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This doesn't affect me in the slightest but from their latest news article it appears they will be shipping GW to the ROW and it is legal and within the rules set out by GW?

Anyone know how they've done this and how GW will react?

The only thing I can think of is that they have registered a new business outside of the EU zone or actually opened a shop and warehouse outside the EU?

Anyone else know what is happening?

I hope our ROW brethren can get discounted GW products still!

Please excuse my ignorance, what is ROW?

...Republic of Wales?

MIKEtheMERCILESS wrote:...Republic of Wales?

Why not just call it Wales? ><

Rest of World - sorry, seemed pretty obvious when using it in the context of Wayland Games and GW orders!

My bad guys ^ ^

I imagine that something had to give, so I guess we will find out soon.

From their Facebook post:

"Hi Guys,
Just a quick note. Firstly we'd like to thank you again for bearing with us during this order spike. As you've seen from some of the photographs we've posted things have been very busy and even a business with our footprint and infrastructure didn't expect for a moment the unprecedented, colossal demand during the last week of May. So we'd like to thank those of you who are waiting for orders to be shipped, once more, for bearing with us whilst we work through the backlog.

In respect of the ROW Category, as every possible resource has been engaged in the processing of orders added to the fact that the means by which we are going to achieve this is exceptionally complicated and requires infrastructure to be established we must apologise for the delays in populating the category. We have a number of issues still to solve which are now in their final stages but we felt it only fair to release a few details of what will be contained within the ROW category and what it will mean to you the ROW consumer. Some of the issues are procedural, some technical and the rest physical.

I will ramble some more then move to a Q and A format as it is better able to answer many of the questions that have been asked over the last few weeks.

We at Wayland would have had to react to the trade terms changes, we as a business would have hoped that a dominant supplier such as GW would have had a grasp of the consequences such a double whammy of terms changes and price rises would have on their business partners of any size. The impact of these changes and especially the surge of orders over the last week of May was beyond our control. We believe that short of closing the store there was nought we could do to reduce the orders we received. In the day to day operations under normal activity we are able to control order volumes relatively easily. In this instance we have had no control at all. All this has occured as we are hard at work readying our new Warehouse and Website launch. So again we would like to apologise to those of you waiting far longer than normal for your orders. As you can tell by the number of times we have posted about it it is of serious concern to us.

Right on with the show. From here on in ROW will be used to represent "Rest of World", our customers outside of the EU, and EEA (European Economic Area).

Q. What will I be able to order.
A. You will be able to order pretty much any product that you can now. Stock allowing.

Q. Will I be able to order new releases?
A. Yes, though shipping might occur a day or two after the official release date.

Q. Will I have to use some third party shipping/broking service?
A. No, your order will be handled completely by Wayland, and we will be fully responsible for getting your order to you as we are now. There is no need for mail forwarding services to be used.

Q. How are you achieving this?
A. Complicated, this is also commercially sensitive. However in the first instance, we will utilise stock that we had on hand prior to the "conditions of sale" changes. We moved the stock when the announcements were made as we had the "plan" quite soon after we were notified. This stock is finite. How we replenish is sensitive, but it is coming.

Q. What will the pricing be?
A. Until we run out of the stock we have on hand, the pricing will be identical as now. Once the replensihment stock has arrived the prices will be slightly higher as there are additional costs involved. But we will continue to offer at least UK RRP with a 10% discount.

Q. When will the categories be active.
A. We had hoped that would be populated right away, however the current backlog and what is now a cramped 5000Sqft warehouse mean that we cannot pouplate the categories (stock check the pre embargo stock) until the backlog is dealt with. It would be innapropriate for us to spend resources doing this until all our customers patiently waiting for their orders have been served. We anticpate 2 weeks, though we will do our very best to reduce this time.

Q. Will we still be able to order Forgeworld and other "Direct Only" products?
A. Yes, we disabled many direct only items over the change weekend but as we become sure of supply they will be re-introduced.

Q. Will postage be free on the ROW items.
A. No, the costs are higher for stock and we operate on thin margins already. However we will continue to offer subsidised ROW shipping with the VAT as we do now. Though we will soon be launching another site that might be of interest.

Q. Will your delivery times be extended?
A. We anticipate that they will be identical for ROW items as now, however there are some points later which expand on this.

Q. Does your ROW of solution breach GW's trade terms and conditions of sale?
A. Not in anyway whatsoever. They follow both the letter and spirit of both.

Q. Is your ROW product genuine GW product.
A. Yes, Wayland will never sell second hand or counterfeit goods.

Q. How long until replenishment stock arrives?
A. We anticpate 6 weeks, however as pricing is complicated, as is how we must segregate the ROW stock from our normal stock, this is being delivered to our new Warehouse. And the pricing difference means that we cannot launch the replenished service until our new website is live as it will ask you for shipping location when to access the store and show you the correct products automatically.

Q. Why is that?
A. We are wary of the overheads required to inform customers that they have added incorrect products to their baskets. No matter how well we label the items, most people will not notice.

Q. Why is it taking so long?
A. We had almost no notice at our busiest time ever to adapt to the term changes. The solution requires significant space to operate in properly and without putting our existing business at risk. We also have an obligation to ensure all that we are doing is legal and beyond challenge. This all takes time.

Q. You guys rock, why be so nice to us when its so difficult?
A. Please remember that Wayland is a business and we want the sales, however we are what we are by serving our customers and we wont forget how we got here. Ok no one asked that question but we thought it worth mentioning.
This list will be updated if more questions are asked.

