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I would think its more geared towards South America. Many of those countries are notorious for lost mail/packages. Tracking within those countries is non existant, so if a package goes missing, it stay missing. Ive even heard tell that some of the more corrupt/socialist countries actually open any foreign packages coming in looking for anything they might want. If the post people find something they like, your package disappears.

Lorek wrote:Set(Flag.Farfetched = True)

GW switches over to resin from metal models. Resin melts/deforms at relatively low temperatures compared to their current plastics and metals. Shipping from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern Hemisphere may involve small, thermally-vulnerable shipments spending a fair amount of time in the tropics. This would increase the number of problem resin models in the hands of these customers, decreasing customer satisfaction, reducing acceptance of a new product, and increasing costs of shipping replacement product.

Again, really far--fetched, but it's what went through my head.

That's a long, long shot. As a rule, at least here in Brazil, packages arrive broken due to handling far more often than warped or molten.. It's a tropical country but most places have less than extreme climate.

Odds are they just prefer to centralize the small foreign markets through their own website, since they're not willing to adapt their business model enough to allow true representation in those locations. Makes for a less diverse and smaller hobby, but one whose cash line more directly head back to GW.


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Mad4Minis wrote:I would think its more geared towards South America. Many of those countries are notorious for lost mail/packages. Tracking within those countries is non existant, so if a package goes missing, it stay missing. Ive even heard tell that some of the more corrupt/socialist countries actually open any foreign packages coming in looking for anything they might want. If the post people find something they like, your package disappears.

Not to disturb your comfortable world of wonder and hearsay, but among my gaming club Maelstrom has a sterling record. Packages can take a long time, but they always arrive; the only major hitch we had was during the big volcano-sprinkling-plane-killing-ash episode, and that was not cause by our Stalinist overlords.

And even if it was, wouldn't that be something to be dealt with by the stores themselves (with a simple 'We do not ship to Brazil on account that you guys suck') rather than a top-down imposition by Games Workshop?

if this is true it wouldnt suprise me but it is pretty disgusting.

It's an attempt to force gamers in places like Auz to pay the full price down under instead of buying it cheaper from abroad. In the hopes of boosting sales from GW direct there.

I suspect theres been whinges about it for ages from the middle management types in the area.

The reality is it will probably remove even more buyers from their playerbase :(

but then it is just a rumour so it may not happen.

One would like to think that if this came about, sales in Oz would drop, however they are likely to expand since some players will buy locally if cut off from international supplies.

There may be an overall drop in global demand and loss of profit because of some antipodean players just not buying any GW stuff, however that will be difficult for GW to connect to the change of policy.

Any long term loss of recruitment thanks to veterans turning away from the HHHobby will take several years to have an effect.

In short, while the idea may be stupid and counterproductive, GW will see it as a success in the short and medium term.

Przemas wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:The way I'm reading it means that stores like Wayland and Maelstrom would be forbidden from filling orders made out by people in places such as Australia.

and I'm wondering - HOW exactly? Sales info is a pretty confidential stuff - how on earth would GW check where a retailer sends stuff?

Quite easily. Secret shopper.

Yes, I hadn't thought of that.

Lord of Deeds wrote:

Przemas wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:The way I'm reading it means that stores like Wayland and Maelstrom would be forbidden from filling orders made out by people in places such as Australia.

and I'm wondering - HOW exactly? Sales info is a pretty confidential stuff - how on earth would GW check where a retailer sends stuff?

Quite easily. Secret shopper.

Or even just by still having the country in question on the dropdown where you put mailing addresses in.

Ouze wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

kronk wrote:Man. I would say BS to this rumor, but since they won't allow on-line retailers to use a shopping cart for their stuff....

I hope this isn't true for my buddies down under.

That's a US only policy, which was a misguided attempt to curtail online discounters here in the US.

It did a decent job of cleaning out the discounters that never filled orders though.

(emphasis mine)

I gotta say, man. Just when I think I've seen Games Workshop do something that even Kanluwen couldn't apologize for.... you go shine through. Truly I have underestimated you.

