20-50% price increase for forge world, even in the US despite now having a local store. FW deleting all criticism on Facebook.

[Mandzak-Miniatures]

This is fine, let them shoot them selves in the foot or milk the cow dry.

This just makes forgeworld more obsolete and inclusive.

More reasons to not buy overpriced stuff that’s not as good as plastic and most people don’t use rules for. A OK with me

Further, their fantasy line might as well not exist considering how bare it is. So I wouldn’t expect much more from them and it’s relevancy to AoS is practically non existent.

[Kirjava13]

I can understand not wanting needless negativity, but if you're going to ignore and delete even the polite or inquiring comments then what is even the point of having a social media page?

[stratigo]

10 hours ago, Gaz Taylor said:

• Just a very simple question as I'm old and find it tricky to keep up with current events...
• This is about the shipping rate changes right? It's not 100% clear from your post but I'm guessing its that? Can you please clarify?
• As for the deletions about the Facebook posts, I can imagine what some of them are like and fully understand why they would be deleted. There's a way to complain about something and basically being negative and nasty is not the way.

 

It isn't about shipping changes. They've started selling Forge World in local currencies. But they've decided that the pound is something like 30 to 50 percent stronger than it really is. Even at its strongest, I am not sure the pound ever had as generous an exchange rate as they are acting like it did.

 

In the US at least, prices should, logically, gone DOWN as they now are warehousing in America, allowing them to bulk ship product and drop overseas shipping costs drastically, but the prices have risen highly.

8 hours ago, Nubgan said:

Well everyone needs to start praying outside the UK soon that Brexit doesn't ****** up shipping prices even more! ? The fact that the £ is also plummeting can't be great for that either?

Still, at least you don't have Australia's awesome problem ?

 

Brexit actually was probably a boon for forge world as it dropped the relative price of forge world and more people bought more product. But GW seems to miss the economy of scale and drum up their prices instead, which is just a poor idea. And it's one that is puzzling as GW's been exploiting bundles and collections for a while now with the main line of the game which combines economies of scale with customer manipulation to promote purchasing boxes that they would otherwise skip because they are getting a perceived discount on a bundle even if they didn't need or want all the product inside.

 

 

 

The issue GW is going to run in to though is that it is going to be cheaper to buy from UK based resellers with more moderate markup verse forgeworld itself with its drastic markup. I am guaranteed not going to buy from forgeworld (unless I find myself near GW headquarters some day).

 

6 hours ago, Charles said:

FW have changed their pricing into local currency, they will not do this on live exchange rates, that would mean your prices changes every minute of every day. 

They will have a business exchange rates for this year (and probably the next two) already set. These rates will be used to create all the pricing in local currency. This BER will be set to protect them against currency fluctuation. What you are seeing is the confidence buffer in your local currencies long term strength.  

This way FW can be confident whatever happens in the Global currency markets they will make the contribution margins they want on their products.

 

They're using an exchange rate that does not reflect any rate. At all. The business exchange rate is NOT this high. Look, Brexit happened, the pound's value tanked. And this IS A GOOD THING for manufacturers with product exporting world wide. That GW is unable to grasp this is silly.

6 hours ago, Gaz Taylor said:

Not sure how this is trolling. I would love the main studio to do them. They’ve never had a proper army since I’ve been playing way back in 4th edition and I would love to see them get the main studio make over (especially in plastic!!).

Thanks. I thought this was the case but the original poster just dropped out their thoughts on this rather than provided some background

 

I think this is part of the problem we are seeing in the UK. I don’t want to turn this political but Brexit has had a massive effect on the UK and a lot of businesses want things to be predictiable and fair. I would guess GW are trying to safeguard themselves with any future bumps with exchange rates.

I think their logic in this but that doesn’t help people. I doubt they are doing it to spite people though.

I will agree with that but I know how “passionate” some people can get. It’s a tough one but I imagine in six months time if I visited the page as a new customer, last thing I would want to see is complaints about prices. That’s why I imagine all these types of comments are being deleted. 

GW's pricing has never been really fair. And this upmarking is very much not fair. The pound is never going to recover to pre brexit, pre 08 levels. That just isn't how that works except in the most optimistic estimations. And, indeed, GW, which relies on sales of a tangible produced product, is a beneficiery from weaker currency. Why do you think China manipulates its currency so heavily?

