Dark Sphere falling out with GW

[Sean_OBrien]

Not too surprising to hear for me. Several stores that I deal with on a regular basis have stopped selling Finecast via mail order due to the large number of defects and a few of them stopped selling GW books via mail order due to binding issues with them. While it is true that the customer can call up GW and complain and have them send a new item out, more often than not they call the retailer first who has to then figure out if they want to sound like jerks and tell them to call GW or pay to have defective product returned (so they can get the credit through GW) or just send out a new item at a loss. Of course, they could inspect each and every item they ship out first - but then that cuts into the cost benefit of doing mail order.

GW is the only company who has such regular quality issues with their "premium" products, and when you pay a premium price...it should be a premium product - not something which isn't worse than any other company out there.

[blongbling]

I have to say, when I was at GW I had to deal with Dark Sphere and the owners previous company as well and they were pretty difficult to deal with. If I recall correctly the owner used to work for Accenture and was some type of consultant there and was very confident that he was always right and we had quite a few ding dongs down the phone about things like the trading terms and their expectations in general.

The rub with a lot of these retailers is that GW has a very firm set of terms that they adhere to and they enforce it pretty rigidly, that doesn't always fit with how people feel that GW should service them in terms of service and support. Having said that there is no excuse for GW's product deliveries to be arriving in to the stores damaged as they have a very efficient system in their warehouse , and when I was there, they would check when it came to a big game release to see what can go into box, how many and maximum weight and would send orders to themselves to see it go through the delivery process

[dancingmonkey]

Was chatting with Lex the other day on one of my infrequent visits.

Basically, between Royal Mail putting up the price of EU shipping and the return rate on Firecast that DS have to pick up the costs of each time they ship out replacements they feel there is little financial incentive to keep sending out GW product.

Not a great situation to be in and perhaps it could have been explained a bit better, but those are the reasons that I was given.

GW not shipping books out in a safe manner is a bit worrying though... course it might give players an incentive to pick up from GW stores if they are being shipped out in better packaging. I was working for GW when 4th ed hit and all our books were nice and safely packed in bulk (six copies to abox, that was the exact fit, with paper wrapped about them for a little extra protection IIRC).

[HereBeDragons]

It would have been alot better then to have just stopped selling finecast, just like other online retailers have apparently done? I can certainly appreciate the problems they have with them. There are surely very few similar cases with the plastic boxes?

I've been using dark sphere for years, from back when they were still Miniatures by Post, and I've never had a problem with their mail order service. I've never received anything other than good service. When I ordered the 'new' dark elf army book a couple of years ago, they sent out the previous edition, but when I contacted them they payed for me to return it and sent out the replacement straight away. Im surprised to hear so many people have had problems with their customer service, though of course they could have got worse since my experience. I certainly can't speak for their in store behaviour.

[rich1231]

We had a very large number of 6th editions delivered. The all arrive fine apart from a small number. However ours were delivered on a pallet rather than in individual boxes delivered through a courier. I would guess that each of the boxes weighing approx 15kg and being small are getting damaged in transit to stores. GW are pretty good a resolving those sorts of issues.

[xxRavenxx]

We had a very large number of 6th editions delivered. The all arrive fine apart from a small number. However ours were delivered on a pallet rather than in individual boxes delivered through a courier. I would guess that each of the boxes weighing approx 15kg and being small are getting damaged in transit to stores. GW are pretty good a resolving those sorts of issues.

I had a box or two of books shipped though, with zero damage. If there is damage to books, I imagine its not GWs doing, and if there is, its an irregularity. Most couriers tend to be reasonably careful with boxes, so they don't have to pay out cash for their insurance.


Anyway. My suspicion with regards to DS, would be that amidst their other named issues, they have decided that to stop supplying online would be a good move, as it will increase their profit margin on instore GW items by a substantial %.

[HereBeDragons]

Well they might make more money from instore sales, but considering they only have a store in London, I would think losing out on all the sales to people in the rest of the country would make them lose out in the long run?

[xxRavenxx]

Well they might make more money from instore sales, but considering they only have a store in London, I would think losing out on all the sales to people in the rest of the country would make them lose out in the long run?

I couldn't comment. I'm purely aware of the change in margins per item, and that if they are not making much from supplying across the country (they must eat most their own margin with discount and postage) they may wish to just grab the extra % for being a store and ditch the extra effort and huge stock requirement to be a regular store.

[Mastodon]

I had a box or two of books shipped though, with zero damage. If there is damage to books, I imagine its not GWs doing, and if there is, its an irregularity. Most couriers tend to be reasonably careful with boxes, so they don't have to pay out cash for their insurance.


Anyway. My suspicion with regards to DS, would be that amidst their other named issues, they have decided that to stop supplying online would be a good move, as it will increase their profit margin on instore GW items by a substantial %.

