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Last friday I ordered a box of dark eldar incubi for $41.25. Now because of shipping and handling this comes out to about 50.75. Seeing how orders over 50 dollars have free shipping I played around with a few more items and actually got my cart to 50.70 while still getting a few things that I could use. So i place my order a little chumed with myself about how I kinda sorta saved 5 cents by getting a few extra things. Well yesterday I got an email saying that unfortunately the dark eldar incubi are back orderd until the second week of february. So ya i got the $41.25, but I ended up getting stuck with paying for some things that while weren't completely useless I didn't really need to the point where i would have never bought them.

What really got me angry though wasn't that despite their being such an obvious shortage that it'll be almost a month before they have models, and just the fact that they didn't list 'temperalily out of stock' seeing how they don't charge you and just ship when their in stock, but the fact that theres was a MASSIVE list of items that were all out of order. Instead of just telling me that oh the incubi are out of stock sorry for the incoveniance they sent me a huge list of items that are out of stock and that one or more of them may have been mine so I'll eventually get refunded. Seriously GW? You had that much stuff that would be off the shelf and you couldn't be bothered to change your website, or at least mention in one of your usually useless daily white dwarf posts, or even in an e-mail, that all of these models are out of stock.

For those who are interested here's the list:

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION Expected Due Date
70100181211 The Imperial Infantryman’s Handbook OBSOLETE
99140103001 Ork Wartrakk Skorcha OBSOLETE
99060105142 Imperial Guard Catachan Snipers 1/18/2013
99060105157 Steel Legion Lascannon Team 1/18/2013
99060301018 Epic: Space Marine Terminators 1/18/2013
99060804003 Battlefleet Gothic: Eldar Hellebore (2 M1/18/2013
99060804003 Battlefleet Gothic: Eldar Hellebore Frig1/18/2013
99061209010 Warmaster: Trolls 1/18/2013
99061209011 Warmaster: Ogres (3 Stands) 1/18/2013
99061461006 Sam and Frodo in Orc Armour 1/18/2013
99061464003 Warriors of Numenor with Spears 1/18/2013
99061464071 Ruffians And Slavers 1/18/2013
99061466005 Barrow Wights 1/18/2013
99800101022 Arjac Rockfist, The Anvil of Fenris 1/18/2013
99800103004 Ork Weirdboy 1/18/2013
99800104014 Harlequin Death Jester 1/18/2013
99800107002 Lord Kaldor Draigo 1/18/2013
99800110001 Nemesor Zahndrekh 1/18/2013
99800209002 Grimgor Ironhide 1/18/2013
99810101020 Sammael 1/18/2013
99810102007 Plague Marines 1/18/2013
99061466004 Cave Troll with Hammer 1/25/2013
99800107005 Inquisitor Coteaz 1/25/2013
99060108087 Sisters of Battle Superior with Chainswo2/8/2013
99061462036 Wild Warg Chieftain 2/8/2013
99061463039 Armoured Glorfindel 2/8/2013
99061464020 Rohan Royal Guard on Foot 2/8/2013
99061464121 Clansmen of Lamedon 2/8/2013
99061499075 Gollum 2/8/2013
99800102001 Abaddon the Despoiler 2/8/2013
99800112003 Urien Rakarth 2/8/2013
99810112005 Dark Eldar Incubi 2/8/2013
99810207004 Vampire Counts Varghulf 2/8/2013
99060305041 Epic: Imperial Guard Ragnarok Tank (3 mo2/15/2013
99061464002 Warriors of Numenor with Bows 2/15/2013
99111464103 Sauron the Necromancer 2/15/2013
99801463006 High Elf Warriors 2/15/2013

They really should have had a warning when you placed your order. Sounds like a human error, since I refuse to believe that they're system can't support a "Currently out of stock" feature.

I would email games workshop regarding your specific case and see if they can help you out.

Thanks for the list, I was wondering about the Plague Marines and was going to ask about a possible status update at the FLGS today. Ordered the box early December via the FLGS. Looks like I should get it by the end of the month if that estimate is accurate.