5 hours ago, NemoVonUtopia said:

As unfortunate as the price increases are, I figured that it would be the case because it was already a price increase to buy at events in the US using the set catalogue prices. It seems like the exchange rate they are using is about 1.5 which isn't bad if you look at the past 10 years. I think the main issue is that we are used to the lower rate of the last few years. Though that only applies to the US.

I fully understand them deleting comments on facebook. When I looked at the comments quite a few were just saying how FW is scamming everyone and posting the same angry post as a reply to most other comments and insulting anyone who didn't share a negative opinion.

The prices are highly unlikely to go the other way. The Pound's strength was contingent on things that can no longer be true after Brexit.

Theoretically the dollar or euro could tank, but if the dollar tanks that hard the entire world will be in a bad way. And the Euro tanking would probably be actually a boon for distressed euro economies in Italy Greece, and Spain.

 

6 hours ago, amysrevenge said:

Yup, it's never come up for even a second in any of my circles (in AoS time that is - plenty of folk, folk who largely didn't make the jump to AoS, were in favour of all sorts of arbitrary sweeping restrictions in previous editions).

As far as pricing goes.  It's sad, but inevitable.  If FW is (as it seems) attempting to move from a local mail-order boutique and into a store presence (or at least into a deliberately international sales presence), this was inevitable.  It's the exact same way that GW pricing works - fixed local prices, not directly tied to pound conversions, and specific local shipping consideration.

If forge world was smart, they'd price lower. But, well, they simply weren't.

 

AoS doesn't have a huge forgeworld range though. If you're a legions of azgorh player, it's probably a huge bummer, but otherwise, the range is significantly smaller, and increasingly less attractive (new plastic greater demons look as impressive if not more so than their forgeworld compatriots) that it's 40k comparison. Indeed their 40k line is so popular that they could spin off to create their own system with drastic success. Also the forgeworld guys are huge treadheads and genuinely prefer making tanks over fantasy things. They love adapting real world designs to a sci fi setting and hand crafting that. So business and passion goes into a lot of their 40k range.

6 hours ago, Charles said:

FYI this will have nothing to do with brexit and everything to do with budget exchange rates I described on the previous page.

@the_master288 no it doesn’t. Even if a store is based in the USA the company (FW) is not it’s a UK company where they report their profits. This is standard practice for any blue chip multinational company.

 

Only if you assume that brexit (or, more appropriately, the brexit's influence on the pound) had no bearing of those exchange rates, which is completely untrue.

 

3 hours ago, Overread said:

What I still don't get is that GW knew people internationally didn't buy due to price, part of which was shipping, so they raised the prices on the product after investing in overseas warehousing and better transport infrastructure. So they've built a system to lower costs to increase sales to a market that was about to welcome fairer pricing and then - slapped on a very significant price hike on all the products for the world (barring the UK). 

I just don't get what GW's intent here was; raising the prices means less customers not more; instead of record FW sales today they will likely only make some marginal gain in the UK market with little to no overseas sales at all. All that money and time and resources gone to waste and a reputation damaged after a year of very solid work gained!

right now they are cutting costs while increasing prices. Which, if they assume people are mindless and will buy at the same volume regardless of pricing, sure, makes sense. But no one has ever actually done that. Not even actual necessities work like that. GAS doesn't work like that.

 

 

[LLV]

Great post stratigo. 

[Shearl]

I'm happy I made my large order at the beginning of the month, I saved around 100 USD than if I ordered today.  I'm not an economist, but I do know it's now going to be a while before I get any more Fimir.

[tokek]

3 hours ago, stratigo said:

 

It isn't about shipping changes. They've started selling Forge World in local currencies. But they've decided that the pound is something like 30 to 50 percent stronger than it really is. Even at its strongest, I am not sure the pound ever had as generous an exchange rate as they are acting like it did.

 

 

They have set the exchange rate at the 10 year average, see this post for example doing the analysis. Note that the 29 year average only differs by 3 cents - so the reality is that the pound usually does have that exchange rate and unless GW want to change their prices frequently in response to fluctuations (which in this case are driven by short-term political uncertainty) what exchange rate would you suggest they use other than the medium term average?

 

[MacDuff]

Global economics aside, you only have one chance to make a good first impression. From the sound of things, I don't think FW USA did that.

[Charles]

@stratigo just to be clear from my previous posts it’s not ‘the’ business exchange rate that all companies use, but ‘a’ business exchange rate that will be set by their finance department. 

It’s also worth noting that trading in local currencies will almost certainly involve using a platform like World Pay who will also be taking a cut.

