(https://www.pendraken.co.uk/user/PriceIncrease26.jpg)
Unfortunately we've got some bad news today, as we're having to increase our prices on October 1st. As people will already know, we never do this unless we absolutely have to. Due to various global frictions, the price of metal alone is now £18,000 higher per annum than 12 months ago and isn't showing any sign of coming back down. This is mirrored across other materials like resin and MDF, as well as the cost of energy itself.
I've included a graph of our metal prices since 2013, where you can see the current increases along with the spike during the pandemic in 2020/21. We're way beyond Covid prices now and the red trend line isn't heading in a good direction!
(https://www.pendraken.co.uk/user/content/MetalPrice26.jpg)
With the small margins on most products in this hobby, it's just not possible to keep absorbing increases to our overheads like this.
As a result, Pendraken metal prices will change as follows:
£7.95 > £8.95 - Standard 30-man / 15-cav packs
£2.65 > £3.00 - Standard 10-man packs
£3.20 > £3.50 - WWII 'regular' vehicles and artillery packs
£49.00 > £56.00 - Regular army packs
All other metal pack prices will change accordingly.
There will also be some other increases:
- Packs of MDF bases will go from £1.50 to £1.75 with Bulk packs going to £15 instead of £13.
- Decals will be increasing to £3.25 per pack.
- Dave's 28mm Schleswig-Holstein range will increase to £2.00 per figure.
There will be no other changes so Vallejo paints, Ironclad products, Litko items, etc. will all remain as they are. There'll obviously be no change to anyone who backed our Napoleonic campaign either, all of those prices will stay the same.
----
As a personal note to finish, I genuinely don't like putting our prices up at all. We've always tried to offer a quality product for a fair price, backed up with good service. But repeated external friction along with the insatiable hunger of modern capitalism just won't leave us alone.
In the nearly two decades I've been doing this now, I've never known as many hurdles being put in the way of running a business. Just this past 12 months we've had to constantly fight fires in the form of US tariffs, EU regulations and UK government policy, all of which take hours, days or even weeks to figure out, taking us away from the day-to-day jobs. Instead of trawling EU government websites to find their individual recycling policies, I could have been prepping the next Sci-Fi range. Instead of being stuck on the phone to Royal Mail for hours because they've messed up a recent update, I could have been planning our return to the shows next year.
I have no idea what the next 12 months will bring but I just hope that we can hit a stretch of calmer water for a while. Regardless though, we'll keep churning out the new goodies and hopefully you'll be tempted to buy some of them!
Hugs >:<
Keep being amazing
I'm not surprised at all you've had to put the prices up, given all that's going on in the World. We'll still keep on supporting you, that's for sure!!!
Modern life is a bit rubbish isn't it? Hopefully this "storm" will break soon but until then we'll just have to keep on.
Meanwhile I, and I'm sure many others, really appreciate the openness about what's happening behind the scenes.
When I first read Prince increase, I thought it was about Prince Harry returning.
I think we are all expecting an everything increase as diesel cost soars, let alone hobby costs.
Luckily for me my 26 and 27 plans are mainly the new Naps so thank you for holding the prices there. Nothing "obviously" about it, your costs have risen. It reflects your open and honourable approach.
I'll have to consider a small "beat the rise" order on tb line.
Still excellent value for money.
Still excellent people.
Hope to see you back on (select?) shows next year.
I appreciate the heads up and the explanation. Many (OK, most) of us are addicts; we ain't going to stop buying :D
Just have to stock up on key gaps before the price increase! Like I need more unpainted figures before we move house 🙂.
Edward
Fully understand this, as I have said before you need to charge enough to give every one at Pendraken a living wage.
Just checked a couple of you competitor 10mm ranges ( I'm not saying who), but both are already at a similar price or more expensive to what yours will be after your price rise.
Also their postage charges are significantly higher than your postage charges. (11 packs over £10). The other was even more expensive on postage.
So not only do you have an impeccable customer service record, you are still better value after the price increase.
You can't argue with a graph.
I think the consensus is that this is a necessity, not a whim.
Pendraken is a wonderful service, offering oodles of goodies (even if some of them are in the wrong scale) at not exorbitant prices.
Thank you all for what you do.