Yeah, he won a reprieve from me calling him a GW fanboy about two months back when he was consistently pissed with GW's decisions... and ironically HBMC was towing the party NDA line and not leaking rumors. It really was bizarro world here on dakka for a while minus the angular faces.

In all seriousness, this does suck for my former brothers from down under (used to live there). GW prices in the US can be eyepopping at times (although not out of line anymore with the rest of the industry like in years past) so paying almost double that for no good reason sucks. The added cost of braving the barren wastelands of the outback and having the delivery men killed by rabid kangaroos or drop bears shouldn't add that much to the final price. :(

Howard A Treesong wrote:I'm still not clear on why Australian prices are so high. Maelstom can buy stuff from GW wholesale (which is a hefty amount I gather) and post individual items to Australia, and offer a discount AND still make money. But apparently GW can't bulk ship their *own* product to their own stores without making the RRP twice what the rest of the world pays. Surely the fact that they are sending their own product (so no huge overhead from buying it from a wholesaler like an independent retailer) and sending in bulk, means they are more cost efficient. What about economy of scale?

It's never been about what GW can afford to charge so much as what the Australian market is willing to bear. Supposedly, Oz punters have more disposable income than most of the rest of the world, and we've largely gotten used to paying more for our hobbies than everyone else does. At least until relatively recently, as more and more people are discovering (much more slowly than say the US or Europe, due to the slower take up of accessible internet over here) the joys of online international shopping.

If this is true, I think there are two potential ways of looking at it. The seemingly obvious one is that enough people have taken to buying from the US or the UK to start impacting on GW Australasia's bottom line. They've always been pretty profitable, so that would be a Bad Thing. So it's pretty easy to conclude that the same business geniuses that cane up with the no internet carts in the US idea would think that restricting sales to within the stores' own countries would be a good way to combat that, rather than going with the (to us) more obvious option of equalising prices worldwide so people wouldn't have any reason to shop outside their own region.

The other possibility is that this isn't a malicious dig at those of us (ie: people who don't run Games Workshop) who have realised that this newfangled interwebs isn't just a fad that will fade away if they ignore it for long enough) shopping internationally specifically... but is simply supposed to make it easier for GW to track sales by region. If enough people are ordering internationally, it throws GW's sales figures all out of whack. It makes it impossible for them to see where everything is actually selling, which makes sales reporting a lot harder.

Whichever option it is, though, it doesn't seem on the surface to be the brightest way of going about it. They wouldn't be the first company to limit sales to within set regions... It's pretty common practice, particularly for companies who set up exclusive import deals with particular businesses in different countries. But the fact that they aren't the first to try it means that it shouldn't be too hard for them to look around and see just how much ill will it generates when those exclusive deals result in higher prices in different regions and people have no easy recourse to buy at more equitable prices.

If it's true. While it's certainly the sort of decision that it's depressingly easy to see coming from GW, I'm willing to hold off on sharpening the pitchfork unil it's actually confirmed.


And for what it's worth, I had actually already decided to try to start supporting local outlets again... at least on smaller purchases where the conversion and price difference really just balances out with the extra time you spend waiting on shipping. I'm sure there are plenty of other gamers out there like me, who would jump at the chance of returning all of their purchasing to local businesses if our prices were just a little closer to everyone else's. They don't have to be equal worldwide... I realise there are factors that impact on that. But not being quite so ridiculously out of step with everyone else except Canada would be a good start.

So my advice to GW, (you know, to the GW board members who are undoubtedly reading this and prepared to accept business advice from some guy on some forum somewhere) would be: By all means, limit sales by region if it works for the business... But for Bob's sake throw us a bone by reviewing and where possible making some attempt at standardising prices.

If they are asking everyone to keep quiet until Monday then it might be more significant, otherwise I would have expected companies to have a last minute order frenzy for the Southern Hemisphere. Especially if a change of terms date was set. I'm wondering if with all the talk of loosing metal figures, that the whole planet will have to order those models direct from GW UK so that they can control the stock levels better. This might have a knock on effect on pricing for other countries (could even be positive).