I wasn’t trying to defend anything or upset anyone, I was only explaining how this works and why you are seeing what you are. It is a lot more complicated than it appears at first glance.

Anyway that’s my last input on the matter.

[AGPO]

@tokek pretty much nailed this with their last couple of posts, but I'll add my five cents.

I currently live in France but get paid in £GBP and my income has been hit pretty hard by the current exchange rate. Everything I buy here has stayed the same price as it was before the exchange rate changed, so I still need to buy the same number of euros to live, but at a much higher price. It's caused about a 34% increase in my cost of living. The same issue affects all of GW's retail businesses overseas. They still need to buy euros, $USD etc to pay staff, rent and the like. as well as factor in the increasing additional costs of operating overseas such as hiring local HR and legal experts, shipping stock internationally, translating all their products etc.  Those costs have just gone up considerably, and are likely to go up a heck of a lot more after Brexit happens, especially in the event of no deal being struck with the EU.

There have been serious consequences to this. My FLGS stopped stocking most of its GW stuff recently, because customers were buying from Dark Sphere/Wayland and the like because the relative savings were too good. GW's business model depends heavily on these brick and mortar clubs to attract and retain customers. If I buy a Start Collecting box from my local GW, it costs me 65€. That was a pretty fair price considering normal exchange rates and their added costs of making the game and hobby centres available in French, but with Dark Sphere discount and a weak pound that set now costs me 41.78€  if I wait until I pass through London/Dark Sphere.

The same issue applied to FW. If you decide to buy a FW Chaos Dwarf army rather than say Karadron in order to benefit from the weak £GBP, and you play in the local GW, then the company is losing out, because profits from Karadron bought in €, $USD or whatever still cover the same proportion of the costs of running that store,  whilst the FW stuff bought in £GBP now covers less. 

Where GW has been really foolish is in their communication on this. Much like Finecast they should just have been up front about the business reality that created the need for this move. I think most of the customer base would have understood this, outside of the usual suspects, especially if GW gave them time to get a last big order in at the low prices. Instead both times they tried to spin it as something that would be great for the customer base, created unrealistic expectations then followed them with an unpleasant shock, costing them a lot of good will.

 

[Overread]

A good point, GW should have said a price rise was coming, if they ahd people would have grumbled and panic bought and then adapted. Instead GW advertised it like there were going to be cheaper shipping prices with no change to the actual product cost. So when the product cost rise came at the same time its a huge shock and massive disappointment. 

[NurglesFirstChosen]

I’d always advise against forgeworld purchases. 

[RuneBrush]

As a frequent purchaser of Forge World products*¹ and somebody who frequently attends various GW events, I feel I need to point a few bits out.

Forge World is akin to Citadel Miniatures - it's a part of Games Workshop that designs miniatures and rules.  The decision to move over to their standard method of calculating international currencies won't have been decided by Forge World - there will be a separate team of people who decided this.  And before anybody contradicts this, I've spoken to various Forge World (and main studio) staff when dozens of items were being move to last chance to buy and was told that once it leaves the design studio everything else is decided by other parts of the company - including release dates & prices.  Forge World is full of miniature designers, rules writers and painters, so to direct any annoyance at Forge World is directing it at the wrong people.

 

At some point somebody has taken on the cries from the community *² to sort the postage rates out.  I would imagine that the easiest way of achieving this was to get rid of the old way of dispatching Forge World products and merge it into the one system.  That has also meant that it adopted the GW currency conversion system which has increased prices by quite a margin.  As with some decisions it's likely that the people making the decision didn't foresee at the actual impact*³ - I'm pretty positive that based on the backlash, this is being discussed right at the top of the company.  It's also likely that whatever department made the decision didn't fully explain to the Community Team (aka PR & Marketing) how this would affect somebody living in Canada for example.

One thing that Games Workshop has been very good at though is honouring their fixed prices too - the pound getting stronger doesn't mean that they immediately increase non-UK prices.  Even economists don't know what is going to happen over the next 5 ~ 10 years, which is the sort of time we're looking at for many of the current political changes to take before we know what's "normal".  But TGA isn't a political forum - it's a haven for people to escape from the real world so let's not dwell on this too long.

What isn't acceptable is the vitriol that's been posted on the Facebook page - I would imagine that the people who manage the social media pages got pretty fed up of seeing hundreds of needlessly negative comments and simply took the decision to remove anything related to prices - in truth there's nothing they can do about them*⁴ and responding to a genuine question would likely see all of the naysayers jump onto that and start spouting unpleasantness.   What irks me too is that ten years ago the pound was significantly stronger and non-UK people were happy to pay more than the prices we've just seen things jump to plus the international delivery fees.  Also, the announcement on the 6th did say that they'd implement local currencies - we all know that GW use a fixed currency rate on their other products so why would they use a different one for Forge World?

