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 frankelee wrote:
I watched 2+ Tough's video on this and his assumption that their **** is just totally not together and that they desperately need a few weeks to just fix everything sounds very realistic. Hard to believe a company the size of Games Workshop couldn't do a working transfer between warehouse sites, if that's all it was. I mean, the people who run their shipping logistics should do that sort of stuff for a living, by definition.

Yeah but don't forget this year they can't work their teams close together due to covid. Ontop of that we know that they can't currently meet demand on a global scale; whatever they make is pretty much landing on shelves then going to customers. So chances are the warehouse is running at full capacity already. Trying to facilitate a stock check and stock move and whole setup move at the same time is likely a very challenging thing.

I would say its simply that there's a cascade of problems all at once that makes it impractical to keep things going as normal whilst trying to make drastic changes.


And GW aren't alone. Dropzone Commander just got a big wave of resin models released after they shut down their resin manufacturing and shipping earlier in the year due to covid pressures. I've seen several other firms delay and shift things around, again because of covid. Even if they are trading well during these times there are other problems to consider.


Throw some staff having to self isolate for various reasons; throw Brexit; throw whatever else and its a complicated situation





IT might also be that GW could keep running, but that it would draw out the warehouse move considerably. Creating a long period of instability which might present increased risk to staff or simply an increased risk that they lose control with little warning and suddenly have orders backing up; stuff going to the wrong places etc.... Or a long period which can cope with only modest pressure but any majorly popular release would throw it off. So they make the choice to instead close down some parts and focus on a quicker move all in one go. With GW able to afford it because they've got savings within the firm.



Honestly a big warehouse move and a big change around of the existing facilities use at GW; it makes a lot of sense that it would cause disruption. I don't see any conspiracy or failure or anything. It is just what it is.

 Irbis wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’m starting to wonder if one of their casting machines went belly up, so they’re taking a breathe to recoup the lost capacity?

I wonder if US magazine shown such big demand GW was forced to drop everything to start making sprues for it...

Not the case. Imperium release in the US has already been delayed to next year! That may well be due to supply issues, but GWs problems aren't related to the US Imperium subscriptions...because there won't be any for quite some time.

 frankelee wrote:
I watched 2+ Tough's video on this and his assumption that their **** is just totally not together and that they desperately need a few weeks to just fix everything sounds very realistic. Hard to believe a company the size of Games Workshop couldn't do a working transfer between warehouse sites, if that's all it was. I mean, the people who run their shipping logistics should do that sort of stuff for a living, by definition.

You'd think but it happens..

There is a very high chance the new warehouse operates on a totally different kind of software/ system(because the project manager decided it was better/ people at the top wanted it coz it was cheaper, without considering the effects on the exiting infrastructure and how it would intergrate) meaning the old warehouse doesn't seamlessly talk with the new warehouse which, in turn doesn't talk to its factory and so on..

This will results in backlogs being created while people try to make the system make sense. Toss in an issue in the actual manufacturing and you have yourself a royal kaffufle of a situation. Issues can be something as dumb as old system having a character limit on a lot number hard capped at say 10 digits, meaning it can only understand 10 numbers for a SKU reference and new warehouse uses 12...

I work for UK distribution arm of a multi billion £ company which has manufacturing sites in UK, EU, US & Latin America. All making the same product. All part of the same distribution chain. And let me tell you that my side of the business uses software which is nearly 20 years old and the newest state of the art facilities do not... And other sites use something in between. Needless to say this can cause huge backlogs because work cant be processed between warehouses when new parts are introduced to the system. Toss in some brexit issues, packaging machines breaking down, and presto. Everyone is working 12 weeks of overtime pulling 12hr shifts in order to sort out issue.

Do we know for sure if the new warehouse GW is transferring to has different operating procedures than the previous one. Some big companies are rather fond of fully automated warehouses these days. I wouldn't be surprised some change or another has resulted in very pissed off staff.

