GW’s biggest liability is a lack of agility if a major release slips on the schedule. They are releasing products so thick and fast with a 1-2 year lead time of design and production that they have almost no capability to move products which slip the timeline. They’ve gotten used to a very lucrative cut and paste system of timed release schedules. If something gets knocked out of the timeline its a follow on domino process of delay into the future and they have to wait until the following year’s pause (usually December) if they want to make adjustments.
I think the community needs to stop making excuses for GW not getting kits back in stock. the only new landraiders I see people using are the heresy ones, the 40k ones haven't been in stock for months, hell since the start of 10th. That it is fine but it only makes a proxy for the base landraider and it doesn't have two hatches to fit both a storm bolter and a multimelta.
@@knoxminis1211 If there is one issue that is 100% on gw, it is the inventory problems. This is after brexit, after covid, after the evergreen canal blockage, and they still can't get their shit together. all they are currently doing is fueling a demand for 3rd party prints to replace the products they can't stock. It is infuriating.
@@notknightbeanI downloaded some great Grey Knights proxies yesterday to print. No need to wait for a range refresh that will then soon be out of stock.
GW can't seem to stop shooting themselves in the foot. They could be making more money if they actually stayed on top of the demand. Not to mention support their damned games like Horus Heresy and Old World!
Makka definitely has them dead to rights regarding rules support/quality and playtesting. I’m not sure if he is correct on the cause of the logistics issue.
@@judgecohen1373the rules part is the most inexcusable. There are scores of people who would get them all the data for free, and would happily make suggestions and even write rules at no cost.
Actually, if you double the price and half the model you end up with models being four time more expensive, which isn't very far from what is happening right now. Take the Kroots, they reduced their number from 16 to 10 and increased the price from from (and I may be wrong here) 35 to 55 usd. Its even worst for the dogs, which is funny because they are one of the very few that saw a size increase in their box (iir they went from 4 to 5), but the price tripled or something.
HAHAHAHA. Double and halve is only HALF. It's more like 8x, when I would get 40 skellies with 10 horses for $20. That's less than $0.50 per mini. Let's up that for inflation to $0.75. Almost the same for a space marine. For $20 you could BUILD AN ARMY. And start playing. And want to add to it, and grow. Can you get a starter army for under $200 to $300? PROFIT. And a lot of waste, due to idiocy.
When I played 40k Space Marines had 3 main kits Tactical, Assault and Devastor. All 3 kits could swap parts to create what you wanted. Everybody knew the weapons stats off by heart. Today there are 14 kits (Primaris Eradicators, Eliminators, Primaris Inceptors, Primaris Aggressors, Infernus Squad, Jump Pack Intercessors, Desolation Squad, Assault Intercessors, Primaris Reivers, Primaris Infiltrators, Primaris Incursors, Primaris Intercessors, Primaris Hellblasters, Heavy Intercessors) Good luck remembering all those weapon stats. Try explaining the roles of those 14 kits to someone new to the game.
Eradicators: Eradicate vehicles/monsters Eliminators: Snipers Inceptors: Advance fast to shoot the enemy Aggressors: Advance, flame/shoot before punching the enemy Infernus: Overwatch blob Assault intercessors: Advance to punch the enemy Jump pack: Advance fast to punch the enemy Desolution: Nerf squad pew pew Reivers: Advance to punch the enemy while being goth Infiltrators: Deep strike prevention blob Incursors: Ok I had to google who these guys were. The guys you build if you don't need more infiltrators and you still have a box left Intercessors: Play card on the objective and/or do actions Hellblasters: Stay put and shoot the enemy Heavy intercessors: Play card on the objective and/or do actions and be hard to take out Quite easy actually
I start to think the oos is wanted because of storage. If everything sells out immediately then you don't have to store all the new kits. So no need for more storage capacity and the costs it entails. And the only one who gets the short end of the stick is the consumer which GW doesn't care about. But thats just my theory.
@@TheOuterCircle I just think its a feature not a bug. I work in the logistics industry and the amount of companies culling their storage is insane because thats often the greatest drain on profits. The only one with storage are the suppliers who often are on direct competition with oneanother and since GW doesnt have a direct compeditor they can just produce and ship everything that is already sold and only keep limited stock.
Yeah this makes sense to me, having stock on hand is pure cost until it sells, they're obviously comfortable that they churn through enough product which tends to sell out and maintain their very high profit margins. I would certainly understand people at GW being extremely sceptical of expanding manufacturing capacity given the dynamics described in this video. The other thing to consider is that active ongoing gamers are probably a relatively small portion of their overall sales. That makes retention of stock even less appealing from a commercial perspective, all you care about is selling whatever to the newish person churning through the hobby.
I ordered a miniature from GW about two weeks ago after waiting over a month for it to come back in stock, I waited the 11 working days, and nothing. I emailed them, and after a few days they got back to me and told me they had ran out of stock of that miniature after I had ordered and paid for it. I am willing to bet they would not have told me or refunded me if I hadn't emailed them first. They need to make some changes. Ive seen items that have been out of stock for almost 3 months (Canada), and when some come back, they are available for a day or two before going out of stock again. They cant keep releasing kits and expecting to keep up with the demand.
If you don't mind me asking, when, I went on march 6th just after the whw birthday, and everything looked fine to me other than the absurdly large levels of 3 specific exclusive models and those were the tau ethereal, the kroot character and the steel rook
@chadmrrsn I went on the 13th March, and the entire heresy section was practically empty, I called to check for a sicaran, which I was told was in stock and they had several but got there for it not to be.
Great great vid as usual. Possibly be less defensive brother? Anyone who goes on the attack was always going to anyway. :(. You do an important job in the community. You have my thanks.
There’s two things I want out of life. To start a family and for BL to reprint their old books. I don’t think I’ll ever have either. BL has their warped thinking when it comes to books and my wife is hesitant because I’m always going on about how I would give up my first born son to have some old BL books. Sad state of affairs.
For gunpla, the logistics is a huge problem too, but at least people do not need to configure an army. For GW, lack of supply equals crippling experience when building up your army, because some models are crucial core components and cannot be overlooked in buying plan. Products GW sell are not independent in influence but interacts with other already-released product, leading to a huge problem. When new products are introduced, the opportunity cost for reprinting these out of stock products is sacrificed yet again, making the problem even worse. GW is not providing long term support for their games very well... When some products are out of stock for 6months or more than a year, good luck playing with your unfinished army! Both a new factory and a more toned down release plan is needed to alleviate this problem.
