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They've got limited room. Square footage costs in a retail environment.
How many different items do GW make?
How much money do they make out of something that doesn't sell very often?
It's a cost/benefit calculation, and I don't blame them for it.

As a business they have to accept that they only have so much room, so why not use the room to have the stuff that sells the best?
With the computerised stock control, they know what's selling and what's not.

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

 notprop wrote:


They could make more room taking the tables out but I would expect that will generate more pages of pissing and moaning too.

Are you saying it was worse a couple of years ago, when they did have more blisters in stock, for instance including Deathleaper, Ork HQ?

 notprop wrote:

Herzlos wrote:

 notprop wrote:
This isn't a manufacturing issue, it is one of logistics.

A company that makes and sells many hundreds (thousands?) of products can't not hold all of it in retail locations where you get charged by the square foot. It is in their interests to hold as much is as reasonably possible and I'm sure they do but something has to give, so we have online FW, Direct only items etc.

They could make more room taking the tables out but I would expect that will generate more pages of pissing and moaning too.

even though they often have empty wall space now, and many shops have been adding false partitions when removing gaming areas. Since you're paying by the square foot, you want to be cramming as much sellable stuff into it as possible. No-one is saying it all has to be on display, just that it should be available. You can fit a lot of blisters into locked drawers under the shelving units or the counter, or even the gaming tables.

Who's blocking off their shops? Empty walls in GW stores?

Rubbish, you basing that on an anecdote of a US FLGs that's going out of business. As I say I'm all for critism but let's at least be reasonably accurate.

I've heard of a few shops (some in the US, some in the UK) closing off gaming areas and keeping the space due to leases, and I've seen empty wall space in GW stores I've visited. I never said it happens to them all and I'm sure that some are already at stock capacity, but many are not.

 notprop wrote:
Perhaps they did, but you know sold them?

Obviously stuff will sell out, it's just an indicator to keep more in stock in future. But that should be a relatively rare occurrence; if you regularly sell out of stuff, you should be stocking more of it.

You are ignoring the fact that they can not stock everything they make. Blisters aren't big sellers compared to boxes and most are on direct only anyway?

Yup most are direct only, which is a pain for customers (having to order) and the shop (having nothing to offer), and don't take up that much space. I'd be surprised if many stores didn't have somewhere to store a tray of blisters.

Like I say many seem to be looking for reasons to moan. There not great problem here beyond not having instant gratification that some seem to believe the are entitled to.

It's not a case of looking for something to moan about, there's enough to moan about anyway. Surely the whole point of having a store front is to appeal to instant gratification? If they are just a mail-order collection point, why use them instead of the mail-order direct? Or even a reseller to get home delivery and a discount?

Let me tell you a tale of the olden days when there was "please allow 28 days for delivery" on every mail order sign.

Oh I remember those days well. Having to mail off a check/postal order and and getting something through the post weeks later. Yet at the time you could always still visit shops and usually get what you wanted straight off

I don't recall ever having to return for stock or special order stuff in when I used GW as a teenager, maybe I was less fussy then though. But I have been hit by stuff I'm currently after not being in stock (relacement for bad finecast character being the most recent one, and I remember being stunned that they only have 1 of them in stock at any point in time).

I popped into my local GW on Friday to grab some box sets, had a gander at their blisters and saw around 70% of the blister racks had 1-2 blisters on each, with a max of 3 on some. Either those blisters have been flying out the door or they're just not bothering with them. With all that space they can easily pack out those rails with multiple different blisters.

Yup..that sounds like a great idea stock the racks at hundreds of GW stores with models you may sell 4 of a year as well as take up huge amounts of warehouse space for restocks of said models to cover what would happen if they all sold out at once....all of this in stores where the average size qualifies as 'mall closet' that sounds like the soundest business strategy EVER.

Yeah...I'm being a dick....but I'm being a dick because a number of people in here are thinking their PERSONAL need for instant gratification is in anyway a sound basis for business practices and frankly need to be disabused of this notion..... I'd prefer a firm Gibb's slap to the back of each and everyone of their heads but alas...limitations of the internet.

Shelf space costs money, warehouse space costs money. This is probably going to read as an awkward and terrible comparison but I can't think of anything that illustrates it better. If you ran a restaurant you wouldn't make sure everything on the menu was already cooked and ready to go the second the customer ordered it, you might keep a handful of the most popular menu items ready to go but you surely wouldn't have that dish that sold only a few times a day always ready since every 10-15 minutes or so you'd have to just throw it out as it's gotten cold and then you wasted a lot of money on the ingredients.

