Space Hulk Shortages

We are currently in the process of informing our customers that we are unable to supply them with their pre-order of Space Hulk despite Games Workshop's trade department guarenteeing that we would recieve 15 copies...

Ramblings Of A Mad Gamer recently posted the following:

So, in all the years I’ve worked in the gaming industry, one company continues to baffle me with their marketing strategy, product support, and internal organization.

That company is Games Workshop. No other company I know of has such a disorganized, subdivided, and incomprehensible catalog of products, part codes, and ordering guidelines.

For example: I want a product I’ve seen on their website, but I want to support my FLGS. So, I print out the page, trying to be helpful, and bring it in (Chaos Land Raider:9912010201). On the GW Web store, they use a product code called their “global code”, which is completely useless to retailers. They have to open up a “translation” spreadsheet given to them by GW, find that global code, and translate it into the “trade sales code” they can use to order (Chaos Land Raider:43-17). But, that’s not all! Once a retail store gets in product, they usually update their inventory with a scanner, entering the BARCODE into their system (Chaos Land Raider:5011921942510).

Of course, after all of this translation headache, they still need to offer it back to you, retranslating the entire code path to what you’d ordered.

To make it worse, GW re-uses the “trade sales code”, so without much advance warning, the 43-17 Chaos Land Raider could suddenly become a 43-17 Chaos Smurf Champion.

So, what’s all this have to do with Space Hulk? Games Workshop also offers “ordering caps” on various “short term, limited availability” items, based on the amount of their stock you maintain. Even at the largest Stocking level, Games Workshop offered a maximum of 20 copies of Space Hulk per store. The standard stock level received only 10 copies, and the smallest level “got some if there are any left”.

Distributors were similarly limited, so stores had no avenue to receive more. With this model, Games Workshop effectively turned all the power for profit on this product to eBay. Most stores sold out of pre-orders in less than 48 hours, regardless of “level”. This model doesn’t net GW any extra money for a popular product. It doesn’t help FLGS to bring in more players, or increase their profit potential. It only helps resellers, who are already salivating at the massive profits they expect to reap for their early pre-order work.

This is what continues to frustrate me about this company…