Hobby Meta: Out Of Stock- The Games Workshop Business Model
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- Опубликовано: 1 ноя 2023
- Out of Stock!
It seems like the Games Workshop is all about making sure the models it sells are constantly out of stock.
I recently tried to impulse buy some Armigers for my Imperial Knights army for Warhammer 40k. I'm not all that shocked that this was out of stock. What was surprising was just how many core models were out of stock. Even the ever popular Space Marines were completely absent from the webstore.
I don't know why this happens so often. But it is super fun to speculate and throw shade at the business practices of our favorite hobby company. So let's poke some fun together, shall we? 
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This is a issue across the board for most hobbies. I’m also into firearms and it’s hard to find products, and my car buddy has the same issue. Demand is up and supply seems low.
I don't know anything about cars, but I didn't realize pew pews were still in short supply. I know ammo was hard to come by for a while, but I thought that recovered.
So, I actually work for GW.
It's just not possible to keep up production with demand when dealing with such a huge lineup. The way injection molded kits work is that the "fastest" way to produce is to make several hundred/thousand of a sprue in a row and then switch to the next one, since switching molds is pretty time intensive compared to popping out a few more casts. Especially around large releases such as leviathan and the thousands upon thousands of starter sets that needed to be made this means that for several weeks/months the machines are busy cranking out those and the new kits that go along with them instead of restocking. Stock just slowly drains until more products than usual are out of stock. Especially popular kits that usually get restocked just before or very soon after running out will be hit by this. GW already has the second factory up and running but it still isn't enough with how much us nerds keep buying.
TL;DR: it just happens.
Their profits are so insanely high. They need more production facilities they are simply losing out on sales by having customers disappointed and turned away because they just can't possibly buy the models they want.
@@Kylegolfs94 yeah easy, just setup another high end injection molding facility in the UK.
The whole point to the second Factory was that it was really just an extension to the first one so they didn't have to ship the fragile molds around.
@@ProtesttheAntagonist whatever it is the talking heads at the top of GW and the shareholders should be FURIOUS to know that people can't buy their overpriced plastic crack and are reduced to 3D printing or buying alternate proxy models.
@@ProtesttheAntagonist Wait, I always assumed these kits were produced in China like just about everything else. It's kind of cool to hear otherwise. Thanks for that clarification, Protest!
I hear about SKU bloat from companies. That's a thing that happens to a lot of manufacturers. But a lot of these kits have been out of stock for a long time (think Techmarines). At best that's too many lines AND planning oversight.
Predicting initial supply is a lot more difficult, I think. But I can't imagine shareholders would be happy to deal with the idea that supply can't keep up with demand after years of the same problem happening.
Few editions back I put together a Khorn Army I had to have the Terminator and Space marine alternative chests and shoulders when I went to forge world x1 set of Marine shoulders were available and the rest on back order the terminator upgrade pack was completely sold out, after sending many requests and emails 3 months went by finally I got an email that the terminator parts were available I was happy! so i ordered the parts and then waited another 2-3 months for the models to arrive as I live in Australia.
In the following codex for chaos my entire army was reduced to over costed cannon fodder with the Lord of Skulls being the only model that would be of any threat.
After that experience I sold the entire Army.
I forgot to mention the Tau Army I built 3k points all so became un playable with the new rules and points change.
I hung up the Hat after that and since have been painting and playing Star wars Legion.
I don't actually play the game, so I haven't had to deal with the kind of tragedy you've described. Getting stuff shipped to Australia sounds like an expensive, whole new ball of wax.
Trying to start the Old World (a remake of Warhammer Battle) because I love classic medieval fantasy.
I’m currently motivated, but there are no stocks available. It’s sad to say, but I’m quite sure I will move on to other things if I have to wait too long, and Games Workshop will miss my hype window for their product.
Regarding the Old World, it’s a "new product". I’m really afraid that without the possibility to start at launch, they will never have enough new players to add to the existing battle players, hindering the growth of the community and not creating a sufficient customer base for this universe in the future.
I will be sad to see this game drop again .....
