So what kind of discount do Charter Members get? 
Trade-ins are not popular with the buyers. Maybe restricting a swap meet to out of print games?
Are there any cons in town – sf, comic, or gaming? A presence there will surely help and they’re not all gargantuan (tr. expensive) like San Diego ComicCon is.
So this isn’t how I would run one, but its a book written by someone who has been successful at it and published by a friend of mine. I read it (after it was published someone wanted my check on it from a business/accounting perspective), and its good. Definitely read it.
http://gameplaywright.net/books/friendly-local-game-store/
Good luck.
I was thinking more like if you have a copy of “Small World” that you and your buddies are tired of playing, maybe you can trade it in for store credit. How much would depend on what Jonathan Chance can sell it for, I imagine.
And game stores are by no means the only guilty parties- secondhand book shops are notorious for that as well, as are car dealerships, etc… This isn’t something new.
I mean, if I was a big board gamer, I could see myself trading in old games, even if I didn’t get a lot for them- it’s a way to offset some of the costs.
Anyway, my thinking was more along the lines of scheming up an offset to some sort game exchange thing that wouldn’t actually make the OP any money at all. If he offered trade-in cash and discounts on used games, he could at least rake in a little cash on people’s used games, rather than basically pay electricity and water on letting others exchange their old games without giving him a cut.
If you want to get rid of a bunch of that stuff in order to give the place a new look, then run lots of gaming “tournaments” (they don’t have to be official, could be as simple as breaking out a board game and having some people play), and liberally award that stuff as prizes. Particularly with kids that can make a really big impression for the cost of a chunk of plastic you probably weren’t going to sell anyway.
Also, if you’re going after the kid market then figure out the local school calendar and plan some events around it. The school year is littered with early dismissal days and random in-service off days. Parents who have had to take off work to take care of their kids will be happy to find something to do with them for the afternoon. Just be clear what the cut-off age is for unattended kids; you don’t want to end up as a de facto day care when you’re not set up for that.
In the same vein, summer vacation is coming up. If you are okay with older kids, say 12+, hanging out without their parents then shout that from the hills. You might want to set a time window limit though. If you can get some high school kids to run boardgames or simpler RPGs in exchange for some store credit then you might have a nice recurring business. Give any kid who participates a coupon for a few dollars off whatever game they were playing.
Sounds like you’re really going into this with your eyes open. Best of luck!
Yep, you need to be VERY CAREFUL around the inclusive mentality. There is a tendency in nerd culture for straight white cis men to be dismissive of everyone else - which can lead to a gaming/comic book store being a comfortable place for straight white CIS men.
The story of what The Source in St. Paul went through last year is telling An Open Letter From the Shieldmaidens Regarding Source Comics and Games | Twin Cities Geek Bob ended up firing the manager (Hans) and some of the staff, and making sure that the staff was diverse and respectful. They’ve done well since then and its a much more comfortable place for women, people of color, non-gender conforming and GLB+ folks to hang out and shop - and most importantly for a business - spend their money.
There are lots of geek women…and they have money to spend. They can usually spot “we have a cute girl behind the counter to attract drooling troglodytes” at 50 paces and will not approve of either the exploitation or tokenism that is indicative of. Nor will they find the clientele that attracts to be the sort of people that create a comfortable space for them to shop in.
the trading things easy to take care of …just do what we ended up doing when I sold used console games … Trade 2 of their games for one of yours and limit it to the used games
if they want something brand-new take off what you want to pay for the used game or a percentage and get the rest in cash
Well, right now I’m looking at a genderqueer woman with significant nerdsmarts for a manager and the counterstaff will be a 5 foot tall woman who just got out of the marines. I feel pretty good about them. Neither of them are anything but authentic members of the fen.
Remember why Blockbuster and Wherehouse Music closed? For the same reason it is best you stick to the comics-related toys, figurines, collectables etc. and not watch your paper comics collect dust. Right now there a more than a dozen websites dedicated to illegally publishing whole comics, usually the day they are published, and more or less for free. Also, people no longer go through bins looking for rarities or old stories they never got to finish-they go to authorized sites like ComiXology or just download digital comics from Marvel, DC and others.
Several articles about the decline of comic book sales.
Sweet, Holy Motherfuck.
From tip to tail, this entire idea sounds like someone desperate to throw their money away, with a bunch of anonymous internet enablers cheering him on. (“Don’t forget to hire Harrison Ford to give away crisp $100 bills with every $5.00 purchace!”)
Successfully running a business this specific and niche is INCERDIBLY risky.
His business is INCREDIBLY niche because his staff is diverse?
People who are not white men seem fine buying things from white men all the time. Somehow white men can’t fathom buying things from people who aren’t exactly like them?