I'm still saying that even IF GW would try to pull this, they'd get kicked in the balls by...I don't know, Directorate-General for Competition? Don't know on which table this would land exactly, but some agency would have to say something about this, no doubt.

Sorry, but M&I industry does it mainly because the have granted territorial licences to distributors. copyright has not much to do with it. Also this way they can reap a greater profit as long as there is no internet shopping.

Duncan_Idaho wrote:Sorry, but M&I industry does it mainly because the have granted territorial licences to distributors. copyright has not much to do with it. Also this way they can reap a greater profit as long as there is no internet shopping.

Territorial licences for music (films, and software) are based on copyright.

Instead of buying a physical product, the customer is buying the right to reproduce the copyrighted work under certain conditions, one of which is that he cannot sell it outside his assigned area.

Not to go OT, but the other significance of May 16 is they are probably announcing the annual price increases.

My little birdy tells me thats it going to be a 2 part announcement.

First will be that they are restricting as per the OP thread
Second will be that they are reviewing pricing annually and adjusting based on currency fluctuations. So that everyone should be paying approx the same per item regardless where ever they are in the world.

Even if the second is untrue (oops edited). There are plenty of freight forwarders who have american/uk addresses and then will forward the order to you for a very reasonable cost

If the second is true, there would be no need for freight forwarders. If Oz prices were in-line with the rest of the world, there would be no reason to buy from overseas.

This one is pretty straightforward to me... restricting the independents from shipping is fine, so long as they address the local pricing issue. If they don't, then it is a disgusting move and horrible for everyone involved, even GW themselves... Just IMO.

rattman wrote:My little birdy tells me thats it going to be a 2 part announcement.

First will be that they are restricting as per the OP thread
Second will be that they are reviewing pricing annually and adjusting based on currency fluctuations. So that everyone should be paying approx the same per item regardless where ever they are in the world.

Even if the second is true. There are plenty of freight forwarders who have american/uk addresses and then will forward the order to you for a very reasonable cost

So we can anticipate OZ seeing a modest price reduction, the UK a modest increase, the Euro a modest reduction and the US a huge increase.

Im from Brazil, and if this comes true, i quit warhammer. There is a lot of other companies wanting my money, who actually do things do get it it... Infinity have great models, mantic have a great price and better rules, and there are others.

Here a link to the blog of a friend:
http://paintingfrog.wordpress.com/2011/05/13/games-workshops-embargo-or-how-i-came-to-feel-back-in-colonial-times/

Take a look, and understand why we are so scaryed over here...

insaniak wrote:If the second is true, there would be no need for freight forwarders. If Oz prices were in-line with the rest of the world, there would be no reason to buy from overseas.

OOPS meant untrue, I edited the post

So we can anticipate OZ seeing a modest price reduction, the UK a modest increase, the Euro a modest reduction and the US a huge increase.

He didn't mention anything like tat detail, considering we pay 40% more reletive to the pound a decrease would be in the cards if the second part is true.

Hell would freeze over before we saw a 40% decrease, though. At absolute best, I could see a slight (say 10%) decrease, with prices frozen for a couple of periods to allow the rest of the world to catch up.

Insaniak - EU law allows copyright holders, which GW certainly are, to restrict the physical slae of goods within and without the EU - the whole grey import / export issue.

If they tell the retailers not to export goods from the EU, as copyright holders that is their right. Levi were the first, but they were mainly concerned with goods coming IN, i.e. cheaper than normal prices.

Soooo.....if they say they'll stop selling to chaps who sell to people in Australia,w hat's to stop me negotiating a 30% off GW good discount with say, Maelstrom, and putting my goods up on Ebay at 20% off with a cheap shipping option to Australia?

Maelstrom isn't selling to Australia and breaking the terms of their arrangement, and I have no direct link to GW for them to wield that control over me.