So, there we have it. A broad stock offering, at substantially discounted cost with our usual great service. It is coming, we shall provide it for you and we hope you're interested. If you are we'd simply ask that you publicise this wherever you feel appropriate and we look forward to serving the rest of the world very soon.

Keep on wargaming!
Richard
Wayland Games Limited"

I am intrigued to know how they're doing this. Pity I can't order ROW stock to see what the difference is.

hmm I think I see how they are doing this, it's smart, but best of all good prices around the globe!

LavuranGuard wrote:hmm I think I see how they are doing this, it's smart, but best of all good prices around the globe!

Care to share? Or are we going to be all mysterious?

If I am reading this right it means that GW's biggest partner has found a way round their new terms. Seems to make the new terms a bit of a failure...

There was probably some big hole that they could manipulate.

If they are able to pull it, they just won me as a customer, any one that has the balls to go against the evil empire, automatically wins me over.

Flashman wrote:

LavuranGuard wrote:hmm I think I see how they are doing this, it's smart, but best of all good prices around the globe!

Care to share? Or are we going to be all mysterious?

No, because

a) Wayland chose not to
b) I could be wrong

What will they do if GW says fine, takes its ball and goes home?

They could just.....quit supplying them couldn't they? Or quit supplying the distributor that Wayland is purchasing from (if that's their sensitive trick)?

The obvious workaround that occurs to me is opening up subsidiaries in every GW defined region and distributing from those.

Given the timeline and costs they allude to I'd guess something like that.

Yeah, they are probably buying from a distributor at higher prices than they could from GW. Going through a distributor means they don't have to follow GW's guidelines as GW can't cut them off (they could cut off the distributor, but that would be stupid... oh wait...).

They could set up an endless daisy chain of purchasing stock at cost from other vendors who also purchase stock as cost from them. That's my immediate thought. GW can be dickish if they want, but the big deal is making sure they have the legal bases covered so it's harder for them to.

Interesting...

In short, this is good for the ROW customers and what GW should be allowing in the first place.

The fact that GW stores are the only ones allowed to sell overseas is the last hypocrisy about this subject that I could stand.

Good work Wayland, I hope your business prospers if you are looking after your customers first.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Interesting...

veeery....

H.B.M.C. wrote:Interesting...

but really, i have a few ideas to, and im seriously curious, but Nurgle bless them for nipping GW. i hope it lasts.

I love how everyone thinks they're besting GW and found some magic loophole.

I smell payoff/back door deals. It makes more sense and is easier to pull off than presuming one store managed to find a loophole in a contract put out by a company who sends CAD orders to anyone who even thinks about thinking about looking for loopholes in their contracts.

Heyoooo! Glad to see that Wayland Games found a way around this. GW, you silly goose... people want your stuff. Why must you be so fussy about it?

58.91 for an Ork BW w/shipping! I can by from England cheaper then driving to my FLGS...

I think we should be careful about this though... my FLGS won't be able to compete with these prices and could lose some business and perhaps their whole store.

sarcastro01 wrote:I love how everyone thinks they're besting GW and found some magic loophole.

I smell payoff/back door deals. It makes more sense and is easier to pull off than presuming one store managed to find a loophole in a contract put out by a company who sends CAD orders to anyone who even thinks about thinking about looking for loopholes in their contracts.

Something smells for sure...

*sniff* *sniff*

Oh, it's only those jolly bad eggs GW for forcing Wayland to jump through loopholes in the first place.

Good on Wayland for doing their level best to keep the rest of the world supplied as a more reasonable cost, and helping to keep GW games viable.
It is more than they deserve imho.

I heard Wayland were able to find a loophole because GWs new terms and conditions were miscast.

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:They could set up an endless daisy chain of purchasing stock at cost from other vendors who also purchase stock as cost from them. That's my immediate thought. GW can be dickish if they want, but the big deal is making sure they have the legal bases covered so it's harder for them to.

My thoughts exactly.

They still haven't updated their Rest of World section yet though, so I assume this means they still are ironing out some issues:

http://www.waylandgames.co.uk/games-workshop/rest-of-world-customers/cat_956.html

FrozenSoul80 wrote:I heard Wayland were able to find a loophole because GWs new terms and conditions were miscast.

ZING!

DaNewBoy wrote:
I think we should be careful about this though... my FLGS won't be able to compete with these prices and could lose some business and perhaps their whole store.

I'm going to stick my neck out and pretend this was a serious post.

Honestly people have been saying the same thing since that crazy fad called the internet showed up. I'm sure any day now the hobby will die along with all of those stores that have been successful for the previous years and years that the internet has allowed consumers a choice in where they spend their currency. After all, we know that Games Workshops new European Sales terms, and the US internet sales terms before those, were the magic band aids that erased the internet retailers from existence and made it safe for the FLGS to "compete" in Jervistopia, erasing any and all problems they faced since the big bad internet forced them into new ways of doing business.

For a more serious reply, when I decide where to spend my money, I take into account what my FLGS offers me as a consumer. For example, two of my local stores provide a 15% discount on GW product, a place to play, very nice tables and terrain to play on, and events where I can play with my toy soldiers with others. I don't often feel the need to shop overseas other than during vouchers because I see the everyday savings offset by what I'm getting from my local store. I do however want the choice to be there for me to do so. Just like I want the choice to order from across the state at Miniature Market, and save 25% off retail when I'm making a big order.