My books came through without any visible damage to them, and aside from the one issue i had with a book having excess glue sticking pages together I havent had any returns.

Considering the amount of money I make from GW mail orders compared to what I sell in store, I cant understand why they'd stop that service. It seems like they've cut off their nose to spite their face.

[Crimson Reaver]

Well all I can say is that I hope they've crunched the numbers and decided it won't adversely affect their business. I know I've made several large orders (over £500 in total) from them over the last couple of years, which they've shipped quickly and with no fuss, but I won't buy from anyone who can't post items to me, so they've lost that business for certain. Quite a few people I know in my gaming circle use them as well, mostly through word of mouth, so even within a small group over here in Norwich, they've given up thousands in sales.

I would go and voice my complaint, but it sounds as though it will just be a waste of time.

[Noserenda]

Its certainly a shame, Dark Sphere are my preferred online retailer, ah well I guess maelstrom will get my money then :/

[Karlon]

If the shipping went up and you don't like finecast, pass the price increase on to me (the customer) and stop selling finecast. I'm really disappointed with this decision, DS were the only online store I've found that ship things in the same decade that you ordered them (unlike wayland or maelstrom). I would gladly lose 5% off the discount to retain efficient service.

[beanerboy]

Bit upset about this, used them nearly every 6 weeks for a couple of hundred quid at a time. Guess il need to try some of the other sites.

Beaner

[deathspank]

Thing people forget is that Dark Sphere is a business, if they are not making a profit from mailing out GW stock then there is no reason to offer that service, if they are breaking even or loosing money on the mail order of GW products, which is quite possible considering the terrible trade discount and increased courier costs, there is no reason to carry on that service . Yes they may loose sales but not every sale generates a profit.

[PointBlank]

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)

That's only true if they are doing it to make a point. It's entirely possible, from what I've read about shipping charges and wonky product, that mail order's simply not turning enough of a profit. True, they could have just said 'we're stopping mail order because it's not profitable' but if they have (if!) had a bad experience and poor service from GW, I think they should inform people.

[Sotek]

with only 10% of finecast being saleable I can see the issue.

However yesterday in GW I've been told that they now 'only' have a 10% fail rate since the resin is now computer mixed and injected. They are not mixing by hand and not spin casting it from what I gathered but the guy couldnt tell me what exactly they were doing since it was insider/trade knowledge. In addition they are now checking 'ALL' the finecast (implying that they weren't before?) True enough I got an Astoroth the grim and it actually looks like it's feasable. The odd small bubble but way better than the previous 3 I got.

[Noserenda]

Ridiculous quotes about Finecast aside, surely the vast majority of their orders are plastic boxes, and problems/miscasts with those are extremely rare.

As said above, Dark Sphere are extremely fast, both in responding to contact and dispatching goods, they dont need to be cheapest to compete...

[Mauler]

I must admit that I'm well baffled by Darksphere's call to stop shipping out all GW items from their shop. I think they're absolutely mental. With their online discounts they were easily my main place for buying new minitures; buying a few items and paying their postage was still cheaper than both travelling into London to their location or driving to my local GW to get what I was after. If they're not shipping out any GW items then I can't buy them and my money will go to people (like everyone else in this market?) who will ship. To stop shipping out what I imagine to be their main seller without explanation especially when Lonon is completely rammo hosting the 2012 Olympics (so most potential customers will be avoiding the place) is beyond terrible timing. I really can't work it out.

Regarding Games Workshop's packaging, whenever I've ordered from them directly to get stuff on the day of release, or for items that resellers don't have a supply of, I've never had any issues with the state of the items I've received. Even finecast stuff has always arrived in decent nick and my VIth ed rulebook was pristine. Odd.

[Iskandar]

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)

Theres a possibility that you and a lot of others are not picking up. This probably isn't a rage quit from DS over Finecast or even GW itself but GW being anal over their low delivery prices which is the unsaid message I can discern from their message. Of course if thats the case they can't actually say that publicly as a large proportion of their stock in store is GW. Of course it's still possible DS are rage quitting hell for all we know GW could be sending its sloppy seconds over to non GW retailers. But seeing what GW did to Oz and their stance on independent traders "leeching" off their cash flow the alternative sounds more feasible.

Suffice it to say this doesn't bode well at all for me and I hope Waylander and others can maintain their decent prices. If what I suspect is true, expect Wayland to follow suit.

In the grim dark future there are only suits.

[frozenwastes]

A local shop quit stocking GW after they put in an order, but the order turned out to have products from three different product tiers. The order itself was large enough to qualify for free shipping to the store, but GW broke the order up into three parts and sent three different shipements and charged the store shipping three times. They then refused to budge on any of it, so the store fired them as a supplier.

I couldn't imagine trying to deal with GW trade sales if one was also trying to sell a ton of stock over the net.