death 007 wrote:

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

angel of death 007 wrote:
I think GW should have just kept going with outsourcing some of their items. Trying to do almost everything in house, they are not able to keep up with demand. When they outsourced larger kit production to China, things ran a lot more smooth and I imagine they actually made a lot more profit. They seem to be leaving a lot of money on the table in the last year.

Anybody who outsources to China when they have the capacity to do it in house deserves all the suffering that will inevitably follow.

GW has proven they don't have the capacity to keep up with demand though. Hence the problem. So they need to either slow up release schedules and like do one a month, or outsource.

95% of stuff they produce does keep up with demand though. It's not to say they don't have problems, but for the amount of factions they have across multiple games, the fact I can pick any of around 20 main armies and be able to reliably get the troops I need to start playing it is no mean feat. And like it or not, that's the core business.

Yes, the heavily discounted bundle boxes sell through fast, but if those didn't exist you'd still have a perfectly functional system.

There's exceptions for sure, god knows what they're doing with Kill Team and Black Library is a mess, but for 40K and AoS, the core of what they're doing still works. Maybe they should have made more of box X as box X sold really fast and it's leaving money on the table. But in the same month they also needed to make more of a main troop for a specific army, or risk having that go out of stock. And they'll always choose the latter. Probably makes them less money overall, but it's the key priority for them.

In terms of GW's share price, I feel its largely a function of what the expected profits are to be versus the rest of the market. I don't think most investors will know that much about what the company does (which frankly goes for most companies even if operating in more conventional sectors). If for example GW's expected dividend is £X, and the average yield across the market is say 4%, the market cap should be X/0.04. If below that number buy - as you'd expect it to go up, if above, sell - as you'd expect it to go down.

I think GW's main issue with "demand" is surges. And this appears somewhat badly managed, since they know (and indeed engineer) such surges through codex/supplement releases.

I feel "New book -> large proportion of that book becomes unavailable to buy for 3~ months" has been a running theme for the past 10 years. A bit of that is meta chasers - but I think its more often due to "this marketing effort makes the army look cool, I'll start collecting them". In terms of myself, the fact I've often wanted models and not been able to get them is arguably a good thing - as these would likely have joined the pile of shame. (so many start collecting boxes...) But for GW selling plastic its not great.