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This seems weird to me, in the past if I placed a preorder with them then it arrived at my home on day of release. In that vein I pre-ordered Tyranid codes and other bits and pieces from the new preorder list. However Saturday comes and nothing same on Monday, not even a confirmation email with order on way.
I got on their site chat and asked why and was told going forward all pre-orders will start to be processed on the Monday following the release, unless it's a bank holiday so gets processed on next working day. What the fetch is this about? You place an order a week before going on sale and they don't even start to process until days after it goes in store. The exception is that if you get it delivered to a store instead you get it on release day. As a disabled person I find this intolerable, so guess who won't preorder from them again. I've been very loyal to them since before Rogue Trader and never used independent stores which was financially stupid. However from now on anything I get won't be from them. Another stupid way to lose customers. I double checked this answer both by phoning them and on a chat with another worker and told by all that it's now standard practice to do it this way.

I suspect it has to do with GW not having enough factory capacity to actually keep up with production. The pandemic basically wound up giving GW a massive artificial surge of customers that basically ate up their entire projected production capacity. Not to mention the long months of reduced production capacity (and no production) that also depleted a lot of store stock over that period.

So basically GW are doing insanely well, but at the same time they can't just ramp up production. Plus with the artificial high of the pandemic and the cost of living crisis; not to mention the increased costs of everything; GW is likely cautious to expand too fast (Eg building new factories) in case in a years time the market takes a sudden downturn or GW sees a steady reduction.

This might be a way for GW to ensure that more 3rd party stores and overseas stores get their stock and then tackle their own direct orders with essentially "print on demand" supply approaches.

I know I'm sitting on an order from Wayland and waiting for it with new Tyranids; so you're not alone.







Also if you're buying from 3rd parties GW hasn't lost you as a customer

This is how it's been for years here in the US?

I wouldn't be so sure over receiving an item on release day if it's delivered to a store.

My advance order for Inquisitorial Agents wasn't dispatched to the store until the Tuesday after release (Monday was a Bank Holiday).

Making it worse, there was a box of Agents on the store shelf that Saturday. The staff were a little embarrassed over this new way of handling advance orders.

In the long run, not having something on the day of release doesn't rub me the wrong way that badly but it's still one of these service changes that make most of us scratch our heads

Edited to add that this new condition was in the order confirmation email when I went back to read it after not receiving the expected 'order on the way' email on a Friday.

I really miss having new releases on the day of release. In their questionnaires in the past I have said that I see no incentive to pre-order directly from GW or through their actual stores because those never arrive on the day of the actual release, always weeks later. Sure, the store has a small stock on the day itself, but those are nine times out of ten set aside for the regulars.

I've found a local retailer who not only sold at a discount, but also had your pre-order sent out a day before release, so they wouldn't break embargo and there was a good chance you'd get your pre-order on the day of the release. But due to both GW's new warehouse situation and Leviathan that's no longer the case, they have been awaiting restocks of things since February now (still waiting on a Dorn tank since it's release..) and even new releases are no longer being sent out in time.

 BrookM wrote:
I've found a local retailer who not only sold at a discount, but also had your pre-order sent out a day before release, so they wouldn't break embargo and there was a good chance you'd get your pre-order on the day of the release. But due to both GW's new warehouse situation and Leviathan that's no longer the case, they have been awaiting restocks of things since February now (still waiting on a Dorn tank since it's release..) and even new releases are no longer being sent out in time.

I'm basically in the same boat. I had found an extremely nice French online shop which sent things so they would arrive on release day and had a good level of discount, and lately it has been both fighting over allocation with other interested customers at pre-release time (turning Saturday morning in yet another exercise in frustration management), as well as a general lateness in shipping due to GW's inability to send stock in a timely manner. My Tyranid Codex has yet to ship, for example.

If they insist on forcing people to the app for 40k, locking down content on release day, they should at least have the codex codes available for people who pre-order.
If not, postpone the app lockdown.

Got my map thing on release day, but I think I’ve had other pre-orders come out later. Whether that was delayed despatch or Royal Mail being crap, I dunno.

Yeah, this has become a source of frustration for me too lately. I usually defend GW to the hilt but it's getting to a point where even I am finding things a bit sub-par.