Shelf space is similar, over time a product that doesn't sell that's left on the shelf eventual costs you money for the opportunity lost by not stocking something that actually sells in it's place. Stocking hundreds of stores with 2-3 models each of everything....including the stuff that a store will only sell a few times a year plus keeping a huge stockpile in the warehouse large enough to resupply every store if they sellout represents a massive investment in money (production, warehouse space shelf space) but also a massive opportunity cost of putting better selling product in it's place.

Anything else is would be a failure of of corporate decision making.

Orktavius wrote:
Yeah...I'm being a dick....but I'm being a dick because a number of people in here are thinking their PERSONAL need for instant gratification is in anyway a sound basis for business practices and frankly need to be disabused of this notion..... I'd prefer a firm Gibb's slap to the back of each and everyone of their heads but alas...limitations of the internet.

If GW stores aren't there for instant gratification then there is absolutely zero reason for vets to go in then. I don't mind spending $10 more if I can get something in my hands in half an hour instead of in four days but if it has to be ordered anyway why the hell should I pay GW's prices instead of picking up up at a discount?

I understand that GW don't want to cater to vets anymore but really they have the space to stock them so why don't they? The only reason I can think of is that their profit margins are so slim they really can't afford to, which is not a good sign.

Hmmm, not really.

I mean, GW have a huge range, and most hobby stores aren't all that big, so they're only going to stock the most popular boxes from each range. They won't have every single one of the multiple blister sets they have for each army. Honestly, I take a look at the GW website sometimes, just browsing an army, and the range of random blister packs they have is astonishing.

And, in my experience, most hobby store staff will be very keen to direct you to the order point in store if they haven't got what you're looking for and most people will likely go for it. I don't think they're missing out on sales really. A few, maybe, but not enough to warrant upgrading every store worldwide to have more shelving space.

They are definitely missing out on sales.

One of the key techniques in sales is upselling i.e. "I see you're buying an Imperial Guard unit, have you got a character to lead them? Yarrick is awesome".

But that only works if you've got what you're upselling in stock:

Staff: "I see you're buying an Imperial Guard unit, have you got a character to lead them? Yarrick is awesome".
Customer: "Sounds good, I'll take one."
Staff: "We don't have any, I can order one in."
Customer: "Err, nevermind."


They'll also lose sales from specific purchases, particularly from Vets:

Staff: "What can I help you with?"
Customer: "I'm in for a Yarrick figure"
Staff: "We've not got any, I can order one in for next Thursday?"
Customer: "Nah it's alright, Wayland can get me one in 3 days, for 10% less".

They'll also lose repeat custom from people who've given up visiting the stores because they don't always have what they want, and go straight to online store or discounters for the double whammy.


They don't even need more shelving space, just a crate in the stock room with blisters in it.

Edit: Admittedly I don't know what proportion of the sales that'd make up, but as they seem to be struggling for growth they shouldn't be turning down any opportunity to be making sales or disappointing customers.

Those examples are all very well, but would the up sells and vets bring in more income than the extra square footage would cost?

I doubt it.

Herzlos wrote:
They are definitely missing out on sales.

One of the key techniques in sales is upselling i.e. "I see you're buying an Imperial Guard unit, have you got a character to lead them? Yarrick is awesome".

But that only works if you've got what you're upselling in stock:

Staff: "I see you're buying an Imperial Guard unit, have you got a character to lead them? Yarrick is awesome".
Customer: "Sounds good, I'll take one."
Staff: "We don't have any, I can order one in."
Customer: "Err, nevermind."


They'll also lose sales from specific purchases, particularly from Vets:

Staff: "What can I help you with?"
Customer: "I'm in for a Yarrick figure"
Staff: "We've not got any, I can order one in for next Thursday?"
Customer: "Nah it's alright, Wayland can get me one in 3 days, for 10% less".

They'll also lose repeat custom from people who've given up visiting the stores because they don't always have what they want, and go straight to online store or discounters for the double whammy.


They don't even need more shelving space, just a crate in the stock room with blisters in it.

Edit: Admittedly I don't know what proportion of the sales that'd make up, but as they seem to be struggling for growth they shouldn't be turning down any opportunity to be making sales or disappointing customers.

You don't have to up-sell in the same range - paint, brushes, dice, glue, etc.

Just saying.

 notprop wrote:

You don't have to up-sell in the same range - paint, brushes, dice, glue, etc.

Just saying.

Nope, but the more you have available to upsell, the more you can actually upsell, particularly if you were dealing with people who've already started and have all the standard "hobby" stuff.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 marv335 wrote:
Those examples are all very well, but would the up sells and vets bring in more income than the extra square footage would cost?

I doubt it.

Maybe not, but that only really applies if the shops are currently at full stock capacity, and we've no well of telling if they are.