Then again, we can only really speculate at this point huh? Unless someone knows peeps in the company with inside info.

cody.d. wrote:
Do we know for sure if the new warehouse GW is transferring to has different operating procedures than the previous one. Some big companies are rather fond of fully automated warehouses these days. I wouldn't be surprised some change or another has resulted in very pissed off staff.

Then again, we can only really speculate at this point huh? Unless someone knows peeps in the company with inside info.

I think I've heard they are transferring to an automated Warehouse in the US, I'm not sure how true that is though. I would not be shocked if they are doing the same in the UK.

cody.d. wrote:
Do we know for sure if the new warehouse GW is transferring to has different operating procedures than the previous one. Some big companies are rather fond of fully automated warehouses these days. I wouldn't be surprised some change or another has resulted in very pissed off staff.

Then again, we can only really speculate at this point huh? Unless someone knows peeps in the company with inside info.

No, and we're never going to find out.

While I wish the update had been more clear about the why, at least they gave an update. Though as someone else said, spelling out the delays more clearly and giving a reason or two would have probably led to more customers having a positive "Oh no, that sucks! Guess I'll paint some backlog" reaction rather than a negative "Ughhh that sucks!! Why can't I get my codex NOW?" reaction.

Really it could be any number of a dozen or more reasons - warehouse issues, continuing Covid interruptions, Brexit snafus, manufacturing problems, take your pick.

It could be that something in the new warehouse isn't working right/broke and they already moved all the new product over there in anticipation of it beginning operations. It is likely major and they have to move all the product back to the old warehouse while it is fixed.

I believe it will come out, but more through shareholder inquiries. They are a majorly traded stock now. Pretty sure there will be some major holders making calls tomorrow asking WTF.

From what I understand, there were also a lot of issues leftover from the Memphis warehouse after the southern snowstorm. Even well after, there was a massive backlog of orders that got clogged up. I don't know if that left any further lingering issues, but it just seems like there's problem after problem with moving actual physical product globally.

Snowstorms, boats getting clogged in canals, brexit... it's a wild time. I don't blame them for wanting two solid business weeks to just get stuff done.

Don’t forget, if there are genuine problems going on behind the scenes (and I wouldn’t blame them for that in right now), we hobbyists might appreciate an explanation. However, I doubt their shareholders would appreciate the drop in share price that might result.

Saying that there are problems and why would actually help in this situation

this is a company that sells to fans and not some common goods were people change to the next best on the market if you officially say that you have made some big mistakes

 Argive wrote:

I work for UK distribution arm of a multi billion £ company which has manufacturing sites in UK, EU, US & Latin America. All making the same product. All part of the same distribution chain. And let me tell you that my side of the business uses software which is nearly 20 years old and the newest state of the art facilities do not... And other sites use something in between. Needless to say this can cause huge backlogs because work cant be processed between warehouses when new parts are introduced to the system. Toss in some brexit issues, packaging machines breaking down, and presto. Everyone is working 12 weeks of overtime pulling 12hr shifts in order to sort out issue.

If GW is planning those things as well as they plan for their games ("lets just start this with Space Marines and we figure out what we do with the rest later) I am not seeing them solving this problem anytime soon

also because a lot of their sales come from hype and momentum, if this stops for too long they even get into more trouble

Point 1; as good times as any to do it, there was no "public" gaming for the past 6 months and wont be until next winter.
Point 2; wont find better times to jump OFF the GW train and find new and better games when you know there wont be any new toys for months to come.

 MonkeyBallistic wrote:
Don’t forget, if there are genuine problems going on behind the scenes (and I wouldn’t blame them for that in right now), we hobbyists might appreciate an explanation. However, I doubt their shareholders would appreciate the drop in share price that might result.

Good answer. Likely what is happening is 'we are restructuring our logistics for the long term because lockdown culture likely isn't going away long term'.

