Out of Stocks

 If you are lookingf or a particualr board game and we do not have it, especially if it is a recent one, it is likely out of stock. We are seeing month's long out of stock of popular boardgames. The Night Cage for example has been out of stock for about 4 months and Alice is Missing for two. We do work to restock when we can and keep any eye on arrivals but they do take a long time.

Restocks

 Just a reminder that we are still getting restocks in but if you want something from Games Workshop that we do not have on the shelf, we likely will not be able to get it until after Christmas. This week's new releases will arrive on time and we do have restocks coming in from Asmodee and Army Painter, so you can paint your new miniatures.

Restocks

 Just received a restock of comic supplies including  current sized bags and boards as well as hard toploaders, which have been out of stock nationwide for months. as well as the Betrayal line, including Betrayal at House on the Hill, Betrayal at Balder's Gate, Widow's Walk and Betrayal at Mystery Mansion.

Out of Stocks

I wanted to discuss a couple of solutions to the problems retailers have seen in out of stocks  this past holiday season, especially among smaller publishers:  Flooring and reshoring.

Anyhow, back to reshoring and flooring. Reshoring is simply the concept of moving production that a company offshored due to cheaper production costs, back home. The trade off between offshoring and producing products overseas and in the publisher’s home country is that of lower production costs versus the loss of sales due to the extended supply chain. Overseas production runs save costs in terms of lower materials costs, lower labor costs and greater flexibility but add costs in terms of additional shipping costs, wait time and managerial and oversight costs. A survey of manufacturers in 2015 found that 17% had already reshored production to the US while another 37% had plans in the works to do so. A number of US game publishers, including Kobold Press, Troll Lord Games, Looney Labs and Catan Studios, have never off shored production, finding that the speed with which they can print and restock product outweighs the cost savings of offshoring.

Flooring is the concept of a publisher or manufacturer which uses a distributor storing additional product on site at the distributor but retaining ownership of the product. When the distributor gets low on product, it simply moves product from the publisher’s stock to the distributor’s , taking ownership and paying the publisher. This allows the publisher to make more product than it could easily warehouse and drastically reduces out of stocks. Steve Jackson Games had a successful flooring arrangement with Alliance for several years and, when Chessex Manufacturing was located in the same building with Alliance Fort Wayne, a out of stock on dice could be rectified with a walk next door.

Adopting either of these practices, or some others, would certainly help in reducing out of stocks, especially during the crucial 4^th quarter.

Asmodee Release Dates

For those who are fans of Asmodee products, here are release and restock dates:

HyperBorea			Distribution Release  (Wed, November 5th ,2014)		$99.99		6		HYB01US
7 Wonders Babel Expansion			Distribution Release  (Wed, November 12th ,2014)		$42.99		6		SEV-EN05
Claustrophobia- Furor Sanguinis			Distribution Release  (Wed, November 19th ,2014)		$34.99		6		CLAU03
Cyclades  Titans			Distribution Release  (Wed, November 19th ,2014)		$59.99		6		CYC03US
SunTzu			Distribution Release  (Wed, November 26th ,2014)		$39.99		6		SUNT-002
Colt Express			Distribution Release  (Wed, November 26th ,2014)		$49.99		6		COLT01
Choson			Distribution Release  (Wed, November 26th ,2014)		$24.99		6		MOOCHO
Artificium			Dec-14		$34.99		6		LSART01EN
Korrigans			Dec-14		$49.99		6		SKOR-001
Werewolves- Le Pacte			January,2015		$49.99		12		LG03US
Deus			January,2015		$59.99		6		DEUS01
Witness			February,2015		$39.99		6		BEM01

Key Restocks This Month:

Description	Comments *	MSRP	Case Pack	Item
Formula D	Restock November 1st	$59.99	5	FD01US
Splendor	Restock November 1st	$39.99	6	SPL01
Sherlock Holmes	Restock November 10th	$39.99	6	SHEH01