I have never had major stocking or fulfillment problems with the white metal historical miniatures companies, many of whom are single man or small team operations who it would be reasonable to think would have these issues just because of fewer people handling the business. I also cannot recall GW having these kinds of stock issues in the late 2000s and early 2010s when I entered the hobby, its gotten dramatically worse.
An actual pre-ordering system for purchasing new releases would help cut down on downtime on the production side, and that would fix some of the customer dissatisfaction problem. GW would have better data on demand. People get to buy what they want, GW guarantees its revenue without incurring unexpected costs from over-producing. Out of stock means GW is being conservative in ensuring it doesn't oversupply and have lots of stock in warehouses. But the long-run implication is lots of missed purchases at release, and those purchases aren't all fulfilled once people get bored and move on (failing their FOMO strategy), but then also failing as they need to retool and do another print, time which could have been better spent doing larger production runs
Where the ´Temporarily out of stock´ is useful to consumers I ,as an ex accountant, would say that GW managers and investors should read ´No chance of making a profit on this item for the foreseeable future´.
I don’t think the problem is lack of plastic/resin miniatures. I think the issue is lack of printed paper packaging and other products as well as finished/assembled products to ship everywhere. Its why the UK gets restocked first as it is mostly being assembled there. Printing gets done in China if my info is correct.
What i hate the most now about new GW is you cant save money over some month for a nice army box... NO you have to buy it now or try your luck on the web months later.... but it seems they will not change it.
Biggest issue of getting back into 40k after skipping out from 9th ed. Everything is more expensive and there is hardly anything on the shelves. Ask the FLGS owner to order me something, it's either out of stock or takes 3 weeks to get in. Makes not playing a lot easier than playing these days.
As a cynical git, I can only look at the state of the GW webstore stock levels and think that it is either they don't want to keep the stock levels up, or can't be bothered to keep them up. Don't want to - this could be a number of factors like costs, warehouse space, they have a replacement design in the works somewhere, or it is just more cost-efficient to just favour the best selling kits over the the others Can't be bothered - this is very, very simple. They have put out a run, sold everything in it, made their money, and have moved on to the next thing. FOMO / LE boxes are a great example of this.
It sounds like they have terrible stock analysts. I worked in a boot shop that was always well regarded for stocking half sizes and three different widths. After a buy out they would consistently ignore us requesting missing sizes as they wouldnt sell as much or as fast as the whole sizes which meant so many customers went elsewhere. Seems like the same thing is happening at GW. Why stop the factory line to make a unit that doesnt sell fast when they could make thousands more Primaris
I mean if that's the case the objectively correct decision for GW is to not waste time on that other product, you don't really care about the sunk costs of people who might have invested in that system/army and the risk of them going elsewhere isn't worth missing sales you're more confident in.
Correct about Age of Sigmar 2nd Edition. In fact, again, even after the 3rd Edition cycle, we've made it back to being in really good spot. We don't need a Brand New Edition! We need a v3.5 update to clean up a few rules (Explaining Enhancements and Army Building is an absolute trainwreck). We need updates to the Skaven and Beasts of Chaos ranges, and we definitely need a few new armies to enjoy. There are at least four armies that have been teased in the fluff and 5-6 armies with the space for a new range of models (ex, how Kroot expands Tau or Beast-Snaggas expand Orks)
New armies is something AOS does not need. You can say Umbraneth, but when you look at it, there are too many factions as it is. Skaven, I can see yes for new models. Beasts of Chaos can be timed with Old World releases and sending older sculpts to the old world, like with the new Darkoath replacing the Chaos Marauders line.
AoS already has plenty of armies. What it needs is to finally flesh out the neglected factions with Sylvaneth/FEC style additions. Kharadron, Fyreslayer, Idoneth desperately need more units that aren’t just the occasional pity hero.
I dont think adding more machines will fix it. The problem looks to me as the website is not linked to stock numbers. Gw seems to have the only website where you can to the point of ordering and even purchasing only to get an email saying they are out of stock. So even ordering an item becomes a gamble, whether you get it or not. Shows a lot of disrespect to customers.
It took me almost a month and a half to get the core rules for old world because every time it re stoked it instantly was sold out. I finally got one form my local hobby shop.
I ordered Ufthak Blackhawk the second it was on the store live minutes before 10am on the 10th feb. They have not posted it yet, I could buy it from other online stores but GW wont let me cancel the order. They say it will be ready some time in May! Hows that for customer services. I've noticed other orders say Pre-orders ship on or "after launch day" GW isnt even the fastest way to get your GW any more.
I've called it for a long while, the problem right now is the SKU bloat. Instead of pumping out so many dups GW should merge these kits and make them multibuild. The money they'll lose in having to stuff one or two more sprue in a box will be largely saved by the stock being easier to manage.
Yeah, just look at the Primaris line. There's so many things that could be condensed down into a smaller number of kits, using a mix of multibuild kits + upgrade packs for options that don't fit in the main box. And it's compounded by the trend of making a monopose version of a unit for the starter box, and then a relatively multipart standalone version of the same thing a few months down the line. The new Terminators are an example of that last point. And the standalone version's sprues aren't really laid out for modularity when Assault Termies get redone, so I'm sure those will get 100% new moulds that take up even more storage space, too.
