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Wayniac wrote:

 AduroT wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
My FLGS has routinely gotten shafted on any pre-release. He just doesn't get any, or if he does it's like 1. Never got the Arks of Omen GT book, and it's now sold out apparently as well which IMHO is completely ridiculous for a tournament pack that you are "expected" to be using.

Happened to us with Niphilim, and if it’s like that one there will be no restock, it was a one time limited release.

Which is even more ridiculous because it's a GT set of rules that's supposed to be used for 6 months...

Then maybe the GT should be providing them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wayniac wrote:
My FLGS has routinely gotten shafted on any pre-release. He just doesn't get any, or if he does it's like 1. Never got the Arks of Omen GT book, and it's now sold out apparently as well which IMHO is completely ridiculous for a tournament pack that you are "expected" to be using.

It's not just independents this is happening to. My local GW is getting basically nothing, even preorders.

I kind of fear the snow ball effect of these delays since GW never released so many new kits products per month as it does now.

Can you imagine the nightmare of catching up when you have different weeks preorders in different stages of delay, colliding with the current week preorders? I mean the more it grows the worse it will get, if they don't put a stop to this now soon enough you're going to have months of delays on preordered/paid items.
Its a new layer of frustration for everyone involved and can undermine sales.

Yet another reason why this "release something every week" crap is nonsense.

 NAVARRO wrote:
I kind of fear the snow ball effect of these delays since GW never released so many new kits products per month as it does now.

Can you imagine the nightmare of catching up when you have different weeks preorders in different stages of delay, colliding with the current week preorders? I mean the more it grows the worse it will get, if they don't put a stop to this now soon enough you're going to have months of delays on preordered/paid items.
Its a new layer of frustration for everyone involved and can undermine sales.

There's a chance that current stock issues are deliberate to a degree, no matter how undesirable the effect may be. They'll be building up stock for the new edition, which is something they can't or won't afford getting stock issues and as a consequence might cut down on the number of end of edition items they produce, and restocks for a limited time. They might try to ride out the main production window of the new edition and catch up on restocks afterwards. Which might be about now considering the vagaries of global shipping.

That won't making any warehousing, shipping or other world event issues any better, but if they can dedicate more factory time to their whole catalogue again they might be able to better supply stores again.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Are all the people here complaining about delays in the UK or worldwide? We don't seem to have had them at my FLGS yet.

It's the UK and Europe, as supposedly the main issue at the moment is that they have implemented a machine stock picking system that doesn't work at the Lenton warehouse.

Edit: Apologies, not Lenton, the other one - see more informed posts below and thanks for the correction.

Not the warehouse at Warhammer World, their other UK one (and I can't remember where that is).

 Matrindur wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Are all the people here complaining about delays in the UK or worldwide? We don't seem to have had them at my FLGS yet.

I'm in Europe so atleast not just UK but its really funny here. I have two FLGS near me, one of them has no problems and always gets their preorders for launch day while the other hasn't gotten anything from GW for the last four weeks, neither preorders nor normal orders. The official GW store is getting stuff but not on release day

Yea that sounds like ERP issues for sure.

 The Phazer wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Are all the people here complaining about delays in the UK or worldwide? We don't seem to have had them at my FLGS yet.

It's the UK and Europe, as supposedly the main issue at the moment is that they have implemented a machine stock picking system that doesn't work at the Lenton warehouse.

We’ve had our problems in the US.

 Dysartes wrote:
Not the warehouse at Warhammer World, their other UK one (and I can't remember where that is).

East Midlands gateway. They were moving more functions to it , it’s been running before this crap show started. I’ve overheard people in bugmans talking about a software switch (through the week they seem to use bugmans off peak for informal meetings. The robot picking has been active before now because I’ve heard that talked about last year when they first opened the East Midlands site.

For non U.K. people , East Midlands Gateway is an industrial park with road/rail links.

It’s incredibly hard to see how , without pausing releases , they catch up. From what I can tell there are still many many U.K. FLGS missing the last two weeks releases. This weeks space marine release is going to be popular plus GW have a number of direct only products from last Saturday to ship.

Out of curiosity, are GW Lenton staff homeworking or do they have to come in? In out experience dispersed teams take longer to solve problems.

