Local Game Store: Ideas

[Erloas]

Well as I'm sure a lot of people here have done, my brother is looking into what it would actually take to start and run a successful local game store.

Looking at some of the general advice online doesn't seem to really make sense to us, so we wanted to see what other people though. One person said they would never open one in an area with less then 200k people, but that would mean you simply couldn't even have one in the entire state (being the biggest community is about 60k) but there are a few in the state that seem to be doing fine, though none where we are.
Another said that gaming tables are a bad idea, and this simply didn't make any sense to us. What would even be the point of going to a store if you can't play there and anything bought would be bought almost as easily online and very possibly cheaper.


There is a reasonable playerbase here from what we know, at least in terms of 40k, we don't have anything really to go by for CCGs and RPGs. But I don't know if there are enough players (at least in terms of Warhammer Fantasy or 40k) to actually keep a store going. It is harder to know on the CCG and RPG fronts.

Overall the community is fairly well off monetarily, so having the money to play doesn't seem like a huge deal. What percentage of people might be interested but simply haven't heard of the games or don't know how to get a hold of the existing players in the area is a lot harder to gauge.

While selling online might work too, ideally we need to find a way to run it entirely locally and anything online would be extra, so not expecting online sales to help pay the rent.

We were thinking that having food would probably be a good supplement to gaming sales, because while most people probably aren't going to be spending $100s a month buying models they will be very likely to spend $10-15 a week on drinks and food while they are playing. The question comes in to what type of foods to do and what sort of licenses are required. I don't think it takes much of a license to serve pre-packaged food, but making sandwiches, or grilling hamburgers might be a pain. We aren't sure where selling things like frozen pizzas and burritos and then having an oven or microwave for them to use would fall in.
Its hard to say what people would like and what would keep them at the store instead of just making a fast-food run.


There are also some places that have computers set up, maybe 3-5 of them for LAN games, or for people to play WoW on or maybe some other games, and you rent them out by the hour. The place in Phoenix that had computers always had people on them, but its hard to say what part of the population here doesn't have access to a decent computer at home because this community isn't really anything like Phoenix.


What sort of tournament designs to people take part in? I know some CCG tournaments require buying a few packs and using what you end up with. I know others just let people bring in their own pre-built decks and some have restrictions on how recent the expansion the cards came out of. How much of an entry fee is acceptable for various types of games. What sort of reward should be given out for the tournaments, the value of the rewards compared to the entry fee. How well do multi-week tournaments work compared to single day ones? How practical are in-store gift certificates for prizes instead of a set item.


What price are people willing to pay to get something locally instead of buying it online? If you can get it for 20% off online will you only buy it locally if you can also get 20% off, or will you pay full price or just 10 or 15% off.

Any other random ideas?

Things like required floor space, how many gaming tables, hours to stay open, and which days to play which games would all come later when we have more information.

[Timberwolf]

One thing that a fairly successful local store to me does is second hand stuff. They don't have the space for tables but they do offer this big box full of various 40 k random bits for people to look through and pick up what they need as well as complete models.

[Joran]

Just going based off of my local gaming store: Dream Wizards

http://www.dreamwizards.com/

I think gaming tables are an absolute must, because you can supplement your earnings with sales of food and drinks as well as build up a loyal clientele and get people in the habit of visiting your store. I'd avoid making food and just offer pre-prepared frozen food like frozen pizza, burritos, chips, ramen, and drinks. If you can avoid having to have a food service license, do it. Check up the local regulations.

As a fan of German-style board games, I'd suggest stocking those along with the popular CCG/RPG materials. After playing Ticket to Ride and Settlers of Cataan, I then bought 10 more different board games. Have a few free-play nights and have a few open board games for people to try and hopefully buy in the future.

Dream Wizards is the only game store within a 20 mile radius and basically caters to every subset of the gaming universe (including a fairly sparse and expensive manga/anime area).

P.S. Be sure what you're trying to accomplish and have a good business plan. I'm fairly sure it's a lot harder to start up a business than it looks.

[factotum]

I would say that as a local game store (rather than a big chain) you'd need to tailor it to your local gaming market, which you'd know better than us--e.g. not much point including shelves full of Magic: The Gathering cards if no-one in your area plays it. Same applies to the gaming tables thing: if you know that lots of people will come in and play on them, while buying stuff off you, then you include them. If they're just going to waste space, don't--I believe retail outlets are usually priced according to area, so gaming tables that aren't used are just costing you money.

