Setting up a game store?

Monday, December 13, 2010

Setting up a game store?

Posted by Unknown

Here's an email in from Rory:

"My friends and I want to open a game store downtown in a major city that doesn't have a game store. We know there are players here, and that many are in need of a gaming space.

What kind of things would you require in a game store, what do you think a game store should carry, and what kinds of common pitfalls do you think a store could run into and avoid? I'm asking you because I fudging love your blog, and you have a talent for saying things bluntly and without the bias that the internet is so filled with.

Cheers,
Rory"

Haha cheers Rory though your compliment got pinked o.O!

Honestly, I have no idea :P. Or rather, I have a lot of ideas but no idea if it would actually lead to a successfully run business. We know a good business model means being flexible and thus I would ensure you do not focus exclusively on GW products like GW stores do. Any table-top game by other companies or even card games such as Magic should be considered. Otherwise great support. Having awesome tables (for each system) is a huge reason many people go to local stores. It saves them time and effort and makes their games look better. The other obvious reason is they get to play other people. Being interactive with customers and having customers interact with each other is also a huge draw for local stores so ensuring you do have a customer base would be important (i.e. ask the local gamers if they'd be interested in said store). This would also relate to leagues/tournaments/etc. and the advertising of such to out-of-towners (which equals more new faces, etc. etc.).

Other than those obvious things such as appropriate gaming space (no one likes cramped rooms) and a website, proper location, etc. nothing is jumping out to me. I really think researching what people want in your area is a good idea and stocking what they want (if there's a huge Magic or Hordes following for example) whilst maintaining a diverse product range which has support.

Anyone else have any ideas or actual experience with this? I know BroLo knows a guy who runs a local store and the guy who runs SpikeyBitz might be a good person to ask. Obviously advertising on 3++ helps, too... haha.

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VT2 79p · 750 weeks ago

Don't focus on tabletop games exclusively. Cardgames and feelies sell better, and shift more stock.
If you don't know anything about, say, magic, make sure your staff does.
Being a pusher of tabletop games, provide space for people to play and hobbycraft. This lets you control local trends, and gives people reason to go to your store in the first place.
Offer competitive prices. Retail GW sells poorly for a reason.
Encourage people to make bulk orders, with better prices. You'll make a large profit on it, anyway.
Sell snacks and soda. This brings in extra money, because even nerds need to eat and drink, and if you don't sell it, they're gonna go the store next door.
Don't hire more help than you actually need.
AC.
Don't push sales down people's throats. Another reason GW fails.
Don't accept kids below the age of X unless they're accompanied by adults. Not doing this tells parents it's okay to give their 10-year-old kids some money, and go hang at the local store for 5 hours. You know, like cheaper daycare.
Give a staffer a can of febreeze. Make her or him spray the neckbeards occasionally. They'll get the hint, or go away. Either way, you'll look less like a pretend GW.
Make the staff remove all piercings, conceal tattoos, and confiscate any and all bubblegum when they're on duty. This is something GW got right - at one point in time, at least.
Don't staff the store with 100% pushovers.
Respect the regulars who spend good coin.

2 replies · active 750 weeks ago

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tzeentchling 76p · 750 weeks ago

All the staff at my GW store ended up getting an imperial aquilla tattoo, which looked kinda cool, but I understand your general point.

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Kirby 118p · 750 weeks ago

I agree with VT2 on a lot of these haha :P. How odd...

Bulk orders is a good point he brings up. Nothing sucks worse for a store than to have stock on a shelf but if a customer is willing to fork over the cash for a whole new army (like Koopa did) give them an extra % off. It's an 'easy' sale sort of thing.

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tjkopena · 750 weeks ago

At the couple shops I've had some slim insight into over the years, the clear theme is that nothing does business as well as cards. Miniatures and boardgames are super hard to keep moving, and role playing basically just takes up shelf space. Cards however bring kids and people in by the store full, all buying cards, paying to play in weekly tournaments, etc. Unless you have some particularly favorable environment for minis or boardgames, if you're not putting substantial energy toward catering to the Magic/YuGiOh/etc crowd then you're in trouble.

1 reply · active 750 weeks ago

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SageoftheTimes 77p · 750 weeks ago

Catering to Magic will make or break your store (I'm not kidding). Cards in general will be a large part of your revenue. RPG will be an alright part. Having separate rooms that people can rent for RPGs/minis helps. Catering to wargaming will require warehouse-level space, so choose carefully (although, note that it'll also allow you to have MASSIVE magic tourneys). Most of your store will be taken up by shelving, then the back space will take ~10-20%, leaving a space for tables. Find a way to make things fit and you're good.

