GW Once Again Taking a Giant Dump on Retailers

[bubbles15Participant 2308xp 2]

@limburger, there is always a choice – not to buy it. No one forces you to.  There are plenty of other models you could proxy for Workshop Orks.

You mean it doesn’t produce enough to satisfy *your* demand. You’re ignoring that Workshop might not make a profit on a box, or that they simply cannot make enough. You’re putting your wishes and making a judgement. You are perfectly entitled to do that, however.

I’m not sure what you’re complaining about, to be honest. You can’t buy this box. Oh well, Workshop lost a sale. You’ll be able to buy the models separately in the future.

[jamescutts 6907xp 6]

1 box! Seriously!

That’s doing enough to say “available at 3rd party retailers” technically it is but, in reality, it isn’t.

I very much feel for all of you down under, you already get screw on pricing. I’d normally say fuck ’em and stop buying their overpriced junk, but I don’t think you lot have easy accessibility to alternatives, that equally don’t cost a fortune due to shipping.

While as many say, I don’t care about GW and I’ve moved on, as pointed there’s such a huge wealth of better games/products/rules out there, It does make me slightly concerned about the hobby, in general, a lot of these retailers are heavily impacted by the actions of one company. GW makes up a lot of some store’s sales and their practices are continuing to be harmful to them, from what I’ve heard Warlord is not doing an amazing job of it either. I’m also fed up with retailers spamming me with “you can pre-order this thing and we might be able to get it for you” emails every GW release.

As for the ongoing argument of supply/demand that comes up every time, GW gets questioned, falling back on the old textbook of supply and demand is a bit rigid in thinking as horus points out and a bit repetitive to see the same point over and over again. I don’t really want to get involved in that but what I would say is while saying a corporation/entity is not “evil” or “out to get your” etc is true, the does not mean individuals within it are not (just look at those that stockpiled PPE, the companies just wanted to make some money, fine that’s capitalism, but ethically its a bit on the bankrupt end of the scale and from some of the individuals involved) or that people may view a company in that way. I say this because perception is important, how people view a company can ultimately affect them in the long term, or suddenly with specific events.

The point about pricing families our is a very good one too, the increasing cost of our hobby (particularly GW but others are guilty) will be a long-term issue. The more expensive entry gets the less we will see younger generations getting involved, and eventually the customer base shrink or potentially disappear. I think this affects a lot of the issues we see with diversity, white males from medium to high-income families dominate the hobby sadly.

The easy solution is don’t buy into the marketing and hype and don’t buy their products, but that can be easier said than done.

[limburger 21676xp 3]

@bubbles15 if they didn’t want me to buy it and aren’t even going to have sufficient inventory … then why pretend it is available at all ?

Yes … there are alternate Orks out there, but none with a similar theme and most definitely not in the same material.
They are therefor not viable alternatives.

Their advertising is on the moral bankrupt scale of ethics.

And let’s not forget that this is advertised as a ‘PRE order’, which technically should allow them to guage the amount of product that they need to produce to meet demand.

You’re also forgetting the dominant position GW has in this hobby.
Because not buying GW products means you can’t even play … tempting people into playing other games is kind of hard when they really like what GW does.

[onlyonepinman 18060xp 7]

GW have a sales model, it goes something like this.

They launch a new range with an introductory box (in this case the Beast Snagga Orks).  Said boxes are limited in number and when they’re gone, they’re gone.  Following this they then release the individual components/units as separate boxes. GW also don’t offer discounts or have clearance sales as part of that model.  Their prices are their prices.  These limited boxed sets are basically GW offering a discount.

None of this is any great secret, it’s been like this for quite some time now.  Now, in terms of allocation of product, well have a look online at the shortages currently being experienced across the world.  Card and Cardboard are currently in short supply which is probably limiting production run sizes.  Also, anything printed in China is proving very difficult to ship at the moment, which again will be affecting global supply and thus the size of production runs.

I know it’s easier to just say “GW BAD” but they’re not bad.  They’re a business whose aim is to make money, something that they do incredibly well.  They will know what their optimum production run is to ensure that the miniatures continue to sell AFTER the limited edition box has sold out. At the moment they may not be able to hit those production targets and may have had to scale back.  Or maybe they have analysed their own sales data and decided that smaller production runs lead to greater sales of the separate units.  Who knows.  Either way this isn’t about fleecing customers, it’s about ensuring they generate a greater return on investment on each product line.  Businesses that set out with the explicit aim of fleecing customers don’t really last very long; GW look like they’re going to be around for a while yet so they must be doing something right and we can probably assume they’re not ripping people off.

 

Just because you didn’t get or can’t get a particular item doesn’t mean you’re being ripped off.

[wolfie65Participant 1230xp 2]

I first encountered Citadel miniatures – multi-part metal medieval guys, obviously inspired by Monty Python – in the late 1970s/early 80s and they were pretty much the most expensive back then, even more so than Ral Partha or Grenadier, which I preferred. My first GW games – which I still have – were Valley of the Four Winds and Warlock, got into 2nd edition Blood Bowl in the early 90s, 5th edition Warhammer  and 3rd edition 40K in the late 90s.

Never subscribed to to the GW rule that only Citadel minis could be used for their games – went to an official GW store precisely once – and haven’t really liked very much they have produced since Battlefleet Gothic in 2000.

They started to completely price me out of their part of the hobby around ’06 or so and this has not improved. HOW MUCH for 1 plastic guy ???!!!???

I concur with all those who have said to take your gaming and your money elsewhere. Might also want to look into what Nomad Investments are all about, who bought the lion share of GW stock sometime in the mid-00s. Gamers or lore are no longer a priority.

[odinsgrandsonParticipant 4288xp 0]

How many GW stores are in Australia or New Zealand? And have you confirmed that they are each getting more than 1 box?

Here in the US, the independent stores aren’t really competing with GW’s own stores- because there are so few GW stores around.

On the other hand, I do know some retailers that are scalpers. When they get something like this, they’re not unlikely to use an Ebay price rather than the normal MSRP.

It strikes me as odd that the retailer can’t afford to list this item on their webstore because listing is too costly, but the scalpers seem to be able to afford their listings just fine?

[wolfie65Participant 1230xp 0]

I’m not sure if what I went to in London in 1980-something was an ‘official’ GW store yet or not, but other than that, I have never been to one, but I’ve heard enough stories to make me glad that we do not have one in my area.

[grantinvanman 2160xp 0]

They did it again with Heresy; called a “paywall” by my one local shop.

order xX, unlock xY, unlocks xZ

 

so no MkIII or IV; the delivery stepped on the ONE tank like he was on a Tokyo-Zillow rampage; and Astartes Loyalist book? Like the Hulk bent it. Unreal damage.

it genuinely takes some joy out.

oddly, I ordered from GW too, and my dice came on a tan not black card back. Weird.

managed to get the first three novels too.

lotta FW on its way, supposedly.

 

only positive is to Romeo at BattleFoam; veteran discount for CAF as well as US (other countries, too *maybe not Rus*)

so I have a nice custom big 1520 bag I’m waiting on. BZ to BattleFoam!

[mousakaParticipant 929xp 2]

For good alternatives, look for the boxes by war games Atlantic and North Star military figures. Their plastic multipart sets are generally just over £1 per models and are lovely sculpted and generally useful for lots of different rule sets, and you can often kitbash between the sets to make even more fun model themes

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