"Who is "Our Distributor"?" Topic

As long as I've been in the hobby, now about 40 years, brick and mortar shops have always referred to "our distributor" in ways that are ALWAYS negative. ex. "We are still waiting for 'our distributor'" Or "our 'distributor' is out of stock."

My local, who in all other respects, I adore (partly because they carry historicals, and two, they are the last of a half dozen shops who were around when I first arrived} tell me again they are out of stock because of their "distributor".

What the holy hell is going on??

Out of necessity, I order from the UK ALL. THE. TIME. with no (or relatively few) issues. The modern age sees about a 2 week turnaround too to the US. When I used to address letters with hand written checks in the 80s, I could expect to wait over 8 weeks and think of myself well handled.

So now my local is saying 2 months to get an order from the UK.

Can someone explain why it would take a retailer that long to acquire something I can get in a couple weeks, and from this particular vendor not more than 10 days. I want these guys to thrive – I like going in and looking at stuff I hadn't seen before but I need more.

Who are these distributors? What is incenting byzantine ancient ordering practices divorced from customer needs.

Happy to chat offline too if you have insights you'd rather not air publicly, but it seems criminally incompetent to be content with glacial service levels today, Covid or no.

Where are the disruptors? Where are the innovators?

"Our distributor" is akin to the infamous "they". I think the biggest problem is that companies (in general terms) have relied on highly efficient systems, like "just in time delivery". And when a hiccup was dealt to the system, stuff started screeching to a halt. So now we're all just limping along, blaming "our distributor" and "them".

Most shops have one or two sources that they go to for products. These tend to only carry the most recent releases on major lines, and almost never historical miniatures. Basically, they turn to who they have an account with and if that provider does not list the product, it does not exist.

Some will get accounts with GW and based on GWs terms will tie up most of the store with only GW products.

The advantage to distributors is the size of the order that can be placed and the payment terms once goods are received. Only checking one source and only sending one payment are seen as advantages

Alliance ( diamond comics) and ACD

It has to be worth the distributor's time and money to restock, they may have order minimums for both themselves and the retail store, and while your order gets dropped at the post office, a distributor's order may be on a container ship. There are a host of reasons why ordering directly from the manufacturer is more efficient.

Well, I can answer that somewhat.
When a store decides to carry a particular line
they either have to go direct or to a distributer.
If you go direct you tend to get a better discount but you also have to order more overall and cover the shipping. So you may need a box of t34 tanks from ACMETank company but for the store to get it directly they may have to order $300 USD or more. With shipping high at the moment it's even more important to order big. Of course that ties up capital. ( Hopefully everyone else at the store is also interested in ACMEtank products. Now if you order from a distributer then you usually only have to buy that one ACME product because your can pad the rest of the min out with Magic cards, 40k, brushes dice etc. Because the distributer is the one ordering the large bulk orders from overseas. But at the moment their orders are moving slower because air shipping is high and surface shipping is very slow.

That is why it is so hard for local stores to survive in this era. They are dependent on and limited by distributors and lose out to the few stores that are highly capitalized. Flashman, I understand your feelings, but unless the local shop owner can raise more than the average capitalization of the local hobby shop and can find a way to sell in enough volume to keep the cash flow going, they will be asking you to wait for what you want. If you desire to continue to support your local shop (hopefully), you will plan your desired purchases way ahead to account for delay of receipt. Of course, in the current environment, it is difficult to know what to expect tomorrow.

Now? Right now a lot of stuff is waiting to be unloaded because Covid.

When I order from the UK it's taking 3 to 4 weeks but maybe I'm just unlucky.

Previous commenters posts about volume apply, and also distributors tend to buy from manufacturers in bulk, so will get it at a better price than you may get buying directly.

A not-unimportant extra factor is convenience – a distributor means that the store owner has one set of forms/website to use for all their orders. They don't have to remember to place their orders with a dozen different supplier directly if it's all on one form.

The flip side is that distributors also have a ton of product they sell, and as they consolidate releases from many manufacturers some stuff doesn't get the priority that a store owner might want. The New Hotness pushes out restocks of regular or niche items.

"Our distributor" is akin to the infamous "they".

"Who the Hell is THEY?"

YouTube link

Kim

I used to have a "distributor" but dropped them. As noted they always have the newest stuff but back list (my bread and butter) is catch as catch can. So I go direct.

As noted, either way you have to deal with

• A.) Minimum orders, which are at cost. So a $250 USD minimum translates to $400 USD-500 at retail
  
• B.) Shipping. Many sources offer free shipping for even larger orders. I always try to hit hose levels.
  
• C.) Stock outs at distributors. They face the same issues and so may not be as keen to restock, say, biblical chariots as the newest OoohShiny from GW.
  
• D.) Placing and tracking orders is not free – it has costs. So keeping your supplier base small makes you more efficient.

"Our distributor" is a critical part of small business retail: the absent figure to be blamed for everything which goes wrong, and especially mistakes or unpopular decisions made by whoever you're actually talking to. In larger corporations, "our distributor's" function is assumed by "those idiots at corporate" or, if you actually reach someone of some importance, "legal" or "the bean-counters." In government or "non-profit" activities, this role is assumed by "Procedure." Anything which might actually solve your problem is "not Procedure."