@@nicholassinnett2958Yuuup. The terminator is the proof that GW would rather milk the "hype and fomo" of a "new terminator" release twice, than thinking for the long term and save a lot of space by having a single kit doing both terminator versions. Where it gets straight up insulting is when you realize that kind of behavior is actively harming the game by reducing the flexibility of units, thinks like the goofy and artitrary HQ loadouts that are each just one of the many monopose version of the same HQ are a good example of that. The most striking display of GW stupidity overall is still the Dreadnaught Redemptor. The base kit has a decently ammount of options (for a primaris kit) with 2 main weapons, 2 side weapons, and 2 chest weapons options. Then they decided to release Brutalis, which is the exact same dread, but with 2 different pair of arms, 2 different chest weapons and a different top mounted weapon. Then they released the Ballistus (god damn these names are so stupid and lazy), and this one is.... (for now at least) just a monopose kit they are selling for a while... until they'll probably release the full kit with 2 different left arms, and 2 different right arms, and maybe 2 different chest weapons (but this one doesn't seem to have a top mounted gun... because yaknow apparently giving less ranged weapons to the dedicated ranged dread made sens in GW's mind). All that to say that this 3 kits could have been easily condensed in a single one, and having that single condensed kit would have mean that you could have had all these variants share the same kind of options. You want a Laser or Missile launcher rather than an autocanon or a plasma on your Redemptor? Go for it. You want a Power claw rather than a power fist? Go for it! You'd rather have a plasma than a laser on your balistus? Sure You'd prefer a frag grenade laucher over a heavy bolter for your brutalis? Go ahead. But nah. Sadly as 10th showed, GW is actively working AGAINST modularity and customisation in their game, which is just mindblowing...
Nah, we deeefinately need 14 different Primaris Captains taking up half the Codex. Whats the alternative? A customizeable, single character box with all the options included? Pfff. Better discontinue some more Firstborn because they "bloat" the roster.
@@Pers0n97 on one hand, old boxnaughts are not exactly good, being split into Furioso, SW Venerable Dread, regular Venerable Dread and dakka Dread (forgot its name). However, said kits can be assembled in number of ways (for instance Furioso can be also Librarian or Death Company Dread while SW Dread is also Bjorn and Murderfang) and have options.
@@Jfk2MrIts also worth noting that the Furioso was a chapter specific unit, the Daka was a forgeworld thing (ie not a "real" mainline unit) and the Venerable was ... well its own separate unit. It's a bit different than the new dread which is literally the same, mainline, plastic dread, split in 3 different kits with limited customization for no reasons.
This is exactly why I use recasters, besides the cost saving it allows to get the models I like with no bottlenecks and let me get hold of retro miniatures. Not only that, from what I have heard, some of them are starting to make the jump from resin to plastic, so it's likely they will beat GDubbs at their own game, so to speak.
Ive actually started finishing up buying my stuff for a 2k tyranid army but literally a majority of the big bugs are out of stock. Stuff like the maleceptor which is vital for one of the detachments is gone and is being sold at a markup at 110-150 per kit on second hand markets. Its literally insane how they wanna make money so bad and don't let me do it.
I don't understand why GW seem to not have implemented 3D printing as part of their production strategy considering that consumer-grade 3D printers are now outputting miniatures that are, quite frankly, superior to GW's "Finecast" in fidelity. Every "solo" character model they've made in the past ~10 years has been designed using CAD or similar digital design software and should be "easily" convertible to something that a modern 3D printer could handle, which potentially could remove several hundred items from "in-stock" inventory if they instead were converted to "on-demand" produced products. Granted, they'd have to extend delivery time on these products as they'll have to handle an ongoing production pipeline for them, only printing the product and shipping it when there's an actual order, but I think almost everyone would prefer adding ~7 days extra on their order delivery compared to simply not being able to get the model at all for months and months at a time. It'd probably even allow GW to setup smaller production centers in ex. the US or AUS, printing most character models close to the point of sale instead of having to first ship them from the factory in the UK - it could probably also cut either a whole lot of shipping costs or free up shipping capacity. Maybe I just don't understand GWs production process or maybe there are some legal issues doing it, but it seems really shortsighted to me that GW hasn't moved into this type of supply model a long time ago when 3D printers became a viable method of model production.
GW have this stamp now of releasing new products every single week and that has to be an nightmare to keep stock of because the catalogue is ever expanding. If they just waited say and did monthly releases they could at least build up enough stock to cater it but they’re churning these out every week for every year
Kill-team suffers most out of this situation, i think. 40k players want this sets, KT players want them. But those boxed every freaking time is ubderpriduced. And GW cant make enough kits for this game almost 2 years as 2nd edition launched
I don’t think it is a lack of plastic components that is the issue. I do think it is a lack of paper components (books, packaging sleeves, inserts, instruction booklets etc…) as they are not created in the UK/US.
The photos are done in the UK Studio as is the painting of any models. They generally paint resin prototypes with the Eavy Metal team. Printed products are done elsewhere and therefore are not available.
I wondered about packaging, but GW gets it out of China and they do scale production so well that I doubt packaging is the concern. I will say tho, that I think packaging costs more than the plastics IN the packaging.
@@TheOuterCircle While assembly IS done in the UK and possibly partially in the US, all the printing is Chinese at this point for cost savings. Initial runs are done to limited scale as sales are not guaranteed but follow on orders for products are done in waves. Delays to those shipments is my prime suspect for the current major sell outs as demand has and continues to step up but as far as their initial orders go for paper, those were done 6 months to a year ago. I don’t think they can keep up with all the steps required to increase the follow on demand s they are seeing. While the models are “Made in the UK” in the plastics facility, the assembly/packaging materials are imported and I am convinced this is where the logistics issue is coming from to a large extent. You are correct as far as the plastic as those demands are completely under their control. They’ve contracted out their printing and are not a big enough fish in the Chinese printing pond to move needles for demand. I can email you if you want to toss this around more. I do have some practical experience.
@@TheOuterCircle I can email you if you want to toss this around further. Let me know. I’m convinced at this point based on practical personal experience, that assembled products not lack of plastic/resin are the logistics issue as far as stock goes. Quality control regarding writing and scheduling are separate issues.
Casually waiting for the warbringer Titan to come back been missing from the site for some time Now but the head is still available, customer service just says if it’s not on the site it’s not for sale…
GW is one of thw rost gaming companies for miniature gaming right now. They have dominance in the genre and near monopoly on high quality wargaming. Yet they screw up the rules amd have no idea what they are doing. Their marketing department keeps buffing the new kits so they always needs to be nerfed after release and then nerfing them to the ground when overused (when you have gotten your copies needed for competitive play). The stocks and limited edition abusing low stock low print run fomo is ridiculous and abusive for a game with tournaments. Absolutely disgusting. Get a 3d printer. If you are a to: allow proxies if well made.
There's an assumption in the comments that a lack of stock actually hurts GW. I'm not sure we see any evidence that's true? Do you think long term consistent gamers are a significant part of their sales demographics? I'm sceptical, based on my own experiences as much as anything else.