The exact opposite of what we found when we moved to home working. TMMV though obviously

csurfleet wrote:
The exact opposite of what we found when we moved to home working. TMMV though obviously

A lot of that is how you move to home working. We have no additional kit, SOPs or software. We are in essence an office/HQ centric organisation which happens to find itself working remotely to each other. Throw in historic falling levels of competence where close proximity was used to paper over cracks and its why the longer we remain apart the more things seem to slowly degrade.

 TwilightSparkles wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:
Not the warehouse at Warhammer World, their other UK one (and I can't remember where that is).

East Midlands gateway. They were moving more functions to it , it’s been running before this crap show started. I’ve overheard people in bugmans talking about a software switch (through the week they seem to use bugmans off peak for informal meetings. The robot picking has been active before now because I’ve heard that talked about last year when they first opened the East Midlands site.

For non U.K. people , East Midlands Gateway is an industrial park with road/rail links.

It’s incredibly hard to see how , without pausing releases , they catch up. From what I can tell there are still many many U.K. FLGS missing the last two weeks releases. This weeks space marine release is going to be popular plus GW have a number of direct only products from last Saturday to ship.

FWIW The Outpost finally got their copies of Soulshackle and sent me a shipping notice today, and Wayland also have sent me a shipping notice for the First Founding book that's out tomorrow, so it does seem like things are recovering a bit.

And the other side of this for some, including myself.

The FLGS I ordered soulshackle from will not be getting any of their allocation, at all... Massive issue in the warehouse meant their copies have gone elsewhere, potentially to stores etc to go on general sale, who knows? GW will not honour the order either and will not be printing new copies (probably difficult due to the books etc) for the store. This could happen to other FLGS as well, or could be isolated.

Looks like I won't be getting my soulshackle box now though.

The store itself probably had what, 20 on order if that... How many have gone out to influencers and the like, as well as scalpers getting their mits on multiple copies.

It's not the end of the world, and I'll get the models eventually, but it isn't great either. According to the owner of the store, GW haven't really apologised either. This will screw him over in the short term, especially if that money that now could need to be refunded to some customers has already been spent in the short term... So many businesses in the UK will be trying to survive on low cash reserves currently, and small independent businesses are probably the most liable to be in that position... The money could already be spent on paying other invoices/utilities.

Waiting for a reply on what would bring us both to a fair compromise now tbh, awaiting an email. Don't want to screw the guy over by requesting a refund as he seemed quite distressed in the email. I'll take store credit if it's an option he sets out and get a rogal dorn when they are back in stock.

Also the added element that I probably will just order from hobbyworkshop, goblin gaming etc from now on as well, especially for limited runs rather than go through his store.

Not quite salient, but anyone else finding GW slow off the mark for Mail Orders?

I ordered Arks of Omen Abaddon Thursday morning (for it was back in stock, on payday). And it’s yet to dispatch?

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:
And the other side of this for some, including myself.

The FLGS I ordered soulshackle from will not be getting any of their allocation, at all... Massive issue in the warehouse meant their copies have gone elsewhere, potentially to stores etc to go on general sale, who knows? GW will not honour the order either and will not be printing new copies (probably difficult due to the books etc) for the store. This could happen to other FLGS as well, or could be isolated.

Looks like I won't be getting my soulshackle box now though.

The store itself probably had what, 20 on order if that... How many have gone out to influencers and the like, as well as scalpers getting their mits on multiple copies.

It's not the end of the world, and I'll get the models eventually, but it isn't great either. According to the owner of the store, GW haven't really apologised either. This will screw him over in the short term, especially if that money that now could need to be refunded to some customers has already been spent in the short term... So many businesses in the UK will be trying to survive on low cash reserves currently, and small independent businesses are probably the most liable to be in that position... The money could already be spent on paying other invoices/utilities.

Waiting for a reply on what would bring us both to a fair compromise now tbh, awaiting an email. Don't want to screw the guy over by requesting a refund as he seemed quite distressed in the email. I'll take store credit if it's an option he sets out and get a rogal dorn when they are back in stock.

Also the added element that I probably will just order from hobbyworkshop, goblin gaming etc from now on as well, especially for limited runs rather than go through his store.

