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.

Yeah, it actually makes sense when you look at it from GW’s perspective. Their paints live in a way more competitive market — Vallejo, Army Painter, Pro Acryl, Scale 75, even the random Amazon knock-offs. In terms of value and quality, GW can’t just jack the price up without people instantly jumping ship to something that’s basically the same or better.

Their models though? Totally different story. Like it or not, GW’s minis are head and shoulders above most of the competition. Sure, other companies make good sculpts, but GW’s sheer design volume, consistency, and brand pull are on another level. That gives them the leverage to push the prices up on plastic crack while keeping paints steady. Basically: paints are in the cola wars, minis are a monopoly on a really addictive flavor.

 kodos wrote:

Vorian wrote:

 kodos wrote:
GW has issues with keeping supply up since the very beginning, no new factory solved that simple because GW uses them to make more new items and not to make more of the already existing ones.

Also increasing prices of existing items that are on stock has nothing to do with compensation of costs but is there to create the perception of value

"They have an issue keeping up with supply because all their added capacity is taken up with new releases that they can't stock enough of". Ok? They still can't manufacture enough to satisfy demand.
They are increasing costs of existing items in line with inflation so their real price is constant.

There is a difference between cannot meet demand and don't want to meet demand.
GW rather releasing something new over increasing stock simply means they don't want to, not that they can't

And keeping the price up so things aren't getting cheaper over time just more expensive is exactly the strategy of artificial value creating I was talking about

That doesn't make sense.

They can't be using new capacity to only build new stuff, letting old stuff go out of stock to the point people can't buy stuff for weeks at a time.
Producing artificially low numbers of the new product to keep prices high.
Spending vast amounts to increase their manufacturing capabilities.

They obviously can't produce enough to meet demand and are investing to increase the amount they can.

Anything else is tinfoil hat stuff.

Here is a question: Has GW ever said why it is raising prices? I think the only time I can ever remember something along those lines was an article way back when in WD, when white metal was introduced and the new alloy + production costs caused an increase.

I say this as its normal, within the industry, for a "sorry tin/shipping/tarrifs have increased in cost, we've tried to hide the costs in our margins but its no longer possible" type of message - think have seen something similar from both Warlord and Mantic over the past year or two, to give examples.

But, I guess when you effectively operate in a monopoly, are by far the biggest boy on the block, you don't need to even make a token concession.

Vorian wrote:

 NAVARRO wrote:
It's a simple equation for me, it's not elastic, I stick to my budget. They can charge what they want.
Its hard to keep up with the "deal" that sells out in minutes, so I avoid it more and more leaving me time to spread the costs in time and the more I extend the project the bigger chance I will just move to something else.
Meaning the higher the prices are, the less impulse buy I do, and that breaks down all of GW marketing master plan.

Once your out of that burn and churn cycle and you just enjoy things in your own time you tend to buy a lot less.

No rush just chilling.

Note - On the other hand, if say, a combat patrol was as cheap as half the price, oh boy I would still be on that hype train and probably getting 3 boxes... today I get none, if I dont need 1 mini in it. Thats the difference and GW did it to themselves.

GW sell their combat patrol at the price they charge today.

They can not produce the extra boxes that would sell at half the price.

I think you missed my point.
I was trying to say that in a perspective of someone, in my position that got fed up of the churn and burn, missing constantly the box I wanted to scalpers and slowly drifted away from GW FOMO/urgency marketing agenda... that today theres very little or no impulse buys available at a tempting pick up price. Im not saying they can or cant produce or that they choose not too etc... Im saying that combat patrols or other examples just got higher price tags and slim in model quantities... so I stopped buying more of them or even just one.
Like one thing is having loads of minis in these sets and one or two minis are not to your liking... another thing is some HQ individual minis costing £20ish + on a box of £100.
Some boxes are better than others but generally 20is minis for £100 is not impulse in my books.
I dont see people not thinking in £100 when spending it in the UK.
I mention CP boxes because these are supposedly the better deals and official entry point sets.