It really is almost impossible to know what GW plans to do with "out of stock" models. They aren't transparent about what is a one and done release and what they plan to continue to keep in the range.
I honestly can't tell if it is a strategic plan to leverage fear of missing out or if it just bad planning.
Exaction squads being out of stock since 10th edition dropped and the indexes came out basically.
I know a few of these kits were released once and then never again (don''t know about Exaction squads). But if they are special like that maybe GW shouldn't list them as out of stock. Right?
I’m still waiting for Aeldari stuff to get back in stock. I need a fire prism, night spinner, skathach wraithknight just to name a few.
I was looking forward to the new Striking Scorpions kit. But I missed the pre-order announcement and everything was sold out when I checked. I think I was like a day late...
Ice cream shop with no Ice cream.
And they keep making and promoting amazing new flavors we can't buy.
Amazon has it. I'll get it in 2 days
Hope it was less than the 120 USD. Or, whatever it was worth to you if probably fine. If it was too expensive for you, you wouldn't have bought it at that price. So, good on ya!
I think it's by design, personally. If they wanted to stop scalpers, they would.
I mean, all they would have to do is to do a better job projecting demand. If they slightly exceed the demand target they would knock the scalpers right out.
And it's not like they would lose a ton of money on each extra kit... each one probably costs pennies to manufacture. Most of the expense for this type of product is in RnD (in this case artists and 3D modelers).
GW basically said they can't make their entire line. They can't even keep space marine in stock these days. Absolute bloat of expecting to stock 100s of plastic kits for dozens of armies.
Yeah Bandai, the company that makes Gundam model kits have the same problem of having way too many products for their manufacturing facilities, so they do things in waves.
SKU boat is a thing that happens to a lot of manufacturers. They usually figure it out, either by streamlining, building manufacturing capacity, or outsourcing/flexing suppliers. I don't know that GW has tried any of those, but whatever they have tried isn't working.
I never get tired of saying this…..3D PRINTER GO BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
I've been tempted a couple of times, but I don't really have the space for all the machines and chemicals. More to the point, I don't think I have the patience.
A buddy of mine sent me a pic of his 3D printed Imperial Knight collection and it looked AMAZING!
@@YourAverageBearGaming I hear you my man. Truth be told is I still buy GW sprues from my local game store. I'm spending more and more time doing digital-kit bashing and am falling in love with all the options for customization 3d printing brings to the table. It's not just about sticking it to Geedubs. That said, if the models everyone wants remain out of stock then many are going to have to consider other routes. 3d printing is one of many ways to get your models. Nice work on the video, just subscribed!
For Armagers you could always proxy HG Zaku kits (Gunpla), the only downsize is you cant run it in official tournaments.
Interesting suggestion. I never considered proxing anything, but that looks cool. I don't even play regular games, much less tournaments, so I don't know why I am hesitant to proxy. But there it is.
Since I didn't know what an HG Zaku looked like I looked it up and now I'm thinking about how cool a Tau army would look with a bunch of Gundam proxies. Yum!
@@YourAverageBearGaming sadly the battlesuits like the XV8 or broadsides are way smaller than most gunpla kits, but Riptides and anything that size would be great to proxy
Coming from the UK and former GW retail staffer I have heard a few different things. Mostly its down to not having the manufacturing space to make all the 1 million different kits they make and keep on top of their release schedule which might have something to do with why the preorder is now 2 weeks. On top of that in the UK they added a new warehouse with robots and its causing issues. Finally the pandemic and explosion of interest in Warhammer didn't help. I recall there being some manufacturing changes in the US after the move from Baltimore to Memphis but I can't remember exactly what happened.
They need to expand the manufacturing stateside, slow down their massive release schedule and remove products that don't sell well or make them specialty items that are made to order. If they pushed the release of the next edition of AoS back a year, slowed down on the future Old World and Epic they might catch up on themselves but I fear they don't want to appear weak so they'll blindly push ahead and cause more problems for themselves.
I didn't realize they did any manufacturing in the US, that's interesting to know.
