Games Workshop & Independent Stockists changes

It has been mentioned several weeks ago that GW done an 'additional' stock take over and above the regular monthly ones preformed by all authorised GW stockists. 

This was considered unusual at the time and it was hinted that something would be happening as a result.

It has now been revealed that it was based around merchandising changes intended to help out independents more. The community often states GW has a poor merchandising skills but most stockist I talk to say the opposite. Previously GW maintained a core product range list that stockists where required to keep and split it into bands 1-5. This has and does work, as GW have all the information of what sells and what dosn't which can and does help a retailer maintain product that turns over (and makes them a profit). They look to now be changing that to a top 100 product range with less requirements to stock everything. In addition, and this will be the one best received, is a move back to 2 week pre-ordering!

Stockist will love this as previously they would be required to place an order before the new stuff is even available for pre-release, so a lot of crystal ball gazing was needed for independents, resulting in a lot of overstocks or lack of stock for release. Consumers will appreciate this as now they have some more time to consider their pre-orders, and their FLGS will be able to actually have enough of the stuff in stock on release day. Hopefully this will be an end to new release stock shortages we have seen with Tau, High Elves and Eldar.

So that may be the reason why it has been rumoured that Apocalypse release date is not the first Saturday but the second Saturday in July (13th) which differs from the past.

Time will tell...