Same here for Collectible Squids. Not gotten even a sniff of any of the boxes.

Was at Warhammer World yesterday at opening and even they had no soulshackle. Whilst they did finally improve their method for dealing with black library limited editions (previous method being to open the doors and watch as people ran through the entrance, foyer, up stairs then barged each other out of the way to get at stock) by giving out tickets to the people in line, they did seem woefully unprepared, again.

The new goblin hardback has a whopping six copies on the shelf, first founding was being unpacked from boxes at the till point so if you came looking for it and left after not seeing it on the shelves that’s why, they’d put hardly any copies of siege regular edition out but then unpacked more whilst people were queing , but others had left then…… Forgeworld store missing majority of the black box characters for heresy, Bugman’s was the usual crap show because apparently if you are expecting a lot of people because you are running a tournament plus it’s Black Library Celebration why bother staffing up ?

And don’t expect to get the free Black Library book because they’d ran out by the time I reached the till at 10:05. For reference there was about 25-30 people in front of me on opening. This would also be the till point which has two tills but instead they’d just stuck one poor staff member on it.

When they were hiring for a job that literally was “help us increase the sales at Warhammer World” I’d assumed they’d get someone actually competent but if anything it’s edging towards being worse. This is literally a location people come to because they love your product and probably want to spend money on it , only to find it being run like a poor independent with a part time owner for whom it’s a second job !

My FLGS still not received two weeks worth of preorders now.

Here is one stores experience.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0pkMFqyJXvbR8caumX38iud5wVHBAtJ8WzJiGrqffzg3E4y15xESnsDDkUBVr6PNSl&id=100063759241739

 TwilightSparkles wrote:
Was at Warhammer World yesterday at opening and even they had no soulshackle. Whilst they did finally improve their method for dealing with black library limited editions (previous method being to open the doors and watch as people ran through the entrance, foyer, up stairs then barged each other out of the way to get at stock) by giving out tickets to the people in line, they did seem woefully unprepared, again.

The new goblin hardback has a whopping six copies on the shelf, first founding was being unpacked from boxes at the till point so if you came looking for it and left after not seeing it on the shelves that’s why, they’d put hardly any copies of siege regular edition out but then unpacked more whilst people were queing , but others had left then…… Forgeworld store missing majority of the black box characters for heresy, Bugman’s was the usual crap show because apparently if you are expecting a lot of people because you are running a tournament plus it’s Black Library Celebration why bother staffing up ?

And don’t expect to get the free Black Library book because they’d ran out by the time I reached the till at 10:05. For reference there was about 25-30 people in front of me on opening. This would also be the till point which has two tills but instead they’d just stuck one poor staff member on it.

When they were hiring for a job that literally was “help us increase the sales at Warhammer World” I’d assumed they’d get someone actually competent but if anything it’s edging towards being worse. This is literally a location people come to because they love your product and probably want to spend money on it , only to find it being run like a poor independent with a part time owner for whom it’s a second job !

My FLGS still not received two weeks worth of preorders now.

That sounds horrible overall - to add a bit to that, several youtubers also described that they could get neither Angron nor the World Eaters codex, both special and normal edition, on release day at WHW, which seems to be an ongoing theme lately. That's just abysmal from a customer experience perspective as well as for the brand value: if people leave your 'Disneyland' with unmet expectations, a bad overall experience and without spending money that they actually already decided to give you beforehand that's gonna tank your customer satisfaction sooner or later, and people that have had such a bad experience usually go around and tell their friends...

The absolute no-brainer solution, with barely any effort involved at all, would be to hire additional staff - from what you describe, problems that can't probably be solved short-term-ish, like e.g. too small print runs / allocations, were exacerbated by a general lack of staff and insufficient training for the available folks, so that's where you could make a difference in a relatively short time.

The_Real_Chris wrote:
Here is one stores experience.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0pkMFqyJXvbR8caumX38iud5wVHBAtJ8WzJiGrqffzg3E4y15xESnsDDkUBVr6PNSl&id=100063759241739

Wow. Pretty bold of him to hold the curtain open like that.