And you are right about the new release schedule. from a creative/gamer perspective, I appreciate it. from a business perspective they are basically spending money on generating demand they can't fulfill. That's less defensible.
@@YourAverageBearGaming no manufacturing facilities in the US as far as I can see, just a big distribution hub in Memphis. All the manufacturing is done in Nottingham, UK; I thought this was in a single factory but from the top rated comment it sounds like the second one (that they started building in 2019) may be running now, still in Nottingham. We'd better hope one doesn't burn down or anything, because it sounds like setting up these factories takes many years!
But don't worry, I'm sure it's not that the USA is being neglected due to being a small market for them or anything: North America accounts for nearly 50% of GW revenue, almost as much as the UK and Continental Europe combined (with only a small amount in the rest of the world).
@@phueal Crap, I really need to do a little research. There's so much to unpack in your comment that I could probably learn from their stock prospectus. The US represents 50% of GW sales? That's WAY higher than I expected.
I'm not above proxies. Especially if they look better than the GW model.
I know I am not rational about proxies. Hell, I don't even play the game so it wouldn't matter. Still... I have a hard time making the jump.
Amazon australia has well over 30 if youre willing pay extra in shipping
I ended up getting 2 Armiger kits from eBay. Only $102 USD, so they weren't too bad. Still felt bad about buying that way.
those two boxes are a decent price i think i payed 99$ for each box i got a few months ago
Yeah, it was a little bit more than retail but not a lot more. I can get behind that. Last I checked someone has some boxes on Amazon for 120-something and that was a solid nope from me.
Gotcha one better I tried to buy stuff that was IN stock and the website literally would not let me buy them, crashed whenever I added something to the cart
Is this from the new website? Cuz it's pretty but kinda crap to navigate.
@@YourAverageBearGaming yes, first time purchasing on the new website. I ended up having to do it on my phone because for some ungodly reason my computer doesn't have enough processing power to run their new site (images won't load, constant error 500 messages, and the aforementioned inability to add more than one item to cart). HOWEVER I did get the fastest turnaround ever on this order, it literally shipped the next day which was great, but the buying experience again is awful
@@thegiantratthatmakesallthe5055 Sorry to hear you had such a rough experience. I've not purchased anything through the new site yet. But I am one of those lucky people that didn't have any trouble with fulfillment with the old website. In fact, if I ordered through a GW store, or a local game store there was a decent chance my items wouldn't show up at all!
Are you just looking games workshop? I found armigers on Amazon
I looked at the Webstore and a bunch of hobby shops with a web presence. When I checked during editing, I didn't see any in stock. I just checked right now and you can find them on Amazon for $126 USD. Ouchies!
techmarines are 70-85 bucks now
On Ebay? I didn't research most of these kits like I did the Armigers. But I hear the techmarine has been in short supply since 9th Ed.
@@YourAverageBearGaming yeah ebay. There may be a random one pop up for less but the common price is high af
@@lanesteele240 I usually compare the price of stuff on Amazon and eBay against the normal retail price. If they are too far out of whack, there's very little I "need" from GW right now.
Notice it's mostly the meta stuff thats gone loooooooool
Militarum artillery, check. Space marine eradicators, check.
That's a good point!
They have tiny, antiquated facilities and no North American production and limited distribution. They are a bad company, flat out, they just make a good product. Also they create artificial market value by limiting their stock.
For all the shade we like to throw at them, I'm still shocked at how big and successful GW is as a company. To think that this niche game company is publicly traded and worth between 3 and 4 billion dollars is just mind-boggling.
Yeah, they make a ton of mistakes, but I want them to do better. I need more delicious nerd plastic in my life. I think most of us can get behind that.
@@YourAverageBearGaming I want them to do better. I love Space Marines, I love the gaming community and playing the game. Yes they make money, because we obviously are not alone in our plastic crack problem, lol. They make great models in a DEEP immersive environment with EPIC lore. They just leave A LOT of money on the table. North American production, almost required because they have no more room which is part of the problem. Yes I love it but with a minimum of effort they double their profits. North American production and their access to distribution would be monumental. A little marketing push with it and wow, extra double rich billion dollar company.