doctorhook
Legend
I totally agree.
You only have nine posts right now, and yet somehow I still "must spread some XP around before giving to HailToTheThief again". Consider this spirit-XP.
Open Letter To Local Game Stores
You only have nine posts right now, and yet somehow I still "must spread some XP around before giving to HailToTheThief again". Consider this spirit-XP.
I've had similar experiences. Where I live I have seen some great stores close up and lesser stores replace them. In my experience the biggest issue with stores I have visited is customer service. The current game store I won't buy anything from unless it is an emergency. This game store started out great but lost me as they become more secure in town and hired ppl more interested in serving their friends. How they lost me was a customer service issue when the new world of darkness came out. They had mis priced a whole stack of WOD books for 19.99. Since the entire stack was marked the same price i figured it was some sort of promotion or something. got to the counter and it rang up for almost $30. When I questioned this the clerk and his buddy basically called me an idiot for even thinking WW would sell something so cheaply and had to have been mismarked. I said no thanks and went on my way and got it online for the mislabelled price and free shipping. Now I use that store to look at books before I buy them online.
If they would have trained their staff to better handle customers (ie not make them feel an store error is their fault and chastise the customer) I'd still be a customer there. At the time I was spending about $500 - 800 a year on gaming related stuff there. Now I don't shop there and neither do half my friends who game with me.
If they would have trained their staff to better handle customers (ie not make them feel an store error is their fault and chastise the customer) I'd still be a customer there. At the time I was spending about $500 - 800 a year on gaming related stuff there. Now I don't shop there and neither do half my friends who game with me.
It was a pissy answer, but basically right. There reasons why we dont accept Discover(or Amex) any more at our place of business. Dsicoevr really does suck.
Mark
CreativeMountainGames.com
Jdvn1
Hanging in there. Better than the alternative.
Which isn't the point, anyways. If you don't like Discover, don't accept it. If you have a preference for other forms of payment you can even say so (I've even seen some places give a discount for cash transactions).
But, please, don't be snarky about it, or rude to the customer.
JiffyPopTart
Bree-Yark
I agree with all the points of the OP, except half of one of them.
I think in-store-gaming shouldn't be shuffled to a back room. I also don't think it should be taking place front and center in the store to disrupt the shy "Let's see what this is all about" shopper as well.
I think that ideally the in-store gaming should be off to a side but visible, as part of the allure of in store gaming is attracting those who may not be familiar with a product and giving them an example of how it works when being played, with the hopes of getting them to buy into the game.
If all the fun was happening in another room, even if the door was left open, then I would automatically assume it was a private function, and thus might glance through the door for a second or two but in no way stand around long enough to try to figure out what is going on (much less have the audacity to ask if I could play).
There are 2 FLGS's in my area (Northern Kentucky) and neither one has regular in-store-gaming. Neither one has the room for it, truthfully. If either one did have a regular gaming nights I would most likely volunteer to run demos and sample games just to get people introduced to the product.
DS
I think in-store-gaming shouldn't be shuffled to a back room. I also don't think it should be taking place front and center in the store to disrupt the shy "Let's see what this is all about" shopper as well.
I think that ideally the in-store gaming should be off to a side but visible, as part of the allure of in store gaming is attracting those who may not be familiar with a product and giving them an example of how it works when being played, with the hopes of getting them to buy into the game.
If all the fun was happening in another room, even if the door was left open, then I would automatically assume it was a private function, and thus might glance through the door for a second or two but in no way stand around long enough to try to figure out what is going on (much less have the audacity to ask if I could play).
There are 2 FLGS's in my area (Northern Kentucky) and neither one has regular in-store-gaming. Neither one has the room for it, truthfully. If either one did have a regular gaming nights I would most likely volunteer to run demos and sample games just to get people introduced to the product.
DS
wingsandsword
Legend
Here are some of the worst business practices I've seen FLGS do. Don't do this.
