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This has just popped up on the GW Web store (UK):



Let's see how much worse things get...

Been a while coming. Here's hoping they've fixed all the automated picking issues.

Chances are they are hopefully upgrading to a large warehouse. Again this is all linked ot Covid taking GW's sales and customer figures basically beyond their best estimations of where they'd be in several years. They expected such growth but over a longer period. They got it all in one go so what they'd setup just wasn't sized for it.

The other good thing is that it means that their market growth has sustained itself at an increased size, which is a great position for GW to be in and us (more customers means more gamers to play with).

 Overread wrote:
Chances are they are hopefully upgrading to a large warehouse. Again this is all linked ot Covid taking GW's sales and customer figures basically beyond their best estimations of where they'd be in several years. They expected such growth but over a longer period. They got it all in one go so what they'd setup just wasn't sized for it.

The other good thing is that it means that their market growth has sustained itself at an increased size, which is a great position for GW to be in and us (more customers means more gamers to play with).

The new warehouse (177,500 sq ft) is part of their distribution hub, which they were supposed to move into in autumn 2020. It has a 15 year lease with SEGRO - so it was started a fair bit before COVID. GW have been hit with a range of issues though, from their ERP implementation that went a bit wrong, to letting other companies use the space during COVID who then wouldn't give it back..... It's all been a bit of a nightmare.

Sounds like they are finally moving in, 3 years later than planned, which no doubt explains the recent issues with products going out of stock so rapidly. Fingers crossed we finally get back to something approaching normal.

"More customers means more gamers to play with" is certainly *a* take but for those of us who mostly collect/paint/play at home more customers means more scarcity of products and a GW that values us each as individuals a lot less than it used to.

I think you have to go an awfully long way back to hit a point at which GW cared about us as individual customers

StraightSilver wrote:
to letting other companies use the space during COVID who then wouldn't give it back..... It's all been a bit of a nightmare.

I'd like to know more about this, if there's more to know.

Billicus wrote:
"More customers means more gamers to play with" is certainly *a* take but for those of us who mostly collect/paint/play at home more customers means more scarcity of products and a GW that values us each as individuals a lot less than it used to.

Well more customers means more money for GW and that means more re-investment potential to make more models and more variety of models. A GW with a thriving big market is a GW that invests in specialist games and Squats and other stuff. So even if you don't game much at clubs, you've still got benefits from a company in a healthy position making loads of fun stuff.

 Flinty wrote:
I think you have to go an awfully long way back to hit a point at which GW cared about us as individual customers

What does that even mean? Do you expect them to send you a card on your birthday and solicit your personal opinion on every decision they make? What were they doing (say) 20 years ago that is more responsive to their customers than they are now?

 Snrub wrote:

StraightSilver wrote:
to letting other companies use the space during COVID who then wouldn't give it back..... It's all been a bit of a nightmare.

I'd like to know more about this, if there's more to know.

The warehouse/distribution hub is a shared space with Amazon UK being the largest occupier. GW couldn't move in as planned due to the delayed ERP upgrade and rumour has it that they allowed Amazon to use some of the GW warehouse space during COVID. Amazon, apparently were then "reluctant" to give it back....

 Snord wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
I think you have to go an awfully long way back to hit a point at which GW cared about us as individual customers

What does that even mean? Do you expect them to send you a card on your birthday and solicit your personal opinion on every decision they make? What were they doing (say) 20 years ago that is more responsive to their customers than they are now?

Dunno. Maybe they produced a catalogue of all the individual bits they made. Allowed you to order individual parts. Didn't market on fomo. Made games without quite so much churn and burn. I could go on.
Seriously, it's obvious why they don't do that anymore though... Profit.

Just saying, "more gamers to play with" isn't a plus for all of us. And GW supported specialist games just fine pre-covid mega explosion.

StraightSilver wrote:
The warehouse/distribution hub is a shared space with Amazon UK being the largest occupier. GW couldn't move in as planned due to the delayed ERP upgrade and rumour has it that they allowed Amazon to use some of the GW warehouse space during COVID. Amazon, apparently were then "reluctant" to give it back....

Shocked. Shocked I say, that a gakky company like Amazon would try some nonsense like that on.

Also, what is ERP? Not erotic role-play I'm assuming... Unless GW has a side-hussle I'm not aware of.

I don't really see how this is seen as a bad thing, honestly. Sure, on short term, there will be disruptions, so it's good to know, but on long term ? You'd rather have them more shortages because they lack space in their warehouse ?

 Snrub wrote:
Also, what is ERP?