In short if you're out and not part of the marketing rampage anymore, theres little or nothing to pick up as impulse buy. So by default you're out of the train for good.
Yes GW did this to themselves, and I just chill and relax and still spend the same money I did years ago. I didn't change, GW did and thats just fine. If they make loads of money with others, good for them... Is it good for competiton like someone said? I dont think so, competition is facing extinction for the past years...

I think it's a lot healthier for me to ignore all of this artificial sense of value, FOMO, 3 year editions, scalpers etc.

Prices are what they are and GW will not stop raising them regularly above inflation and such, its totally fine it simply forces me to opt out of the mad frenzy which I thank them for.

They're putting their prices up by ~4% when UK inflation is ~4%. How much of an explanation do they need to give?

I recall when GW said that rising costs of metals were forcing them to change to a cheaper material, Finecast. However oddly whilst the material got cheaper the price of models took a hike at that time.


Similar to when GW announced very loudly that Forgeworld was going to be shifting to shipping through GW's internal shipping system instead of direct mail. A LOT of overseas people waited for that change over and then when it happened - oh wait the shipping got cheaper but now the actual model prices went UP by a lot because of how GW calculated local pricing differently. So overnight people saw big orders jump in cost.



So in general GW doesn't say why; though I think in their investor reports there's all the generic terms for remaining competitive and so on that boils down to "costs go up, prices go up, profits go up" kinda stuff.

In the end we are used to GW doing price rises every X number of months and we spawn a many-paged thread arguing about why and really just venting that we hate it and in the end the prices rise and the vast majority of us remain around for the next rise.

A few burn out, but its my observation that many of those in a place like Dakka (ergo the most keen) tend to burn out on prices as a "straw that broke the camels back" and other things like balance, model style, other brands and such were already getting those people close to dropping GW (for a time) anyway.





I think in the past we have had heads up on what models/items were going to rise specifically. We don't get a reason for it, but they have communicated what will go up before. Though not reliably every time.
In part I think its because the 3rd party stores get notified anyway so the information is out there generally before it happens and communicating it earlier spreads out the hit to sales that happens over the month since the announcement instead of right on the eve

Vorian wrote:
They're putting their prices up by ~4% when UK inflation is ~4%. How much of an explanation do they need to give?

I think I did say already that the box sets got less minis, less options less everything with time... and you need more rulebooks and shorter revisions etc etc the simple fact they discontinued the start collecting ( half way entry point) and only make CP "bigger boxes' is another subtle raise...

Theres plenty increases... But yes I dont think thats news to anyone just dont paint a picture that doesn't exist.

 xttz wrote:

Billicus wrote:


Please, if it's so easily disproven, lay it on me.

This was already comprehensively explained on the previous page:

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/817330.page#11774692

I mean I could go a step further and assemble specific examples from two decades in the business I work for; showing our suppliers increasing their costs year on year while we make similar annual sales price revisions to maintain profit. But there's absolutely no point in doing that because your goal here is not to listen or understand, but to tell everyone how mad you are.

Am I a joke to you?

 NAVARRO wrote:

Vorian wrote:
They're putting their prices up by ~4% when UK inflation is ~4%. How much of an explanation do they need to give?

I think I did say already that the box sets got less minis, less options less everything with time... and you need more rulebooks and shorter revisions etc etc the simple fact they discontinued the start collecting ( half way entry point) and only make CP "bigger boxes' is another subtle raise...

Theres plenty increases... But yes I dont think thats news to anyone just dont paint a picture that doesn't exist.

It was a reply to Pacific asking why they don't say why prices are increasing, your reply just came at the same time.

They don't need to explain that their prices are increasing with inflation, we can figure that out ourselves.

Vorian wrote:

 NAVARRO wrote:

Vorian wrote:
They're putting their prices up by ~4% when UK inflation is ~4%. How much of an explanation do they need to give?