(For the record, these weren't all at the same store, but a lot of them were)
1. Bully regular customers into providing free labor. In summer of '01 I was pretty regular at a FLGS. I came by every day to just look around, and spent most of my disposable income on gaming books and Mage Knight minis, and the owner had bought a load of merchandise at some kind of auction. It was a motley assortment of junk: supplements for games nobody had heard of, old editions of semi-popular games, unpopular sourcebooks for decently popular games, rulebooks for games nobody had heard of and were obviously made on a shoestring budget. He asked me to come in and sort through the stuff and price it and put it on the shelf for him. I needed a job, I was a "poor college student" living on my parents dime, so I would have gladly worked for him (and been Professional about it). I asked what he was going to pay me and if it was just this one task or did he want to hire me regularly? He got offended and said he wanted me to do it because we were "friends" and it was just a "favor" (and I didn't know the owner outside of work). That was one big strike against me going back there.
2. Treat special orders poorly. One FLGS I knew made a big deal about ordering virtually anything gaming, anime, comic book, or collectible-toy related and getting it there very soon, no matter how obscure. He hyped it up as his specialty, a sort of "geek fixer". My girlfriend at the time went in to order something specific and obscure. He gladly placed the order and said it would be in the next Tuesday. Come Tuesday, it wasn't there, but it was supposed to be there next week. This goes on for a few weeks before she gives up and stops going there. She eventually tracks it down somewhere online and orders it. She comes back in one day over a year later, and he remembers her and pulls it out, stating it came in "just this Tuesday!" and demands she pay for it. She refused since it had been over a year and he had missed his delivery date a half-dozen times. He banned her from the store for not buying it, and since she'd generally given up on going there and was just looking in out of mostly boredom it was no loss to her.
3. Know your merchandise. Yes, you have your favorite game, but try to at least be somewhat aware of what the books on your shelf are. When the Wheel of Time RPG came out, I saw one FLGS owner pull out the book and look confused and say "what is this, some new edition of D&D?" as he put a couple of copies on the shelf. I tried to explain to him that it was a game based on very popular fantasy novels using the d20 system so it was very similar to D&D, but it wasn't officially D&D and didn't need the D&D books to play. He still didn't seem to understand why WotC was making two separate D&D's (as he saw it).
4. Don't run your personal, closed game in the middle of the store. One FLGS I knew had it's owner run his personal D&D game in the evening in his store. He'd sit there and play with his friends while an employee manned the register. It took up the middle of the store in the main traffic area so you had to walk around it to get to most merchandise, and if you liked the game from watching it. . .it's invite-only and you're not invited, and he didn't appreciate being interrupted in the middle of the game by customers (that's why he had an employee there, but everybody knew the owner so people still often addressed him, while the employee was just another guy in the store who looked like another customer).
5. Have your "in clique" and make sure nobody else can join. I frequented a FLGS near where I lived for years. When I first moved there, I went there every few days just to look around and as something to do. I tried to make some new gaming contacts and friends by talking to the regulars at the store (which apparently many of them worked part-time there, imagine that), but it became increasingly obvious that I was shut out and a guy off the street couldn't just come in and socialize with the in-clique of hangers-on at the store.
6. Don't badger your customers on e-mail lists unrelated to your store. A FLGS owner was on the e-mail list for our college gaming club (anybody could sign up for it). Anytime anybody mentioned buying a gaming book at any other place, he chimed in that he had it as well, and often e-mailed the person who mentioned buying the book elsewhere to chide them for not shopping at his store and that he would have given a better deal, or better service, or had it in earlier than the competitor. All it did was make us angry and we voted to kick him off the list and ban him from it.