Well I went back to their online store and went through the ordering process with some of the models in that list that are still back ordered, and not once did it ever warn me or stop me from ordering the models. Doesn't there have to be some policy against this some where, with like bait and switching. At some point I would think a company would be required to issue that their products are back ordered as aposed to the typical bait and switch in which they "only recently must have gone out of stock and have yet to recieve and official notice from suppliers that they have." Can of makes me wonder for how long before my original order they had ran out of stock.

 WarlordEXE wrote:
Well I went back to their online store and went through the ordering process with some of the models in that list that are still back ordered, and not once did it ever warn me or stop me from ordering the models. Doesn't there have to be some policy against this some where, with like bait and switching. At some point I would think a company would be required to issue that their products are back ordered as opposed to the typical bait and switch in which they "only recently must have gone out of stock and have yet to receive an official notice from suppliers that they have." Can of makes me wonder for how long before my original order they had ran out of stock.

Read the "Availability" on the items in question.

Here is the Vargulf's entry:

Availability:

This product is expected to despatch in three to four weeks.

"Baiting and switching" is not the same as this. That is promising you one item and selling you another.

They can sell you these models. You need to start reading availabilities on the items you're ordering, as they do a good job of making it clear that something is not available currently and while you can order it there will be a delay.

Incubi- http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440232a&prodId=prod1160121a

Availability:
This product is expected to despatch in three to four weeks.

What did GW do wrong?


Spelling edit.

How dare GW clearly mark when an item will be available on their website and let me order it!?!?!

When I had ordered the incubi there hadn't been that expected in 3 to 4 weeks. It was simply listed as per normal, and I later recieved the email saying that one or more items I had ordered wasn't currently availible and would be removed from my order. It doesn't make sense that GW would let you order something and pay for it if they're going to later cancel it on my order. Oh, and I know it's technically not baiting and switching, but it just kinda rubbed me the wrong way that the main item that I had placed an order for was the one they didn't have, which based on the actions taking by GW seems like they knew it wasn't in stock.

Why not? It happens all the time. Inventories should be exact in retail/manufacturing businesses but due to shrink are not always so. Did they charge you for the item they aren't sending you?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Not to mention that we really have no idea of how their inventory system interacts with the website. It might be a daily flow, up the the second flow, whatever.

What if two people click to see if the Incubi are available at the same time? Most systems like that don't reserve it for you when you look at it or add to cart, only when you purchase it.

Quite possible that someone got there first.

i stopped bothering getting 40k stuff from anywhere but a local store, the GW website, or ebay because of this damn policy. Obviously i prefer Ebay since about half or more of my army used to be someone elses army lol.

Every other source i tried had this policy ruin it. I found some ork stuff new in the boxes on some random website for like HALF normal cost for some reason - "Sorry, because of GW's online shopping cart policies we cannot place your order" ... fml....

Same thing happened to me the OP discussed on two occasions. No notification and there was no note at the bottom of item saying any delay just said in stock. The Aegis Defense line was one in particular. They made me wait about 4 weeks and told me they had to wait to refund me being internet transactions out of England... then they finally sent me item. I just wanted to get money back or item (prefered item). I decided to get stuff from local private retailer now and or ebay/thewarstore.

I am still waiting on my white dwarf i ordered back in June to show up. Have a year subscription... wish i did not i would just get that local too... now i am stuck waiting for them to show up late if even at all... they said they going to give me extra issues. Last month they sent me my hobbit issue after i called almost after almost a month late. They sent direct because they did not send it by date they had finally told me. I still not get my current issue with dark angels yet.

I had never had issue before this last year. I have never had any model quality issues. Just seems their ordering system/logistics.

I've had a Tau shield drone conversion kit on order from GW since july and they still havent dotten it.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Read the "Availability" on the items in question.

The availability for Plague Marines has said "Usually ships within 24 hours" for the entire time that it's been out of stock, which seems to have been nearly the last six weeks (though according to that list it should now be back in stock). So it's hardly a trustworthy piece of information. By comparison the online stores where I computer parts and other such electronics clearly list how many they have in stock and whether or not the order I just made has them reserved from the stock.