I think I did say already that the box sets got less minis, less options less everything with time... and you need more rulebooks and shorter revisions etc etc the simple fact they discontinued the start collecting ( half way entry point) and only make CP "bigger boxes' is another subtle raise...

Theres plenty increases... But yes I dont think thats news to anyone just dont paint a picture that doesn't exist.

It was a reply to Pacific asking why they don't say why prices are increasing, your reply just came at the same time.

They don't need to explain that their prices are increasing with inflation, we can figure that out ourselves.

Ok thanks for clarifying.
I think they only say theres a price rise as, yet again, another marketing Fomo thing to make people rush to buy more before the new prices.

Sucks if your halfway a new army project, but if they do this and more every year, everyone will eventually be caught with this.

Vorian wrote:

They can't be using new capacity to only build new stuff, letting old stuff go out of stock to the point people can't buy stuff for weeks at a time.
Producing artificially low numbers of the new product to keep prices high.
Spending vast amounts to increase their manufacturing capabilities.
They obviously can't produce enough to meet demand and are investing to increase the amount they can.
Anything else is tinfoil hat stuff.

I am in the hobby for 25 years now and for 25 years GW stuff is hardly available outside the initial release
some boxes have better availability others less but overall anything outside the 2 player starter boxes isn't always on stock and hard to get by

so either GW is too stupid to keep things in stock while releasing something new every month, or just don't care

I have heard the very same thing people now say about the 4th factory when GW started its 2nd and the main difference between now and 20 years ago is that the numbers of SKUs they sell is much higher, while items are still out of stock

over 20 years and 3 additional factories, availability didn't change, but the number of different items offered and new releases per year increased
GW cannot meet demand for 40k, that is why they released 30k in plastic, they cannot meet demand for AoS and we get TOW, and instead of producing more boxes for 40k we got LI in plastic as well.

if you think GW isn't able to properly plan things and earning millions by accident every year you have no clue how big of a company they really are
If they really wanted to meet demand for 40k, they would not have used those precious factory slots and warehouse space to produce Kill Team, Legion Imperalis, Necromunda and Titanicus but just made more 40k boxes to.
Or you think a manager just made a mistake by releasing a new Kill Team box instead ordering the out of stock items from the shop

I cant say i agree with any of that. Ive been in the hobby for about 23 years, prior to around 7th edition most new releases did not immediately sell out.

 kodos wrote:

Vorian wrote:

They can't be using new capacity to only build new stuff, letting old stuff go out of stock to the point people can't buy stuff for weeks at a time.
Producing artificially low numbers of the new product to keep prices high.
Spending vast amounts to increase their manufacturing capabilities.
They obviously can't produce enough to meet demand and are investing to increase the amount they can.
Anything else is tinfoil hat stuff.

I am in the hobby for 25 years now and for 25 years GW stuff is hardly available outside the initial release
some boxes have better availability others less but overall anything outside the 2 player starter boxes isn't always on stock and hard to get by

so either GW is too stupid to keep things in stock while releasing something new every month, or just don't care

I have heard the very same thing people now say about the 4th factory when GW started its 2nd and the main difference between now and 20 years ago is that the numbers of SKUs they sell is much higher, while items are still out of stock

over 20 years and 3 additional factories, availability didn't change, but the number of different items offered and new releases per year increased
GW cannot meet demand for 40k, that is why they released 30k in plastic, they cannot meet demand for AoS and we get TOW, and instead of producing more boxes for 40k we got LI in plastic as well.

if you think GW isn't able to properly plan things and earning millions by accident every year you have no clue how big of a company they really are
If they really wanted to meet demand for 40k, they would not have used those precious factory slots and warehouse space to produce Kill Team, Legion Imperalis, Necromunda and Titanicus but just made more 40k boxes to.
Or you think a manager just made a mistake by releasing a new Kill Team box instead ordering the out of stock items from the shop

What do you mean properly plan?