I quoted that specific post because it was from the OP, and because it seemed to perfectly illiustrate why I am convinced that this is an incredibly risky idea from a business standpoint (it seems as the OP alludes to the possibility that he has a lot of money from earlier business successes, so maybe this is more of a hobby venture to him, and if/when it goes belly up in a couple of years after hemmoraging money, it will have been a fun adventure for him) because trivial things like the sexual orientation for his staff seem to me to be about the 384th most important thing he should be focused on as far as coming up with a successful business model.
Maybe you missed the OP but the question wasn’t “Should I do this?” or “Would you do this?” but “How would you do this?”
I assume the OP is a big boy and can make big boy decisions all by himself and probably knows more about this store and his own finances and levels of acceptable risk than I do.
I don’t know if it’s any more risky than any other small scale retailing endeavor. Opening a restaurant has to be just as risky, if not more so.
But as far as that goes, the real deciding factor is probably going to be what ready cash reserves the OP has, in order to keep open while the store is finding its new footing. To some unknown degree, changing the formula in-place is going to disrupt whatever steady cash flow the store currently sees, and he’ll need to have cash reserves to cover that, keep the lights on, get new inventory, pay employees, AND do whatever nifty new marketing and changes that are planned.
The upshot of that is that I’d think you either want to do the changes slowly so that the existing cash flow isn’t disrupted too much, or all at once, in a sort of roll of the dice, and hope that you can jump-start new revenue.
Everyone also seems to be missing the part where he said the store already has a dedicated fan base and isn’t currently on the verge of bankruptcy. The current owner wants to retire and he’s inheriting the store, he’s not trying to build it from nothing.
It’s not “the thing” he’s focused on. Someone said “Make sure the counter staff isn’t going to be off-putting in this particular way, like is common in these stores” and he was explaining that he didn’t foresee that being an issue.
You know, it’s not like no one successfully runs small businesses, and buying an established, profitable business seems like the least risky way to go about it.
Everyone has mentioned some very good points and ideas. I agree with almost all of them as good potential marketing ideas. I know you said that you’re primarily tabletop, but I’ll talk about the comics too. I’m interested not in floppies but in graphic novels or trade paperback collections. If you expand the comics section at all, I’d recommend doing it not in the floppies but in those. I can’t really go further without talking about my demographic - 30s, woman(ish?) - but the crux is I don’t care about DC/Marvel all that much. When I look for comics I’m there for indies or creator-owned. The Prince and the Dressmaker. Cucumber Quest. Pumpkin Heads. By Chance or Providence. I’m not into SaGa but just about everyone else I know is. I’m also looking for manga. These days more “premium” manga collections are coming out, for example Junji Ito horror comics. The people who are into them are into them. And with this you don’t have to mess with the floppy wall or pull boxes or any of that mess. If you are looking to expand to women, I’d recommend looking less at floppies and more at graphic novels/trades.
Ok, back to tabletop. If you want a resource on “what’s hot”, after PAX conventions (that’s Penny Arcade Expo, a set of the biggest consumer gaming conventions in the United States) their tabletop HQ releases a data sheet of what games people liked most. At PAX conventions (of which there is East, West, South, and Australia, so four times a year), they have a tabletop library. You can go there and check out any game for free and play it as much as you want. They have thousands of games for you to choose from, new and old. The data sheet they release shows you how many people checked out what at this library. Here’s the latest one they just dropped on twitter. You can see that this year, Root was a super popular game. This info can help you figure out what people want to see in your store. (Though, do a little more research than following it blindly. I can tell you that a lot of people checked out Joking Hazard because the creator of Rick and Morty handed out a free card for this game to everyone who attended his panel, so all those people just wanted to try out their new card. It wasn’t necessarily that they liked it.)
Now, I tried Root myself! It is incredibly complex for someone who did not go in with any knowledge of what that game was. I didn’t have fun because I felt like I read the rules for an hour and still didn’t know what I was doing. So to all the people saying, “have free demonstration nights for tabletop games” you are absolutely correct. Something like that would definitely draw me in and get me to buy more because I won’t be having bad experiences with games I don’t know how to play.
This is an existing, operating business. It’s not some pie-in-the-sky venture. The OP has said he already has the business/accounting skill to cover basic business concerns.
So, he’s not here asking for absolutely basic business advice. He’s also not doing this as a hobby. He knows how to run a business, but he’s just asking for ideas to improve the marketing.
Agreed. Floppy issues are there solely as a loss leader. The real money is in the trade paperbacks, especially oddball stuff.
You should really try Strong Female Protagonist. That’s a spectacular, woman-led set of graphic novels with a new twist on it.