I suppose they could try and trace the goods back to maelstrom, and threaten to stop supplying maelstrom unless maelstrom stops supplying me, but as soon as they stop dealing with me, my brother will conveniently open an Ebay store. And so on ad infinitum. There's no credible way of countering this I don't think.

It may be possible for a third party retailer to purchase stock from an on-line retailer like Maelstrom. Then sell onto the Australian market, below the Australian dollar price and still make a profit.

Ketara wrote:Soooo.....if they say they'll stop selling to chaps who sell to people in Australia,w hat's to stop me negotiating a 30% off GW good discount with say, Maelstrom, and putting my goods up on Ebay at 20% off with a cheap shipping option to Australia?

Maelstrom isn't selling to Australia and breaking the terms of their arrangement, and I have no direct link to GW for them to wield that control over me.

I suppose they could try and trace the goods back to maelstrom, and threaten to stop supplying maelstrom unless maelstrom stops supplying me, but as soon as they stop dealing with me, my brother will conveniently open an Ebay store. And so on ad infinitum. There's no credible way of countering this I don't think.

Except.....you'd never bother. The numbers you're quoting say nothing really about how much you would make on this "venture" and therefore whether it would even be worth-while.

A much better suggestion, would be for Australians to set up buying partners on websites like this, who are willing to purchase the goods and ship to Oz......sure it won't help everyone, but it will help a lot of people, and engender a great community spirit.

insaniak wrote:If the second is true, there would be no need for freight forwarders. If Oz prices were in-line with the rest of the world, there would be no reason to buy from overseas.

Precisely.

If Oz prices matched the rest of the world, this would not be an issue, and as much as I like supporting Maelstrom, I'd no longer need to wait two weeks for something to arrive because I could go to the GW that is less than 800 metres from my house and buy stuff there for the same price.


Of course, knowing GW, there is every possibility that they'll jack up UK/US prices to match Australia's...

George Spiggott wrote:It may be possible for a third party retailer to purchase stock from an on-line retailer like Maelstrom. Then sell onto the Australian market, below the Australian dollar price and still make a profit.

Some young turk who definitely isn't part of maelstrom( ) can buy the stock from Maelstrom and forward it to Australia whilst adding a few pennies to it. It is then 3rd person sale and 4th person recipient in Oz.

nosferatu1001 wrote:Insaniak - EU law allows copyright holders, which GW certainly are, to restrict the physical slae of goods within and without the EU - the whole grey import / export issue.

Er... ok? I have no idea why that comment was aimed at me...

Besides which, I didn't think the UK was a part of the EU?

Ketara wrote:Soooo.....if they say they'll stop selling to chaps who sell to people in Australia,w hat's to stop me negotiating a 30% off GW good discount with say, Maelstrom, and putting my goods up on Ebay at 20% off with a cheap shipping option to Australia?

There's nothing stopping you. This sort of policy isn't put in place (at least not by anyone who's actually in touch with reality) with any real expectation of stopping up unwanted sales channels completely, just to make it harder, which stamps out most of it.

George Spiggott wrote:It may be possible for a third party retailer to purchase stock from an on-line retailer like Maelstrom. Then sell onto the Australian market, below the Australian dollar price and still make a profit.

You could do it, but you yould would make no money off it.

Basically the maelstrom discount price is the same price you buy it off GW trade in AUS for, so for individuals it great for traders, its rubbish.

Damn. My wife and me only got into 40k in January and had planned to slowly build up our army over this year (a little under half way there). We are both Uni students so we are not exactly swimming in disposable income. We have built most of our armies from online retailers because prices in NZ literally double that you would fine on wayland or maelstrom. That said we still support our locals buy buying all out paints, glues and gaming aids from them. We even buy some model (about 1/3 our armies are locally bought). This feel like a real kick in the teeth. (if true)

I don't quite understand what their reasoning would be. It is not like we are suddenly going to double our monthly gaming budget; we are just going to end up buying half as much.

Eh. I have friends in the Uk. If this dose turn out to be true I at least have a fall back plan.