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Awoke this morning to find an email from Dark Sphere saying that new Tau stuff is on severe delay from GW and that even GW themselves have had to remove stuff from their website and push release dates back. Text here:



Part of the Tau launch has been delayed by up to two weeks due to stock shortages.


Dear Customers,

Late yesterday afternoon we were informed that due to an unpredicted level of demand, Games Workshop are unlikely to be able to supply many of the new Tau models due for launch this Saturday.

According to a conversation we had with Games Workshop's Trade Department, virtually the entire range of Tau is now out of stock. Games Workshop's own site has removed the launch date and put an expected one to two week wait on these products.

A small part of the range (mainly the new Tau Codex) are unaffected and we should still receive significant quantities of these in time for Saturday; some of the others (e.g. Hammerhead) we still expect to receive this week but we will be unable to reorder additional stock for a small period. Unfortunately, the most popular new products (e.g. Riptide Battlesuit, new XV8 Commander and Commander Shadowsun) are in such high demand that instead of the hundreds that we requested we are likely to only end up with a handful, if any, for release day.

Based on current Games Workshop estimates we expect Riptides to be available in proper numbers around 19th April. In the mean time we have shifted the release date for those products to the 19th April since the stock shortage effectively pushes the release back to then. Any stock we receive in the meantime will be allocated in date order, so the earliest orders get the priority since they will be the customers who have been waiting the longest.

We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience that this delay may cause and assure you that any frustration or disbelief you are experiencing is matched by all the staff at Dark Sphere.

Best wishes,

Alexi Tingey


I wonder exactly where the problem lies? Too much demand? Under estimation of demand? Or some sort of trick to restrict stick flow and artificially raise hype that way? Seems increasingly at odds with the exasperation demonstrated here and elsewhere at GWs business practises.

Hmm... well, I'm not going to say what I'm thinking.

But, I'm sure it's what many people are thinking anyway and doesn't need spelling out.

The last line of that letter says it all really, and in particular the word 'disbelief'.

Hurray for eBay.

Well, from GW's NE site:

For European customers:

Due to exceptional demand for Tau Empire miniatures, any orders that contain the following products will not be fulfilled until Monday 8th April at the earliest:

Tau Empire One-Click Launch Collection
Tau Battlesuit Collection
Farsight Enclave
Tau Recon Team
Shadowsun Firestrike Hunter Cadre
XV104 Riptide Battlesuit
XV88 Broadside Battlesuit
Cadre Fireblade
Commander Farsight
XV8 Battlesuit Commander
Darkstrider
Longstrike

Note that if your order contains other products, they will be delayed until these Tau Empire miniatures are back in stock and your items can be sent together. Orders that were placed before 4pm on Tuesday 2nd April are not affected.

For those of you who urgently desire to join the cause for the Greater Good, head to your local Hobby Centre this Saturday - they will have limited numbers of these Tau Empire miniatures in stock.

Of cource a whole bunch of auctions will be up in anticipation of Tau stock arriving from places like Dark Sphere, or even GW it's self

so while you may win things, they may not have them to send (for a few weeks anyway)

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
Of cource a whole bunch of auctions will be up in anticipation of Tau stock arriving from places like Dark Sphere, or even GW it's self

so while you may win things, they may not have them to send (for a few weeks anyway)

If that does happen, then it is a violation of ebay rules - you cant auction something that you don't own.

I can honestly say I did not expect this, given that they haven't instantly sold out of the LE codex.

This smacks of either bad planning on GW's part (a new Tau codex has been a long time coming and GW should have known how popular it would be - they could have found this out from reading dakka and similar message boards), therefore they should have made sure enough stock was available at launch.

Either that or it is some calculated ploy to raise sales even further on April 19th (as they are betting that people will pick up more models than they normally would if they think they won't be back in stock for a while).

Who knows with GW these days though?

I'm getting ready to order some stuff, and this may come off as an ignorant question, but USA isn't affected, correct? Says European customers.