This is why I am going to recasting all my orcs and goblins TOW models, using blue stuff and green stuff. I am done dealing with GW and Ebay, I no longer want to pay ultra premium for old kits. Note that these models i'm recasting aren't even coming back. This is because they're not 8th ed fantasy models they're older. Fuck stock issues and fuck scalpers.
The Grog boys were correct as per the effects but I think LI was an unprecedented comedy of errors starting with a cock up in editorial which required the entire run of starter boxes to be recalled and repacked with reprinted rulebooks.
Call me cynical but I suspect the old world releasing old minis as metal or resin kits is to skirt the plastics production bottleneck. The spin cast metal and resin production line is seperate capacity that *was* being wound down in GWs drive for all plastic all the time, which I suspect is well and truly paused at this point. GW could mitigate supply issues by better predicting demand, but this does not acknowledge that their sales/marketing team is badly managed by people promoted out of their effectiveness, or who were hired based on "fit" rather than talent. Its been a core structural weakness at GW for years.
They are just running too many game systems. Bringing LI and OW back at the same period with their need to print loads of starter sets on top of current stock and new stuff for all the other games too
I've never seen so many *plastic* kits out of stock.. ever. It's possible this is all FOMO marketing? I mean, they just redid the website.. again for so many millions they ran over budget. So they know what stats they have on views and product page views. When it''s all being rushed out so fast, and the price is so high. If it's out of stock, it's easy to pass on it It's like Macca once said "wait a week, then check back and see if you want to actually buy it." In every case these last few months, well that means it will be gone anyways. See > FOMO
I'm still waiting for the next Kill Team box. Why do GW have to advertise their new releases months and months before actual release? At which point, scalpers hoover up all the stock and slap nonsensical price tags on what you waited for, the whole process feeling like one big joke to hobbyists. Tiresome indeed.
GW is seeing increased demand brought on by people joining the hobby during the Pandemic, they are concerned that they will be unable to maintain this increased demand, and are thus refusing to increase supply so as to avoid having too many employees and machines once the demand ebbs back to a normal level. This leads to high prices and everything being endlessly sold out. GW is trying to optimize profits in this situation by producing lots of different expensive models, and selling them as bundle boxes. This is the short term right call, but runs a massive self fulfilling risk. If GW keeps prices high, and supply low, then it will be unable to attract new players (mums buying a box or two for their 11-15 year old sons) to the game. Their own fear of not being able to sustain demand may become self fulfilling, as dwindling numbers of players, who apparantly have infinately deep pockets will see a smaller and smaller number of people buying larger and larger blocks of stuff, seemingly uncaring to price. But, this is what happened with MTG cards or baseball cards. Eventually the buyers become detached from the players, and if one day the buyers STOP buying, then there is no residual demand. It's a tough spot, but, I think GW has a scale its manufacturing operations and gamble on being able to sustain demand. Like, what the hell are they going to do if say the Cavill 40K show is a megahit, and brings in tonnes of new people wanting to give the game a try? Be like, "Sorry chaps, no models for 18 months..."
Bolt Action... HEHEHEHE. We all know what the solution is. Bring back some of the guys WHO KNOW HOW THIS WORKS, are gamers, and let them turn things around. Don't offer Rick Priestly a million pounds to "consult," give him a million pounds to be the new CEO. IT CAN'T GET WORST. Fire all those MBAs. MBAs are responsible for bringing down more companies over the recent decades than are still remaining. Rick, John, Bryan, give them their company back, give them their game back. But it's obvious, no.
Why they would make less money and see instantaneous widespread piracy? GW is doing well commercially these stock issues don't actually hurt them in the short/medium term.
@@bobshobyThey would legit be doing better right now if they worked with stores to have a print on demand in store service of official products because they clearly can't keep them in stock themselves anymore and to act like there's not files for all their products already is kind of laughable. Like oh no another Land Raider file on the lose as if there's not already 100 Land Raider files people are already printing.
@@horriblypink I think this is a pretty naive perspective personally, i think we tend to underestimate the extent to which official branding/encouragement drives behaviour. At the moment they 'lose' theoretical sales to experienced hobbyists who've invested significant time and money into 3d printing and people invested in the hobby who know said people. My instinct would be that both groups are a pretty small portion of GW sales and i think you'd struggle to win an internal argument suggesting that they shouldn't be ignored in favour of another new release hype cycle. Frankly i almost wouldn't be surprised if they move towards a 'you only get a restock when we remake the kit' model of production, in some ways that would be their dream scenario.
You do 3 size blister pack with a throw in backer showing the pic and assembly like FW and you cut your costs. LOL just kidding you increase your costs and you sell your poor QC product as well since most people won't bother asking for refund/replacement, it's a feature after all. Their new website is so hideous and hard to navigate I miss the last two generation websites. It's just so anti-consumer along with costs, availability and fomo. It's a sea of models but a barely trickling spigot and every drop it struggles to spit out the price is like that of gold.
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GW’s biggest liability is a lack of agility if a major release slips on the schedule. They are releasing products so thick and fast with a 1-2 year lead time of design and production that they have almost no capability to move products which slip the timeline. They’ve gotten used to a very lucrative cut and paste system of timed release schedules. If something gets knocked out of the timeline its a follow on domino process of delay into the future and they have to wait until the following year’s pause (usually December) if they want to make adjustments.
its the new stuff fallacy, new stuff only attracts old customers, whales which buy everything new, because they already own everything else.
I think the community needs to stop making excuses for GW not getting kits back in stock. the only new landraiders I see people using are the heresy ones, the 40k ones haven't been in stock for months, hell since the start of 10th. That it is fine but it only makes a proxy for the base landraider and it doesn't have two hatches to fit both a storm bolter and a multimelta.
sucks if you want to run a redeemer or crusader land raider
Yeah, if you even talk about this on Reddit, you get people making every excuse to defend GW. It’s pathetic.
@@knoxminis1211 If there is one issue that is 100% on gw, it is the inventory problems. This is after brexit, after covid, after the evergreen canal blockage, and they still can't get their shit together.
all they are currently doing is fueling a demand for 3rd party prints to replace the products they can't stock.
It is infuriating.
@@notknightbeanI downloaded some great Grey Knights proxies yesterday to print. No need to wait for a range refresh that will then soon be out of stock.
