Why are some items 'exclusive' to GW online?

[Valkyrion]

I get why GW wouldn't want things like the older finecast stuff on the shop floor, taking up space better suited for other things, but there's loads of showpiece models (Lord of Skulls, Stompa, Obelisk) and old favourites (Land Raiders, Carnifex, Falcon) that are only available online.

 

Just wondering what the reasoning is. 

[Joe]

Warhammer stores are introductory spaces now - the idea being that it's where you pick up the "core" glut of your army, and if there's time / space, learn how to use them. Many of the units you've listed don't really fit into that, and tend to take up a fair amount of shelf space.

 

At the end of the day with space at a premium you can't fit everything on the shelves - heck, some factions have gone online only at times simply because they have smaller ranges / another range has expanded dramatically.

[Ishagu]

Store space limitation.

[Valkyrion]

Ok, I hadn't realised that the stores had changed. 

 

I presume they are the same price to us the customer as they are to other retailers, hence the lack of discount generally from online shops.

[Joe]

Trade makes up the majority of Games Workshop's income - with the split being roughly 75/25 from Trade to Retail/Web, the latter two being GWs own domains / stores. Trade purchase the stock at a discount from Games Workshop, and either sell it at a discount or for RRP (or in rare cases, at a mark-up).

Online stores often offer free shipping in lieu of a discount, and I believe are also subject to different arrangements to brick and mortar stores.

[Valkyrion]

Sorry, yes, I get that trade gets a discount, but few (I've only found 1) trade stores offer discounts on the Exclusive white box items.

[Joe]

I believe those are still available for Trade to order.

[Dark Shepherd]

Its possibly money/margins in some cases as well as the reasons above.

They make x 2 the profits on products sold through gw rather than trade stores so they want some of that action but can only go to that well so often. Also saves on packagaing costs and shipping to stores.

 

Its also a lure into their store

Edited March 25, 2021 by Dark Shepherd

[GreenScorpion]

There seems to be an ongoing effort to turn GW's online store into a greater part of revenue, which can obviously be linked to logistics, higher margins, pure greed and so on.

Since they sell "catalogue" items to other stores at a lower price, it lowers their individual box margin, so exclusives counter balance that by trying to get more people to buy online.

Most independent stores cannot give you a discount or at least a significant one for those exclusives, even if they order for you, so people often buy directly from GW in this case.
If your cart has a few exclusives and you want something else, you are more likely to order it together than purchase the non-exclusives elsewhere (in theory at least).

It is all sale strategies.

[MARK0SIAN]

Sorry, yes, I get that trade gets a discount, but few (I've only found 1) trade stores offer discounts on the Exclusive white box items.

I asked my FLGS about this a couple of years ago so things may have changed but he said their shop could only order those items the same way as any other customer, I.E. paying the full price and so they didn’t stock them because they wouldn’t make any profit on them at all. They would only order it in for you as part of a larger order you made.

 

I think they must’ve changed it slightly as more places seem to have direct stuff available now but with no discount so I suspect GW simply charges more for them.

 

I was also told a lot of the stuff went direct only because of production capacity issues too so that might explain some of it.

[WrathOfTheLion]

Stuff that's online only doesn't always have box art either. So they can have kits in more plain boxes, ones that don't go to stores.

[Rik Lightstar]

For the GW Stores it's down to shelf space and wasted stock.

 

If you assume just 20 of these large kits (you listed 6 already) across 400 stores at an average of £60 RRP that's just shy of half a million pounds "worth" of stock at retail value.

 

For some of these units (Baneblades for example) I'd be surprised if they sell 200 a year, so one per store would be over 2 years worth of stock.

 

Rik

[Halandaar]

Rik's point is dead on. You can have one box of something in all 400 stores sitting there collecting dust and even if 200 people around the world want it, they can't get it unless they can actually go to one of those locations. That's all dead money. Get those 400 boxes back in the warehouse and the market for them is the whole world, not just the catchment area of each local store. Edited March 26, 2021 by Halandaar

[Redcomet]

Space limitation in the physical stores.

[Firedrake Cordova]

Just wondering what the reasoning is. 

I don't know what it's like elsewhere, but in the UK, GW stores are typically quite small (for example, this is one of my local GWs, and this is the other - note that the interior image is clearly taken with a wide-angle lens...). There's no way they could stock all of the range.

 

Also, as they generally come in plain boxes, it reduces the number of printed boxes they have to keep in stock (which they pay a 3rd party to produce)

 

I believe those are still available for Trade to order.

Whilst they didn't used to be, they have become so in the last 3 years or so.   As far as I'm aware, only Darksphere and The Outpost in the UK sell them at a discount (albeit at a smaller discount than the other GW items they sell) - the others just sell them at RRP.

 

Online stores often offer free shipping in lieu of a discount, and I believe are also subject to different arrangements to brick and mortar stores.

I thought GW refused to supply online-only stores, with the reason stated being they wanted to protect physical stores (so people could have introductory sessions, etc)? (I know that was the case in the past, although I don't know if it's still the case)

Edited April 2, 2021 by Firedrake Cordova

[Talbaz]

Yep this was a recent change back in 2019 that store with accounts could order the "Order/Direct" whatever you want to call them like any normal kit. However they don't get anywhere near the same discount which usually means they sell at a reduced discount of 0%-15% (only ever one 1 store that did the 15%) verus the normal items that are not marked that way in the webstore. Your mileage may very and you should and can always ask your local supplier of plastic crack how they handle it.

[sarabando]

Yep this was a recent change back in 2019 that store with accounts could order the "Order/Direct" whatever you want to call them like any normal kit. However they don't get anywhere near the same discount which usually means they sell at a reduced discount of 0%-15% (only ever one 1 store that did the 15%) verus the normal items that are not marked that way in the webstore. Your mileage may very and you should and can always ask your local supplier of plastic crack how they handle it.

yeah my local can order anything but its at 10% off not the usual 20%

[Claws and Effect]

A lot of what goes to "online only" has to do with their internal tracking of what is selling and what isn't. 

 

I can't imagine Land Raiders are popular enough these days for them to really sell very many of them in stores. So they move the things they don't sell many of to the online store to save space in the physical stores for kits that sell better. There is only so much space in the physical stores, so it just makes sense to save that space for the stuff that sells instead of filling it with kits that are probably going to sit and collect dust for months before they're sold, if they get sold at all. 

 

Space Marine Scouts are another example. Online only kit now. GW soft-squatted the unit by not giving it the +1 wound buff the rest of the Firstborn got and moving it to Elites instead of Troops. Never came out and said you can't use them. Just made it so no one is ever going to again. They got moved to online only before that happened, so it's pretty clear they knew exactly what they were doing and what the result would be. They knew no one was going to use Scouts anymore, so they moved them to online only so they don't have tons of Scout kits taking up space in stores.