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 IdentifyZero wrote:
This is some kind of major conspiracy to screw the FLGS owner among other things is what I am getting out of this topic.

Maybe it's a conspiracy or maybe, just maybe? A massive company made a mistake.

At both UK and US factories?

That makes it above the factories then, and any smart manager would know the numbers and what to run, especially in relation to its trade accounts. Just saying, but when you have over 830 some odd stores in north america alone, you should probably think to your self "make enough to fill those orders" and cross reference with the ordering history. A smart manager would also know when the factories wont make a deadline.

What it says to me is that the production run was cut in half and now we have a 2 week gap, so that tells me that the factories can make enough tau models for every single GW and FLGS worldwide in 2 weeks. So what were they doing over the last month then? And why would you let trade accounts order when you didnt have the product? Whats worse? Telling someone they cant order because of low stock, or cash your cheque and then tell you to deal with it? One is ethical, the other isnt.

I had a weird call from another local store, apparently they are getting everything except finecast, Riptide & broadsides, and I am only getting codexes and finecast... I'm trying to figure out how two stores on 2 day ship got such different numbers and storys from their reps.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ravenous D wrote:

 IdentifyZero wrote:
This is some kind of major conspiracy to screw the FLGS owner among other things is what I am getting out of this topic.

Maybe it's a conspiracy or maybe, just maybe? A massive company made a mistake.

Apparently all manufacture is done in the UK now

Doubtful, the memphis plant is still open

 Davespil wrote:
If nothing comes in then I wait 2 weeks. The point of my post was for all those freaking out they they weren't gonna get their models for two weeks and were talking about quitting 40K.

Really? All who? The word "quit" appears twice in this thread. The first time it's someone saying he's not gonna quit or anything. The second time, it's in your post.

 Sergeant Horse wrote:
I had a weird call from another local store, apparently they are getting everything except finecast, Riptide & broadsides, and I am only getting codexes and finecast... I'm trying to figure out how two stores on 2 day ship got such different numbers and storys from their reps.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ravenous D wrote:

 IdentifyZero wrote:
This is some kind of major conspiracy to screw the FLGS owner among other things is what I am getting out of this topic.

Maybe it's a conspiracy or maybe, just maybe? A massive company made a mistake.

I'd assume that the orders that got shipped earlier were massively more popular for broadsides and riptides than expected, and less popular for the finecast models? That way there'd be more left of the finecast and less left of the broadsides and riptides.

Apparently all manufacture is done in the UK now

Theres really no excuse for this. The same thing will happen when High Elvee come out, and Eldar. Then there are 3 other books that are a decade old for Fantasy, that this same thing will happen for unless they plan better.

They had to have had some idea that this would happen. When you leave a popular book undone for so long, of course it will happen.

 Goliath wrote:

I'd assume that the orders that got shipped earlier were massively more popular for broadsides and riptides than expected, and less popular for the finecast models? That way there'd be more left of the finecast and less left of the broadsides and riptides.

Not only that, but I have to wonder if the "bundles" that they had on their website actually ended up being more popular than they thought.

When you look at the listing of what was "out of stock" as of Monday on the GW website, a lot of it corresponds to the bundles.

Games Workshop wrote: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

Of course, for the purposes of looking at it objectively you would ignore the bundles themselves. That leaves you with the following:

Games Workshop wrote:XV104 Riptide Battlesuit
XV88 Broadside Battlesuit
Cadre Fireblade
Commander Farsight
XV8 Battlesuit Commander
Darkstrider
Longstrike

So that's 4x Finecast(Darkstrider, Farsight, Longstrike, XV8 Battlesuit Commander) and 3x plastic kits (XV104 Riptide and XV88 Broadside Battlesuits and the Cadre Fireblade) that were underestimated.

It's interesting that the Crisis Battlesuit Team boxed set and the Pathfinders boxed set were not affected by this, nor were the Hammerhead/Skyray reboxing or the new flyers.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Not only that, but I have to wonder if the "bundles" that they had on their website actually ended up being more popular than they thought.

When you look at the listing of what was "out of stock" as of Monday on the GW website, a lot of it corresponds to the bundles.

Yeah, perhaps this will finally stop people on Dakka from describing the bundles as "insulting" or "offensive..."

I thought GW was in its final death throws because of all the boycotts...[/sarcasm]

 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.

Ahh yes, the common tactic of when people are not buying enough of your products, to stop them from buying your products.

Oh wait a minute.


* I don't mean to sound harsh here, but I do sincerely think that its not a trick.

 Byte wrote:
I thought GW was in its final death throws because of all the boycotts...[/sarcasm]

Then you were the only one...

What some people don't know about supply chain, or business is stunning.