Your problem there, is playing 40k....
GW can't seem to stop shooting themselves in the foot. They could be making more money if they actually stayed on top of the demand. Not to mention support their damned games like Horus Heresy and Old World!
Makka definitely has them dead to rights regarding rules support/quality and playtesting. I’m not sure if he is correct on the cause of the logistics issue.
@@judgecohen1373the rules part is the most inexcusable. There are scores of people who would get them all the data for free, and would happily make suggestions and even write rules at no cost.
"Lets Double the Price and Half the Models, that way each model is worth twice as much and we all win"
-absolutely NOT SAID at a GW meeting.
Actually, if you double the price and half the model you end up with models being four time more expensive, which isn't very far from what is happening right now.
Take the Kroots, they reduced their number from 16 to 10 and increased the price from from (and I may be wrong here) 35 to 55 usd.
Its even worst for the dogs, which is funny because they are one of the very few that saw a size increase in their box (iir they went from 4 to 5), but the price tripled or something.
HAHAHAHA. Double and halve is only HALF. It's more like 8x, when I would get 40 skellies with 10 horses for $20. That's less than $0.50 per mini. Let's up that for inflation to $0.75. Almost the same for a space marine. For $20 you could BUILD AN ARMY. And start playing. And want to add to it, and grow. Can you get a starter army for under $200 to $300? PROFIT. And a lot of waste, due to idiocy.
When I played 40k Space Marines had 3 main kits Tactical, Assault and Devastor. All 3 kits could swap parts to create what you wanted.
Everybody knew the weapons stats off by heart.
Today there are 14 kits (Primaris Eradicators, Eliminators, Primaris Inceptors, Primaris Aggressors, Infernus Squad, Jump Pack Intercessors, Desolation Squad, Assault Intercessors, Primaris Reivers, Primaris Infiltrators, Primaris Incursors, Primaris Intercessors, Primaris Hellblasters, Heavy Intercessors)
Good luck remembering all those weapon stats.
Try explaining the roles of those 14 kits to someone new to the game.
Holy crap! Yeah, that does not bode well for GW's 'new comers' future. Yikes.. that's too much!
Eradicators: Eradicate vehicles/monsters
Eliminators: Snipers
Inceptors: Advance fast to shoot the enemy
Aggressors: Advance, flame/shoot before punching the enemy
Infernus: Overwatch blob
Assault intercessors: Advance to punch the enemy
Jump pack: Advance fast to punch the enemy
Desolution: Nerf squad pew pew
Reivers: Advance to punch the enemy while being goth
Infiltrators: Deep strike prevention blob
Incursors: Ok I had to google who these guys were. The guys you build if you don't need more infiltrators and you still have a box left
Intercessors: Play card on the objective and/or do actions
Hellblasters: Stay put and shoot the enemy
Heavy intercessors: Play card on the objective and/or do actions and be hard to take out
Quite easy actually
I start to think the oos is wanted because of storage. If everything sells out immediately then you don't have to store all the new kits. So no need for more storage capacity and the costs it entails. And the only one who gets the short end of the stick is the consumer which GW doesn't care about.
But thats just my theory.
As I mentioned, warehousing is an issue. I can only assume they find storage a massive issue globally, but I cannot confirm.
@@TheOuterCircle
I just think its a feature not a bug. I work in the logistics industry and the amount of companies culling their storage is insane because thats often the greatest drain on profits.
The only one with storage are the suppliers who often are on direct competition with oneanother and since GW doesnt have a direct compeditor they can just produce and ship everything that is already sold and only keep limited stock.
@@TheOuterCirclewill GW ever embrace 3D printing and selling STLs so they stop running out of products?
Yeah this makes sense to me, having stock on hand is pure cost until it sells, they're obviously comfortable that they churn through enough product which tends to sell out and maintain their very high profit margins.
I would certainly understand people at GW being extremely sceptical of expanding manufacturing capacity given the dynamics described in this video.
The other thing to consider is that active ongoing gamers are probably a relatively small portion of their overall sales. That makes retention of stock even less appealing from a commercial perspective, all you care about is selling whatever to the newish person churning through the hobby.
@@akumaking1No.
Stop, talking sense.
This wouldn’t be a problem if they had Guilleman looking over their logistics
I’ve been trying to explain this to people recently. Interested to hearing your analysis.
I ordered a miniature from GW about two weeks ago after waiting over a month for it to come back in stock, I waited the 11 working days, and nothing. I emailed them, and after a few days they got back to me and told me they had ran out of stock of that miniature after I had ordered and paid for it. I am willing to bet they would not have told me or refunded me if I hadn't emailed them first. They need to make some changes. Ive seen items that have been out of stock for almost 3 months (Canada), and when some come back, they are available for a day or two before going out of stock again. They cant keep releasing kits and expecting to keep up with the demand.
A factory here in America makes sense to me.
I recently visited Warhammer World, and i was shocked at the large amount of empty shelving, especially on the heresy range
If you don't mind me asking, when, I went on march 6th just after the whw birthday, and everything looked fine to me other than the absurdly large levels of 3 specific exclusive models and those were the tau ethereal, the kroot character and the steel rook
@chadmrrsn I went on the 13th March, and the entire heresy section was practically empty, I called to check for a sicaran, which I was told was in stock and they had several but got there for it not to be.
@AstralGaming99 that's interesting, usually whw is kept well stocked
Great great vid as usual. Possibly be less defensive brother? Anyone who goes on the attack was always going to anyway. :(. You do an important job in the community. You have my thanks.
There’s two things I want out of life. To start a family and for BL to reprint their old books. I don’t think I’ll ever have either. BL has their warped thinking when it comes to books and my wife is hesitant because I’m always going on about how I would give up my first born son to have some old BL books.
Sad state of affairs.
For gunpla, the logistics is a huge problem too, but at least people do not need to configure an army. For GW, lack of supply equals crippling experience when building up your army, because some models are crucial core components and cannot be overlooked in buying plan. Products GW sell are not independent in influence but interacts with other already-released product, leading to a huge problem.
When new products are introduced, the opportunity cost for reprinting these out of stock products is sacrificed yet again, making the problem even worse. GW is not providing long term support for their games very well... When some products are out of stock for 6months or more than a year, good luck playing with your unfinished army!
