Dark Sphere falling out with GW

[HereBeDragons]

I am a regular shopper at Dark Sphere, an online store offering 25% on most GW models. Its always my first port of call! I've been waiting to buy the new 40k rulebook from them, but it has been listed as "in store only", not for delivery. I sent an email asking about this, and this was the reply I received:

I am afraid we won't be offering it online and very shortly we will not be continuing mailing out GW items. We are making a stand against GW's poor quality and bad packing on so many items and their policies.

Thought people might like to know this. It is a great shame for us buyers, and I hope this is only a temporary problem, and that normal service resumes soon, but they have given no indication of when this might be.

[Chaos and Evil]

Interesting, but I suspect shenanigans.

[HereBeDragons]

From them or from me? That was the main text from an email I was sent. Im not sure how I can verify it for you other than suggest you ask them the same question. You can see in this link that the new rulebook is buy in store only:

http://www.darksphere.co.uk/pgcat.ph...du35ls0j46l3e6

Its at the end of the "Getting started" section.

[The Dire Troll]

I a glad I use other online stores, what do they mean by poor quality apart from finecast perhaps? if that is so they should do what wayland does about the subject. And I dont really understand how not shipping the products is going to help them, its more than likely going to lose them money, and its not like geedub are going to see that and go "curses foiled again! i'll get you next time independent retailers!" But seriously, its not good for anybody.

[Scammel]

Toys and prams spring to mind. If a company is selling you products of a poor quality that aren't shifting, you stop stocking them, you don't 'take a stand' as if you're some sort of warrior of morality.

[Count Zero]

whilst i don't doubt the OP's post i hope this doesn't turn out to be true and can be resolved as i use DS for pretty much all my orders (in fact i just put in a little order this morning). The last large order i did through them was the empire release which was effected as a the DG knights didn't arrive so maybe they have had many instances of this and are getting fed up.

[GomezAddams]

How much does the new rule book actually weigh?

I can't imagine it being the easiest thing to pack or ship without causing some kind of damage.

[Count Zero]

i don't know, they were charging £8 delivery on the WFB book, so i would expect the same, but it seems that the email suggests this will go beyond just the BRB but become a blanket policy.

i hope they still keep the big discount for store collection on orders over £100 RRP - doesn't take long to reach £100 RRP with GW

Edit: - i too was waiting to order the book from DS and wondered why they had to for collection only, in the end my friend and i bought from Wayland so i can see this practice will cost them sales.

[HereBeDragons]

How much does the new rule book actually weigh?

I can't imagine it being the easiest thing to pack or ship without causing some kind of damage.

You would hope that GW can ship their own products safetly, without damaging them. This seems to sound like a more general problem. Maybe GW keep sending them the lower quality batches and keeping the better ones for their own stores?

[blongbling]

So in order to protest against GW, they stop doing mail order, that is like butting off your nose to spite your face but their call. In a competitive market like online selling they will only lose customers to the main two guys anyway (Wayland and Maelstrom)

[6mmhero]

There will probably be a lot more to this as it is strange that they would only stop selling online etc.

It terms of batches etc I can't see GW going through batches to decide which to send where espcially as any faults with batches will only become known once they have been spotted by a customer or store owner. Finecast being an ongoing issue with quality but Wayland addressed this in a good manner and I would have thought if it was just Finecast then DS would have said that.

[myrdinn]

I know they've been having issues with GW for a while. Can't imagine their issues are any worse than anyone else's though. I go into the store a fair bit as I work nearby and some (not all) of the guys in there can be a little bit prickly and quite offhand with customers, so wouldn't be surprised if their issues with GW are down to more than straightforward miniatures.

[Finnigan2004]

You know, I never used to have problems with the quality of GW's shipping. Then I took a few years off of ordering from them direct. When the new Ogre Kingdoms book came out, my wife ordered it for my birthday because that would allow her to also get the limited edition magic cards with it. Well, when the book arrived, it was half sitting on a piece of bubble wrap inside the box, and was absolutely trashed.

I called up GW because when I order a book that costs fifty dollars for one hundred pages, I expect it to come in pristine condition. GW sent me a replacement, but they packed it the same way. It was trashed again. It was useable, so I kept it. That said, I will not be ordering from GW Canada again in the near future.

[Jim30]

I know they've been having issues with GW for a while. Can't imagine their issues are any worse than anyone else's though. I go into the store a fair bit as I work nearby and some (not all) of the guys in there can be a little bit prickly and quite offhand with customers, so wouldn't be surprised if their issues with GW are down to more than straightforward miniatures.

Myrdinn - I completely agree with what you say. I also work nearby (if you're here too, have you been to Clapham Wargamers yet?), and while I try to support them, I just find their customer service lousy.

I'd love to feel I could walk in there and support them, but each time I visit, I walk away feeling disappointed to be honest. Not somewhere I'd use, and I've gone to Maelstrom / Wayland in preference, despite only living 20 mins from DS.

[StraightSilver]

The guys at Darksphere had a nightmare on Saturday with the new 40K rulebook.

As I'm sure you can imagine they had a ton of pre-orders which everybody wanted to pick up on release day.

Unfortunately from what I can gather a large proportion of the stock that arrived was too badly damaged to give to customers, as they would in effect be giving their customers faulty goods.

The copies that I saw were pretty badly damaged, and although some people were happy to take them with a huge dent or rip in the cover, most customers were not (which is fair enough).

However this did cause them some problems on Saturday, as everybody wanted it there and then, and a lot of the copies that were meant to be sold in the store had to be given to pre-order customers, meaning they didn't have copies to sell on the day.

This in turn probably lost them a lot of sales, and by the time GW replaces the knackered copies for ones in acceptable condition they will have missed the boat as everybody will have bought them elsewhere.

I don't think this is the first time this has happened, but I know when I went in to collect my pre-order they were insanely busy in both stores, and looked like they had been run ragged all morning.

I also don't think this is the first time GW had let them down, which is a shame as they are always my first point of call, not just because they are cheaper than GW, but because they have more GW stock than the Plaza, and stock better paints etc.

[Count Zero]

thats a shame to hear and i can understand why they are upset, as i'm sure that was a massive headache to deal with. i can't imagine many customers paying £30+ for a book would be happy to take one that was damaged too.

[Sleazy]

this is a shame if true, Dark Sphere are often my first port of call for mail order. I have only been to the store once but they seemed nice enough.

[myrdinn]

have you been to Clapham Wargamers yet?

Keep meaning to, am trying to convince my other half that a houseful of miniatures isn't all she has to agree to and playing with my collection of toy soldiers in public is perfectly acceptable behaviour!

For the record I do spend pretty much all my hobby cash (including WFB, a fair bit of Warmachine and recently a reinvigorated interest in 40k) in DS, so I'd consider myself a pretty loyal customer and don't mean to come across as whining ...

[Graeme]

I stopped using DS after they sent me the wrong itmes and (after initially just flat-out not believing me, until I suggested I could email them a photo!) said I'd have to post the stuff I received back to them at my own expense and they'd then send out the models I actually wanted. No offer to knock a bit of money off or throw in some extra goodies to make up for the inconvenience and an unnecessary amount of aggro just getting them to listen. So in the end I swapped the minis at my local GW "My other half got me these Grey Knights, I wanted Necrons - lol what a silly mix up" and decided to boycott Dark Sphere from then on.

[MiyamatoMusashi]

I've always found Dark Sphere to offer a good prices and deliver promptly. That's pretty much all I want from a discounter.

That said, if they're not doing it any more, I'll get over it - there are plenty of other options. Triple Helix offer comparable prices for example (lower headline discount but postage included instead of a secret charge at the end).