This kind of thing happens all the time to various companies (even apple, with billions in resources has shortages).

Personally, as a guy who is a gamer, a business owner, and has been working in supply chain for 20 years, to me its almost expected, here is why;

1 - Gw has increased produciton and relaese dramatically in the last several quarters - this is not an easy thing to do, especially depending upon the technology or processes.

2 - Clearly marketing is disconnected to just how popular "non marines' and specifically tau are. They either did not estimate enough demand, or they did not priortize it enough to deal with supply shortfalls (prebuilds, etc.).

3 - Some unknown major supply issue - could be anything really - some companies ocassionally get big delays when one ship is late, or worse a container gets flaged by customs for inspection (no, they don't inspect them all, and yes, that should bother you).

Oh, and why did they ship to their stores first? Easier to control leaks that way. Why then ship to stores with longer lead times...duh, because they want them to arrive about the same time.

I think they just did not realize how popular tau would be.
Which hopefully will translate into more kits (terrain, supplments, etc.) for xenos.

 Kingsley wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Not only that, but I have to wonder if the "bundles" that they had on their website actually ended up being more popular than they thought.
When you look at the listing of what was "out of stock" as of Monday on the GW website, a lot of it corresponds to the bundles.

Yeah, perhaps this will finally stop people on Dakka from describing the bundles as "insulting" or "offensive..."

Nonsense. If the Riptide is out of stock, so are all bundles containing it. That simple. It's not like the bundles are separate boxes or something.

Sure, but if I have 2 orders: one for a Riptide, and the other one of those 800 dollar bundles that contains a Riptide, and only a single Riptide, which is going to get fulfilled? I think that was the message - how we got here, not so much where we are now.

 mikhaila wrote:

 Davespil wrote:
Wow, people really get worked up about a 2 week delay. All you need is the codex! You can wait two weeks for the models. Seriously, its not that big of a deal. And what FLGS only stays in business because of Tau? FLGS are full of people that drop hundreds on freaking cards and comic books. The small amount of GW they sell is probably more trouble then its worth.

GW has been releasing a lot of new models and codexes lately and they couldn't get enough Tau done in time. Not to mention Tau are a popular army that probably attracted a bunch of new players. There could have been any number of delays in production or distribution. I work in the logistics field and so many little things can cause delays.

Calm down, take a deep breath, take the tin foil hat off, and read your new codex. Figure out what is worth buying then spend your money. Proxy until the stuff gets here. No one is going to die because their new riptide or Farsight model will be two weeks late.

Yes, many of us do get upset over a two week wait. Especially those of us with stores.

We spend time and effort to promote GW products. We have to give them a spot in our store, agree to keep a certain amount of stuff in stock, and lots of other little things you can see within their trade terms.

That work is wasted if we can't get the product and GW's own stores have it in stock. If no one had it, no big deal. But that isn't the case here. A few stores get some. Most get nothing. GW stores got their stuff shipped out last week. They are not affected at all and are ready to take your money.

As is, I will be losing hundreds of dollars in sales. GW failed to hold up their end of the bargain.

Mikhaila, not to disrespect you mate i know youve been at this a long time, but do you remember saying GW dont stuff you around in a thread to me the other week because you were on great terms with your rep, and i said just wait? then sumone else brought up the DFTS debacle... here we have another example of GW "unintentionally" shafting everyone but themselves....

The fact that this has hit america now.... well i know where there will be a few Tau models... Aus... cos they cost twice as much.... if they sell out here, you KNOW its been fethed up

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Byte wrote:
I thought GW was in its final death throws because of all the boycotts...[/sarcasm]

Then you were the only one...

Doubt that... Certainly you haven't missed the one billion boycotts threads... However, I was being sarcastic in the case you missed that which I'm sure you did.

I didn't miss anything. You did though.

 Ouze wrote:
Sure, but if I have 2 orders: one for a Riptide, and the other one of those 800 dollar bundles that contains a Riptide, and only a single Riptide, which is going to get fulfilled? I think that was the message - how we got here, not so much where we are now.

Uh, what if nobody bought the bundles? It seems a bit presumptuous to assume a lack of riptides is because of bundles selling rather than riptides selling. It seems much more likely that they sold out of riptides which results in the bundles being marked out of stock to me. This has the side effect of making the bundles look popular when we really have zero idea if they sold a single one.

 ph34r wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Sure, but if I have 2 orders: one for a Riptide, and the other one of those 800 dollar bundles that contains a Riptide, and only a single Riptide, which is going to get fulfilled? I think that was the message - how we got here, not so much where we are now.