Both a new factory and a more toned down release plan is needed to alleviate this problem.
What do you mean 13 primaries lieutenants isn’t an efficient use of resources
I have never had major stocking or fulfillment problems with the white metal historical miniatures companies, many of whom are single man or small team operations who it would be reasonable to think would have these issues just because of fewer people handling the business. I also cannot recall GW having these kinds of stock issues in the late 2000s and early 2010s when I entered the hobby, its gotten dramatically worse.
Around this time, they didn produce so many minis, there were just 5 releases every month it was much better then now......
3D-Printer goes BRRRRR...
An actual pre-ordering system for purchasing new releases would help cut down on downtime on the production side, and that would fix some of the customer dissatisfaction problem. GW would have better data on demand. People get to buy what they want, GW guarantees its revenue without incurring unexpected costs from over-producing.
Out of stock means GW is being conservative in ensuring it doesn't oversupply and have lots of stock in warehouses. But the long-run implication is lots of missed purchases at release, and those purchases aren't all fulfilled once people get bored and move on (failing their FOMO strategy), but then also failing as they need to retool and do another print, time which could have been better spent doing larger production runs
Where the ´Temporarily out of stock´ is useful to consumers I ,as an ex accountant, would say that GW managers and investors should read ´No chance of making a profit on this item for the foreseeable future´.
I don’t think the problem is lack of plastic/resin miniatures. I think the issue is lack of printed paper packaging and other products as well as finished/assembled products to ship everywhere. Its why the UK gets restocked first as it is mostly being assembled there. Printing gets done in China if my info is correct.
What i hate the most now about new GW is you cant save money over some month for a nice army box... NO you have to buy it now or try your luck on the web months later.... but it seems they will not change it.
Biggest issue of getting back into 40k after skipping out from 9th ed. Everything is more expensive and there is hardly anything on the shelves. Ask the FLGS owner to order me something, it's either out of stock or takes 3 weeks to get in. Makes not playing a lot easier than playing these days.
As a cynical git, I can only look at the state of the GW webstore stock levels and think that it is either they don't want to keep the stock levels up, or can't be bothered to keep them up.
Don't want to - this could be a number of factors like costs, warehouse space, they have a replacement design in the works somewhere, or it is just more cost-efficient to just favour the best selling kits over the the others
Can't be bothered - this is very, very simple. They have put out a run, sold everything in it, made their money, and have moved on to the next thing. FOMO / LE boxes are a great example of this.
It sounds like they have terrible stock analysts. I worked in a boot shop that was always well regarded for stocking half sizes and three different widths. After a buy out they would consistently ignore us requesting missing sizes as they wouldnt sell as much or as fast as the whole sizes which meant so many customers went elsewhere. Seems like the same thing is happening at GW. Why stop the factory line to make a unit that doesnt sell fast when they could make thousands more Primaris
I mean if that's the case the objectively correct decision for GW is to not waste time on that other product, you don't really care about the sunk costs of people who might have invested in that system/army and the risk of them going elsewhere isn't worth missing sales you're more confident in.
Correct about Age of Sigmar 2nd Edition. In fact, again, even after the 3rd Edition cycle, we've made it back to being in really good spot.
We don't need a Brand New Edition! We need a v3.5 update to clean up a few rules (Explaining Enhancements and Army Building is an absolute trainwreck). We need updates to the Skaven and Beasts of Chaos ranges, and we definitely need a few new armies to enjoy. There are at least four armies that have been teased in the fluff and 5-6 armies with the space for a new range of models (ex, how Kroot expands Tau or Beast-Snaggas expand Orks)
New armies is something AOS does not need. You can say Umbraneth, but when you look at it, there are too many factions as it is. Skaven, I can see yes for new models. Beasts of Chaos can be timed with Old World releases and sending older sculpts to the old world, like with the new Darkoath replacing the Chaos Marauders line.
AoS already has plenty of armies. What it needs is to finally flesh out the neglected factions with Sylvaneth/FEC style additions. Kharadron, Fyreslayer, Idoneth desperately need more units that aren’t just the occasional pity hero.
I dont think adding more machines will fix it. The problem looks to me as the website is not linked to stock numbers. Gw seems to have the only website where you can to the point of ordering and even purchasing only to get an email saying they are out of stock. So even ordering an item becomes a gamble, whether you get it or not. Shows a lot of disrespect to customers.
It took me almost a month and a half to get the core rules for old world because every time it re stoked it instantly was sold out. I finally got one form my local hobby shop.
As AoS player I think 3rd editions was very good, but it's insane to have a new edition come out this year.
I ordered Ufthak Blackhawk the second it was on the store live minutes before 10am on the 10th feb.
They have not posted it yet, I could buy it from other online stores but GW wont let me cancel the order.
They say it will be ready some time in May!
Hows that for customer services. I've noticed other orders say Pre-orders ship on or "after launch day"
GW isnt even the fastest way to get your GW any more.
I've called it for a long while, the problem right now is the SKU bloat.
Instead of pumping out so many dups GW should merge these kits and make them multibuild.
The money they'll lose in having to stuff one or two more sprue in a box will be largely saved by the stock being easier to manage.
Yeah, just look at the Primaris line. There's so many things that could be condensed down into a smaller number of kits, using a mix of multibuild kits + upgrade packs for options that don't fit in the main box. And it's compounded by the trend of making a monopose version of a unit for the starter box, and then a relatively multipart standalone version of the same thing a few months down the line.
The new Terminators are an example of that last point. And the standalone version's sprues aren't really laid out for modularity when Assault Termies get redone, so I'm sure those will get 100% new moulds that take up even more storage space, too.
@@nicholassinnett2958Yuuup. The terminator is the proof that GW would rather milk the "hype and fomo" of a "new terminator" release twice, than thinking for the long term and save a lot of space by having a single kit doing both terminator versions.
Where it gets straight up insulting is when you realize that kind of behavior is actively harming the game by reducing the flexibility of units, thinks like the goofy and artitrary HQ loadouts that are each just one of the many monopose version of the same HQ are a good example of that.
The most striking display of GW stupidity overall is still the Dreadnaught Redemptor.
The base kit has a decently ammount of options (for a primaris kit) with 2 main weapons, 2 side weapons, and 2 chest weapons options.