Mad Doc has shown you the revenue increase they've had, over 20 years the growth in the amount they are selling has increased massively. They increased their manufacturing base and continue to sell a very high percentage of it with room to grow.

Increasing manufacturing capacity faster than sustainable interest grows is one if their potential routes to disaster, so it's not very surprising they err on the side of caution.

They will probably always aim to have a problem keeping stuff in stock because they don't want to overproduce stuff, but just less of a problem than they have now

chaos0xomega wrote:
I cant say i agree with any of that. Ive been in the hobby for about 23 years, prior to around 7th edition most new releases did not immediately sell out.

I think scalping is getting considerably more traction these past years... the influencers program is also more visible now than ever and GW marketing is totally milking it.
The IP is growing outside tabletop and that brings more visibility to 40k so we will experience more of the underplaying problems.

Scalping is 100% a problem and grew most during the Pandemic. That said lets also not forget a good many of us will buy more than one copy of select sets because the discount is good.

I've seen more than a few 3rd party stores shifting to "1 per customer" and whilst that slows down scalpers a bit, its clearly a big target on people ordering multiples.



If everyone gets 2 of a boxed set the sales for it are doubled, but when its limited product that means half as many people can buy it.



So there's scalping, but also just geeks buying stuff more than before. I'd wager scalping is more of an issue on things like limited-edition books where a single person really does only need one (or are less likely to buy two - one to read and one to keep).

prior the big online shops it was hard to tell if things were sold out or not, and hard to get doesn't necessarily means it is sold out everywhere

the reason I never started a Dark Eldar Army and Slaanesh Daemon Army in 7thE40k was because my orders vanished in the void as they were currently not available (which changed after I pre ordered) and were canceled after months (one via GW the other a 3rd party retailer)

and it wasn't any better collecting an army during 5th/6th Edition Fantasy or 5th 40k, unless you bought directly on release

but maybe I am wrong and selling out will never happen again once the 4th factory is up and running

Vorian wrote:
Increasing manufacturing capacity faster than sustainable interest grows is one if their potential routes to disaster, so it's not very surprising they err on the side of caution.

yes, but with the increasing in capacity they are also increasing the number of different items produced, they have vastly expanded their product folio over time in combination with the capacity and not necessarily used that capacity to overproduce items to put on stock
they are deliberate under producing items in favour of more different releases as new stuff sells better than old items on stock

there is just no need to build up stock, if an factory run is 100k items, and those are selling out they decided to rather produce a 100k of another item to release next month instead of 200k of the same to put a 100k on stock just in case
and no new factory will change that, they will produce what they think is going to sell on release, and if this sells out the next item might be in higher numbers but they won't use the factory slots to keep things on stock outside the planned release windows
simply because models sell best together with a new book or bigger box and manufacturing is planned for those release windows

Kodos, we don't know the potential demand on a release weekend nor what the additional capacity coming is - so it's pretty pointless to speculate.

In any event, if GW can sell the entire output of their new manufacturing capacity purely through new releases, I don't think they'll mind that.

The trouble with running your factory at capacity out of necessity is that otherwise minor hiccups can cause problems.

For instance. If you’ve 10 machines running at 100% capacity to meet existing demand? What happens if one of those machines goes “sproing”? Or if demand surges? You’re already at capacity, so you’ve zero wiggle room.

But, add even a couple more machines, the peeps to run them, you’re no longer at capacity, and so are better insulated against breakdowns and surges in demand.

Which is what GW has been doing. The initial project was delayed, as the local electrical grid needed to be sorted out, as it couldn’t supply all of GW’s projected needs.

Presumably, whilst whomever is responsible for that ensured the upgrade and increase was future proofed? GW are still having to expand again.

That still carries risk. GW, like any business, can only encourage demand. You can’t actively control it. So there’s always the risk based concern of “what if we spend £Xm on this new production facility, only for demand to drop to the point we never really use it”. So it’s never as simple as “guess we’ll just buy more machines then, we’ve plenty money in the kitty”.