I always pre-order via the GW online store, for the convenience (it always used to arrive the Saturday of release or sometimes the Friday before) and most of the time knowing it will definitely arrive if I manage to pre-order in time.

It seems for the past few months though I am lucky if I get my delivery 7-10 days after the official release date. It's got worse since they started using UPS who are a nightmare tbh. My last 2 orders i have had to collect from a UPS collection point rather than being delivered to my door...

But recently I pre-ordered The Necromunda rulebook, cards, card sleeves etc. A week after the official release date a tiny box arrived containing the cards and card sleeves but no rulebook. I phoned GW and they said they could see the rulebook on the order but somebody at the warehouse must have forgotten to pack it..... and of course now it's not available.

I could have bought one at my local FLGS at 20% off but due to delays with orders arriving and GW forgetting to pack it I now have to wait for a reprint as it was too late to get one anywhere else.

But, from now on, I may as well just pre-order from my local store because pre-ordering direct is no longer convenient so doesn't justify buying at full price any more.

I had the same thing happen with an order of mine, had to bulk out an on-line store exclusive order to get free shipping, so chucked in a pair of Astrogranite pots, only to weeks later have part of the order refunded (which sadly took two weeks to happen) because the latter wasn't in stock after all.. at least to their credit I got the rest of the order with free shipping still in place.

The short time they used UPS around here was a disaster (not as bad as when Royal Fail ran things - which took six to eight weeks and always had my parcels reeking of tobacco) as well, they've shifted to DHL / PostNL now, untracked, so a crapshoot as to when it will come in, but a lot faster at least.

StraightSilver wrote:


But, from now on, I may as well just pre-order from my local store because pre-ordering direct is no longer convenient so doesn't justify buying at full price any more.

As I mentioned earlier, the advance order confirmation email now states that the goods will be dispatched the day after release, even if it's a store pick up. That makes no sense to me as the same items are sent to the store to be released on the Saturday yet I will have to go in on a Tuesday afternoon at the earliest to pick my stuff.

The other box of Agents I ordered from my preferred FLGS was also dispatched after the release day. Is there now a new condition on independents who offer mail order, even if it's only the UK?

 alphaecho wrote:
Is there now a new condition on independents who offer mail order, even if it's only the UK?

IIRC it's always been a condition, just one that's rarely enforced. I know GW have sacked store staff for giving stuff out early.

I am an old collector of Necromunda, A number of recent items were direct only, so I was forced to order from the GW website, I saw the same thing, ship to store and get it on release day, but mailed to home, it was please allow at least 10 days after release date. Besides someone who is handicapped or less mobile, the USA is a big place and the nearest GW store might be hours away.

I don't know what it is like right now, but years ago this was the same reason I ended my subscription to White Dwarf. Paid a year in advance, then normally get my issues "Weeks" later after my FLGS and the local GW had them for weeks not days. A few times, the next issue would be on preorder and I would call and complain, and receive my replacement and subscription issue on the same day. When they entered the Fluff era where the magazine had no real rules or information, I stopped buying them.

Up to 10 days after release is insane. I'm not even sure how that's possible with modern postal services, though I trust GW to find the worst possible carrier for them. I haven't pre-ordered from GW for a while, but this thread is a nice reminder not to do so in the future.

Slipspace wrote:
Up to 10 days after release is insane. I'm not even sure how that's possible with modern postal services, though I trust GW to find the worst possible carrier for them. I haven't pre-ordered from GW for a while, but this thread is a nice reminder not to do so in the future.

I don't think its postal, its a supply issue. At least right now most postal systems have recovered from the Pandemic; however GW's production capacity is finite and purchasing currently exceeds it.

Always has been that case in Austria too, was told that the only possibility for me to get a pre-order on release day is to use "pick up in a GW store" or pre-order from a 3rd party retailer otherwise orders on release day and from shops are send out first and yours take 2 weeks up to 1 month

difference is if it sells out on pre-order, than you get it earlier is no one else gets it, and if it sells out on release than it might take even longer (only ever once pre-ordered a Codex and got it 4 months later because mine was from the 2nd print-run and this was before the pandemic)

 Genoside07 wrote:
I am an old collector of Necromunda, A number of recent items were direct only, so I was forced to order from the GW website, I saw the same thing, ship to store and get it on release day, but mailed to home, it was please allow at least 10 days after release date. Besides someone who is handicapped or less mobile, the USA is a big place and the nearest GW store might be hours away.