Then they decided to release Brutalis, which is the exact same dread, but with 2 different pair of arms, 2 different chest weapons and a different top mounted weapon.
Then they released the Ballistus (god damn these names are so stupid and lazy), and this one is.... (for now at least) just a monopose kit they are selling for a while... until they'll probably release the full kit with 2 different left arms, and 2 different right arms, and maybe 2 different chest weapons (but this one doesn't seem to have a top mounted gun... because yaknow apparently giving less ranged weapons to the dedicated ranged dread made sens in GW's mind).
All that to say that this 3 kits could have been easily condensed in a single one, and having that single condensed kit would have mean that you could have had all these variants share the same kind of options.
You want a Laser or Missile launcher rather than an autocanon or a plasma on your Redemptor? Go for it.
You want a Power claw rather than a power fist? Go for it!
You'd rather have a plasma than a laser on your balistus? Sure
You'd prefer a frag grenade laucher over a heavy bolter for your brutalis? Go ahead.
But nah. Sadly as 10th showed, GW is actively working AGAINST modularity and customisation in their game, which is just mindblowing...
Nah, we deeefinately need 14 different Primaris Captains taking up half the Codex. Whats the alternative? A customizeable, single character box with all the options included? Pfff. Better discontinue some more Firstborn because they "bloat" the roster.
@@Pers0n97 on one hand, old boxnaughts are not exactly good, being split into Furioso, SW Venerable Dread, regular Venerable Dread and dakka Dread (forgot its name). However, said kits can be assembled in number of ways (for instance Furioso can be also Librarian or Death Company Dread while SW Dread is also Bjorn and Murderfang) and have options.
@@Jfk2MrIts also worth noting that the Furioso was a chapter specific unit, the Daka was a forgeworld thing (ie not a "real" mainline unit) and the Venerable was ... well its own separate unit.
It's a bit different than the new dread which is literally the same, mainline, plastic dread, split in 3 different kits with limited customization for no reasons.
This is exactly why I use recasters, besides the cost saving it allows to get the models I like with no bottlenecks and let me get hold of retro miniatures.
Not only that, from what I have heard, some of them are starting to make the jump from resin to plastic, so it's likely they will beat GDubbs at their own game, so to speak.
Ive actually started finishing up buying my stuff for a 2k tyranid army but literally a majority of the big bugs are out of stock. Stuff like the maleceptor which is vital for one of the detachments is gone and is being sold at a markup at 110-150 per kit on second hand markets.
Its literally insane how they wanna make money so bad and don't let me do it.
I don't understand why GW seem to not have implemented 3D printing as part of their production strategy considering that consumer-grade 3D printers are now outputting miniatures that are, quite frankly, superior to GW's "Finecast" in fidelity.
Every "solo" character model they've made in the past ~10 years has been designed using CAD or similar digital design software and should be "easily" convertible to something that a modern 3D printer could handle, which potentially could remove several hundred items from "in-stock" inventory if they instead were converted to "on-demand" produced products.
Granted, they'd have to extend delivery time on these products as they'll have to handle an ongoing production pipeline for them, only printing the product and shipping it when there's an actual order, but I think almost everyone would prefer adding ~7 days extra on their order delivery compared to simply not being able to get the model at all for months and months at a time.
It'd probably even allow GW to setup smaller production centers in ex. the US or AUS, printing most character models close to the point of sale instead of having to first ship them from the factory in the UK - it could probably also cut either a whole lot of shipping costs or free up shipping capacity.
Maybe I just don't understand GWs production process or maybe there are some legal issues doing it, but it seems really shortsighted to me that GW hasn't moved into this type of supply model a long time ago when 3D printers became a viable method of model production.
GW have this stamp now of releasing new products every single week and that has to be an nightmare to keep stock of because the catalogue is ever expanding. If they just waited say and did monthly releases they could at least build up enough stock to cater it but they’re churning these out every week for every year
would the mass made to order at the start to the year be a problem as well
Do you think some kind of ERP software would help?
What logistics?
4:00 That's not new. My local store, over years, almost never got a dark elf blister. Lots of dwarves though. Tons and tons of unsold dwarves.
Kill-team suffers most out of this situation, i think. 40k players want this sets, KT players want them. But those boxed every freaking time is ubderpriduced. And GW cant make enough kits for this game almost 2 years as 2nd edition launched
I don’t think it is a lack of plastic components that is the issue. I do think it is a lack of paper components (books, packaging sleeves, inserts, instruction booklets etc…) as they are not created in the UK/US.
The photos are done in the UK Studio as is the painting of any models. They generally paint resin prototypes with the Eavy Metal team. Printed products are done elsewhere and therefore are not available.
I wondered about packaging, but GW gets it out of China and they do scale production so well that I doubt packaging is the concern. I will say tho, that I think packaging costs more than the plastics IN the packaging.
@@TheOuterCircle While assembly
IS done in the UK and possibly partially in the US, all the printing is Chinese at this point for cost savings. Initial runs are done to limited scale as sales are not guaranteed but follow on orders for products are done in waves. Delays to those shipments is my prime suspect for the current major sell outs as demand has and continues to step up but as far as their initial orders go for paper, those were done 6 months to a year ago. I don’t think they can keep up with all the steps required to increase the follow on demand s they are seeing. While the models are “Made in the UK” in the plastics facility, the assembly/packaging materials are imported and I am convinced this is where the logistics issue is coming from to a large extent. You are correct as far as the plastic as those demands are completely under their control. They’ve contracted out their printing and are not a big enough fish in the Chinese printing pond to move needles for demand. I can email you if you want to toss this around more. I do have some practical experience.
@@TheOuterCircle I can email you if you want to toss this around further. Let me know. I’m convinced at this point based on practical personal experience, that assembled products not lack of plastic/resin are the logistics issue as far as stock goes. Quality control regarding writing and scheduling are separate issues.
@@TheOuterCircleI heard that Amazon buys up so much Cardboard these days that it fucks with everyone else. It’s allegedly why Cursed City failed.
Casually waiting for the warbringer Titan to come back been missing from the site for some time
Now but the head is still available, customer service just says if it’s not on the site it’s not for sale…
It’s just a shame they brought back robot girly man, master of logistics, and they still can’t fix their supply issues.
which particular leaders in GW do you think know nothing about plastics manafacturing and are instead supermarket managers?
