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Just heard from the manager at my local GW store that GW stores in the US (including bunkers) will no longer be carrying FW books. This is kind of sad I think, as the only time I have purchased a FW book is in the store.

Stopping at all, or going direct only?

Should at least make them available on GW website. Ordering from FW is such a pain if you don't live in the UK. Especially since they don't take American Express.

 d-usa wrote:
Stopping at all, or going direct only?

Selling FW books direct only stopped about a year ago.

Another bad business decision by GW.

Their biggest worry is too large revenue, would make the shareholders greedy
(was the reason for releasing only one Codex this year according to Robin Cruddace).

 Kroothawk wrote:
Their biggest worry is too large revenue, would make the shareholders greedy
(was the reason for releasing only one Codex this year according to Robin Cruddace).

You are making that up!

(but I fear not)

On topic... sigh, it's only been 10 years you'd think GW could decide what they're doing with their Forge World arm...

He's not, and sadly through that lens a lot of GW's "stupid" behavior makes sense. A company has to please it's owners, and a lot of investment funds are not interested in profit as they are in steady sales. If you're a spike-y business (which normally this industry is I think), investment funds don't like it, even if it means that you're leaving money on the table on the grand scale. Their focus is on steady returns for a long time rather than maximum profit.

As a public company, GW has to appease these people, much to the long-term detriment (ironically) of the company. The things they do to keep the funds happy are the very things opening gaps in their market dominance...

Hmm? Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't there a thread like this at the start of the year stating GW stores would now start carrying FW books?

And now they no longer want to do so?

I could of course be wrong...

I really think GW should stop with being a publicly traded company, having to slow down releases just so they dont gain too much money because shareholders are greedy bastards?

I do remember him saying this earlier this year.

Every codex should get an update before the 2 year mark of an edition, instead of 3/4 of them not getting one.
After the 2 year mark they could sell all the other crap that doesn't sell or get used like battle missions and other supplements.

But nooooo, 2-3 dexes a year resulting in a 10 year or more cycle for some dexes as the SM one gets updated with each edition slowing down the release of other dexes.

This isn't a stupid behavior actually. It's very common to hold sales for another quarter to offset projected decreases in sales or losses due to decreased activity. Steady and predictable revenue is better than spiky revenue since that's impossible to project against.

12thRonin wrote:
This isn't a stupid behavior actually. It's very common to hold sales for another quarter to offset projected decreases in sales or losses due to decreased activity. Steady and predictable revenue is better than spiky revenue since that's impossible to project against.

For a publicly owned company it's quite smart for the people there who want to keep their jobs. Objectively, GW has gone from being more or less the only major player to having a number of competitors. They maintain an arguable quality edge over most of them, but that's being fast-eroded, and will likely disappear in the next couple of years (if that long).

Then they will have issues even getting the spike sales to go off if they're not careful. That's the pitfall of taking the market's money though; you end up doing dumb things because people who don't actually care about the business itself tell you that you have to because they own it.

In the UK I was told by the manager the other week that they were specifically not getting the Horus Heresy series (EG the Betrayal book) into the store because 'no models in the book can be bought in store.'

Not entirely true, but it does seem like the sort of insane troll logic that GW distributors would come up with.

The guy was fairly peeved about it too, he was out 230 odd quid that day cause of it...

Kid_Kyoto wrote:

 Kroothawk wrote:
Their biggest worry is too large revenue, would make the shareholders greedy
(was the reason for releasing only one Codex this year according to Robin Cruddace).

You are making that up!
(but I fear not)

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/487115.page

French Games Day Interview with Robin Cruddace
Sunday, November 4, 2012
(...)
Robin was very open about GW’s marketing and sales policies, which I found very interesting :
- when I asked him why there was only one Codex release this year, he explained that if they released more this year, their financial results would skyrocket abnormally and shareholders would expect sales to be as good, if not better next year. Basically, they withheld releases to smooth over the results year to year ;

So GW avoids any chance of raising sales so not to alert the shareholders with this "abnormal tendency". Makes sense to GW managers.

MadCowCrazy wrote:Hmm? Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't there a thread like this at the start of the year stating GW stores would now start carrying FW books?

Was connected to the false rumour that FW will become mainstream with 6th edition of 40k. Turned out false.

I just bought the new Aeronautica book a couple weeks ago for $43 from a local GW (before sales tax). Interestingly, with the current exchange rates, it would have cost me $41.33 to buy direct from Forgeworld (not counting shipping).

I understand that the Forgeworld books aren't exactly top sellers, and GW can probably better use the shelf space for models. However, it's a shame that the Imperial Armor books aren't available on GW's US main website for direct-order, to be shipped out from from their US distribution center. I love FW stuff, but hate waiting a month for it to clear customs.

 Kroothawk wrote:

Sunday, November 4, 2012
(...)
Robin was very open about GW’s marketing and sales policies, which I found very interesting :
- when I asked him why there was only one Codex release this year, he explained that if they released more this year, their financial results would skyrocket abnormally and shareholders would expect sales to be as good, if not better next year. Basically, they withheld releases to smooth over the results year to year ;

So GW avoids any chance of raising sales so not to alert the shareholders with this "abnormal tendency". Makes sense to GW managers.

