Tired of your favorite Warhammer products always being out of stock? Games Workshop has announced that they’re expanding their Memphis distribution center.
In light of Games Workshop’s big success in 8th edition and AoS 2.0, the company’s demands are growing more and more. They’ve actually decided to start expanding the Memphis distribution center which supplies all 150 GW stores in North America.
Memphis Center Expanding from Demand
GW has over 500 GW stores across the globe. In North America, there are 150 alone. There’s only one distribution center that’s responsible for supplying all of those stores here in the states, and the company has realized that it’s time to expand.
Games Workshop Group has applied for a building permit to expand its warehousing site at 6211 E. Holmes Road in Southeast Memphis, TN (pictured above)
The distribution center sits as a 100,000 Sq ft building, but plans are being put in place to expand it another 50,000 ft.
Coming from Tom Chipley, the North American logistics manager for GW:
The company has operated at the Memphis site for 15 years and it’s time to expand and update the facility
From Memphis to Your Store
Renovations aren’t all they’re doing. To keep up with the increasing demand of the hobby, they’ll be updating the way they move product.
Among the improvements will be the addition of a new picking system for the warehousing operation
While we aren’t sure exactly how this picking system is going to work, we can only assume it’ll make for quicker product movement. Which GW has always been good about as long as the items are in stock. They’re not sure if they’ll need to hire more workers after the renovations are done as of right now.
The distribution center employs about 150 people now, and the company has not determined if the expansion will require more employees
However, in a major warehousing district which includes Amazon, qualified skilled workers can be a bit hard to find.
As we’ve said before, they’re expanding to keep up with the demand they’ve created. The time has come where GW is starting to outgrow its shell and is needing more space. This is definitely a good sign for the hobby when you stack it with their strong financial statement.
Supply chain – our new mail order warehouse system went live in September 2017. This is part of an ongoing programme of continuous improvement for our warehouse systems. We have strengthened the team with a new Global Head of Logistics joining us in January 2018. In relation to factory capacity, given the step change in our performance in the last two years, we need to ensure we have the appropriate infrastructure to support the new levels of product volumes in our vertically integrated business. We are making the necessary and appropriate investments in factory capacity to manage these risks.
Remember, this improvement is going to be felt across anyone that does business with GW in the U.S. The site may be in Memphis, but they are the only center responsible for all 150 GW stores in America. On top of the Memphis improvements, they’ll also be renovating their Nottingham site at the same time. Hobbyists overseas have something to get excited about as well!
Do you think the expansion will raise the price of their products again in 2019, or do you think this will expansion will just allow them to move more product out the door? Let us know in the comments of our Facebook Hobby Group.
About the Author: Wesley Floyd
Wesley Floyd
Job Title: Staff Writer
Joined: 2018
Socials: @RealmbrushPainting
About Wesley Floyd: Wes has been in the Warhammer hobby since 2015 and joined the Spikey Bits writing team in 2018. He is known for his satirist takes on trending topics and imaginative yet amazingly affordable hobby solutions to painting Warhammer miniatures.
Imperial fanboy, tabletop fanatic, and the self-proclaimed King of Sprues. He knows for a fact that Mephiston red is the best-tasting paint and is the commission painting equivalent of a Wendy’s 4 for $4. If you like what he writes and want to contact him or have your tabletop minatures painted (to a mostly okayish standard), message him on Instagram.