7. Never have clearance sales, hold on to everything. This has already been mentioned, but it's such a perennial problem it bears repeating. Way too many (read: almost all) FLGS hold on to old merchandise that is unlikely to ever sell and keep asking full retail price for it. They figure there must be someone out there who is willing to pay full price for it, and they want to get their money back they spent on it in the first place. However, it doesn't work like that. Not only are you taxable on the merchandise you have on hand, you're not going to make up for any of those losses by just holding on to something that won't sell. That's why businesses that are professionally run take non-moving merchandise, cut the price and cut their losses. I've seen one FLGS do this with a huge clearance sale one time to clear out almost a decade of detrius. I saw another do this when they were consolidating two locations down to one (pretty much everything except D&D and popular/well selling d20 was ridiculously low, I got a big comic-book storage box stuffed full of gaming books for $20, which is where I got most of my Original WoD library). I bought lots of stuff I would have never considered at full price, but I'd buy on a steep markdown.
(For the record, these weren't all at the same store, but a lot of them were)
1. Bully regular customers into providing free labor. In summer of '01 I was pretty regular at a FLGS. I came by every day to just look around, and spent most of my disposable income on gaming books and Mage Knight minis, and the owner had bought a load of merchandise at some kind of auction. It was a motley assortment of junk: supplements for games nobody had heard of, old editions of semi-popular games, unpopular sourcebooks for decently popular games, rulebooks for games nobody had heard of and were obviously made on a shoestring budget. He asked me to come in and sort through the stuff and price it and put it on the shelf for him. I needed a job, I was a "poor college student" living on my parents dime, so I would have gladly worked for him (and been Professional about it). I asked what he was going to pay me and if it was just this one task or did he want to hire me regularly? He got offended and said he wanted me to do it because we were "friends" and it was just a "favor" (and I didn't know the owner outside of work). That was one big strike against me going back there.
2. Treat special orders poorly. One FLGS I knew made a big deal about ordering virtually anything gaming, anime, comic book, or collectible-toy related and getting it there very soon, no matter how obscure. He hyped it up as his specialty, a sort of "geek fixer". My girlfriend at the time went in to order something specific and obscure. He gladly placed the order and said it would be in the next Tuesday. Come Tuesday, it wasn't there, but it was supposed to be there next week. This goes on for a few weeks before she gives up and stops going there. She eventually tracks it down somewhere online and orders it. She comes back in one day over a year later, and he remembers her and pulls it out, stating it came in "just this Tuesday!" and demands she pay for it. She refused since it had been over a year and he had missed his delivery date a half-dozen times. He banned her from the store for not buying it, and since she'd generally given up on going there and was just looking in out of mostly boredom it was no loss to her.
3. Know your merchandise. Yes, you have your favorite game, but try to at least be somewhat aware of what the books on your shelf are. When the Wheel of Time RPG came out, I saw one FLGS owner pull out the book and look confused and say "what is this, some new edition of D&D?" as he put a couple of copies on the shelf. I tried to explain to him that it was a game based on very popular fantasy novels using the d20 system so it was very similar to D&D, but it wasn't officially D&D and didn't need the D&D books to play. He still didn't seem to understand why WotC was making two separate D&D's (as he saw it).
4. Don't run your personal, closed game in the middle of the store. One FLGS I knew had it's owner run his personal D&D game in the evening in his store. He'd sit there and play with his friends while an employee manned the register. It took up the middle of the store in the main traffic area so you had to walk around it to get to most merchandise, and if you liked the game from watching it. . .it's invite-only and you're not invited, and he didn't appreciate being interrupted in the middle of the game by customers (that's why he had an employee there, but everybody knew the owner so people still often addressed him, while the employee was just another guy in the store who looked like another customer).
5. Have your "in clique" and make sure nobody else can join. I frequented a FLGS near where I lived for years. When I first moved there, I went there every few days just to look around and as something to do. I tried to make some new gaming contacts and friends by talking to the regulars at the store (which apparently many of them worked part-time there, imagine that), but it became increasingly obvious that I was shut out and a guy off the street couldn't just come in and socialize with the in-clique of hangers-on at the store.