Uh, what if nobody bought the bundles? It seems a bit presumptuous to assume a lack of riptides is because of bundles selling rather than riptides selling. It seems much more likely that they sold out of riptides which results in the bundles being marked out of stock to me. This has the side effect of making the bundles look popular when we really have zero idea if they sold a single one.

Hey. this wasn't my premise, I'm not defending it - simply clarifying what I took as a question from Kroot.

I have no idea why they ran out of Tau stuff. I don't t think we have any evidence one way or the other to make any determination.

I'm slightly annoyed but I'm not head banging the wall. I very sorry for whats happening to the FLGS's that are being shorted. I'll wait tell my local has their stock and purchase through them. I get very annoyed with GW lately. They keep pissing of my local store to the point where they're talking of not stocking GW anymore. They don't need GW, they mainly survive on MTG sells in store and online. So it doesn't hurt GW or the store so much but it does hurt me since its the only local store in 40 miles of my house and that pisses me off.

I don't know if its by accident or design. Normaly I give people and company's a break and assume accident but since we have such a lovely past history this last 2 years from GW I wouldn't be surprised if something fishy is going on. (pun intended, ya i went there)

 wowsmash wrote:
I'm slightly annoyed but I'm not head banging the wall. I very sorry for whats happening to the FLGS's that are being shorted. I'll wait tell my local has their stock and purchase through them. I get very annoyed with GW lately. They keep pissing of my local store to the point where they're talking of not stocking GW anymore. They don't need GW, they mainly survive on MTG sells in store and online. So it doesn't hurt GW or the store so much but it does hurt me since its the only local store in 40 miles of my house and that pisses me off.

I don't know if its by accident or design. Normaly I give people and company's a break and assume accident but since we have such a lovely past history this last 2 years from GW I wouldn't be surprised if something fishy is going on. (pun intended, ya i went there)

I believe that this is no accident. I firmly believe that this corporation is doing everything it can to attain revenue. If that means cannibalizing their normal distribution lines to achieve higher profit levels, you better believe that they are going to do it.

The bottom line is they want their money now, and they will do anything to get it.

 Ravenous D wrote:
Doubtful, the memphis plant is still open

According to GW the Memphis plant is closed and all manufacturing is done in the UK.

Mike (and all of the other retailers out there) - this is fethed up - no two ways about it! I hope everyone supports you and waits to buy.....I'll be telling all at my FLGS to proxy until the store can get the models!

Someone screwed up big time - whether it was just production, planning, or even the box printer. We'll probably never find out. I doubt your rep will ever really know himself....it will be a rumor about some guy in UK who got canned or something. (sorry, made redundant is what you use in the UK, right?).

Sorry if I doubt it was on purpose.....on purpose would have been GW had plenty in stock, webstore was happily selling them and oops we don't have any. Pretty sure Mike's store would have been one of the ones who would have been least likely affected (rather than small stores 3-4 ship days away getting theirs and Mike is screwed.)

I can only think of a few REALLY bad mistakes that GW has made-and most of them the customers probably never knew about (things got moved around from one week to another, but noone but GW knew it - not even most of the retailers). The Falcons and Black and White Paint were crazy exceptions here in the US. There have been a few others, but an entire release?

Definitely they weren't ready for some reason. The ramped up release schedule, crazy demand, or whatever.

My only question is why they don't contact everyone tell them not to sell until April 19th (as a date that was thrown around as being available again). If you are caught selling then they can put you on probation. The cats out of the bag if they started to ship to FLGS, but couldn't they at least try this route? Oh, well, that is probably me mistakenly assuming the best of people.

However, I'm a big proponent of supporting your FLGS! I waited to get Death From the skies from there, so I'll just wait. And I'll try to convince everyone else as well. Hopefully the stores on Dakka can expect the same!

However, I'm afraid that Mark Wells viewpoint of limited release info increases sales will be proven in GW's eyes.

mikhaila, couldn't it be more to do with your rep (and one or two others) doing something wrong rather than GW as a whole? As several users have checked out their locals and had no issue, and others have had problems, couldn't it be that? I mean, haven't there been a few threads involving you where your trade rep has been less than honest and less than useful?

 mikhaila wrote:

 Davespil wrote:
Wow, people really get worked up about a 2 week delay. All you need is the codex! You can wait two weeks for the models. Seriously, its not that big of a deal. And what FLGS only stays in business because of Tau? FLGS are full of people that drop hundreds on freaking cards and comic books. The small amount of GW they sell is probably more trouble then its worth.

GW has been releasing a lot of new models and codexes lately and they couldn't get enough Tau done in time. Not to mention Tau are a popular army that probably attracted a bunch of new players. There could have been any number of delays in production or distribution. I work in the logistics field and so many little things can cause delays.