"Oh I see your buying an imperial guard squad, how about purchasing a command squad as well to lead your new platoon?"

Oh look....I just upsold something bigger and something any guard customer can use that's not a special character.

As for the vet example....GW doesn't cater to vets, vets DO NOT BUY as they have what they want and that one little special character they MIGHT buy doesn't justify the extra expense.

COLLECTORS on the other hand...IE those lovely folk (I'll admit I'm one of em) who buy models from practically every release....those are people worth keeping happy and they are best kept happy with cool new product to buy.

There is no explanation on this planet that you can use to justify GW making room for 1800+ blister packs in every store that would make it a financially sound decision PERIOD. IT cannot be done, I welcome you to try so I can laugh at your attempts but GW has already done the best it can be expected to do by having a splash release of the blisters in store than keeping the stock in the warehouse for online purchases.

Orktavius wrote:
"Oh I see your buying an imperial guard squad, how about purchasing a command squad as well to lead your new platoon?"

Oh look....I just upsold something bigger and something any guard customer can use that's not a special character.

As for the vet example....GW doesn't cater to vets, vets DO NOT BUY as they have what they want and that one little special character they MIGHT buy doesn't justify the extra expense.

COLLECTORS on the other hand...IE those lovely folk (I'll admit I'm one of em) who buy models from practically every release....those are people worth keeping happy and they are best kept happy with cool new product to buy.

There is no explanation on this planet that you can use to justify GW making room for 1800+ blister packs in every store that would make it a financially sound decision PERIOD. IT cannot be done, I welcome you to try so I can laugh at your attempts but GW has already done the best it can be expected to do by having a splash release of the blisters in store than keeping the stock in the warehouse for online purchases.

Do we know that GW has 1800 Blister packs for their main armies in thier main games (not counting of course the armies that are entirely mail order anyway?

Either way, myself and many others think they could do better. Purposely doubling number of Sku's per hook, putting stocks of less common items in floor or ceiling level Cabinets, etc.

considering it's already well publicized by angry independents that over 1800+ items are direct order only....then yes I think we have in fact established there are over 1800 direct order only items

 randomtoaster wrote:
I know Games Workshop stores have a finite area to fill, however I find it really annoying when you pop into a store, scout out that small area of shelving where your army is located, only to find they're not stocking instore the majority of what you came to buy. The clamshells are the worst, i'm lucky to find one, possibly two things to do with my army.

I feel that they would make more sales if they stocked more figures, maybe not directly on shelves, but kept out the back. Now I know there's the online store, but if you're itching to buy something there and then, and it's not there, it's kinda annoying. And if you take to their website, you can generally find other sites that do the products around 15-30% cheaper.

I agree with you, I was annoyed to see that my local GW didn't have zombie boxes in stock - and that's a core choice for VC. I've heard all their inventory is managed at the corporate level now, managers can't request or stock things.

In fairness, GW does lose 6% for excess inventory, but really I think the lack of product is Kirby trying to make the company as lean as possible, in anticipation of a sell-off.

--Chris
www.chrisvalera.com

or it's that the zombies are an incredibly low seller due to their age of their hideous sculpts and with so many newer better selling kits around it's once again better to stock the shelves with something else rather than the 3 a year sold zombie kits.


I mean SERIOUSLY people you know the complaining has gone out of hand when a lack of the plastic zombie kits in store has become a knock against GW.

 chris_valera wrote:
.....

In fairness, GW does lose 6% for excess inventory, but really I think the lack of product is Kirby trying to make the company as lean as possible, in anticipation of a sell-off.

--Chris
www.chrisvalera.com

...Sigh....

It's a public traded company, you're about two decades too late for the sell off of stock. That conspiracy is so daft you win yourself a

I liked those zombies. I have a bloodbowl team converted out of them (adding some Reaper figures for the other positions). They're characterful, even if their heads and hands are too big.

And even if someone hated them, that doesn't stop them from being a core choice for an army. You'd think a GW store would have at least one of each core choice in stock for each army, but maybe even that is too many products.

As I said earlier in the thread, it probably comes down to sales. They probably are not selling enough to warrant the shelf space.

Orktavius wrote:
or it's that the zombies are an incredibly low seller due to their age of their hideous sculpts and with so many newer better selling kits around it's once again better to stock the shelves with something else rather than the 3 a year sold zombie kits.


I mean SERIOUSLY people you know the complaining has gone out of hand when a lack of the plastic zombie kits in store has become a knock against GW.

Just as you know the white knighting has gone out of hand when a valid argument against carrying a product is that the product is terrible anyway.

Anyway, as dubious as the 1800 blister pack figure is (pretty sure that came from the Department of Made-Up Statistics) I don't really have a problem with the stores not having a specific item in stock. The problem is that they don't really have a great answer for when that happens. Shipping it to your house for no added charge would be an ideal fix, but perhaps they can do something else clever as well.