In summary if you're not happy about something, it's fine to express it in a rational manner, but engage brain before going off with a mindless rant.  Not buying products will ultimately flag this up to Games Workshop, as will expressing it in a polite manner.  It's no use shouting to the postman that a parcel is broken if the company sending it just threw it into a box, the postie isn't going to feel very enthused to explain the complaints and claims process*5

 

*¹ from spare arms up to the biggest Knight they sell
*² that includes AoS, 40k, 30k etc
*³ I have been told that a number of the decision maker departments don't contain people who play the hobby
*⁴ see comment about directing annoyance at the wrong people
*5 not the best analogy - but does highlight being polite will get you a better response

[hughwyeth]

26 minutes ago, NurglesFirstChosen said:

I’d always advise against forgeworld purchases. 

I see FW as a super-hobbyist thing. Don't approach it as you might regular citadel stuff- as in getting it because you can assemble it quickly to make a powerful list. FW stuff needs a long time to make and fix up and paint. It's also ludicrously expensive, so you gotta take your time with it! The price hike is really disappointing, and I always thought their postage rates were insane considering what the profit margin must be on this stuff. 

[Yoshiya]

Whilst I get that people have a tendency to get overaggressive with complaints on social media etc., isn't the point of such places to engage with the community (customer base)?

Clearly this time they messed up so of course the customer base isn't happy. They might not want the bad image people looking outside will see but that's part of the cost of making mistakes like this and deleting (non-aggressive) comments just comes across as trying to disengage with the community on a page made to engage.

Many people see these pages as places to complain and whilst it's not their fault (and thus no hatred should be directed at them) the community team is part of the company that made the decision and it is their job to wade out into the community, regardless of if the feedback they are receiving is positive or negative. To not do so is to act arrogant and aloof which doesn't foster the kind of good will you want when trying to sell expensive niche products.

[Sleboda]

13 hours ago, Charles said:

That’s true they very well may see a reduction in sales volume, but that may not hit the profits because as you can see they have built themselves a nice additional margin and if currency markets fluctuate the other way it will give them an even bigger boost.

 

 

This had traditionally been the Kirbey era model - Jack up the price and make up for having fewer customers by getting more money from those who remain.

I think we all were happy when that ended. Sad to see it return.

 

Btw, as a pre-emptive comment, FW _is_ GW, not some license or whatever.

[Sleboda]

2 hours ago, AGPO said:

Much like Finecast they should just have been up front about the business reality that created the need for this move.

...

they tried to spin it as something that would be great for the customer base, created unrealistic expectations then followed them with an unpleasant shock, costing them a lot of good will

Truth.

Finecast was so, so very bad and they _had_ to know it. This feels like that.

[RuneBrush]

2 minutes ago, Yoshiya said:

Whilst I get that people have a tendency to get overaggressive with complaints on social media etc., isn't the point of such places to engage with the community (customer base)?

Clearly this time they messed up so of course the customer base isn't happy. They might not want the bad image people looking outside will see but that's part of the cost of making mistakes like this and deleting (non-aggressive) comments just comes across as trying to disengage with the community on a page made to engage.

Many people see these pages as places to complain and whilst it's not their fault (and thus no hatred should be directed at them) the community team is part of the company that made the decision and it is their job to wade out into the community, regardless of if the feedback they are receiving is positive or negative. To not do so is to act arrogant and aloof which doesn't foster the kind of good will you want when trying to sell expensive niche products.

 

I've just had a look at the FB thread (1400+ replies) and if they've been deleting comments they've certainly left a lot that aren't very nice.   I've a feeling that some comments may have been deleted by accident.

It did highlight exactly why the community team need to be bought a drink though - person starts off with a reasonable comment about how they're disappointed the price has increased by 20%.  Community team reply with a "well you're no longer paying 15% for delivery as it's now flat rate, so though it is an increase there is an improvement" which opens the flood gates to the 15+ comments that get more and more unpleasant.

7 minutes ago, Sleboda said:

Btw, as a pre-emptive comment, FW _is_ GW, not some license or whatever.