I don't know what it is like right now, but years ago this was the same reason I ended my subscription to White Dwarf. Paid a year in advance, then normally get my issues "Weeks" later after my FLGS and the local GW had them for weeks not days. A few times, the next issue would be on preorder and I would call and complain, and receive my replacement and subscription issue on the same day. When they entered the Fluff era where the magazine had no real rules or information, I stopped buying them.

I had this same experience... I would call and complain and they would add an extra month to my subscription to make up for it. I ended up getting 3 months free... but found I wasn't actually getting much out of the magazine and didn't renew. For time reference... I was also getting Dragon magazine... and Dragon ended for good at that time... so it was like 2007? Eh... long ago...

 Overread wrote:
I don't think its postal, its a supply issue. At least right now most postal systems have recovered from the Pandemic; however GW's production capacity is finite and purchasing currently exceeds it.

Then they should delay the release day until the stock is at the stores and suppliers.

 Skinnereal wrote:

 Overread wrote:
I don't think its postal, its a supply issue. At least right now most postal systems have recovered from the Pandemic; however GW's production capacity is finite and purchasing currently exceeds it.

Then they should delay the release day until the stock is at the stores and suppliers.

Which is also likely not possible for GW because that would interrupt their cashflow. Which in turn would mean less money to invest into future products in a timely fashion; snarling up their backend and costing them more money in holding up storage. It could also reduce the chances of them digging themselves out of this situation because you'd be slowing everything down.

Even if the current situation is not ideal; it is sustainable and the regular income GW generates from it can be re-invested into better infrastructure.

Plus I'm pretty sure every so often GW does pause or slow things; we do get releases that aren't as big. Tyranids is likely a massive thing right now because they are the other-half of a new edition. That means boatloads of marketing and all their old customers coming back as well as lots of new ones.


The one thing GW could do that might help would possibly be to stop doing new Partworks magazines because I'm sure that hits their production in a big way. Of course its also a huge amount of marketing outreach and chances are GW doesn't want to rock that boat nor mess it up since its handled by a 3rd party company.

beast_gts wrote:

 alphaecho wrote:
Is there now a new condition on independents who offer mail order, even if it's only the UK?

IIRC it's always been a condition, just one that's rarely enforced. I know GW have sacked store staff for giving stuff out early.

I know my independent of choice used to post advance orders to arrive on release day. If there isn't a new restriction to prevent them doing so now, maybe previously unenforced restrictions are being enforced as you say.

The retailer I ordered from also received their shipment from GW a couple of days late, missing the initial release weekend as a result. I don't mind that too much, but it might be an indicator of a wider issue with their distribution.

> The one thing GW could do that might help would possibly be to stop doing new Partworks magazines

I assumed those are all handled by the company making the partworks. They're just picking up a ton of sprues from GW on the cheap.

 mattl wrote:
> The one thing GW could do that might help would possibly be to stop doing new Partworks magazines

I assumed those are all handled by the company making the partworks. They're just picking up a ton of sprues from GW on the cheap.

And where do you think all those sprue come from? If we assume that the Partworks is reaching out to new customers and also generating lots of extra "discount" sales for customers; then its added production demand on top of what GW already produces. Yes they don't have to box it, but they do have to produce, store and ship it out. All that means that that stock has to be produced and that means production time and sock not being sent to the retail network.

My FLGS got last weekend's tyranid releases due for sale Saturday (They normally are delivered by Thursday) on Monday afternoon.

No public holidays, no strikes, no natural disasters to limit transport.

Just late.

It is happening frequently enough in the last few months to be noticeable, but not every week.

Pre-ordering has never been worth it for me. Everything I have pre-ordered has always arrived after the release. It's completely annoying and not worth the trouble. And now you may not even be able to order so why not just wait a week or two. Frankly it's another good reason to not play full price for anything.

It's exceptionally rare that I buy something from GW direct, even more so if we're talking about preorders.

But, yeah, several years ago I bought a preorder from GW and it arrived a couple of days before release. Maybe a year or so ago I bought another thing preorder from GW and it arrived a week or so after release.

