Friendly Local Game Shop (UK)

[Z-dan]

Greetings all!

It's been a while since I've been here, so I hope I'm posting in the right place...

Cutting to the chase, I am planning on opening an FLGS in Bristol in the near future, and am looking for people's thoughts and opinions- as such it would be of great help if you filled in this survey for me (UK gamers only please, the closer to Bristol the better): http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WDHGNDS

Or if you don't want to do that, then tell me about your personal experiences with FLGSs- tell me what makes the one you frequent the best, or what they could do to improve themselves.

[Castaras]

Okay, experiences with my local gaming store:

It's mostly wargaming and M:TG. A couple of boardgames. They do things for reasonably cheap, and on the plus side they give my student society discounts (5% off everything). They have good deals on stuff, and their FNMs are decent, with good prize support.

However, they can be rather incompetent. They have many times for my society's convention let us down in various ways - either by being late with terrain they promised, or dropping out entirely and not telling us until the night before. They can be slow on deliveries and you can't guarantee that if you ask them to order in something they'll do so.

Take this experience as you will. Unfortunately it's our only gaming store in the area, and it does no rolegaming stuff which is a shame but the way of it nowadays in most areas. The only other place to go for gaming stuff is the Forbidden Planet which does good boardgames, and the Games Workshop which is utter bollocks (we managed to steal a large number of regulars there to our society due to them being bollocks).

edit: If I lived in Bristol I'd be very interested in your store because you mentioned in your survey Dystopian Wars, my wargame of choice. :smallbiggrin:

[paddyfool]

It's all with another country's market etc. in mind, but you may find this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=303397) has some good ideas in it.

[Tyndmyr]

Yuppers, some excellent ideas contributed in there. Exact games and stuff are gonna vary depending on area, so I can't get too specific there...finding the popular games for your area is part of the game.

I can advise on some of the more business-oriented parts, though. First, google "black diamond games". The fellow posts an excellent blog about the business side of running a game shop. Much more experience than I, and he's not afraid to show hard data. Good stuff in an area where info is hard to find.

That said, spend lots of time on determining the right location. I spent three months shopping, and I regret none of it. It was disappointing and discouraging at times, but putting in the effort to learn how commercial retail works, break down where local gamers lived(that were far from any local stores), work out patterns in traffic and pricing....totally worth it. In the end, I got a lovely deal on a beautiful location. Free rent up front, low rates, lots of freedom on terms. This gave me a LOT more freedom in other aspects of the store. A bad location can be a very hard, expensive problem to fix.

I do like your survey. You can never go wrong in asking your customers what they want. =)

[factotum]

I do like your survey. You can never go wrong in asking your customers what they want. =)

So long as you remember the retailer's mantra: "The customer is always right, but they are often misguided.". :smallsmile:

[KuReshtin]

My local gaming store is really a Toy Shop that started out with a bit of GW stuff, and then realised there were more gamers in the area than he thought, and so expanded into RPGs and some board games and then CCGs/TCGs.

He organises weekly Yu-Gi-Oh torunaments each Sunday, has war gaming on Monday and Thursday nights, rund DnD Encounters on Wenesday afternoons, Magic League on Wednesday evenings, Friday Night Magic on Friday Nights (duh) and usually has something different on each Saturday afternoon. For instance, first Saturday of each month is Board Gaming Saturday where people can come along and play whatever they like.
Also Role Playing each Tuesday night.

Most regulars are there for a lot of these things (I seem to spend more time there than I do my own home some weeks) and his pricing is pretty decent.

The issues that I find every now and then, being a regular, is that for the bigger events, like FNM and other official CCG events, he tends to ramble on about stuff that's not really relevant (like plugging Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments at the Magic events for players that he knows aren't into YGO) and he gets a bit preachy at times about getting people to pre-register for upcoming events.
The preachiness is understandable, though, since it's a small shop in a small market, and he needs the regulars to show up to the events, but his preachiness tends to verge on guilting people to attend things that they tell him they can't attend for whatever reason. And that gets a bit annoying at times.

He's very good at getting things ordered for you if you ask for it, though, and he's open to suggestions of new ideas when presented to him.

[Aedilred]

I remember a great FLGS in Bristol called Captain Sci-Fi, many years ago. There was another one on Park Street the name of which I can't remember, which closed down in about 1996-7. That was also in the days when GW was still worth visiting; truly, it was a golden age.

I will fill out your survey.

[Tyndmyr]

So long as you remember the retailer's mantra: "The customer is always right, but they are often misguided.". :smallsmile:

Oh sure, you don't have to do whatever they want exactly...but information is precious. I see businesses make the mistake all the time of assuming they know what the customer wants without actually asking the customer. Mind boggling, really.

[Ashtagon]

I did the survey, Additional comments:

Regarding board games, there is a specific category (generally called German board games) that you seem to have ignored. This includes Settlers of Catan and Saving Dr Lucky.

Similarly, there are non-collectable card games that appeared to have been ignored.

I don't play collectible card games, but it is a big part of the games industry. Don't ignore it.

[Z-dan]

Thanks for the brilliant response guys, getting a lot of valuable data.

First to address a couple of concerns people have had: You're right, I did forget about Euro games (doh!), and it's too late for me to add it to the list- just make sure you give them a mention in the comments for that question (though the amount of people that have mentioned them already leads me to think I'd be a fool to neglect them).
Some people have reservations about me encroaching on Vanguard's territory- I assure you that I have cooperation rather than competition in mind; I aim to provide more board and role-playing games as opposed to wargames, and to lead on to the next point-
Thirsty Meeples in Oxford has been raised a couple of times. I hadn't heard of this before now, but it sounds rather similar to what I envisage- a gaming café, something a bit different from any games shops I've seen thus far. I shall definitely be checking them out, and having a chat with them.

Aside from that, thank you very much for the extra info and links- things are looking good!