Calm down, take a deep breath, take the tin foil hat off, and read your new codex. Figure out what is worth buying then spend your money. Proxy until the stuff gets here. No one is going to die because their new riptide or Farsight model will be two weeks late.

Yes, many of us do get upset over a two week wait. Especially those of us with stores.

We spend time and effort to promote GW products. We have to give them a spot in our store, agree to keep a certain amount of stuff in stock, and lots of other little things you can see within their trade terms.

That work is wasted if we can't get the product and GW's own stores have it in stock. If no one had it, no big deal. But that isn't the case here. A few stores get some. Most get nothing. GW stores got their stuff shipped out last week. They are not affected at all and are ready to take your money.

As is, I will be losing hundreds of dollars in sales. GW failed to hold up their end of the bargain.

As a store owner, Mikhaila, do you think there is a point beyond which you would give up selling GW? Logically there will be but do you think it is near away or still fairly far away?

davethepak wrote:
What some people don't know about supply chain, or business is stunning.

This kind of thing happens all the time to various companies (even apple, with billions in resources has shortages).

Personally, as a guy who is a gamer, a business owner, and has been working in supply chain for 20 years, to me its almost expected, here is why;

1 - Gw has increased produciton and relaese dramatically in the last several quarters - this is not an easy thing to do, especially depending upon the technology or processes.

2 - Clearly marketing is disconnected to just how popular "non marines' and specifically tau are. They either did not estimate enough demand, or they did not priortize it enough to deal with supply shortfalls (prebuilds, etc.).

3 - Some unknown major supply issue - could be anything really - some companies ocassionally get big delays when one ship is late, or worse a container gets flaged by customs for inspection (no, they don't inspect them all, and yes, that should bother you).

Oh, and why did they ship to their stores first? Easier to control leaks that way. Why then ship to stores with longer lead times...duh, because they want them to arrive about the same time.

I think they just did not realize how popular tau would be.
Which hopefully will translate into more kits (terrain, supplments, etc.) for xenos.

Without being rude your view of logistics and supply chain management is a bit off the ball with regards to the EU.

From our perspective this isnt about them underestimating demand, its that some channels namely GW retail and GW web, as well as some indies outside of the UK that have extended shipping times for GW to supply getting access to product before us, and GW not telling any of their trade partners within a reasonable period that there were issues. We should all be able to order stock at the same time, and have it shipped depending on the requirements of location, not place orders in that fashion.

They took advantage of their vertical integration to use a horrific term, and it could be argued that in some regards that is unfair competition in this case. We were denied the ability to order when others were, including GW's own channels and denied the ability to mitigate the issue even though GW were well aware of the problem and in the past had sent information to us on weekends, so it was not an unreasonable expectation that they could communicate.

 Mr. Burning wrote:
I also can't see a problem with GW Making sure their own stores have stock ahead of FLGS and such.

It's anticompetitive, because it's treating its own stores differently to it's trade stores, which it can't do as a manufacturer/retailer. It has to treat it's store chain the same way it'd treat an independent as far as stock goes.

It also sets a bad precedent of essentially training customers to believe that GW stores will get more stock in first, so the people who really want the product without random delays are best ordering from them and not LGS's, which is obviously of great benefit to GW whilst hurting LGS's

Herzlos wrote:

 Mr. Burning wrote:
I also can't see a problem with GW Making sure their own stores have stock ahead of FLGS and such.

It's anticompetitive, because it's treating its own stores differently to it's trade stores, which it can't do as a manufacturer/retailer. It has to treat it's store chain the same way it'd treat an independent as far as stock goes.

It also sets a bad precedent of essentially training customers to believe that GW stores will get more stock in first, so the people who really want the product without random delays are best ordering from them and not LGS's, which is obviously of great benefit to GW whilst hurting LGS's

Of course, It's just my naive view on it.

 Mad4Minis wrote:

 Mick A wrote:
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?

Agreed, also an attempt to drive people to the GW stores. It even says to go to your local GW. There is no shortage, they are just trying to lure all the "must have it now" people into paying full retail at a GW store.

My local manager told me yesterday that he was getting limited supply on most of the new plastics and that the next order wouldn't be in until the following week. So kinda puts down the "stockpiling at their own stores to the detriment of the flgs theory".

Let's face it. This is not the kind of feth up that will ruin anyones lives. Not even the FLGS. If your customers are loyal, they will buy the product from you in 2 weeks. If they go elsewhere to buy it, that may be a sign that you need to find ways to promote customer loyalty.

Point in case: I've been waiting 2 weeks for Campaign Book: Icarus from my FLGS. It's available all over, I could drive 30 minutes away and get it but I am loyal to my local business owner if I can be. He still has not got it, I may be waiting a week or two. Loyal customers would be doing the same with the Tau release.