GW is one of thw rost gaming companies for miniature gaming right now. They have dominance in the genre and near monopoly on high quality wargaming.
Yet they screw up the rules amd have no idea what they are doing. Their marketing department keeps buffing the new kits so they always needs to be nerfed after release and then nerfing them to the ground when overused (when you have gotten your copies needed for competitive play).
The stocks and limited edition abusing low stock low print run fomo is ridiculous and abusive for a game with tournaments. Absolutely disgusting.
Get a 3d printer. If you are a to: allow proxies if well made.
Great video
There's an assumption in the comments that a lack of stock actually hurts GW. I'm not sure we see any evidence that's true? Do you think long term consistent gamers are a significant part of their sales demographics? I'm sceptical, based on my own experiences as much as anything else.
This is why I am going to recasting all my orcs and goblins TOW models, using blue stuff and green stuff. I am done dealing with GW and Ebay, I no longer want to pay ultra premium for old kits. Note that these models i'm recasting aren't even coming back. This is because they're not 8th ed fantasy models they're older. Fuck stock issues and fuck scalpers.
I kinda like their logistic problems, can paint curent models and save money for a box or 2 by the time something i want gets back in stock
The Grog boys were correct as per the effects but I think LI was an unprecedented comedy of errors starting with a cock up in editorial which required the entire run of starter boxes to be recalled and repacked with reprinted rulebooks.
Call me cynical but I suspect the old world releasing old minis as metal or resin kits is to skirt the plastics production bottleneck. The spin cast metal and resin production line is seperate capacity that *was* being wound down in GWs drive for all plastic all the time, which I suspect is well and truly paused at this point.
GW could mitigate supply issues by better predicting demand, but this does not acknowledge that their sales/marketing team is badly managed by people promoted out of their effectiveness, or who were hired based on "fit" rather than talent. Its been a core structural weakness at GW for years.
They are just running too many game systems.
Bringing LI and OW back at the same period with their need to print loads of starter sets on top of current stock and new stuff for all the other games too
I wish a better company would take the Warhammer and W40k IP away from GW
I've never seen so many *plastic* kits out of stock.. ever. It's possible this is all FOMO marketing? I mean, they just redid the website.. again for so many millions they ran over budget. So they know what stats they have on views and product page views. When it''s all being rushed out so fast, and the price is so high. If it's out of stock, it's easy to pass on it
It's like Macca once said "wait a week, then check back and see if you want to actually buy it."
In every case these last few months, well that means it will be gone anyways. See > FOMO
lets twist this lack of means of production and call it FOMO
I'm still waiting for the next Kill Team box. Why do GW have to advertise their new releases months and months before actual release? At which point, scalpers hoover up all the stock and slap nonsensical price tags on what you waited for, the whole process feeling like one big joke to hobbyists. Tiresome indeed.
GW is seeing increased demand brought on by people joining the hobby during the Pandemic, they are concerned that they will be unable to maintain this increased demand, and are thus refusing to increase supply so as to avoid having too many employees and machines once the demand ebbs back to a normal level.
This leads to high prices and everything being endlessly sold out. GW is trying to optimize profits in this situation by producing lots of different expensive models, and selling them as bundle boxes. This is the short term right call, but runs a massive self fulfilling risk.
If GW keeps prices high, and supply low, then it will be unable to attract new players (mums buying a box or two for their 11-15 year old sons) to the game. Their own fear of not being able to sustain demand may become self fulfilling, as dwindling numbers of players, who apparantly have infinately deep pockets will see a smaller and smaller number of people buying larger and larger blocks of stuff, seemingly uncaring to price.
But, this is what happened with MTG cards or baseball cards. Eventually the buyers become detached from the players, and if one day the buyers STOP buying, then there is no residual demand.
It's a tough spot, but, I think GW has a scale its manufacturing operations and gamble on being able to sustain demand. Like, what the hell are they going to do if say the Cavill 40K show is a megahit, and brings in tonnes of new people wanting to give the game a try? Be like, "Sorry chaps, no models for 18 months..."
I believe CMON prints their asoiaf models in southeast asia. GW should find some of the alternative cheap labor countries that are not china.
Though that is a pragmatic solution. In an ideal world, they would just open factories and pay decent wages
Really want a whirlwind but GW are like no.
Bolt Action... HEHEHEHE. We all know what the solution is. Bring back some of the guys WHO KNOW HOW THIS WORKS, are gamers, and let them turn things around. Don't offer Rick Priestly a million pounds to "consult," give him a million pounds to be the new CEO. IT CAN'T GET WORST. Fire all those MBAs. MBAs are responsible for bringing down more companies over the recent decades than are still remaining. Rick, John, Bryan, give them their company back, give them their game back. But it's obvious, no.
Games Workshop should sell STLs of their products so they never run out of stock.
Why they would make less money and see instantaneous widespread piracy? GW is doing well commercially these stock issues don't actually hurt them in the short/medium term.
@@bobshobyThey would legit be doing better right now if they worked with stores to have a print on demand in store service of official products because they clearly can't keep them in stock themselves anymore and to act like there's not files for all their products already is kind of laughable. Like oh no another Land Raider file on the lose as if there's not already 100 Land Raider files people are already printing.
@@horriblypink I think this is a pretty naive perspective personally, i think we tend to underestimate the extent to which official branding/encouragement drives behaviour. At the moment they 'lose' theoretical sales to experienced hobbyists who've invested significant time and money into 3d printing and people invested in the hobby who know said people. My instinct would be that both groups are a pretty small portion of GW sales and i think you'd struggle to win an internal argument suggesting that they shouldn't be ignored in favour of another new release hype cycle.
Frankly i almost wouldn't be surprised if they move towards a 'you only get a restock when we remake the kit' model of production, in some ways that would be their dream scenario.
You do 3 size blister pack with a throw in backer showing the pic and assembly like FW and you cut your costs. LOL just kidding you increase your costs and you sell your poor QC product as well since most people won't bother asking for refund/replacement, it's a feature after all. Their new website is so hideous and hard to navigate I miss the last two generation websites. It's just so anti-consumer along with costs, availability and fomo. It's a sea of models but a barely trickling spigot and every drop it struggles to spit out the price is like that of gold.