Was: assemblying FT minis Now: about supply...

Longish, and regarding gamestuff supply only, so if you aren't
interested,
jump out now...

Your question is directed at KR, and I wouldn't presume to answer for
him.

FYI however, we've had the same kind of problem at a couple of gaming
stores here in Toronto.  We have purchased much in the Heavy Gear line
by
Dream Pod Nine, and one of the local stores had a lousy selection.  We
asked after the product, and were told on several occasions that "the
distributor couldn't get it in" or "that supplement is out of print" or
"they are late supplying that miniature" or whatever.  Unfortunately for
them, two of my friends write and do demos regularly for Dream Pod Nine,
and have lots of contacts with the company.  Calling DPN, we discovered
that these "supply problems" were a total myth.  None of the products
were
out of production and supply was ongoing.

Not to paint them all with a broad brush here, but lots of gaming stores
have a tendency to invest much of their money in stock like comics,
books,
action figures and other collectibles, specialty movies (old sf, anime,
etc), magazines, and those endless dreaded collectable card games. 
These
are the "bread and butter" items which bring in a regular income.  If
you
are a store in a small population centre, you can't afford to just sell
the
"pure" gaming related stuff, 'cause there's really not a big market for
it.

The problem is that when we gamers go into a store and say "can you
bring
in FT models 'cause my group is totally into it...", they may not have
the
$$ to invest in bringing in that product, 'cause their $$ are tied up in
other stuff.  Another BIG contribution to this problem is the
consolidation
of game-stuff distributors over the past decade or so.	Without going
into
the sordid details, there are far fewer distributors for gaming stuff
here
in North America than there used to be, and most of the existing
distributors have discount policies that make it worthwhile to order as
much as possible (ie, the bigger your order, the bigger the discount).
Since there's not a lot of competition, if you order one item (say, a
single FT starship blister), it may be that the store gets such a small
discount that they will not make enough money to cover the costs of
processing your order.	This kind of thing happens a lot and annoys
everybody - but that's the reality of the industry on this side of the
pond.

My group has mail-ordered stuff from all three manufacturers (GZG in UK,
Eureka in Oz, and GeoHex in USA) and has had good service from all
three.
We alternate between them depending on availability of what we're after
and
the fluctuating value of our peso...er...dollar  (this has led to the
odd
situation where it was actually cheaper for us here in Canada to mail
order
a bunch of stuff from Australia and pay the postage than it was to get
the
stuff from the US or the UK, which are obviously a LOT closer...). 
Eureka
is FAST too...

If your local store can't supply you what you want when you want, bypass
them and get it direct from one of the manufacturers - they're good
guys.

Another suggestion, try some of the bigger stores who have an on-line
presence.

Example:  there's a store in Calgary (Alberta, Canada) called The Sentry
Box.  They are HUGE - a full service Gaming store with an enormous
selection of everything.  They are a chapter approved GW supplier, but
don't get caught up in the "GW Only or Else" B__L S__T that the Evil
Empire
forces on stores.  They have an extensive selection of miniatures from
MANY
different companies, including MUCH historical stuff, and are one of the
few stores I've seen with a good selection of FT and DS minis (little
SGII
though).  They mailorder, and have a fairly extensive online catalogue.
And Alberta doesn't have a provincial sales tax.  And it's in Canadian
$$.
Haven't looked at prices recently, tho.  Try their website -
www.sentrybox.com

No, that isn't a plug - I live in TO and have nothing to do with the
store,
other than shopping there when I'm in Calgary...

Adrian

>Will this also speed up the ability to get the minitures?   I live in
Boise,
>Id. and have 2 choice of local stores to go to and order FT minis.   I
have
>placed orders at both of them.  1 store claims that they can't get the
minis
>through their distributors.   Store number 2 (at this point I'm trying
to
>avoid using names) claims that they order directly from Geo-Hex but
that the
>Minis are out of stock all the time.  I'm not trying to collect
anything
>that I think would be to rare (Its an NSL fleet), but with the last 2
orders
>its taken over 3 months to get the minis.  Aggravating to say the
least.
>Another local gamer is having the same problem but then we don't have a
lot
>of other options.
>
>Michael Johnson
>Micron Internet Services
>www.webpak.net/~mrjohn/mine
>