Death of the LGS

[redcard]

I've seen the argument made before that if we don't support LGS's, they'll die.

But, on the flip side, I think the LGSs have been a bit lax in how they handle things. I have two LGS's here. One is VERY clean, contains current stuff, with a dress code on the employees. They have no gaming room.

The other is somewhat to very dirty, the owner is a wonderful guy but runs the shop by himself, it's got a variety of people who come in and play, but for the most part are not the type of gamers I search for.

The last FIVE game groups I've been in have been made DESPITE the store's presence, not because of it. Let me explain. You can offer drinks, you can offer products, you can offer a lot.. but if you're not a fun place to play, then I can't do it.

Here's what I consider mandatory for me to consider playing at your place.

FIRST. CHARGE for your game space. Please, god, charge. Because that'll take care of a lot of the rabble. I'm tired of trying to find space to run a game at a store that has massive mini collections set up all the time, or kids playing Pokemon. This first come first serve crap has got to go.

SECOND. In line with charging, open up SCHEDULES. Put your registration and payment system for the tables on line. Make it so it can be searched online.

THIRD. Make it so you can keep a list of gamers online . This has three advantages. FIrst, it allows players to set up games in their houses. Second, it allows you access to the internal shopping lists of these gamers. Third, it allows you to market new products to those players based on what they like.

FOURTH. Institute a "no babysitting" policy. I am freaking TIRED of every parent in this burg dumping their kids off at the game store in the middle of my RPG games. NOTHING is more annoying than a kid who is unsupervised running around the store. Enough of the "these kids are the future" crap. You won't HAVE a future if everyone gets tired of your store turning into the local daycare. PLUS.. I know of an instance where it turned VERY dangerous for a kid.

Finally, please make your stores APPEAR to be a safe place to play. That means stop hiring creepy outcast teenagers with seventeen piercings. Stop dressing like slobs. Take a bath every once in a while.

So no.. we don't "owe" anyone anything. Give us the products and services we want, or we'll find some other place to get it.

 

[romp]

As many have already mentioned.... the only way for FLGSs to really compete is to become a service industry not retail. Somewhere to go and play, talk, eat & drink, meet likeminded people etc. - and maybe, maybe - buy some stuff.

I think I am going to open a game shop with a pizza oven/deli counter in the back, game tables out front, and a computer for ordering RPGs online in the middle

 

[TheWinslow]

The Cradle of Gaming?

The exact same argument is made by the guy who runs one eyed jacques in Richmond, largely as excuse for his lack of innovation and testicular fortitude. This is not to say you suffer from either, but have you considered that perhaps letting an unprofitable product line fail is in everyone's best interests?

GG, you are a man first, a businessman second, and a gamer last of all, do what you need to do to provide for yourself and your dependants. And if D&D falls on the wrong side of bottom line, let it.

If your customers cared about D&D, they'd make it worth your while and that's all there is to it. Plus, you can always do special orders and preorders for your regulars if they are inclined.

 

[Korgoth]

Some friends and I were driving through Liberal, KS back in 2001 on our way to California and decided to check out the FLGS to take a break from driving. Well, turns out that the FLGS was a game/porno store. Seriously. They had the Forgotten Realms product on the shelf right next to the. . . bad stuff. I bought some TWERPS books. My friend bought some. . . really bad stuff. It was the most surreal RPG shopping experience of my life.

Well, now I don't have to feel bad about lampooning their town's name... but wow. That's just... oy.

 

[DaveMage]

Sure. The second that non-online vendors die, we will see Amazon charge full sticker price.

No way.

Competition between amazon, bn.com, buy.com, and other online vendors will keep it where it is.

 

[Raven Crowking]

No way.

Competition between amazon, bn.com, buy.com, and other online vendors will keep it where it is.

Exactly. Just like Shell, Unico, and other gasoline vendors keep prices down due to competition.

And, as far as the death of LGS hurting the hobby, I imagine that the loss of LGS will be felt no more than the loss of independent book stores or music stores in terms of what "voices" are presented, or how strongly they are presented. There is absolutely no difference between the content of a Barnes & Nobles and a small, independent book store. And, obviously, no indy band has ever gotten more rack space or "play time" in an independent music store than it has at a giant chain.


