Industry Advice for buying a hobby game store

[Pendragon67]

Hello. I was hoping for some input. I am considering buying a hobby gaming brick and mortar store that is for sale in my neighborhood. I have done some industry research and in addition, wanted to run this by the rest of you. Has anyone out there ever owned/owns a hobby games store and would you have any advice for someone just getting into it? There is an established customer base here with the local high school and they have regular scheduled promo nights (like Magic the Gathering). Would you suggest any other marketing/sales tactics or any other lessons that you have learned from your own experiences and knowledge of the industry? Thanks!!!

 

[frankthedm]

Don't expect a lot of profit.

Watch out for thieves.

Providing space to play wins a lot of points with customers.

Be friendly to the customers. Befriend them. Fire any employee that mistreats your customers even in minor ways.

Don't be afraid to stay open past closing time. If you ever catch employees chasing your customers out because of closing time, count that as mistreating customers.

Never lie to a customer. We know when a book is released. Saying "it is not out yet" is insulting the customer's intelligence.

Keep the "frequent customer cards" in the store in a small file. If we keep them, we lose them.

 

[Wik]

My FLGS (across the street from where I work! How cool is THAT!?) Has a game room that they rent out for whoever wants it. They also use it to run an open table D&D event every sunday. Mostly, though, it's used for Collectible Card Games and Minis events (which seem, to me, to be thebig sellers these days).

make sure, if you have a game room, that you're nearby a place to buy snacks and drinks, or sell 'em yourself (that's what another gaming store does, and it seems to work... even if their drinks are sold warm).

Try to keep a clean store - I hate dirty gaming stores.

Don't get too nerdy - my FLGS recently put "The Lord of the Rings on Audiobook" over the speaker system, and it's scared me away, as well as a lot of fairweather gamers. I like looking over D&D books, sure, but I'm not a big fan of hearing some english guy try to speak like Gimli, y'know?

 

[Black_Swan]

Yeah..make sure you're not the 4th or 5th hobby store owner that's lost money on that store. In my hometown hobby stores have a 100% failure rate.

 

[Umbran]

make sure, if you have a game room, that you're nearby a place to buy snacks and drinks, or sell 'em yourself (that's what another gaming store does, and it seems to work... even if their drinks are sold warm).

Also note that vending food and drinks can be a whole separate issue in terms of local law and permits and such.

In general, the most important thing is to know your market. It is not sufficient for you to stock and sell what you think is neat. You have to stock what the people in your area are going to buy. I think proper management of stock is an underrated problem in the FLGS business.

Note: That may mean stocking products that you yourself don't know anything about. Educating yourself on games you don't play, and the needs and habits of those players, should be a major portion of your job.

Expect that you are going to lose money in your first year.

If the store already has managers that are not the owners, consider keeping them on when you buy the place. A manager who knows his or her store can be worth their weight in gold.

 

[Dragon Vindaloo]

Always have air freshener on standby.

 

[Kwitchit]

make sure, if you have a game room, that you're nearby a place to buy snacks and drinks, or sell 'em yourself (that's what another gaming store does, and it seems to work... even if their drinks are sold warm).

Though not part of the industry, I second this. Possibly get a vending machine installed for coke/chips.

Other advice from my experience:
Don't shrinkwrap books. People are less likely to buy them sight unseen, and (AFAIK) losses from browsing are less than losses from people not buying books they haven't seen the inside of.

Make sure that all of the store has enough light to read in- I refuse to go into one store because it has so little light that it's hard to read the titles on a book's spine!

Layout: don't put books down narrow tunnels so two people have to turn to pass each other.

Make sure that your shelving system is logical. My favourite store splits by d20 vs. non-d20, then by publisher, then by game, then by supplement type- so all the Exalted castebooks are together within the Exalted section, which is in the White Wolf section, which is in the non-d20 section (and also next to other narrative-heavy games like HeroQuest).

 

[Arkhandus]

Well, here's a link to a similar thread on EN World from a few years ago. I've lost my links to one or two other such threads. This sort of question comes up once in a while around here.

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=64699&page=1&pp=25

 

[Wik]

I think m FLGS has it done right:

Make your store attractive to people that are new to the hobby, and aren't what you'd call "nerdy". If the place has good air circulation, is fairly clean, isn't playing some obscure music from World of Warcraft on the stereo (really, the radio works!), and the walls aren't COVERED with pictures of RPG supplements, you'll catch a large portion of the "Casual gamer" crowd. Hardcore gamers are going to be there however the store looks; casual gamers need a bit more encouragement.

 

[William Ronald]

I think that there is a lot of good advice here, from making a store attractive to having lots of activities.

Pendragon67, I think Thalmin, one of the owners of Games Plus in Mount Prospect, Illinois, would be a GREAT person to talk to about runnign a store. Games Plus has regular gaming activities, a good layout, and I consider it to be the top hobby game store in the Chicagoland area.

If you go into the busineess, you will have to look at long term profits. Also, always remember that if you do not meet the needs of your customers and potential customers, someone else will.