Aside from all the other potential issues, we in the UK are now opening up non-essential stuff and I get the impression that the same is happening in the US and Australasia at least, so there’s probably been an increase in demand from FLGS (and GW stores) needing to restock. In their shoes I would have put off any expenditure until I could until the situation starts to look more stable (I.e. now).

I for one am happy for the delay. Take a few minutes GW , catch your breath, have a cool drink. I can wait for a bit longer for anything on the horizon, cheers GW.

Agreed, this is a good time to get working on my pile of shame potential. Sure, bad news for those waiting for something that was already "promised", but for me, yeah the pace has been pretty relentless the last couple of years and I'm happy to get a breather. I mean, I've barely had a chance to play a game of 9th yet, please don't start talking about 10th already...

No new releases?! Oh no!

What about the fans who finished painting their backlog?

I mean they could exist. In theory.

It's not the first time in the last few months. It's just first time they've stated that in a separate article.
Maybe they will use this time to fix their fething www so it doesn't crash when pre orders are up... :? :? :?

 MonkeyBallistic wrote:
Don’t forget, if there are genuine problems going on behind the scenes (and I wouldn’t blame them for that in right now), we hobbyists might appreciate an explanation. However, I doubt their shareholders would appreciate the drop in share price that might result.

GW's lifeblood is new releases. Shutting down new releases for 3 weeks is going to be a big hit on profits regardless of the cause.

My guess... I imagine if it weren't for COVID and other global issues, they probably intended to move factories without shutting down for a few weeks. But given they are already struggling to keep shelves stocked, they maybe don't want to go releasing new stuff while they can't actually have the supply to meet demand. Look at something like Cursed City, it seems that it could have sold way more and made more money. Belakor sold out in Oz before the Warhammer Community article even went up, and now it's also sold out in the US and UK. It's really not ideal for them to be releasing popular big ticket items if they can't meet demand.

 Sasori wrote:

cody.d. wrote:
Do we know for sure if the new warehouse GW is transferring to has different operating procedures than the previous one. Some big companies are rather fond of fully automated warehouses these days. I wouldn't be surprised some change or another has resulted in very pissed off staff.

Then again, we can only really speculate at this point huh? Unless someone knows peeps in the company with inside info.

I think I've heard they are transferring to an automated Warehouse in the US, I'm not sure how true that is though. I would not be shocked if they are doing the same in the UK.

I'm sure their last financial report said they were.

 kodos wrote:
Saying that there are problems and why would actually help in this situation

this is a company that sells to fans and not some common goods were people change to the next best on the market if you officially say that you have made some big mistakes

 Argive wrote:

I work for UK distribution arm of a multi billion £ company which has manufacturing sites in UK, EU, US & Latin America. All making the same product. All part of the same distribution chain. And let me tell you that my side of the business uses software which is nearly 20 years old and the newest state of the art facilities do not... And other sites use something in between. Needless to say this can cause huge backlogs because work cant be processed between warehouses when new parts are introduced to the system. Toss in some brexit issues, packaging machines breaking down, and presto. Everyone is working 12 weeks of overtime pulling 12hr shifts in order to sort out issue.

If GW is planning those things as well as they plan for their games ("lets just start this with Space Marines and we figure out what we do with the rest later) I am not seeing them solving this problem anytime soon

also because a lot of their sales come from hype and momentum, if this stops for too long they even get into more trouble

This assumes there's unexpected issue they don't know how to solve. Rather than something they knew in advance and that just takes time. Seeing gw has timeline already for when warehouse this seems more preplanned th#ng.


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 Oguhmek wrote:
Agreed, this is a good time to get working on my pile of shame potential. Sure, bad news for those waiting for something that was already "promised", but for me, yeah the pace has been pretty relentless the last couple of years and I'm happy to get a breather. I mean, I've barely had a chance to play a game of 9th yet, please don't start talking about 10th already...