Just remember that Warhammer will require ~16 tables for a tourney medium. Measure this out in floor space, and understand that you'll need TONS of space.

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Gx1080 · 750 weeks ago

Try renting gaming tables per hour. Works if you have really nice terrain.

4 replies · active 750 weeks ago

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willydstyle · 750 weeks ago

I disagree with this. If you have nice terrain, you should still offer the tables for free. People who play in a store are more willing to buy from the store. If you offer a discount in addition to gaming space, you can successfully sell GW product at a fairly decent pace. GW is actually one of the top sellers in my local store, after Magic and board games. They offer gaming space for free, a monthly league with a $10 buy in and prizes ($2 of the buy-in goes to maintaining terrain, $8 goes to prizes), and a 20% discount if you're in the league on league night.

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Gx1080 · 750 weeks ago

I see. Was just kicking the idea around.

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VT2 79p · 750 weeks ago

Always offer it 'for free.'
If people don't get space, you get less of them visiting, and don't have control over local trends. Keeping the largest club in your store is very, very good for business, and if you give them a 'club discount' of some sort, they'll reward you by bringing in more people, hosting your tournaments, maintaining your tables, and building your terrain.

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SageoftheTimes 77p · 750 weeks ago

Yeah, there's selling the item, and then selling the experience. Selling the item means selling a box. Selling an experience means box + all other required items to make it sell (if it's Warhammer, brushes, paints, tables to paint/play them on, tourneys to go to). Sell the experience.

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Antebellum · 750 weeks ago

One thing I like about GW stores is that you can ask them about how a unit works, what the best way to paint something is, or just to give you some advice. I think this is an important aspect of a store - do you have staff that customers would want to go to for advice.

A large enough gaming space (which might be difficult for the middle of a city). It is nice to have 8 tables crammed in a room, but if there are only two tables ever being used at once, just have 6 tables and bring out the extras if they are ever needed.

I agree that cards seem to bring people to a crazed level.

Providing regular tournaments is good. A store that I started going to recently picked up GW products and has run a tournament the past 2 months. First was 750 pts, then 850 pts, now 1000 pts next week. They are escalating because they have some newer gamers.

It would be your choice on whether to require painted minis. I think it looks awesome to have all fully painted minis, but in reality you're going to lose a large segment of people (like myself) who are building as we go and do not have everything painted.

1 reply · active 750 weeks ago

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Kirby 118p · 750 weeks ago

Agree with approachable staff and echoing what VT2 said, make sure you have people that know the systems. I wouldn't agree with GW staff actually being good people to approach for their game (which is a bad play on GW's part; their staff knowing their own rules would be good) but the concept is correct.

Escalation leagues are another great idea, especially for getting people into the hobby and to buy things from the store, etc.

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VT2 79p · 750 weeks ago

If you do a GW, and put one to three tables at the front, you need painted minis. Otherwise, it's not really all that important.
Anything you put on display should be painted to a high - yet not all that advanced - level. The line highlighted GW style is very good, because even the little kids can learn how to do it, but the golden demon level is bad, since it intimidates most players.

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Keith · 750 weeks ago

I'm sure I haven't been playing as long as most people here and I've never been to an official GW store so my perspective is probably a bit limited, but...
Here's what I like about my FLGS:
Run by a very friendly guy
I can have them order models for me at a discount that matches the best prices I can find on ebay (I think it's 20% off)
Painting night on Wednesdays
Always people playing 40k on Saturdays
Soda available

What I think could be better:
Even though there are a lot of tables (14) half of them are always filled with people's bags and cases and stuff and can't be used.
I wish there was a forum or something so I could plan a game instead of showing up at the store and awkwardly wander around until
an opponent and table is available.

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Random Dude #32,873 · 750 weeks ago

My biggest draw to my local store is the atmosphere. They strongly encourage the painting aspect of the miniature hobby and it really is more fun to paint my plastic space crack barbie dolls with other people around and some good quality nerd movies playing. I spent all of yesterday watching (and making fun of) the Ultramarines movie and painting about a gazillion Termagants. You get one guess where I bought the paint supplies.

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sircarp 27p · 750 weeks ago

Providing options is really nice. At the place I worked over the summer, the place I stayed in didn't have a place to use spray primer. The local game store had an area behind it where I could do that; they also had a good selection of miniatures, paints, tools etc. If they didn't have something, they would be willing to order it in for you. They also had a set of hobby tools available for in-store use so that you didn't have to buy 20-30 dollars worth of tools. They also had weekends set aside for wargamers with a hobby focus on Saturday and gaming on Sundays. Those were great because it gave me a chance to learn painting techniques from a Golden Demon winner and to learn the game from a friendly crowd.