More than happy for you to disagree with that point in my post - but would have said it was post-emptive rather than pre (as I made my post before yours)

As I outlined in my post, FW produce models/rules, the prices are set by other parts of GW who don't appear to interact with the customer base.  Of course FW are part of GW even more so if they're sharing the same delivery/pricing methodology, but it's no use pointing the finger at FW and telling them they've made a mistake - when that part of the company hasn't actually done anything.  I can just imagine the look on one of the FW staff's faces if you collar them at an event and tell them their pricing strategy stinks - the response will likely be "sorry, I just design models"

[Sleboda]

My pre-emptive bit was not connected to you. It was in anticipation of people saying that Kirbey decisions were for GW, not FW, and that FW is somehow not the same thing.

People, I've seen, like to think of FW as some sort of totally separate enterprise, when really they are the same as Black Library, Marauder, Iron Claw, Citadel, etc - a brand under the GW PLC banner.

[Barkanaut]

Well GG FW. They are censoring posts and reviews on Facebook. Guess its time to look to the east and I was always trying to be a FW loyalist too, but this is too much. 

[Overread]

Just remember - whilst FW prices are kind of nuts and that's before you throw on this new price hike for overseas; at least he money you spend goes back into the hobby.

 

IT goes back into GW proper and that supports development of more models, lore, books, rules, the keeping open of GW stores, the general market and the whole hobby itself. Ergo money spent on the GW product through official channels helps keep the game alive and helps pay the wages for people to spend their working day making more stuff for us to enjoy.

 

Recasters, by and large, leech money right out of the hobby and invest nothing back into it. They don't make new models; they don't help run stores or keep campaigns going or run events or even retail to stores; they don't write lore or produce rules or the game. Ergo its money being taken out of the hobby and thus being lost. 

Sure by all means don't buy FW models at FW prices if you can't afford or justify it but I'd rather people spent money on GW products or at least another wargame so that local stores/infrastructure and careers are kept going! It's FAR better for you that that happens than we end up supporting recasters who only care about the profit (yes GW cares about profit too but they also use much of it to reinvest into the hobby and game)

[RuneBrush]

2 minutes ago, Sleboda said:

My pre-emptive bit was not connected to you. It was in anticipation of people saying that Kirbey decisions were for GW, not FW, and that FW is somehow not the same thing.

People, I've seen, like to think of FW as some sort of totally separate enterprise, when really they are the same as Black Library, Marauder, Iron Claw, Citadel, etc - a brand under the GW PLC banner.

I'm sure that when FW were created, we were told they were a subsidiary of GW - they were certainly run as an independent concern at one point, with their own warehouse, production and dispatch facilities.  That's probably where some of the confusion has come from - they're certainly a division of GW PLC now and this recent change suggests that when the new expansion goes ahead we may see a single warehouse coming into play (to go with the single dispatch system).

[Kramer]

Something about salt and wounds...  

[Dead Scribe]

Well the net positive of all this is last night our store manager / owner has now banned Forgeworld from the store, so at least for us this won't be an issue.

[kenshin620]

2 hours ago, Overread said:

 at least he money you spend goes back into the hobby.

 

The only problem with this is also the mentality of "vote with your wallet". Now I don't know about this forums culture too much, I've been here for only a few months, but I know some other places that years ago (during near end of 8th edition fantasy and 6th edition 40k) who were very disappointed with the current state of GW both in terms of prices and game design choices (even before the AoS shift). Many people rallied under the banner of "don't like? don't buy!" vote with your wallet mentality. Now while maybe a few people may have taken that as a pro-piracy thing, I'm sure many just didn't spend money on the hobby at that point or moved onto other games. A protest if you will. (which may of may not have partly caused aos for better or for worse)

So while yes part of your money goes to good nature people who love the hobby, part of it also goes to the big wig executives, so depending on one's perspective one may outweigh the other (in either way).

Its kind of like buying a video game from a big corporation. On one hand you validate programmers, artists, writers etc. On the other hand part of that money goes to the big corp who may or may not be somewhat boneheaded. Like EA Games or Ubisoft. And in the case of warhammer where theres been some bad blood over the past decade, it is hard for people to see past the big yellow letters.

 

 

[amysrevenge]

6 hours ago, AGPO said:

Where GW has been really foolish is in their communication on this.

This is the bit that is obviously, self-evidently, true. 

The actual dollars/pounds/euros details of the pricing and shipping changes I hold to have been inevitable, and without much choice. 

How the changes were delivered however, even though it didn't seem like a big deal to me, was obviously a very big deal to a large/vocal crowd, and I don't know if any thought was given to how that reception would be.