In politics, Kim, this roll is assumed by "they" who will not let the candidate speak truthfully or consistently, and, in extreme cases, decides the election, as in "I knew they'd never let me be President."

I used to keep a list of words which meant "not one of us." Maybe it's time to start one of words which mean "his fault; not mine."

Once at a GAMA trade show, we (Attactix) complained to Armory, Chessex and Greenfield Hobbies about the lousy fill rates when ordering GHQ. We (and Greg Scott IIRC) visited each of the three's warehouses in Reno, NV. One of the three said they had over $8 USDK of GHQ stock on hand at Distributor prices. We checked the bins and every one we had been ordering were empty. "Why don't you send restock orders to GHQ?" The answer was "Not until we sell another $2 USDK of what we have on hand." Needless to also tell you that they must have had 10 each of every Italian, French, Japanese and major countries "oddball" micro armor packs but zero mainstream vehicles (T-34, Panther, Tiger, Sherman, Halftracks, etc.) All 3 didn't know how to stock historicals! To manage by dollars and not by SKU killed their desire to "stock" historicals. (And not one kept track or managed fill rates!) From that GAMA Trade show (in Reno, NV.) GHQ seemed to quit using distributors. In fact, we sent a rather large order to GHQ and they called back and asked "Who were we distributing to?" We explained that we had ONE retail customer who wanted 6 each of the entire line of WWII and Modern GHQ and that we had added what we needed for the store's wall. Our fill rate was 100%! Our customer was very pleased because no other store ever was able to provide a 100% fill rate for him! There are other stories I could share where the "Exclusive" distributor consistently gave us 30% fill rates yet my local customers could order the same direct from them and get a 100% fill rate when our order was zeroed BEFORE he ordered. (Consistently happened at least 8-10 times after we ordered!) On a vacation to California witrh the family one year, I stopped by the retail store of that "exclusive" distributor, looking for a particular UK based 28mm French Napoleonic personality set (the store had been consistently ordering for the past 10 orders), for myself. The worker said, "We have 12 on hand and nobody has bought any for over a year!". Needless to say that our orders to that "Exclusive" distributor stopped immediately! Hard to calculate how many sales were lost due to such arrangements for Wargames Foundry back then. I have more but this is already a long post. IMHO, bottom line is that either distributors will not hire someone who understands how to order/stock historicals or prefer to revel in the knowledge that they "own" exclusive rights so retailers have to buy more "Top 10" from them to meet minimum order thresholds.

Thanks Tom, great story!

Where are all them hotshot MBAs looking for problems to solve?

Either way, support your local store if you want to keep them around.

As mentioned, all of the above.

I imagine most stores don't order more than once per month, and perhaps even more rarely than that, in order to obtain any volume discounts and to keep shipping costs down.

At Attactix. we ordered restocks weekly from about half a dozen distributors, including two local ones. If we ordered by Tuesday, we usually would receive (what they had) for the weekend. You can't sell something you don't have! Many retailers seem not to either know how to order or know who has what to sell to them. Either you commit to "stock" ranges of figures (or Boardgames, RPGs, rules, reference books, ranges of paint, dice, etc.) or else just carry what the owner likes. In our case, Bill and I both liked historicals so we worked hard to carry what our customers wanted. "I" was not (and still not) a big fan of fantasy or RPGs, but we made sure we had all the new releases and backlisted books to ensure new gamers had the rules to play that genre. It really boils down to if the owner(s) are businessmen first and gamers second and to what extent they are willing to service their customers. Now NO store can stock it all, but they sure can listen to their customers and do some homework to see if they can obtain stocks, at a profit, and actually do more than get in just 1-2 packs one customer wanted. But takes some work- using the time in store to build the business rather than recounting last weekends game at the expense of trying to learn what each customer is looking for when they walk thru the door. You will never please everyone but you can sure add to the gross sales by just listening to what your customers want when they walk thru the doors. I don't know how many times I walked thru a new game/hobby store and asked if they would be stocking historicals. "They just don't sell!" is the usual response I would get. Well of course they don't sell because you don't have any to sell! So I report back to my circle of friends that they can scratch that shop off because of their unwillingness to supply what we are searching for. Bill Winski and I found a Step Mother and Daughter store that actually was willing to order in what we were looking for. It resulted in Bill working there and ending up buying them out- (Things For Thinkers in Tucson, Az.) His store grew for 13 years when we partnered up to create Attactix in Aurora, Co. CCGs were the bane of many stores as they invested heavily into every new CCG game system at the expense of what their bread and butter games had been keeping the store open. Again, a hobbyist verses a business. We would sweat blood if our CCG sales exceeded 15% of our total sales! Sure , we could make a quick buck but NOT at the expense of our regular customers that kept the doors open. The economy was a major reason we had to close. Customers that would regularly spend $2 USD-300 a month saw the dot com business bust. Their income went from 6 digits to 20-30K IF they were lucky to find another IT job locally. We were lucky to see them once a month and spend $20 USD or less. People have to eat and pay bills that were run up believing those golden days would always be there. Good management cannot control such vital issues where you have no control over. I suggest that we are seeing the effects of COVID and increasing costs for manufacture and transportation start to take it's toll. Also, the internet. We gamers want our stuff now! Going direct to manufacturers if not in a local store has become the new norm in buying habits. Guilty as charged in my case. I no longer have a "local" store I can support. But I do support certain retailers that also supplied us with product in the past!