My store at home is very bright, clean and friendly. They offer a 20% discount on msrp for all their products and stock both GW and vallejo paints. The nice thing about this store is that it is very inviting. Parents or Grandparents can come in, talk to someone and get what their children want without much hassle and without going to someplace that looks like a dump. So keep your store clean and friendly.

Lastly the store I go to when I'm at school is nothing like the other two. It's the only gaming store for 30 miles and it's within walking distance of an engineering school. It largely survives by virtue of it being convenient, and perfectly located for the audience; a school filled with the types who play card and tabletop games. The staff is knowledgeable, but are coarse and it can be hard for new people to break into the culture. It also has limited stock and very few scheduled events for wargaming.

1 reply · active 750 weeks ago

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SageoftheTimes 77p · 750 weeks ago

You're going to need to be located in the right spot. Snacks are nice, but be nearby sandwitch/pizza/chinese places (within walking distance if average/light driving distance if really good). Try to get a large amount of space if you want Warhammer people to come to your store.

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Auretious Taak · 750 weeks ago

Ummm well lets see, retail...considering I am in an art supply shop which has just opened a few months back starting from scratch under the same sort of pretense of "Well i know art lets take over and go from there."

Now, the BIGGEST ISSUE YOU WILL HAVE:

Suppliers.

Don't buy shit you don't need.

Don't listen to sales reps who try to hock you crap you do not need.

You'll have to meet minimum orders on items from each supplier and if it's like us that'll range from $100 to $800+ for a single order.

People don't understand when you say that you can get it in on order, that it may take some time, because hey, you need to fill teh rest of that order with other things. To start with, that's gonna be fairly easy but it'll get hard to do unless you pick up massively.

1 reply · active less than 1 minute ago

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Auretious Taak · 750 weeks ago

If you are in Australia as well, you are competing with people buyinge verything from overseas because it is cheaper to ship it in from overseas cause our dollar is epic right now (bit over one U.S. dollar for our aussie dollar today - you yanks fail! ;p) so that is something you'll have to consider.

Reputation.

It'll make or break you.

Literally.

Good luck with it,

Auretious Taak.

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Thud_ 39p · 750 weeks ago

Capture the nerd-market. Keep the nerd-market.

The reason I got into 40k was because a friend's brother introduced us to it. How did he get into it? He was buying comics at the comic book shop and was fascinated by the guys playing with cool, painted miniatures on big tables in the back of the shop. Fast forward fifteen years and my friend's fascination with seeing those guys play has earned that shop quite a few thousands of pounds.

See where I'm going with this?

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Joe T · 750 weeks ago

Be selective about what GW products you sell get the starter boxes AOBR Island of blood amd 1 of each of the battalion boxes and a selection of Marine stuff/ whats new at the time or you can end up with 10's or even 100's of thousands ofpounds worth of stock which will be dead money to you Get a copy of the GW catologue and a computer linked to the GW site and let people order other bits with a discount.

Renting tables can work out alright if the cost is low enogth My local charges £2 per visit but you can stay all day this will discourage parents dropping there kids off for cheap day care and give you some more cash to spend on scenery and table.

Also make sure your'e the biggest personality in the store and that every one is welcome or else you end up with a clique that excludes people and new players and new cash coming in.

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@InDavesLife · 750 weeks ago

Build an online community.
www.miniwargaming.com is a prime example.

Started as a local store, built an online store, forum, newsletters... it's the online forum I'd even pimp and I've never been there cause they're out of my way. But there's a lot of activity and I'm sure that by giving people options on how to inundate their lives with the hobby, they'll be more likely to return to your store / spend more money.

1 reply · active less than 1 minute ago

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Kirby 118p · 750 weeks ago

One issue I think with a forum for a store is moderating it. There's always going to be people who take trash-talking, etc. too far and since the forum is linked to your business...well it would be a lot of effort I think :P.

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Meister_Kai · 750 weeks ago

DO NOT SELL COMIC BOOKS.

Physical comic books are a dying medium, nearly everyone just downloads them with a very focused clique that still buys physical copies. They are usually a gigantic money sink (forcing you to order a bunch from the get-go) and hang around for forever.

Don't see what you want to sell, sell what your customers want to buy. If you discover you are in a MTG town, play to it.

If you don't have a discount on GW I personally wouldn't even bother selling it.

All of your income will come from: Snacks, card games, events you hold.

Good luck.