I think they do ship free to your house, granted there is a minimum £20 spend for it but this is lower than most boxes anyway....And not too much more than many blisters these days!

Also I think the official figure for statistics made up on the spot is 88.2%.

Orktavius wrote:
"Oh I see your buying an imperial guard squad, how about purchasing a command squad as well to lead your new platoon?"

"Nah I've already got one of them."
What do you do next?

The point of having more stock to upsell is that you can offer more options. If they've already got A,B & C you can offer then D & E if you've got them in stock. If you don't you can only offer A, B & C.

As for the vet example....GW doesn't cater to vets, vets DO NOT BUY as they have what they want and that one little special character they MIGHT buy doesn't justify the extra expense.

Mastodon on Warseer (runs an FLGS) claims that most of his customers are actually vets. We've no way of knowing who GW's main market is, though we do know they don't seem to want to expend any effort.

COLLECTORS on the other hand...IE those lovely folk (I'll admit I'm one of em) who buy models from practically every release....those are people worth keeping happy and they are best kept happy with cool new product to buy.

Collectors would also be the completionists who'd want one of everything, rather than the new stuff.

There is no explanation on this planet that you can use to justify GW making room for 1800+ blister packs in every store that would make it a financially sound decision PERIOD. IT cannot be done, I welcome you to try so I can laugh at your attempts but GW has already done the best it can be expected to do by having a splash release of the blisters in store than keeping the stock in the warehouse for online purchases.

Conversely, there's no way you can justify the stores having bare minimal stock or unused space, unless it's done to bias financial reports.

Assuming it's 1800 blister packs (I can't see it even being half of that, based on a skim round the website), you could fit them comfortably in a large cabinet or a series of drawers. Whether you have space for everything is up for debate, but I'm pretty sure there's some middle ground between stocking nothing and stocking everything.

As I see it, the key point in the hobby store strategy is to win new customers and get them started in the hobby with painting and playing. Essentially, the store rent, salaries and stock are advertising cost. I'd hope that the majority of the GW stores breaks even or makes a profit, but some are just flat out promotion cost that are cheap compared to regular ads. A USA Today full page add in colour costs $199k during the week. That'll cover a store budget nicey for a year, thank you very much.

People like us who are already hooked will get their products one way or the other. Sure, that might be via a retailer, but for overall profit that's ok.

No way do they have 1800 different products, It might have been nearly half that before the specalist games cull.

 Rayvon wrote:
No way do they have 1800 different products, It might have been nearly half that before the specalist games cull.

If shops say Infinity is hard to stock because of all the blisters, I have no problem believing that GW products have the same issue.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Rayvon wrote:
No way do they have 1800 different products, It might have been nearly half that before the specalist games cull.

If shops say Infinity is hard to stock because of all the blisters, I have no problem believing that GW products have the same issue.

Fair enough, I still thinks its them being cheap that they cannot have all the blisters for the newer armies such as CSM, Eldar and Tau in stock all the time, three times now ive popped into the nottingham store, only to leave empty handed and spend my money accross the road !!
Maybe it is hard for them to stock their own stuff, about a mile away from the factory, but they are definitely missing out on sales, no arguments there, I dont think they care though.

 marv335 wrote:

With the computerised stock control, they know what's selling and what's not.

There's the problem right there. THat's what more or less killed off HMV and Waterstones: not letting the manager oversee stock, and entrusting it to a computer ordering system. It was a disaster, famously so.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Rayvon wrote:
No way do they have 1800 different products, It might have been nearly half that before the specalist games cull.

If shops say Infinity is hard to stock because of all the blisters, I have no problem believing that GW products have the same issue.

Well, the exact quote was 1800 blisters went direct only. That's the one I find unlikely. I'm not counting them all, but I did count a few different lines (Necrons, CSM, Daemons, SM, Eldar, and DE). Most of the 40k lines have an average of about 35 different kits total (this is including boxes like Land Raiders and such, and note vanilla SM actually have 104 models in their line), which gives us approx 525 different models in the entire 40k line. If you extrapolate that extremely rough number out among WHFB and LOTR, I have no problem believing they have 1800 different products total, including paint, scenery, supplies etc (definitely not 1800 blisters, nowhere near that - they have a few hundred).

What I find impossible is the claim they have 1800 blisters that went direct only, because that would very close to, and possibly in excess of, 100% of what they make.

I swear i'll never use the direct order system again, an item i bought online took over a week to arrive to the store, I should of just paid the postage and got it shipped direct to my door for such a quicker turnaround.

They need to sort out their turnaround time.