[Kane]

One thing I kind of think should be done is charging for use of your gaming tables. NOT A LOT; maybe something like a quarter from each player a game, or something. It's just that I've heard of so many place that had to pack up because people loved them, came there, played games, but didn't buy there. (Because online is cheaper, and all.)

[AgentPaper]

If you want to gague interest, you might try hosting a sort of mini-convention, where you and any people you know who might be interested run games for people who haven't tried before. Be ready to host various games, from Warhammer Fantasy and 40K, DnD (3.5 and 4E) and other tabletop RPGs, and anything else you can think of that people around there might want to play. Then, just try to get as many people as you can to come there and try things out.

If all works out, great! If not, then you might have to re-think the whole idea. There's also the added bonus of finding out at least somewhat what your target buyers like or not. If the Exalted tables are packed and the DnD tables are empty, well then maybe you shouldn't buy 40 copies of DnD 4E player's handbook. :smallwink:

As for gaming tables, definitely have them set up, and also I would reccommend not charging anything for them. Most likely, you'll lose more business because of the people you drove off with your prices than you get from the actual prices you're charging. You might find a happy medium, (Maybe $5-10 to rent a table for the night?) but it doesn't seem like it would work very well to me.

Instead, just make sure your prices are the same or less than prices you can find on-line, including shipping. The added convenience of being able to just buy what you need right there and not have to wait for something to ship should help counter-act the other conveniences of buying on-line, but the price shouldn't be much more, or people won't buy your stuff.

Drinks are a good idea. A simple soda machine or two will probably help a lot, and you might also want to set up a coffee machine as well if you're planning to be open late. (or early) Food is a bit stickier, (sometimes literally) but packaged food isn't a terrible idea. Actually preparing the food yourself is a bad idea though, for one because of the hassle of getting and maintaining a food permit, and also because, well, you're running a game store, not a restaurant! :smalltongue: If you can get a place that's near a fast-food store or two, though, that'd be perfect.

Of course, the best place for you to get help here would be from other people who also run game stores. Call up those games stores in places near you, and ask them if they'll help you out with a few tips. You're not exactly going to be competing with them if you're in a different city, so more likely than not they'll be willing to give you some tips.

[tyckspoon]

We were thinking that having food would probably be a good supplement to gaming sales, because while most people probably aren't going to be spending $100s a month buying models they will be very likely to spend $10-15 a week on drinks and food while they are playing. The question comes in to what type of foods to do and what sort of licenses are required. I don't think it takes much of a license to serve pre-packaged food, but making sandwiches, or grilling hamburgers might be a pain. We aren't sure where selling things like frozen pizzas and burritos and then having an oven or microwave for them to use would fall in.
Its hard to say what people would like and what would keep them at the store instead of just making a fast-food run.


This. So very much this. If you do nothing else with a gaming shop, do this. I have spoken with people who (anecdotally, of course) have made most of their store rent from the proceeds of their food concessions (I think they also benefited from low rents, which is nice to look for if you can find it in a space that works for you). Even just getting a couple of standard vending machines in will pay off. I would expect it pays more to provide better food/rarer options, such as being the only reliable place to acquire.. well, any of the Caffeine Drinks (http://www.thinkgeek.com/caffeine/drinks/) section of ThinkGeek, but you would have to do the actual work on that to figure out if the potential extra money is worth the cost and difficulty of acquiring the goods.

Edit: If your local area is scarce on gaming shops, then you can count pretty much anywhere within 30 minutes or so travel of your location as your potential clientele. Especially if you have open-play tables.

Double Edit: The other thing I have been told is that the money is *not* in figure games. Sell Warhammer/Warmachines/Battletech/whatever because you like the games. Sell board games because they make you money.

[Hawriel]

How many high schools in your town?

Do you have a college in town or close by?

These are two big sorces for potential gamers. Yeah I know it would seem like a no brainer.

You can put up flyer questionnaires with an email adress or web sight for responcess. Find out if there is intrest, and if so what games.

Use the internet for costomer research as well. Look for message boards on college websights. I know there are boards for players looking for players at the U of M for example.

Having a gaming table is a good idea.

You can promote games by having a demo night. You can have kids play at your store. They will most likely be buying your products and getting more of their friends to stop in. This will work for any game. RPG, war or card games. If this proves popular you can host in store tournaments.

Warhammer or Warhammer fantacy.

The parent company is Games Workshop. They are *******s. They are one of the biggest reasons why distributers like Greenfield (a very large one in the late 90s) went under. If you like the games and your costomers do carry their product. Just dont become an 'official store'. They have alot of rules and regulations on what you must do to be an official GW store. One of them being you can only sell their products. If you think Im just hating check it out for yourself.