Except that's not what he's saying. He's saying that if they spike revenue this year, the shareholders will expect the same levels going forward. This is actually them being conservative with their sales so they can keep their external shareholders. This is a very common thing and this isn't them being stupid. It's about keeping revenue level across years since that makes results predictable.

 Kroothawk wrote:

Kid_Kyoto wrote:

 Kroothawk wrote:
Their biggest worry is too large revenue, would make the shareholders greedy
(was the reason for releasing only one Codex this year according to Robin Cruddace).

You are making that up!
(but I fear not)

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/487115.page

French Games Day Interview with Robin Cruddace
Sunday, November 4, 2012
(...)
Robin was very open about GW’s marketing and sales policies, which I found very interesting :
- when I asked him why there was only one Codex release this year, he explained that if they released more this year, their financial results would skyrocket abnormally and shareholders would expect sales to be as good, if not better next year. Basically, they withheld releases to smooth over the results year to year ;

So GW avoids any chance of raising sales so not to alert the shareholders with this "abnormal tendency". Makes sense to GW managers.

So now in your attempted trolling you're just being dliberately obtuse?

It makes sense for any publicly traded company. I assure you, GW aren't the only companies that do it. The last thing any company wants is shareholders getting jumpy and leaving when an expected repeated spike doesn't happen. Gradual growth is what's wanted, not irregular spikes.

As someone (HBMC maybe?) pointed out, there was an expectation the year after Space Hulk for another huge sales spike the following year. It didn't arrive, because GW didn't have a product lined up. One off spikes and the disappointment of a repeated spike are not great, but companies get away with it. Doing it over and over is very bad for retaining shareholders.

And predictability on that level when it costs you overall revenue is stupid in the long run. It's mostly due to having stupid shareholders that don't read their shareholder reports, don't want to put the effort into analysis of said reports for their projects and just want an easy average, and aren't interested in the long term success and profitability of the organization.

It's not an uncommon issue, most of GW's shareholders are hedge funds which have no interest in GW's business or its long term success. They just want their return and to be able to run projections without putting to much effort/cost into them so they can report certain expectations to *their* investors.

Being involved with decisions like these, I can reasonably tell you many of the decisions made by shareholders and hedge funds and executives aren't made with the level of thought and analysis that many think they are. A company I'm involved with lost itself a boatload of standing cash and wasted a ton of development resources to make in investment deal, just to appease a certain stakeholder who really wanted to see something built into the product, when it literally duplicated what we'd already developed, and was then made to look good by being attributed to success in current products where the work we'd already developed would have done the exact same thing.

We can also see it in GW when Kirby decides to pay dividends and *borrows* money to do it. Which of course has nothing to do with the fact that he doubles his yearly income in doing so

This is funny to me because(at least at my store) FW books take up 1 shelf about 3' wide at the bottom of the BL rack. Is that real estate really going to go towards something that sells better? Does it cost that much to let books sit in a store?

So now we can't order the books to be sent to the store, along with everything else FW does, even at bunkers. So now not only are we at the mercy of exchange rates on the books, we are out 15% on top of that for their stupid shipping for a product that could just as easily be stocked and sold stateside. It's almost like GW doesn't want us to buy FW by making it less and less accessible.

I wonder how long until we start seeing China printing FW books. If ever there was a company practically begging people to pirate pdf's, this is it. Glad I got the only 2 FW books I wanted already at my store.

Damn, I've been wrong all along. I think we've been running under the assumption that a business is there to well...be a business and turn a profit by producing (a) good(s) or service(s). We've had it all wrong this whole time! Shame on us!

 VermGho5t wrote:
Damn, I've been wrong all along. I think we've been running under the assumption that a business is there to well...be a business and turn a profit by producing (a) good(s) or service(s). We've had it all wrong this whole time! Shame on us!

Well, GW's revenue has been flat or declining for about 8 years. Anything else would be abnormal and upsetting the shareholders.

That's why no marketing, no TV-ads and no general distribution Space Hulk in toy stores that could easily raise sales and customer numbers by 30-50% permanently. Shareholders would get mad at something that abnormal, because they invested in a declining business.

Most assuredly Still carry them, watched the guy put restock on the shelves this week. Guess we will have to wait until the next regular FW book come out to test this. They are not carrying the older ones, just the most current few. NOT carrying the HH books at all though.

 Captain Vyper wrote:
Most assuredly Still carry them, watched the guy put restock on the shelves this week. Guess we will have to wait until the next regular FW book come out to test this. They are not carrying the older ones, just the most current few. NOT carrying the HH books at all though.

My store manager showed me the actual email on Friday that they won't be selling them anymore. Can't remember when the return date is for current stock.

 Vaktathi wrote:
And predictability on that level when it costs you overall revenue is stupid in the long run. It's mostly due to having stupid shareholders that don't read their shareholder reports, don't want to put the effort into analysis of said reports for their projects and just want an easy average, and aren't interested in the long term success and profitability of the organization.