A few years ago I preordered something from a 3rd party store (it may have been close to a decade ago) and it arrived really early, days before release day, last thing I preordered (Leviathan) from an independent and it came at the end of the week after release day even though the store had stock a few days before release. There was also a part broken so I held off assembling it until that had been replaced so it was nearly 2 weeks before I started putting it together.

So maybe GW has cracked down on independents sending stuff out too early. But I don't have a good set of data, I think I've preordered less than half a dozen things from GW (both direct and independents combined) in the past decade.

 Overread wrote:

 mattl wrote:
> The one thing GW could do that might help would possibly be to stop doing new Partworks magazines

I assumed those are all handled by the company making the partworks. They're just picking up a ton of sprues from GW on the cheap.

And where do you think all those sprue come from? If we assume that the Partworks is reaching out to new customers and also generating lots of extra "discount" sales for customers; then its added production demand on top of what GW already produces. Yes they don't have to box it, but they do have to produce, store and ship it out. All that means that that stock has to be produced and that means production time and sock not being sent to the retail network.

I wouldn't be surprised if the sprues are coming out of whichever factory is producing their terrain and other assorted gubbinz in China.



So far as pre-releases go... Back in the day, they used to ship them early so that they would arrive on or before release day. The during the Kirby era of 'It is vitally important that nobody know what we are working on until it appears in shops' secrecy, they changed the shipping policy to stop pre-order purchasers from posting pics online before release day.

 insaniak wrote:

 Overread wrote:

 mattl wrote:
> The one thing GW could do that might help would possibly be to stop doing new Partworks magazines

I assumed those are all handled by the company making the partworks. They're just picking up a ton of sprues from GW on the cheap.

And where do you think all those sprue come from? If we assume that the Partworks is reaching out to new customers and also generating lots of extra "discount" sales for customers; then its added production demand on top of what GW already produces. Yes they don't have to box it, but they do have to produce, store and ship it out. All that means that that stock has to be produced and that means production time and sock not being sent to the retail network.

I wouldn't be surprised if the sprues are coming out of whichever factory is producing their terrain and other assorted gubbinz in China.

Honestly that would be a surprise. That would mean GW having to double the number of moulds they make, or trusting overseas for a large portion of a key model range. That just doesn't feel like something GW would do considering that they only recently expanded their Nottingham infrastructure (and that was supposed to last them several years before needing to invest again). GW are very clearly dead set on keeping as much in Nottingham/inhouse as they can.

I think those Partworks are simply production from their regular system being made and sent to Hatchet and then the magazine firm bundles them up.
It also wouldn't surprise me if its the other way around; GW gets a big shipment of magazines and packages things up themselves with their picking system.

Either way I think its Nottingham produced stock and that means it has its impact on GW's overall production flow.


Of course it also brings in money and more customers and thus more money; so on the other hand it also speeds the growth of money for GW to invest into additional production setups.

A lot of the partwork models are old stock, so it wouldn't surprise me if they were already produced a while ago.

 mattl wrote:
A lot of the partwork models are old stock, so it wouldn't surprise me if they were already produced a while ago.

It's been said many times - but GW are not Smaug sitting there in piles of unsold sprue stock. Especially since the Pandemic GW hasn't had anything spare just sitting there in a warehouse unsold. Certainly not on the vast scales people think that they do to allow for Christmas box bundles or Partworks. Not to mention the Partworks often feature many of the newer models (esp any pushfit).

It's the same when we hit Christmas sales - again GW isn't just scooping up masses of unsold boxes; paying staff to unbox and repack them for Christmas Bundles. GW specifcally makes the models for those bundles fresh and packs them up and ships them out. Considering the nature of this thread its clear that GW aren't sitting there on vast mountains of unsold Tyranid models and are just hoarding them in their warehouse. GW are sending out what they've got as they get it and even then aren't keeping up. Outside of mistakes in their system their Warehouse is likely turning over stuff being sent out very rapidly. Or at least in a constant flow so its not just sitting there doing nothing.



Now true GW might well start producing for Partworks a long while back so that they can spread out the impact on production. They do the same thing with Christmas Bundles and big launch editions. As much as they can they'll spread the load. It's part of the reason why big releases HAVE to go out the door within certain timeframes because the stock has already been made and cost them in storing up to that point. Of course if you don't have a Partworks to fill full then all those spread out production slots can go for retail supply.