Get to know your nabors. If you have any restaurants (pizza joints, sandwich shops ect) that deliver. See if you can get a deal with them. If there is one you like see if you can get a special. If you send all your hungry gamers to order from them maybe they can have a discounted special for your store. Friend of mine did this when he owned a gaming store.

Modeling and painting demos. If you or a friend are good at putting together models and painting help out your customers. Put up display cases of finnished products. Some peaple dont like to paint their own stuff. You could always offer it as a servise. Some of the peaple I knew who did this charged 20-50% of the cost of the item.

Well these are my ideas/advice. Maybe they are good maybe not.

[Myatar_Panwar]

Some quick ideas off the top of my head, from what I've seen of my local store and what I like about what it does:

Like:
1. Tables. The owner has three tables, two 4x4's and one 6x4. He also has pieces of plywood lying around to supplement these boards as needed. They all at least have a nice coat of flock, and he has alot of terrain readily available. Nicer tables than most people have = big plus.
2. A CALENDER. The last hobby/gaming shop we had around town was very strange with how they handled game days. It was a kind of "oh we sometimes kind of due it Saturdays or Sundays. Just come by sometime or something!" They went out of business. The new shop has a calender featuring what they primarily run each day of the month, available online. He also includes a print out of this Calender as well as any promotional things and sticks it in your bag whenever you buy something. Genius.
3. The guy running the shop is pretty well versed in most games. I know you said that you and your brother aren't big into card games, but if you find that people in your area are into them, get into them! You can play games with guys who come down and lack another player. This will only draw more customers/players if they know your store is active.
4. He has drinks and snacks available for purchase. Very nice (though alot of players will just walk two stores over and buy a Pizza for $5 at Little Ceasers). Still a great idea.
5. Even though he doesn't stock all the products that you might want, he is very proactive about getting you those things. Usually he places an order every week for stuff people want, and said people get those things in a week or two.


Also, I am usually willing to buy from my LGS at full price to help keep them running. Though it would be nice to get stuff at a discount, it probably just ins't practical.

[loopy]

Just a warning about the "LAN computers" idea. Although it may seem like a good thought, its generally a trap. You don't really make enough money from them to make back the hundreds of dollars you have to spend servicing them (not to mention the complete upgrade every two years or so).

One of my friends started a internet cafe/computer business that only became *really* successful once he ditched the internet cafe part*. He's a shrewd businessman as well.

*However he did note that the gaming tourneys and regulars the LAN computers attracted was vital to setting up his initial customer base. He did have about 20-30 PC's, while you are talking about 4-ish, which wouldn't be enough to attract the serious gamers.

[Archonic Energy]

There are also some places that have computers set up, maybe 3-5 of them for LAN games, or for people to play WoW on or maybe some other games, and you rent them out by the hour. The place in Phoenix that had computers always had people on them, but its hard to say what part of the population here doesn't have access to a decent computer at home because this community isn't really anything like Phoenix.

Personally i'd offer Wired/Wireless LAN Options but have no systems of your own. then offer LAN Tornment days with the only proviso being "your PC is your problem" with a small Entry fee which covers the 1st, 2nd, & 3rd prizes

[BizzaroStormy]

The game store that closed in my town was actually doing pretty good for a while until the owner made some bad business choices.

Food & Drink:Anyway what he did right as far as food was to gt bulk candybars at a wholesale shop, sell bags of popcorn (with a microwave in-store), and sold those Little Debbie cake thingys at like...50 cents each. His close proximity to two gas stations, an ice cream place, and a pizza king, was overidden by the convienience/price ratio he had going.

Prices: Unlike several other stores, he priced everything below MSRP. The profit he lacked in individual sales was made up and then some by selling more items. That and tax was usually already factored into the price. For instance, a pack of the current MTG set was a flat $4. There was no need to nickel and dime people.

Dealing: Another major source of income was the business he did on eBay. Using various pricing magazines (Scrye, ect.) he would buy people's cards, minis, whatever, for like 40% of book value, then sell them at 80%, this ensured a fairly quick sale and a god return. He would also sell things on eBay for you, keeping 20% as a fee.

Game Choice: The main thing he did was find out which games people wanted to play. Back in the day, the MTG and Yu-Gi-Oh CCGs were his top sellers. Starwars and Warhammer 40k were fairly far behind though. There was even the Mechwarrior CMG which, despite only having me and 5 others to play it, he kept stocking. MTG is still pretty big and getting sanctioned with WotC gives you all kinds of neat stuff to do.