Enterprise Resource Planning
it is the software system used to handle everything, not only to handle incoming orders and track stock but also planning on what to produce when to avoid shortcomings and handle what is around on the individual stores
one of the common systems on the continent is SAP, which is often used as synonym for ERP

GW started to change theirs for Microsoft Dynamics in 2018/19 which a finishing date in mid/end 2020 and was still not done at the beginning of 2023 according to their business reports
that such a change can take years until it works is not uncommon, that the company struggles fulfilling orders, keep up with demand or overproduce products during the transition time is common as well
what is not usual is that they parted with the original company doing it and hired a new one

also most of the problems with retailers not getting enough stock or that things are sold out on pre-order but than having enough copies on the shelf 2 weeks later in some stores that don't sell them at all is related to problems with that system
that Covid happened as well had hidden some of those problems because everyone had hard time to get their products delivered, yet for GW the problems continue

Thank you for the explanation!

 kodos wrote:

what is not usual is that they parted with the original company doing it and hired a new one

That's actually far more common than you think. A significant proportion of ERP projects either fail outright, or fail to meet key goals and launch as a barebones system riddled with issues. Often a big factor is that the project begins with discussions between non-technical senior management and non-technical sales execs, and often both are involved in setting unrealistic goals that turn into unrealistic time & cost estimates. There's been plenty of cases end up in court after a project became nothing but a massive black hole for cash.

Source: I've worked on over a dozen (successful) ERP system launches as a consultant, plus many smaller projects.

 Gimgamgoo wrote:

 Snord wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
I think you have to go an awfully long way back to hit a point at which GW cared about us as individual customers

What does that even mean? Do you expect them to send you a card on your birthday and solicit your personal opinion on every decision they make? What were they doing (say) 20 years ago that is more responsive to their customers than they are now?

Dunno. Maybe they produced a catalogue of all the individual bits they made. Allowed you to order individual parts. Didn't market on fomo. Made games without quite so much churn and burn. I could go on.
Seriously, it's obvious why they don't do that anymore though... Profit.

Thing is parts services worked back in the metal era and only for metal models because of the production workflow. You'd have bins of metal parts that pickers would pick out and put into blisters; so you just plucked out the parts you needed to send individually and any discrepancy in parts at the end of a cycle just had the spare metal tossed back in the melting pot to make more.

Today GW works with injection moulded plastic for almost everything. So there are no individual parts, just sprue. If you wanted a part either GW has to send you the whole sprue or clip out the part - both of which are outside of their picking and packing system. It's just not practical.

Even when it comes to replacements GW doesn't send out the parts, it just sends you a new kit because that works with the workflow they've got.


Honestly its more of a shame that GW shut down parts selling to 3rd parties as an option, though even back when they did any popular bits were often sold out very quickly.

 Gimgamgoo wrote:

 Snord wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
I think you have to go an awfully long way back to hit a point at which GW cared about us as individual customers

What does that even mean? Do you expect them to send you a card on your birthday and solicit your personal opinion on every decision they make? What were they doing (say) 20 years ago that is more responsive to their customers than they are now?

Dunno. Maybe they produced a catalogue of all the individual bits they made. Allowed you to order individual parts. Didn't market on fomo. Made games without quite so much churn and burn. I could go on.
Seriously, it's obvious why they don't do that anymore though... Profit.

Individual bits became infeasible when switched plastic as they can't cast individual bits.

So it's tradeoff. Do you want plastic or metal models?

Yeah, that was why we could order individual plastic frames, because this only works with metal

Metal bits were the minority of stuff ordered from the bits store


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 xttz wrote:

 kodos wrote:

what is not usual is that they parted with the original company doing it and hired a new one

That's actually far more common than you think. A significant proportion of ERP projects either fail outright, or fail to meet key goals and launch as a barebones system riddled with issues. Often a big factor is that the project begins with discussions between non-technical senior management and non-technical sales execs, and often both are involved in setting unrealistic goals that turn into unrealistic time & cost estimates. There's been plenty of cases end up in court after a project became nothing but a massive black hole for cash.

Source: I've worked on over a dozen (successful) ERP system launches as a consultant, plus many smaller projects.

might be just me that I haven't seen that a lot

tneva82 wrote:

 Gimgamgoo wrote:

 Snord wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
I think you have to go an awfully long way back to hit a point at which GW cared about us as individual customers

What does that even mean? Do you expect them to send you a card on your birthday and solicit your personal opinion on every decision they make? What were they doing (say) 20 years ago that is more responsive to their customers than they are now?

Dunno. Maybe they produced a catalogue of all the individual bits they made. Allowed you to order individual parts. Didn't market on fomo. Made games without quite so much churn and burn. I could go on.
Seriously, it's obvious why they don't do that anymore though... Profit.

Individual bits became infeasible when switched plastic as they can't cast individual bits.

So it's tradeoff. Do you want plastic or metal models?

They killed bits order a good bit before the full switch to all plastic, though.

Also, individual sprue order used to be priced reasonably vs. the complete set, now bundling unicorn sprues into certain sets is used to create artificial scarcity and skyrocketing prices on specific models with some regularity.

