Release calendar
What is coming, and where it sits.
Approved dealers see upcoming product with its real status, the preorder window, and where W&S is in the process for each line. The status vocabulary is published here so anyone can see what those words mean before opening an account.
How the calendar works
Every product carries one status, and it means what it says.
A product appears on a distributor’s calendar as a signal to plan against, so the signal has to be exact. On the W&S calendar a listed product is one we can actually get, and its status tells a shop precisely how far along it is — from a non-binding expression of interest through to a written allocation with a quantity and a price against it.
That precision is what makes the calendar usable for buying. A shop can see which releases are still open for interest, which have moved to preorder, which are allocated and confirmed, and which have arrived. Nothing sits in an ambiguous state, and where we have no confirmed arrival date the record says so rather than showing one we already know is superseded.
Approved dealers see the live calendar behind their account. The status vocabulary is published here so a shop knows exactly what each state commits them to before they open an account.
Status vocabulary
Seven states, defined.
Every product a dealer sees carries exactly one of these. There is no eighth state meaning 'we are not sure' — that is what Expected with no confirmed date says explicitly.
- Approved dealers can register a non-binding quantity they would take at an indicated price. Nothing is owed by either party. This is what W&S aggregates and takes upstream.
- W&S has opened the product for order. A dealer request at this stage is binding subject to the terms, and allocation confirmation is still a separate step.
- The preorder window has closed and W&S is working the allocation against the published criteria. No quantity is confirmed yet.
- Quantities have been confirmed in writing to the accounts receiving them, with price and timestamp recorded.
- Received, available to order now at dealer pricing.
- On order from a supplier with an expected arrival. Where W&S does not have a confirmed date, the record says so rather than showing one we already know is wrong.
- No remaining quantity. Restock, if any, is shown separately.
The shape of the year
When each category actually moves.
Useful for planning cash regardless of which distributor you buy from. Every category here is one W&S distributes.
| Category | Seasonal shape |
|---|---|
| Baseball | Builds from January, peaks February through April with spring training and the season opening, holds through the summer with the Florida State League, and softens in the late autumn before the winter product cycle. |
| Football | Quiet through spring, building through the draft and camp, sharp onset with the season, sustained through the autumn, and peaking again through the gift season in November and December. |
| Basketball | Builds through the autumn with the season opening, peaks through the winter and the gift season, holds through the playoffs in spring, and softens through the summer. |
| Hockey | Builds through the autumn with the season, holds through the winter and the gift season, peaks through the spring playoffs, and goes quiet through the summer. |
| Soccer | Follows international club competition through the autumn, winter and spring rather than a domestic season, with substantial spikes in major international tournament years. |
| Multi-Sport & Other | Follows the calendar of each underlying sport rather than a single season, which in practice spreads demand more evenly across the year than the major categories. |
| Pokémon | Effectively year-round, with pronounced peaks at each major set release and through the November and December gift season. |
| Supplies & Storage | Effectively aseasonal, with modest lift alongside major releases and through the gift season. |
| Trading Card Games | Driven by publisher set releases and organized play cycles rather than a sports calendar, producing several distinct peaks a year. |
Be counted before it ships.
Registering interest is how a named account gets into the demand W&S carries upstream — and it is one of the published allocation criteria.
Looking for a specific product now? Ask us — we will tell you whether we can get it.