Player/Owner relations: This is a big one, I think. The owner of the store wasn't some mystery man that spent all day in the back room counting his gold dubloons, he was out with the customers talking, doing business, even playing a couple games when he had the chance.

[shadzar]

Business: Have enough money to run for 18 months before you actually will seeing that you are making money.

LGS:

Much hold card game tournaments. Card crack is a major seller to keep the store running, even if you don't like them. Must carry comics. These can screw you as much as help, but they get more people in to look at other things.

Must have room for people to play for free. The more time people spend in the store, the more likely they are to buy more on a whim.

Must sell snacks. While people may bring their owns food/drinks you want a cut form those that didn't think ahead or want to lug the stuff around. Of course you could always not allow food or drinks in the store, but then you are likely to not have many people stick around to buy those things on a whim.

Must clean your store. People buying cards or anything else tend to leave wrappers in odd places even when a proper receptacle is available and handy.

Must make sure your store can open and close when it needs to and not be bound by some silly 8pm parking lot closing rule at some stuck up outlet center. This is one of the problems for MANY stores that must close at a certain time, and cannot open before a certain time due to lease agreements.

Must have ample parking. If you got people staying around in the store, they had to get their somehow, and need to be able to stow their stuff. when not using it...extra backpacks for trade stock, etc.

Should provide storage space. Those rental lockers are great. One quarter after you take the key to get anything out of it. All items left overnight cost $5 to reclaim or become store property, and may incur theft charges for the key taken off the premises overnight. This helps keep the playing area clean so people can play.

With CCGs or any other "booster" type game you want to have plenty and be ready for one at anytime even if their is nothing scheduled and supported by the company...like Magic FNM....While these little tournaments don't get points recorded for rankings with the company, you can have an internal tournament and give some prize at the end of each month for the person with the most wins. Of course entry fee into tournament would be based on costs, but should be less than just buying packs normally...

The reason say 3 packs of cards is $12 (@ $4 each) would cost $10 is because you aren't just selling those 3 packs, but at least 6 packs or more depending on how many people want to get in this impromptu tournament. So you can sell a booster of 36 packs for $120 (36/3=12*10=120). Of course different games have different booster prices but saying you paid $90 for the booster, and would have sold the whole box for $110, you made an extra $10 from the quick tournaments. So work out the math for the games you would carry. You could even offer a small prize for them like a 2 packs to first place and one pack to second for the tournament if it has X number of people enter it. Again this would depend on the game and the stores cost and how many people the store needs to give prize support rather than just discounted booster packs. :smallwink: And remind people these tournament may not count towards any official ranking (some games they may allow it), so they are just playing for fun and potential prize.

Also let the impromptu tournaments be run by them rather than the store. The store is just providing the space for it in exchange for the sales unlike a scheduled store tournament.

There are many ways to make unscheduled tournaments work and let the players decide when they want to play in one as well having scheduled tournaments...you just have to figure out your customers.

You could sub a few of the things above like comics for board games, or models, or whatever depending on your area and what people are interested in....DVDs, video games, etc.

Hope some of this has helped. :smallsmile:

[Breltar]

Some good ideas here and I have also had the idea of my own gaming store.

One thing that is required in any business is a good location. I have seen many an empty store but the one that had the most business and actually expanded was one that was located near the local high school. Nothing like getting kids money and having them hang out and spend a bunch on soda and chips etc. It also makes the store feel 'alive' to anyone coming in for the first time instead of a cold place with empty tables.

I would advise against table fees and instead charge for locker rental.

Layaway - great idea on some of the more expensive systems out there, especially if you get a location near a high school and get those kids money week/month after week/month.

I would also advise against a LAN unless you make that a separate entity with its own advertising. A LAN business is all unto its own and should most likely not be just an 'addition' to a tabletop gaming store. That said I would have a computer or two with army list builders and charge per page of paper for them to print them out.

Advertising is key as well, I didn't know a few games stores were around me until I found them randomly tucked away in a strip mall, to me that is bad business sense. A website is paramount as well, since you can show potential customers what you have to offer.

From talking to several store owners they say that inventory management and what they buy is key to success. If you spend $5,000.00 on product that never moves off the shelf that is a big hit to your profit margins, so knowing what will sell is a big deal.

Always offer to special order things for customers, this shows them your value, gets them into your store and makes them feel special.

Good luck on your endeavors.

[Erloas]

Right now we are still in the very early "see if it is even kind of feasible" stage.