RC

 

[gamersgambit]

That's Another Long Post You've Gotten Us Into

Another long post...

Felix sez:

Oh, of course. As a gamer with a MA Econ (since we're flashing creds ) I'm a huge fan of economies of scale and bulk discounts. That's one of the reasons I dislike the pejorative tone gamersgambit took with the large retailers.

JoeGKushner sez...

How does that arguement work for Wallmart that does have thousands of storefronts and people?

I am not an MA anything, first of all.

Secondly, the fact is that for all the blather about helping out small business and capital gains tax and investment and the whole nine yards you'll hear from fiscal conservatives and libertarians alike, when small business gets replaced by large conglomerates, you wind up with a shortage of options and a seriously underemployed population. Town main streets become wastelands, anyone who wants to venture out of the corporate model of working for someone else winds up with limited options, fewer jobs are created for the young, tax rates decline in general for local communities as small businesses go out of business, which leads to dead communities. What we're seeing the start of is the phenomenon of mining towns when the mine runs dry or one-industry-towns when the logging plant/factory/military base moves overseas or goes out of business, only on a much broader scale.

Thirdly, Amazon has run at a deficit for years. As of September 2007, their accumulated deficit stood at U.S.$1.58 billion. They're also pretty anti-union in their practices.

Fourthly, WalMart...well, I don't have to talk about WalMart. Lots more websites than this board can tell you why they stink on ice.

Korgoth

Second, let me make sure I'm perfectly clear on what you and Aria think should be done: you think that the government should effectively enforce a minimum price on gaming products by outlawing discounts which are too favorable to the consumer? That is in fact what you are suggesting, right?

Check out the Lang Law (France) and similar fixed book price laws in Europe, and analysis thereof.

The conclusion of all this is, if you have a lot of money, and are willing to take a huge loss, you can do loss leaders until such time as you drive competition out of the market, then raise your prices and/or have so much volume sales that you can make up for your crappy margin with numbers. Yet the illusion of "price savings" to the consumer winds up being false because the economic impact on job shrinkage, tax base, underemployed and unemployed workers, strong, unified and powerful political lobbys defending your effective monopoly, and other aspects wind up costing the consumer much more in "invisible costs".

DaveMage sez...

The problem is (as I understand it) that the distribution system is based on markup %, rather than a flat rate/book. The model is fine when you're selling $5 books. Few people may mind paying an extra $1.00 (on that $5 book) to shop locally. However, many people *do* mind paying an extra $14 to buy locally (as is the case with the 4E PHB: $34.99 in the store and $20 and change at amazon). With 3 core books, that's an extra $42. Way too much to justify "buying local" IMO.

The distribution model is broken on pricey RPGs. Don't blame amazon for eliminating costly overhead and most of the potential of the five-finger discount. LGS will have to adapt, find a new model, or close.

Corjay comments...

If the LGS is charging full price for a product then there's something wrong. Either they're gouging you or they're not taking advantage of specialty business practices. I never pay full price at either of the FLGS in my area.

This idea (that we're gouging you) is somewhat flawed. As it is, the best margin I get from anyone is 50% of cover price before shipping. There are some products I can afford to offer at a discount and/or absolutely HAVE to, but that 50% margin is what keeps me afloat...and that 50% margin is vanishingly rare (most products are sold to me at a 35-45% margin). The more I discount, the less I make; the less money I have for rent, utilities, employees, etcetera etcetera. Charging cover price for a book isn't "gouging" people.

It's not like this is some sort of market where we can make up prices for things--the prices are all fixed elsewhere. As it is, a box of Magic cards /should/ retail, at full price, for $144 and a single pack for $4 (before taxes). With tournaments offering 5 packs for $15, I take a loss on the individual packs and if I tried to sell a Magic box for $144 people would laugh at me.