Whatever GW is doing works very well for them and they decided to keep doing what they do because of that
I don't see them having any problems with selling out or changing what they are doing just because we don't like it

and therefore I just don't see a shift coming just because they are going to open another factory but rather keeping everything the same because this works

It all depends.

If I want to buy something for Legions Imperialis, and it’s sold out? I for one am not likely to spend whatever I’d budgeted for that on something else GW. And whilst it’s likely I’ll click the “tell me when it’s back in stock” button, and will also likely get the items then? There’s still a chance I won’t bother at all.

Others may see an impulse buy, driven by a cool conversion they saw, or a “how to paint” video frustrated because they can’t buy the model. That may be money lost to GW entirely.

So as I’ve said many times in this thread and others? Having high demand is a nice problem to have, but it absolutely is a problem.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
There’s also some argument that as, categorically the biggest fish in the pond? A robust GW is beneficial, precisely because they’re the Majority Entry Point.

Yes... but mostly? No. That's the same argument that gets told about RPGs, how d&d getting big is great for everyone because the high tide lifts all boats and everything.

Reality, though? The reality is that d&d is a different hobby than RPGs, same as GW is a different hobby than other tabletop minis games, and for the overwhelmingly most part? Sales of the biggest fishes in the pond don't translate into a bigger market in general, nor into bigger earnings to everyone else... and it might actually end up suffocating the smaller fishes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Altruizine wrote:
I doubt that any of the models GW sells are loss leaders. The models they straight up give away for free are, of course. But I think even the most restrained sellers, like event models or other limited editions, still make their production costs back. As would the WH+ ones if one was intellectually honest and rolled them up into the cost vs. earnings of the service, and didn't consider them freebies.

Not in the sense that's any actual loss there, no. Just in that capitalist "unearned dividends are loss" way.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jammer87 wrote:
Yeah, it actually makes sense when you look at it from GW’s perspective. Their paints live in a way more competitive market — Vallejo, Army Painter, Pro Acryl, Scale 75, even the random Amazon knock-offs. In terms of value and quality, GW can’t just jack the price up without people instantly jumping ship to something that’s basically the same or better.

Their models though? Totally different story. Like it or not, GW’s minis are head and shoulders above most of the competition. Sure, other companies make good sculpts, but GW’s sheer design volume, consistency, and brand pull are on another level. That gives them the leverage to push the prices up on plastic crack while keeping paints steady. Basically: paints are in the cola wars, minis are a monopoly on a really addictive flavor.

Smaller scales at the very least would beg to differ.

 kodos wrote:

Vorian wrote:

 kodos wrote:
GW has issues with keeping supply up since the very beginning, no new factory solved that simple because GW uses them to make more new items and not to make more of the already existing ones.

Also increasing prices of existing items that are on stock has nothing to do with compensation of costs but is there to create the perception of value

"They have an issue keeping up with supply because all their added capacity is taken up with new releases that they can't stock enough of". Ok? They still can't manufacture enough to satisfy demand.
They are increasing costs of existing items in line with inflation so their real price is constant.

There is a difference between cannot meet demand and don't want to meet demand.
GW rather releasing something new over increasing stock simply means they don't want to, not that they can't

And keeping the price up so things aren't getting cheaper over time just more expensive is exactly the strategy of artificial value creating I was talking about

Producing extra stock isn't some simple magic button where it appears out of thin air. They have to schedule things well in advance, using a limited number of machines, covering a wide variety of different items, all the while making more new stuff because people want new stuff. Stopping making new stuff might help in the short-term but it's more just moving the problem to a later time or different items because they're having to constantly juggle things around. You also have to remember that there is significantly more demand than there was just a few years ago, and that was unexpected.

Vorian wrote:
They're putting their prices up by ~4% when UK inflation is ~4%. How much of an explanation do they need to give?

Are paints inflation free, then? That's not the reason, same as it's never been the reason, nor will ever be.