6. Don't badger your customers on e-mail lists unrelated to your store. A FLGS owner was on the e-mail list for our college gaming club (anybody could sign up for it). Anytime anybody mentioned buying a gaming book at any other place, he chimed in that he had it as well, and often e-mailed the person who mentioned buying the book elsewhere to chide them for not shopping at his store and that he would have given a better deal, or better service, or had it in earlier than the competitor. All it did was make us angry and we voted to kick him off the list and ban him from it.
7. Never have clearance sales, hold on to everything. This has already been mentioned, but it's such a perennial problem it bears repeating. Way too many (read: almost all) FLGS hold on to old merchandise that is unlikely to ever sell and keep asking full retail price for it. They figure there must be someone out there who is willing to pay full price for it, and they want to get their money back they spent on it in the first place. However, it doesn't work like that. Not only are you taxable on the merchandise you have on hand, you're not going to make up for any of those losses by just holding on to something that won't sell. That's why businesses that are professionally run take non-moving merchandise, cut the price and cut their losses. I've seen one FLGS do this with a huge clearance sale one time to clear out almost a decade of detrius. I saw another do this when they were consolidating two locations down to one (pretty much everything except D&D and popular/well selling d20 was ridiculously low, I got a big comic-book storage box stuffed full of gaming books for $20, which is where I got most of my Original WoD library). I bought lots of stuff I would have never considered at full price, but I'd buy on a steep markdown.
I can put up with just about anything but bad employees. I regard this as the number 1 problem from the Open Letter above. Bad customer service probably has driven away more fans from the hobby than anything else. My ego does not require me to be treated with an undue amount of respect--however, if you want me to come back, I am more inclined to return when it was a positive experience. Why put up with surly, uninformed, or uninterested people if you can go to another store or go online? I vote with my feet.
Speaking of feet, foot traffic is what generates sales. I no longer game at my LGS because it wasn't a nice environment. I don't expect much, but if the clerk refuses to turn down the radio because he wants to listen to the game, then why bother going to the store? If Sunday is RPG day, and 8 wargammers take up all 4 tables, its not really RPG day, is it? You didn't lose one person's foot traffic gone--that's six people's foot traffic.
And I am sure that most of this would be corrected if the store owner knew it was happening. I have read before that business owners wish you would complain so they knew what the problems were. But, again, why bother when I have more than one store to go to?
("I can't abide rude behavior in a man; won't tolerate it.")
Speaking of feet, foot traffic is what generates sales. I no longer game at my LGS because it wasn't a nice environment. I don't expect much, but if the clerk refuses to turn down the radio because he wants to listen to the game, then why bother going to the store? If Sunday is RPG day, and 8 wargammers take up all 4 tables, its not really RPG day, is it? You didn't lose one person's foot traffic gone--that's six people's foot traffic.
And I am sure that most of this would be corrected if the store owner knew it was happening. I have read before that business owners wish you would complain so they knew what the problems were. But, again, why bother when I have more than one store to go to?
("I can't abide rude behavior in a man; won't tolerate it.")
Pepster
First Post
I went to a store today I had never visited. I accidentally interrupted an RPG session being run by the store owner. Six pairs of eyes flashed my way when I walked into the small store space. It took a few minutes for the owner to ask me if I needed help, then a few minutes later asked if there was anything specific I was looking for. The group took a break as I picked out three boxes of minis, while the owner disappeared for about ten minutes. He finally came back to ring me up. He explained he kept a small store inventory but was willing to special order. He also apologized for ignoring me as Sunday was his slowest day and the only time he could run a game. Friendly guy, but I won't be going back as the store is 30 miles from my home and there's not a whole lot there to encourage another impulse visit and purchase.
Right. Unfortunately, even with the best store, gaming is a low-margin business. I've considered it as well. Since I'm not planning on opening one anytime soon, I have thought that opening a game store near military installations would be good business sense (and give a active military discounts).
Of course, there's that saying, "Never sell things that you love."
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