Games Workshop has made wild new changes to ordering and how many new release products they will allow local game stores to purchase.
If you’ve been paying attention lately, GW has been putting nearly everything on a two-week pre-order period, and stores had to wait to put in their orders; as GW said they will sell out of everything moving forward. This has already made ordering Games Workshop products for stores quite challenging, but it looks like things could get more even worse in the coming weeks based on these new changes.
Basically, Games Workshop is completely changing the ordering process for new releases, and not only will it require more back and forth from stores, but stores will have to wait until GW approves what they need to know what they will be receiving in their shipments.
Let’s start with a quick breakdown of the recent issues facing store ordering, then jump into the new changes.
Recent Ordering Issues With Games Workshop
- Games Workshop’s CEO says they will “nearly always sell out of new releases”
- Games Workshop said they “made too much money already” and will pay out dividends to shareholders on income from June 2023- August 2023 ( 10th Edition release.)
- For the first time in the internet era, stores were not allowed to lock in their pre-orders with GW before the Space Marines releases go live for pre-order on the GW webstore Saturday, Sept 30th, 2023, confusing both game store owners and customers alike.
- If you pre-order from the Games Workshop webstore, your order will arrive well AFTER the street date when you could have purchased it locally from a retailer in your community.
- In some cases recently, orders have been delayed by additional weeks in the UK, etc. The official policy in the US is for customers to contact customer service after 25 days of not receiving their order.
- So, in essence, when someone orders from the Games Workshop website directly, GW has up to 25 days to get new release orders to that customer’s door.
Games Workshop Makes Wild Changes To Ordering New Releases
TL:DR
Stores now have two days to get GW their “wants” for each new release offering before Games Workshop confirms how much product they will actually let game stores purchase.
New Releases will stay in a 2-week pre-release window for the foreseeable future.
How it will work:
- Sunday: The want sheet is sent to Local Game Stores.
- Tuesday: Just two days later, the want sheet is due by the Close of Business.
- Phone Call Day (Varies for stores): GW rep confirms numbers and if stores will get their want number or not.
- Saturday: Product goes live for pre-order on GW site; street date two weeks later…
- Following week’s Call Day: Stores may be able to get extra pre-orders, but it can not decrease from an initial number (which seemingly prevents stores from submitting fictitious “want” numbers.)
Why This May Be Bad For Stores & Their Customers
100% of the stores we polled think this allows GW free forecasting of interest in that week’s new release product lineup, and this gives them the ability to directly sell more of the product they produce to customers on their own webstore (while potentially throttling the number of releases stores get to buy.)
This might have some good points for stores, as their numbers will be locked in, and they can take pre-orders against that allocation.
Supposedly, Games Workshop thinks this change will help stores get more of what they want each week.
More than anything, it feels like GW has had a tough time gauging interest in their new releases as of late. This change may allow them to forecast exactly what people will buy weekly across all sales channels. From there, they may have the potential to allow for a greater distribution of products across those sales channels, starting with their webstore, corporate stores, and on down to the local game store in your community.
However, at the same time, it seems to give Games Workshop the ability to not only allocate more products to their own sales channels but also the ability to secretly play favorites with their stock levels to the stores they choose.
The question is, can they be trusted to make the decisions that will enable local stores to keep their doors open, as opposed to selling stock on their own sales channels and making the full markup over everyone else?
What do you think about the changes for stores and the new Games Workshop Warhammer product ordering process changes?
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About the Author: Travis Pasch
Travis Pasch
Job Title: Head Writer & Editor
Socials: @paschbass
About Travis Pasch: Travis has been a Warhammer 40k hobbyist since the 1990s, playing the game since Third Edition. Through extensive traveling, he’s seen a lot of the miniatures hobby from across the world, giving him a unique perspective on the latest gaming topics and trends.
Travis’s brother even owns a commission painting studio, where he’s picked up a lot of good advice and techniques for painting Warhammer and tabletop miniatures over the years, as well. Travis joined the Spikey Bits team in 2019 and has been the lead writer since 2020.
Currently, he’s working on converting all his 40k Adeptus Mechanicus models and becoming a true tech enjoyer, complete with both sad and happy robot noises!
