Is GW too prolific?

[Primarch]

Today I received an email newsletter from a Japanese hobby store. I usually don't read it, having been steadfastly ignoring it since I last shopped there about 15 years ago. On a whim I ran it through Google Translate and was quite surprised by the contents. TL;DR the store owner is running out of space for GW minis as they keep releasing more and more new figures. I have quoted the relevant part of the newsletter below.

There are just too many items in stock at the store!
Our store is quite large, and until two years ago we stocked all the items on the order form, but we can't possibly stock the amount of stock that GW is currently offering.
The number of items in the Old World alone is quite insane.
I'd be in awe of any store that has these Old World paper racks. I think that just Old World, Horus Heresy, and Legion Imperialis are comparable to the in-store stock from 10 years ago.

I doubt whether this in-store stock is really the optimal solution derived from POS data.
Because Legion Imperialis will be placed, but Imperial Knights from 40k will go directly?
It's definitely arbitrary...

Also, it seems that AoS will release two types of spearheads per army and both will be in stock in the store.
So there's no place to put things with the same contents!

It certainly feels like GW has ramped up its overall output over the last few years. Which is great in terms of model and game choice. I guess hobby stores will just need to find bigger premises.

[Jye Nicolson]

I assume GW's schedule is sustainable *for GW*.

But yeah I don't envy anyone trying to allocate actual shelf space to the different lines. Outside of 40K which lines are going to be popular enough to justify it must be so variable according to the local scene.

One thing you'll notice in Osu is that *GW* isn't trying to keep everything in stock in the physical store. It's more like a showroom than anything else, and from observing (admittedly on the incredibly biased sample of mostly Saturdays) my guess is direct orders made through the store pay for Fumi-san's breakfast, with impulse buys of shelf stock not really needing to bear as much of the weight of sales as you'd expect.

[Primarch]

I get the benefits of having direct orders, but I do like to browse if I am in a shop. I can order online from home if necessary. I'm quite happy spending time looking at all the stock and weighing up options when I go to Meruhen.
GW's own stores need tables for demos and display areas, which your average FLGS can't really afford to spend the space on. As you say @Jye, they are more of a showroom than a shop.

GW is certainly producing a lot now. Gone are the days when there was 40K, WFB and the sound of chirping crickets where specialist games used to be. Personally, I am happy to be able to get my Heresy fix in plastic locally, rather than having to order warped resin from FW.
And the best thing is, it all appears to be selling. I'm not sure how TOW and HH impact AoS and 40K sales, but GW seems happy to keep churning out cool stuff for both systems. Hopefully they have learnt their lesson from the great GorkaMorka debacle and can sustain their ranges indefinitely.

[The Other Dave]

It looks like the plan is to scale back HH releases after the Dropsite stuff - there won't be enough to support weekly Heresy Thursday updates they say - but then it's been a real constant stream of entirely new kits since the new edition released.

I actually think it's kind of healthy for the specialist games to have a 5-6 year life cycle after which they're pretty much static. It'd be nice to have had continuing titanicus releases over the past couple years, but then we probably wouldn't have gotten Big Heresy or Legions Imperialis. GW is a pretty big company but not that big, either in terms of miniatures design capacity, rules design capacity, or miniatures production capacity.

[Primarch]

It looks like the plan is to scale back HH releases after the Dropsite stuff - there won't be enough to support weekly Heresy Thursday updates they say - but then it's been a real constant stream of entirely new kits since the new edition released.

I actually think it's kind of healthy for the specialist games to have a 5-6 year life cycle after which they're pretty much static. It'd be nice to have had continuing titanicus releases over the past couple years, but then we probably wouldn't have gotten Big Heresy or Legions Imperialis. GW is a pretty big company but not that big, either in terms of miniatures design capacity, rules design capacity, or miniatures production capacity.

HH is currently on a 3 year schedule. And those books are expensive. I am kind of happy there won't be a weekly release schedule for the game though. I can't keep up with the current one without working a second job.

[Jye Nicolson]

The real mystery to me though is why there's a Razorback on the shelves at Osu. Did it come from Akihabara and got pawned off on them? Even if it was a Predator it's at least be meta relevant!

[ashdevon]

No. It's good they have lots of games to choose from. I wouldn't want to be invested in all of them. I'm happy painting and collecting the old fantasy old world miniatures.