Of the places we've found so far with rents listed I think almost all of them are outside of what a game store could support, but there are a lot of areas of town I didn't see anything listed for.

The next closest game store is about 180 miles away, there might be one about 100 miles away but I'm not sure if it is there anymore. Right now between the two cities we only have about 40k people.
There isn't much for commercial property in GR, especially not near the high school. People are also much more likely to go to RS then having people from RS going to GR. RS doesn't have a whole lot of commercial properties by the high school either. The community college has some, but I don't know if it would be anything that would work for a game store, I think most of them are more like small medical sorts of offices (the hospital is right by the college).
The "old part of town" probably has the best rent rates, but its so easy to forget that stuff even exists there. I never have a reason to go there though.

Of course all the better areas with more foot traffic, where people are normally, and around all the fast food places are probably going to be prohibitively expensive.

Any idea of what sort of profit margins there are on the various types of CCGs for the retailer?

[Jera]

It really depends on what kind of store you want to have, who you want to appeal to, and most importantly what kind of community you're willing to cultivate. Because no matter what the key to a successful gaming store is good community relations. For example in Omaha, NE I have about 8 FLGS options, and I still drive to the next town over to the Bellevue, NE Game Shoppe, because it has the community that I enjoy the most. At one point I lived within walking distance of a Games Workshop and a Comic book store that hosted games, and I still preferred to drive 30-40 minutes to that other store. Make people want to come back to your store, I've seen two game stores go out of business and neither of them seemed to make any effort to make people want to come in, or to clean there stores. We all know the smell of a bad Friday Night Magic, and your store should not smell like that on a Tuesday.

You can have a good culture instead of a community, but I think that's a lot harder to do; for example in Omaha NE there's a board game cafe called Spielbound, that has a huge selection of board games, where you can go in and play any board game you want for either a monthly membership or a $5 day pass, additionally they offer coffee, beer and food, and do things like trivia nights. This store also has the largest appeal out of any gaming store that I've ever been to, even non-gamer friends and coworkers know of it. I was talking to someone recently whose only experience with boardgames was Monopoly and Scrabble until someone brought her along to a pub quiz one night. There's very little community there, but the culture of the place is such that you can go in pretty much at any time, and plop down a little sign that says "I want to play X, everyone is welcome to join" or even join someone with one of those signs and have a fun evening playing Battlestar Galactica with 5 strangers.

One thing I'd highly suggest if you do go for the miniature wargaming, look into Dropzone Games out of Glen Burnie, MD. They have specialized tables for each type of game they sale(Warma/Hordes, 40k/AOS, Infinity, X-Wing, Historicals, etc) but they key to their community is that they have a dedicated painting/hobby area. Everytime I went into Dropzone, be it a Monday evening a Saturday morning, there was always at least 3 people in the painting/hobby area working on their miniatures. Additionally, I can't even start to count the number of times I saw someone new to the store come in look around, and get drawn over the painting area because they gave you something tangible to look at, sure seeing a Titan in the display case is interesting, but watching someone paint the titan grabs your attention and makes you want to try it yourself.

[factotum]

It really depends on what kind of store you want to have, who you want to appeal to, and most importantly what kind of community you're willing to cultivate.

Pssst...check the date of the original post...

[LibraryOgre]

One thing I kind of think should be done is charging for use of your gaming tables. NOT A LOT; maybe something like a quarter from each player a game, or something. It's just that I've heard of so many place that had to pack up because people loved them, came there, played games, but didn't buy there. (Because online is cheaper, and all.)

On this note: One of our local stores (Golem's Gate (https://www.facebook.com/GolemsGate/?rf=211524235967955)) charges $1/player/hour to use their tables, BUT that money goes directly to the GM or host of the game... as store credit. So, if I host a game, and 4 of my friends show up and we play for 6 hours, I get $24 in store credit. They also have a subscription fee, which lets you use their painting station, their RPG book library, and their members gaming table. For $25 a month, it's all the painting you can do, a discount on books, and a few other perks. They don't mind you bringing in food, but prefer if you purchase snacks from them (i.e. you can go to Sonic and bring back a burger, but pick up your Funions there, instead of at Kroger). They are pretty much all gaming space. No comics. Not a lot of cards, that I recall.

Another local store, which has been around for several years, is 8th Dimension (https://www.facebook.com/8thDimensionComics/), which has gone a very different route. They're a bookstore with heavy geek interests. Comic books, graphic novels, RPGs, cards. They don't sell single cards, but they do a lot of business, and have some tables in the back.