The_Real_Chris wrote:
Here is one stores experience.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0pkMFqyJXvbR8caumX38iud5wVHBAtJ8WzJiGrqffzg3E4y15xESnsDDkUBVr6PNSl&id=100063759241739

Pretty much where were at too. Add in my fun stories of our Rep going on maternity leave and their replacement not filling our preorders so we went several weeks without getting any new releases and missed out on several one time limited things.

Finally received my preorder copy of the latest Warcry set. Still waiting for my preorder of Soulshackle (which I am not convinced will actually arrive).

I have already received my Chaos Boarding Patrol which I thought wasn’t due out until Saturday, so maybe things are starting to improve.

 privateer4hire wrote:

The_Real_Chris wrote:
Here is one stores experience.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0pkMFqyJXvbR8caumX38iud5wVHBAtJ8WzJiGrqffzg3E4y15xESnsDDkUBVr6PNSl&id=100063759241739

Wow. Pretty bold of him to hold the curtain open like that.

His is a great page (and blog) (and book) to follow/read if you want an insight into small hobby shop experiences.

Not sure if it's directly connected to this, but my anecdote has to do with the MTO Captain from back in december. Ordered it and a Biophagus Christmas day, both labeled as in stock. Sat in limbo for a month, which i let slide because the order said the captain may take time. Early February I emailed CS and they told me the Biophagus was out of stock but they had the captain, and I could cancel the Biophagus and get a refund. All good, he'll be available later right? When the box arrived a week later, all that was in it, was the Biophagus they told me was out of stock. Tried customer service, they left me on hold for 4 days and when they got back the person in CS support tried to order me a new captain. Which obviously doesn't work because it was MTO. I told them this, waited 2 days, and when they got back to em they told me I could get a refund for the captain. I took it.

At the end of it I technically got the Biophagus for free but I never got what I really wanted out of the order.

So, the above shop I spoke about about... They had 145 expected in and received nothing (and have been told not to expect any either). That's a fairly huge amount of revenue they are in the process of refunding or creating store credit etc.

The owner also knew of 11 other shops who received little or no items from fairly large orders.

The running theory is someone made a mess up at HQ or on the website, and too many sets were made available on the main website - typo or poor communication etc.

Anyway, instead of losing face with direct customers, GW have just pillaged the orders allocated to those FLGS and let them deal with the outcome.

Suppose it is fairly easy to happen in some respect, when sorting the website backend numbers out someone put in 22000 units instead of 20000 units and blam, that's an extra 2000 units that need to be found for them to ship out to customers.

Joe! What happens if all the independents either stop stocking our stuff or close up shop altogether?

Tut, tut. All will be well. Customers will simply shift their purchases directly to us. AND we can economize our internal operations further by eliminating sales reps who interface with the independent stores.

It’s a win win win win situation, honestly.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wayniac wrote:
My FLGS has routinely gotten shafted on any pre-release. He just doesn't get any, or if he does it's like 1. Never got the Arks of Omen GT book, and it's now sold out apparently as well which IMHO is completely ridiculous for a tournament pack that you are "expected" to be using.

It's not just independents this is happening to. My local GW is getting basically nothing, even preorders.

GW US is prioritizing FLGS over their own stores so as not to lose accounts. Or so I've heard.

 Platuan4th wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wayniac wrote:
My FLGS has routinely gotten shafted on any pre-release. He just doesn't get any, or if he does it's like 1. Never got the Arks of Omen GT book, and it's now sold out apparently as well which IMHO is completely ridiculous for a tournament pack that you are "expected" to be using.

It's not just independents this is happening to. My local GW is getting basically nothing, even preorders.

GW US is prioritizing FLGS over their own stores so as not to lose accounts. Or so I've heard.

That's in line with what I'm seeing locally. LGS generally have everything in stock, even the limited stuff aside from Soulshackle, but the GW stores are dead empty.

Given the stock issues I'd say the problem with GW at this moment could be really with the ERP and not any (other) kind of management mishap.

If things aren't working correctly it creates a whole world of problems.

They probably had a lot of different softwares to do everything (not uncommon), and the migration to a unified one can be quite chaotic (I think on several yearly reports they constantly marked the ERP migration as a major challenge).

The way they treat FLGS on marketing, that's keeping too tight a rope I think, and that's on management.