But it's not cutting or costing revenue, it's deferring it. They'll still make the same amount of money over the period. The revenue curve will be flatter though. Banks also like seeing this for funding purposes. It makes the company look stable.

Being involved with decisions like these, I can reasonably tell you many of the decisions made by shareholders and hedge funds and executives aren't made with the level of thought and analysis that many think they are. A company I'm involved with lost itself a boatload of standing cash and wasted a ton of development resources to make in investment deal, just to appease a certain stakeholder who really wanted to see something built into the product, when it literally duplicated what we'd already developed, and was then made to look good by being attributed to success in current products where the work we'd already developed would have done the exact same thing.

That's not a fault of anyone except the executives and managers. Bad business decisions are bad. Telling shareholders "no" is a good thing at times if your research shows that it's bad.

We can also see it in GW when Kirby decides to pay dividends and *borrows* money to do it. Which of course has nothing to do with the fact that he doubles his yearly income in doing so

Which is why I think that ultimately Kirby is doing a long term pump and dump with the company.

 spaceelf wrote:
Another bad business decision by GW.

Getting rid of one product and using the space to sell another more profitable one?

Yeah sounds about right.

 Harriticus wrote:
Should at least make them available on GW website. Ordering from FW is such a pain if you don't live in the UK. Especially since they don't take American Express.

Or MasterCard, apparently. Only my Visa will go through, but my MC is denied every time. Annoying as hell.

 Testify wrote:

 spaceelf wrote:
Another bad business decision by GW.

Getting rid of one product and using the space to sell another more profitable one?

Yeah sounds about right.

Tell me what is going to take up the 3 feet of shelf space that will generate oh so much more profit. The books aren't exactly taking up valuable space. And making products as accessible as possible should be every business' goal.

 -Loki- wrote:

 Kroothawk wrote:

Kid_Kyoto wrote:

 Kroothawk wrote:
Their biggest worry is too large revenue, would make the shareholders greedy
(was the reason for releasing only one Codex this year according to Robin Cruddace).

You are making that up!
(but I fear not)

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/487115.page

French Games Day Interview with Robin Cruddace
Sunday, November 4, 2012
(...)
Robin was very open about GW’s marketing and sales policies, which I found very interesting :
- when I asked him why there was only one Codex release this year, he explained that if they released more this year, their financial results would skyrocket abnormally and shareholders would expect sales to be as good, if not better next year. Basically, they withheld releases to smooth over the results year to year ;

So GW avoids any chance of raising sales so not to alert the shareholders with this "abnormal tendency". Makes sense to GW managers.

So now in your attempted trolling you're just being dliberately obtuse?

It makes sense for any publicly traded company. I assure you, GW aren't the only companies that do it. The last thing any company wants is shareholders getting jumpy and leaving when an expected repeated spike doesn't happen. Gradual growth is what's wanted, not irregular spikes.

As someone (HBMC maybe?) pointed out, there was an expectation the year after Space Hulk for another huge sales spike the following year. It didn't arrive, because GW didn't have a product lined up. One off spikes and the disappointment of a repeated spike are not great, but companies get away with it. Doing it over and over is very bad for retaining shareholders.

That sounds a lot like level loading manufacturing, where a company tries to avoid the spikes and vallieys between having too much to do on their plate one day and workers standing around the next. It makes sense to want to keep a steady pace to aid in predictability.

 Aerethan wrote:

 Testify wrote:

 spaceelf wrote:
Another bad business decision by GW.

Getting rid of one product and using the space to sell another more profitable one?

Yeah sounds about right.

Tell me what is going to take up the 3 feet of shelf space that will generate oh so much more profit. The books aren't exactly taking up valuable space. And making products as accessible as possible should be every business' goal.

Having done shop work including working out sales/profit on a per module and per foot basis you'd be surprised how much money can be made or lost from a single shelf, especially if what's on it is expensive (a forgewold product may also 'cost' the store more, coming from a different company, even within the same group), and probably sells very few units per month.

Allowing you to special order them via the store (even if it's pay in advance, no changing your mind) seems the sensible way to go instead

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:

 Aerethan wrote:

 Testify wrote:

 spaceelf wrote:
Another bad business decision by GW.

Getting rid of one product and using the space to sell another more profitable one?

Yeah sounds about right.

Tell me what is going to take up the 3 feet of shelf space that will generate oh so much more profit. The books aren't exactly taking up valuable space. And making products as accessible as possible should be every business' goal.

Having done shop work including working out sales/profit on a per module and per foot basis you'd be surprised how much money can be made or lost from a single shelf, especially if what's on it is expensive (a forgewold product may also 'cost' the store more, coming from a different company, even within the same group), and probably sells very few units per month.

Allowing you to special order them via the store (even if it's pay in advance, no changing your mind) seems the sensible way to go instead

Which you can't do. You can't order FW books from the GW site, which means you can't order in a store, and you can't do batch orders from Bunkers anymore. FW is making their products less and less accessible, which has to be eating into their profits.

I'll agree that removing them from shelves would be fine IF you could still order them, but you can't.