Monday 24 March 2014

Monday musings on the limited nature of products.

So as anyone with an internet connection will know, the new scenery product put up by GW was a limited edition product (1000 only). And sold out in 2hrs! At £65 a pop and sold direct through GW that has to be a high-five moment come Monday morning at Lenton. But my Monday musing is this: is this type of product good for the industry?

Putting aside ones personal feelings regarding the quality of the product (for me it looks like four sonic screw divers on a bastion base!) it would appear that it was an unarguable success from a sales point of view. I can't help feeling that it is bad for customer service as even if I had wanted to buy one on Saturday morning when I went online at 7:30am there were none left. Now imagine you shell out for White Dwarf at your local GW and get excited by all the glossy photos and hyperbole we have come to expect the GW employee would have to politely decline taking your order as there are none left. 

This lead me to question whether it is a great way for companies to be more creative and take a chance on products with potentially low sales without having to invest in expensive manufacturing  processes or just a cunning way to force the market to pay a higher price through limited availability? 

As I said earlier I'm not loosing any sleep over this product as I could make a better one for less (I really like Rich's design from the Doubles weekend) but I'm pretty sure we are going to see the pipeline set come out as a similar release (both were in Stronghold Assault without photos) and that is a set that excites me, especially if it is polystone and quick to construct. 

Then again if this allows GW to produce some Xenos terrain sets it could open up a lot of potentially opportunities for gamers, especially if they release a book or two to go with them. So how do you guys feel about it? Is it just that we are collectors and hate feeling  as though we can't have something even if we don't really want it? 



4 comments:

  1. I think the problem theyve got is by calling it a limited edition product theyve really backed themselves into a corner now. Theres clearly enough demand to sell through at least another run of 1000, but how can they justify that having specified the first run was a limited edition thing?
    On the other hand, as you say, this would be an excellent avenue to finally start seeing some proper xenos terrain.
    Maybe if, in future, they specify it as limited runs not a 'limited edition' which would thus imply theres only a set amount of this run but we might make more in the future if it does well, rather than implying 'once these are gone thats it'.

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  2. It does have the feel of a test the watet release to see what yhey can get away with. £65 seems a bit steep for what is effectively a pretty bastion (which is £25)but when you know that you have a two hour window to get it you'll jump at it. Another thought just occurred to me. Why don't they sell it through the stores? if every store was gaurenteed 5 on release day in addition to the pre orders you'd have a reason to go to the store.

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  3. Wait a week and look at chinebay

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  4. They will start to appear knocked off very soon

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