I have recently got the feeling that GW are accelerating their release schedule (to boost turnover or take advantage of 6th ed or whatever), this could affect manufacturing buly shortening lead-in and preparation times for new lines.

GW are after all masters of their own supply chain and production and should be able to meet whatever demand they encounter.

That said a delay in receipt of printed material (packaging) from China could also result in a low supply of finished sets.

Or least likely there could be a huge demand for blue space fishmen like GW say, but this could never be true....right? /sarcasm

 filbert wrote:

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
Of cource a whole bunch of auctions will be up in anticipation of Tau stock arriving from places like Dark Sphere, or even GW it's self

so while you may win things, they may not have them to send (for a few weeks anyway)

If that does happen, then it is a violation of ebay rules - you cant auction something that you don't own.

Happens all of the time with ltd edition albums and for concert tickets. I've seen notes on there saying "as soon as the album arrives, I will post it straight on" for flipping records.

So their own stores have stock now but independant stores won't for another week or so, I can see this as a new GW sales ploy...

Well even their own website doesn't have them to ship on/for release (apart from the codex)

I suspect they're suffering from too many releases too fast, plus not anticipating the real demand for Xenos.

"Gah! Demand is outstripping supply. Quick, raise prices!"

I'm not overly surprised by the demand for the Riptide. It's a pretty effective model and people are into the whole Big Mechanical Suit thing.

They may well be getting interest from general sci-fi model enthusiasts and I wouldn't be surprised if they see another sales boost off the back of Pacific Rim.

It's depressing that so many are willing to fork out £50 for it though.

I suppose one way of asking the question is, are FLGS getting significantly more orders for the products than *they* were expecting?

I'm guessing by the 'disbelief' comment, they're not getting quite that many more.

 Flashman wrote:
"Gah! Demand is outstripping supply. Quick, raise prices!"

I'm not overly surprised by the demand for the Riptide. It's a pretty effective model and people are into the whole Big Mechanical Suit thing.

They may well be getting interest from general sci-fi model enthusiasts and I wouldn't be surprised if they see another sales boost off the back of Pacific Rim.

It's depressing that so many are willing to fork out £50 for it though.

I'm just not sure. I have never seen so much discontentment and anger at GW than the threads that have been appearing recently here, to the extent where it feels like a real tipping point in opinion against GW practises. Witness the pricing threads going on in Dakka discussions as well as all the successful kickstarters that have been cropping up - it all points to consumers moving away from GW so an announcement that Tau demand is seemingly outstripping supply (and outstripping GW's ability to supply which is something we have never hitherto seen before) just does not jibe for me. There is some definite reading between the lines here needed. Dark Sphere seem as incredulous as me judging by the tone of that email. I just can't help wondering if this is some elaborate ploy designed to further weaken internet discount sellers somehow.

GW site does indeed have slightly different release information for different products.

Riptide is "one to two weeks" while Pathfinders is the standard "order by Wednesday and receive it on Saturday."

 filbert wrote:

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
Of cource a whole bunch of auctions will be up in anticipation of Tau stock arriving from places like Dark Sphere, or even GW it's self

so while you may win things, they may not have them to send (for a few weeks anyway)

If that does happen, then it is a violation of ebay rules - you cant auction something that you don't own.

That is not entirely true, you can auction stuff you have paid for and have not yet received, as long as you state in the auction that it can't be set out until a specific date.

 filbert wrote:
Or some sort of trick to restrict stick flow and artificially raise hype that way? Seems increasingly at odds with the exasperation demonstrated here and elsewhere at GWs business practises.

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

Ladies and gentleman, we have a winner here!

Facebook update from Wayland:

Games Workshop Plc have informed us that there will be a delay to all UK retail outlets in receiving stock of the New Tau release.

We expect to receive stock around the 15th April and will dispatch it upon its arrival.

We are pleased that Tau have been such a successful release but surprised and puzzled that UK retail outlets are receiving no stock, and disappointed on behalf of our customers.

We are trying to work closely with Games Workshop to resolve the situation as soon as possible.