Week won't reduce pile much and 10th is still bit over 2 years ahead

GW might rely on new sales as a big surge in volume, but lets not kid ourselves. They are very unlikely to suffer in the short term if they take a few weeks off. Last year they took a whole two months off and it was one of their most profitable years on record.

Whilst new things sell, the old stuff sells too. GW isn't trapped into the same market system as DVDs, Music or other markets. GW's products don't devalue nor become redundant unless GW wants them to be so.


Yes new things builds hype and helps drive sales, but they get sales even without "shiny new thing hype". They don't have to sell a new thing before it devalues to 75% of its original sale price; they don't have to worry that it doesn't sell out in the first two weeks of being released. Their market is totally different to many others, in many ways its an "older" style of commerce and trade.


Plus as they've had trouble keeping lots of things, not just the new things, in stock; its clear that there's continual healthy demand for other products not just new things. So clearly having no new things for a few weeks won't hurt them in the least.

 frankelee wrote:
I watched 2+ Tough's video on this and his assumption that their **** is just totally not together and that they desperately need a few weeks to just fix everything sounds very realistic. Hard to believe a company the size of Games Workshop couldn't do a working transfer between warehouse sites, if that's all it was. I mean, the people who run their shipping logistics should do that sort of stuff for a living, by definition.

Major universities with Public Health programs had almost no preparation for the Varrus. Even my own small school had to close for a month just to sort out how to handle it when it all went down last year. It's really not that hard to believe a toy company would have similar issues.

 Overread wrote:
GW might rely on new sales as a big surge in volume, but lets not kid ourselves. They are very unlikely to suffer in the short term if they take a few weeks off. Last year they took a whole two months off and it was one of their most profitable years on record.

Last year was an oddball year, hardly a good example in terms of how much GW lose for not having weekly releases.

We know from back in the days when GW released sales figures (was it for the Chapterhouse case I think?) that sales of a particular item dried up very rapidly after release.

I'm sure it's not as bad as video games, where most of the money is made in the first few days then after that it's a trickle, but "new shiny" is a big part of GW's business strategy.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Overread wrote:
GW might rely on new sales as a big surge in volume, but lets not kid ourselves. They are very unlikely to suffer in the short term if they take a few weeks off. Last year they took a whole two months off and it was one of their most profitable years on record.

Last year was an oddball year, hardly a good example in terms of how much GW lose for not having weekly releases.

We know from back in the days when GW released sales figures (was it for the Chapterhouse case I think?) that sales of a particular item dried up very rapidly after release.

I'm sure it's not as bad as video games, where most of the money is made in the first few days then after that it's a trickle, but "new shiny" is a big part of GW's business strategy.

2021 is also another oddball year.

We also have to consider the difference between high profit and steady profit sales levels. Does GW actually rely on big boom sales to maintain its functional income and profiting; or are they the cream on the cake that provides excess which gives them resources to expand and such. Provided GW's operational income remains viable the company isn't in any danger for the short term.

tneva82 wrote:

This assumes there's unexpected issue they don't know how to solve. Rather than something they knew in advance and that just takes time. Seeing gw has timeline already for when warehouse this seems more preplanned th#ng.

I assume that they exactly knew what was coming but thought they can solve it on the fly and did not need to do anything in advance

 kodos wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

This assumes there's unexpected issue they don't know how to solve. Rather than something they knew in advance and that just takes time. Seeing gw has timeline already for when warehouse this seems more preplanned th#ng.

I assume that they exactly knew what was coming but thought they can solve it on the fly and did not need to do anything in advance

I'm more thinking about what happens in every big organization in the world : something the management didn't take into account / wasn't aware of and it finally gripes the machine so much they need to do that.

Mantic Games has also big troubles with their production, after all. So it's not just because it's GW.

Funny how a lot of people seem to believe that because you're big, you can't fail at the most stupidest detail and that if that happens, it's a conspiration or done on purpose. Really, no.