Not saying they're not allowed to, but things used to be a lot more customer friendly in the mid-late oughts as I recall.

 kodos wrote:
Yeah, that was why we could order individual plastic frames, because this only works with metal

Metal bits were the minority of stuff ordered from the bits store

Maybe a personal experience, but I ever only ordered metal parts and old miniatures. Sure, I got plastic arms and weapons for some models too (since a lot of 40k models were metal body + plastic sprue) as part of the order, but for plastic miniature sprues it was usually way cheaper to buy the whole box in Germany than to order in the UK (unless there was a GW store in town - in my case not). Old plastic sprues also became mostly OOP when not used in recent products, whereas they still casted old metal miniatures.

I think GW should have just kept going with outsourcing some of their items. Trying to do almost everything in house, they are not able to keep up with demand. When they outsourced larger kit production to China, things ran a lot more smooth and I imagine they actually made a lot more profit. They seem to be leaving a lot of money on the table in the last year.

It’s wild that some people are taking an expansion in warehousing as bad news somehow.

Sometimes I feel like the most important part of the hobby to some people is complaining about GW.

angel of death 007 wrote:
I think GW should have just kept going with outsourcing some of their items. Trying to do almost everything in house, they are not able to keep up with demand. When they outsourced larger kit production to China, things ran a lot more smooth and I imagine they actually made a lot more profit. They seem to be leaving a lot of money on the table in the last year.

Anybody who outsources to China when they have the capacity to do it in house deserves all the suffering that will inevitably follow.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

angel of death 007 wrote:
I think GW should have just kept going with outsourcing some of their items. Trying to do almost everything in house, they are not able to keep up with demand. When they outsourced larger kit production to China, things ran a lot more smooth and I imagine they actually made a lot more profit. They seem to be leaving a lot of money on the table in the last year.

Anybody who outsources to China when they have the capacity to do it in house deserves all the suffering that will inevitably follow.

Yeah, there's more than enough horror stories of firms that have outsourced to China only for it to come back and cause them even more of a headache. Granted GW does already outsource, but many of those are terrain or lower than GW standard models in terms of fine detail; which suggests that they likely trust overseas for simpler castings but not more complex ones. It might even just be that GW wants those in-house so that if issues arise with the mould they can fix them directly as the entire process is in house for GW.

Also whilst GW is leaving money on the table through lack of sales; GW are not currently hurting for money in the least. Furthermore they are generally getting product out. This isn't a situation where a firm is failing to get product out entirely; or has suffered major setbacks in production. Many people missing product X will go for product Y in GW's inventory. It's annoying yes, but in the end if you're in the GW system chances are you still have many things to buy and spend on from their system.

GW will work toward resolving their issue in house and that leaves them in a stronger position.


IF GW were suffering massive production shortfalls to the point where nothing was coming out; or had lost massive amounts of manufacture capacity; or were bleeding money or such; then yes that would be a worrying situation where outsourcing might be preferable over limping on toward disaster and where disaster would strike without outsourcing anyway so the risk is worth taking.

tneva82 wrote:


So it's tradeoff. Do you want plastic or metal models?

METAL.

It's not even a contest.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

angel of death 007 wrote:
I think GW should have just kept going with outsourcing some of their items. Trying to do almost everything in house, they are not able to keep up with demand. When they outsourced larger kit production to China, things ran a lot more smooth and I imagine they actually made a lot more profit. They seem to be leaving a lot of money on the table in the last year.

Anybody who outsources to China when they have the capacity to do it in house deserves all the suffering that will inevitably follow.

The future of companies will be a board of shareholders with a brand name.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

angel of death 007 wrote:
I think GW should have just kept going with outsourcing some of their items. Trying to do almost everything in house, they are not able to keep up with demand. When they outsourced larger kit production to China, things ran a lot more smooth and I imagine they actually made a lot more profit. They seem to be leaving a lot of money on the table in the last year.

Anybody who outsources to China when they have the capacity to do it in house deserves all the suffering that will inevitably follow.

GW has proven they don't have the capacity to keep up with demand though. Hence the problem. So they need to either slow up release schedules and like do one a month, or outsource.

angel of death 007 wrote:

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

angel of death 007 wrote:
I think GW should have just kept going with outsourcing some of their items. Trying to do almost everything in house, they are not able to keep up with demand. When they outsourced larger kit production to China, things ran a lot more smooth and I imagine they actually made a lot more profit. They seem to be leaving a lot of money on the table in the last year.

Anybody who outsources to China when they have the capacity to do it in house deserves all the suffering that will inevitably follow.

GW has proven they don't have the capacity to keep up with demand though. Hence the problem. So they need to either slow up release schedules and like do one a month, or outsource.

Or keep going as they are and use profits to expand production and warehousing and their infrastructure to better meet demand


Don't forget with the "cost of living" crisis going on, even the "hobbies do well during trouble times" aspect could see GW's income lower as customers have to cut back as costs go up. Plus many might only still be riding the Covid wave of hobby interest and we could see interest dwindle for them over time too. GW doesn't want to panic in either direction of outsourcing nor making too big an investment in infrastructure in case the next 5 years see reduced growth or even periods of stagnation or decline.