I hate to be a cynic but this seems to be less and less to do with demand and more to do with GW trying to prevent discount selling and force customers to shop via GW online/in-store. They can't pull the same trade restriction shenanigans that they pulled in the US here in the UK/EU so they are trying a different method.

Has been posted in the Tau thread 9 hours ago.

PhantomViper wrote:

 filbert wrote:
Or some sort of trick to restrict stick flow and artificially raise hype that way? Seems increasingly at odds with the exasperation demonstrated here and elsewhere at GWs business practises.

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

Ladies and gentleman, we have a winner here!

Wow, you know the community here hates GW when news of a new release selling out is greeted by people claiming that GW is screwing their customers over again! To me it seems that the reason things like this are at odds with the "exasperation" demonstrated on these forums is that a lot of people here just plain hate GW and can't admit that they do things right once in a while, and these forums-- or at least the Dakka Discussions and to a lesser extent News and Rumors boards-- are generally far more negative about GW than the wargaming community as a whole is.

Honestly I think it's too farfetched but with GW policies lately I'm not 100% sure.

M.

 filbert wrote:
Facebook update from Wayland:

Games Workshop Plc have informed us that there will be a delay to all UK retail outlets in receiving stock of the New Tau release.

We expect to receive stock around the 15th April and will dispatch it upon its arrival.

We are pleased that Tau have been such a successful release but surprised and puzzled that UK retail outlets are receiving no stock, and disappointed on behalf of our customers.

We are trying to work closely with Games Workshop to resolve the situation as soon as possible.

I hate to be a cynic but this seems to be less and less to do with demand and more to do with GW trying to prevent discount selling and force customers to shop via GW online/in-store. They can't pull the same trade restriction shenanigans that they pulled in the US here in the UK/EU so they are trying a different method.

This.

GW obviously didn't like people buying codexes with 30% off from Wayland, which put it at a significantly more reasonable price. Wonder how many more they sold at that price point.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 filbert wrote:
Facebook update from Wayland:

Games Workshop Plc have informed us that there will be a delay to all UK retail outlets in receiving stock of the New Tau release.

We expect to receive stock around the 15th April and will dispatch it upon its arrival.

We are pleased that Tau have been such a successful release but surprised and puzzled that UK retail outlets are receiving no stock, and disappointed on behalf of our customers.

We are trying to work closely with Games Workshop to resolve the situation as soon as possible.

I hate to be a cynic but this seems to be less and less to do with demand and more to do with GW trying to prevent discount selling and force customers to shop via GW online/in-store. They can't pull the same trade restriction shenanigans that they pulled in the US here in the UK/EU so they are trying a different method.

This.

GW obviously didn't like people buying codexes with 30% off from Wayland, which put it at a significantly more reasonable price. Wonder how many more they sold at that price point.

If that is the case then we will see similar behavior on the next release.
If this is a question of extraordinary demand then good work GW.

Either way a couple weeks delay is not that big of a deal if you want to save 10 to 20%...

They also claimed overwhelming demand sold out Death from the Skies beyond their expectations.

Hold the front page. Ever since I've joined this site, people have been arguing on a daily basis about the decline of GW/falling sales/rivals overtaking it/long term decline etc etc

Now people are saying that there is no stock left and GW stuff is flying off the shelf.

Dare I say it, but could Dakka be wrong about GW's decline

Both could be true if in the last release cycle GW was ordering a 10k copies run of the codex and has decided to lower that number to 5K now on account of lower sales.

M.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Hold the front page. Ever since I've joined this site, people have been arguing on a daily basis about the decline of GW/falling sales/rivals overtaking it/long term decline etc etc

Now people are saying that there is no stock left and GW stuff is flying off the shelf.

Dare I say it, but could Dakka be wrong about GW's decline

We could be wrong, it's happened quite often. BUT...it could be GW trying to mess around with the flgs and group sellers like wayland games. Me, I believe it's the second option. Yomv. And no I do not have a tinfoil hat.

I still say its a try out of a new marketing policy, supply their own shops on release date then independents a week or so later. If the stock has sold so well where has it been sold from?