Bigger firms essentially have more access to resources which gives them a capacity to resolve some issues easily or more quickly or just muscle through them because they've got capital to invest into staff/equipment etc... Whilst smaller firms will struggle because they don't have as much of a profit and savings build up to work with



At the same time some issues for a small firm are easier to resolve than for a big firm because of the scale of the operation. A 1 person production site changing warehouses is likely a pain but something they can do in the background. A multinational doing the same thing suddenly has a LOT more people involved; has to hire in new staff to help facilitate the move; has to invest in other resources and back end changes etc...



Being bigger can make some things easier, but also make other things harder.

They aren’t saying why because it could affect stock price. Boring but true.

The why is simple. My Drukhari codex says printed in China. I’m not sure if you guys know but there is this big pandemic that originated in that country and we have little to no clue what’s happening there. But the evidence that significantly less stuff is coming out of China tells us that manufacturing and logistics are hooped. It’s not a GW problem, it’s an everybody problem. Every retailer has low to no restocks on many items. The Admech codex—it’s probably been printed, but somewhere on a slow boat. Then it has to be shipped out. It doesn’t matter how good or bad GW is at logistics because right now everything is bad for everyone.

And if GW decided to move their warehouse during the pandemic then that might have been a good thing. Problems were going to arise because of that move at the best of times. Now they can be sorted out under the cloud of uncertainty from lockdowns and expected retail problems.

In short GW doesn’t have the right things to sell so there’s no point in hyping or taking preorders that may take months to fulfill—I’m looking at you Van Saar models and book.

 Overread wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Overread wrote:
GW might rely on new sales as a big surge in volume, but lets not kid ourselves. They are very unlikely to suffer in the short term if they take a few weeks off. Last year they took a whole two months off and it was one of their most profitable years on record.

Last year was an oddball year, hardly a good example in terms of how much GW lose for not having weekly releases.

We know from back in the days when GW released sales figures (was it for the Chapterhouse case I think?) that sales of a particular item dried up very rapidly after release.

I'm sure it's not as bad as video games, where most of the money is made in the first few days then after that it's a trickle, but "new shiny" is a big part of GW's business strategy.

2021 is also another oddball year.

We also have to consider the difference between high profit and steady profit sales levels. Does GW actually rely on big boom sales to maintain its functional income and profiting; or are they the cream on the cake that provides excess which gives them resources to expand and such. Provided GW's operational income remains viable the company isn't in any danger for the short term.

I never suggested they were in danger, just that it's likely to hurt their profits maybe by a few million pounds under normal circumstances, and under normal circumstances I reckon they'd try to not let something as mundane as a warehouse move stop them releasing new kits for a few weeks.

I think there's a good chance the shut down has more to do with being unable to meet demand on new releases, so shutting down for a few weeks to rebuild their inventory potentially loses them less potential revenue than releasing new kits when they can't ship enough out to stock the store shelves.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Overread wrote:
At the same time some issues for a small firm are easier to resolve than for a big firm because of the scale of the operation. A 1 person production site changing warehouses is likely a pain but something they can do in the background. A multinational doing the same thing suddenly has a LOT more people involved; has to hire in new staff to help facilitate the move; has to invest in other resources and back end changes etc...

But a big company can afford to outsource a lot of headaches, and dedicate staff to full time manage the preparation and move to have minimal affect on day to day operations. A small company by comparison might not be able to afford to outsource, and may not have staff to spare to organise the move.

In the end it comes down to management of time and people regardless of the size of the company.

Are they just moving warehouse or their production also? The former doesn't sound like a big deal, the latter would be.

 MonkeyBallistic wrote:
Don’t forget, if there are genuine problems going on behind the scenes (and I wouldn’t blame them for that in right now), we hobbyists might appreciate an explanation. However, I doubt their shareholders would appreciate the drop in share price that might result.

And if whatever has happened was indeed price sensitive information that could affect their share price then they can't make a public announcement until after they've informed the stock market.