That without even taking into account that inflation isn't the same in every country, of course.

 Albertorius wrote:

Vorian wrote:
They're putting their prices up by ~4% when UK inflation is ~4%. How much of an explanation do they need to give?

Are paints inflation free, then? That's not the reason, same as it's never been the reason, nor will ever be.

That without even taking into account that inflation isn't the same in every country, of course.

The world has got more expensive, their products got more expensive to make, they want more cash accordingly. Is that blunt enough?

This is ignoring that an average means they're opting to take the hit on some stuff vs other products.

 Albertorius wrote:

Vorian wrote:
They're putting their prices up by ~4% when UK inflation is ~4%. How much of an explanation do they need to give?

Are paints inflation free, then? That's not the reason, same as it's never been the reason, nor will ever be.

That without even taking into account that inflation isn't the same in every country, of course.

It is indeed the general reason.

Obviously they can adjust more or less on certain items to give real terms rises or decreases around that, but we do not need them to explain what inflation is to us every year.

Dudeface wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:

Vorian wrote:
They're putting their prices up by ~4% when UK inflation is ~4%. How much of an explanation do they need to give?

Are paints inflation free, then? That's not the reason, same as it's never been the reason, nor will ever be.

That without even taking into account that inflation isn't the same in every country, of course.

The world has got more expensive, their products got more expensive to make, they want more cash accordingly. Is that blunt enough?

This is ignoring that an average means they're opting to take the hit on some stuff vs other products.

This is a seasonal price increases, that occurs irrespective of costs. So, blunt as you might be, is not the first part, just the second


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Vorian wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:

Vorian wrote:
They're putting their prices up by ~4% when UK inflation is ~4%. How much of an explanation do they need to give?

Are paints inflation free, then? That's not the reason, same as it's never been the reason, nor will ever be.

That without even taking into account that inflation isn't the same in every country, of course.

It is indeed the general reason.

Obviously they can adjust more or less on certain items to give real terms rises or decreases around that, but we do not need them to explain what inflation is to us every year.

Not even GW has said so, and most (almost all) years their raises have not even a passing resemblance with inflation (plus, as said, inflation varies from country), so citation needed

Guys, everyone will rationalize as they can/want, but at the end of the day? GW raises prices because they can.

 Albertorius wrote:
That without even taking into account that inflation isn't the same in every country, of course.

Sure, but GW is a UK company, so all their costs are incurred on a UK basis. Other countries' inflation rates are largely irrelevant.

Thats not an accurate statement.

Supply chains are global.

Replacement parts for their presses and the chemicals/raw materials used are probably sourced from overseas - at a minimum the inflation in those other countries will impact their costs.

Then on the other end of the supply chain, overseas inflation will impact their price-points. If inflation makes freight and shipping to warehouses, distro centers, and retailers more expensive, or makes their costs of doing business more expensive (because of wage increases, rising real estate costs, rising energy costs, etc. for example) then thats going to be reflected in how they set their pricing.

Also worth understanding how inflation is calculated. You can read about that here

So it’s not entirely precise. It doesn’t take into account how much manufacturing costs have gone up in a given period - only how much of any such increase is passed on to the end consumer. I.E. smelly little Herbert’s like me.

That can delay the impact of silliness like the mini-budget which set light to the UK economy. In short, if business A absorbed some of that impact to ensure better prices for its customers? It may not be able to do so further down the line when more regular economic pressures are floating about.

Also? Inflation Figures. creates no obligation on manufacturers. Whilst it’s nice when they do so, my employer isn’t required to up my pay in-line with inflation every year. If Company A wants to increase its prices by 20% for the hell of it, they’re entirely free to do so.

Not even GW has said so, and most (almost all) years their raises have not even a passing resemblance with inflation (plus, as said, inflation varies from country), so citation needed

The thousands of companies that raise their prices each year don't announce it each year. But it's inflation. This is not a secret.