"Why is every thing I order from BF," Topic

It creates a certain level of cachet, thereby making you feel as if their stuff is rare, in order to better support their marketing pricing models, and to get you to purchase it now, rather than later.

DeBeers uses the same techniques for diamonds, and GW for their miniatures, so…….

The again, perhaps it is just due to poor inventory, and supply chain management.

I get everything I order, it must be you Kyotebluer than blue ….. have you considered how much they dislike you ?

TT when was the last time you ordered any BF stuff ?

LES

One does wonder how their business model can support launching so many periods at the same time. If a range has its biggest sales when it is announced then tails off that leaves them with a lot of ranges that sell a few here and there. The new ranges such as Arab Israeli Wars will no doubt benefit from some pent up demand, though there were ranges out there, but then BF have huge publicity compared to other manufacturers.
When that initial burst is over the sales of many ranges will not be huge. That is acceptable whilst they are in stock, but as stock begins to run out it necessitates further production. If you are QRF or Peter Pig that is fine, an order comes in and you cast it up, but Battlefront has a much more complex product so I imagine that they have to have a production run of some minimum amount to get the economies of scale. Each decision to do a run of Xor Y is a cost in labour, materials and then storeage. When the size of the catalogue is huge that stock replenishment decision becomes a major question, even though it is actually a series of small decisions to spend. Businesses can go bust with large amounts of stock, but the wrong stock for what is selling, all their assets being tied up in stuff that is not selling as fast as it needs to to get cash back in the business. Of course I have no knowledge of BF's situation, but it is concerning that my retailer has a high proportion of off sale items.
If you look at an item that might sell only relatively few packs it might be sensible to buy them when you see them as they will logically be the ones that do not get recast so frequently.

Does that mean I should order that Late War Romanian stuff now. It is a conundrum.

Les I cannot remember – I shall have to ask my psychiatrist

As a side comment to the above-I guess sometimes the small cottage business have a silver lining in their trade- I would think that if you go into a B+M store looking for BattleFront,you expect to find it,or relatively quickly.Smaller,lesser known stuff,you already know youre going to wait,and thus a little more patient. I recently had Mark at Scale Creep order me some Freikorps stuff,and I commented that I know it'll take awhile.:)

It's a big old stock order Mark just placed :-)

My local shop (MA) carries a decent stock of the WWII ranges.

I've been ordering the new AIW vehicles with orders taking 2-3 weeks to arrive (no 'out of stock' issues so far).

I'd bet that BF has been lettings stocks of the slower-selling models dwindle without running another batch of casting spins. It helps keep stock on hand levels from getting out of hand.

Though I definitely need to buy some Japanese and maybe some Finns.

When will people realize that there is no real money to be made in the war gaming business and that we are lucky to get what we get when we get it.

"…..no real money to be made in the war gaming business…."
hahahahhaha tell that to Bf's accountant

Really, all our moaning about the money such firms make pales into insignificance compared to the amount of money say kite-boarding or skiing costs.

And I'm cheap. My Roman emperor character is "Pennius Pinchus".

I never moan about the money BF or other firms make thats their business .
What I moan about is posters saying "Oh lets ignore their poor service cos they are doing it for the love and don't make any money, we should be grateful, I am sure they will improve.." (as if they have not been in business for years) etc etc