Which isn't to say I don't offer any discounts--I do offer quite a few, and run sales a lot, on different items in the store. I play a precariously balanced game between keeping inventory thin and providing depth and breadth of product/product lines.

Corjay sez...

This is actually quite a brilliant solution. Good thinking. How do you track it? Punch cards? Customer keeps their receipts? Account Book? Database? (Customer keeps receipts is the best way to turn it into pure profit.)

Right now, we're doing it in QuickBooks as a credit to the customer's account in the computer. This places recordkeeping in our hands, which as has been mentioned deprives us of the ability to place the onus on the customer to keep track (and thus means that we can't make pure profit when the customer doesn't bring in their piece of paper/card/receipt/what-have-you). I'm not a big fan of that sort of business dealing; hampered by a strong sense of ethics. That may change as time goes on...

j drakeh sez...

Also, they shrewdly discounted all third-party D&D 3x material by 30% within days of D&D 4e being announced, ensuring that they still made a roughly 20% profit on those items while moving inventory that would otherwise be collecting dust with the arrival of the new edition. The guy that runs the store really knows the ins and outs of retail, and it shows.

Yeah, we bumped ours down to a 35% sale...for obvious numerical reasons.

Ian Argent

Any chance you carry Shadowrun?

We do, actually. I'm not at work right now, so I don't know what we have in stock, but I try to keep up to date (I'm a long-time fan and GM of Shadowrun, but just because I want to buy something doesn't mean there's demand enough for me to keep old restocks in stock). Email gamersgambit@gmail.com with whatever you need, if I don't have it in stock I can get it in 1 business day.

Philotomy sez...

Amusingly, the whole reason we went to the FLGS was this thread. I mentioned it to my wife, and she said, "Hey, we should go to our game store..."

I want to say "My work is done here."

I have taken to heart the suggestions on this board; and will be proceeding to implement quite a few of them (and give them to my co-owner who also owns another store--the Dragon's Den in Poughkeepsie, NY).

I'd like to add this about the "you have to provide better services" mantra. I am eager to provide as many services as I possibly can and can afford. However...

Storyteller01 sez...

This is really not true. I'm an employee of my FLGS, and having a gaming area does not bring in customers. Discounting our product lower than the competition does. We regularly have customers come to us for a product, then go back to another place for the tables. Even though the other place was selling said product.

Amazon sold the core books at over 50% off of retail, blatantly doing so before official release dates. In an industry where those who sell first get the business, this kills the LGS. This is made worse when people in our store for conversation or atmosphere, not buying anything moind you, tell customers 'dude, you can get that at (kaza, amazon, etc) cheaper'. Or worse yet, 'I have a copy on PDF. Give me your e-mail and I'll send you a copy'. This among other things is causing us to rethink selling rpgs. We make nearly 10 times as much with other games.

What he said is true, and the initial impetus for my post. Frankly, I have *already* captured the dollar of the sort of people who want to play in my gaming space (there are few who come to my store to play AND buy things elsewhere; and of those few, I've been drawing them into the fold with the $5-play-fee-goes-to-store-credit model).

I give the best service I can. I don't expect people who have never played in a gaming store & have no relation to gaming stores whatsoever to suddenly start shopping in an FLGS. As nice as that might be, I'm well aware that the only thing that'll do that is service & advertising, not posting on enworld (although that too is a form of advertising). There's no reason for them to do so.

The impetus for this post was primarily to convince those of you who *USED* to shop at FLGSes and were lured away by online and big-box pricing to remember where the game community that fostered you came from, and to support them so that the next generation of gamers like you can have the same experience.

 

[JDJblatherings]

I imagine that the loss of LGS will be felt no more than the loss of independent book stores or music stores in terms of what "voices" are presented, or how strongly they are presented. There is absolutely no difference between the content of a Barnes & Nobles and a small, independent book store.

going for sarcasm here? I still miss a bookstiore that closed about 15 years ago. The owners retired, they were doing well they simply wanted to move to the country watch the grass grow and die. They had a great used book section (almost 1/2 the store) that they kept moving by having sales and a huge selection of old magazines as well that also kept moving thanks to sales, it was always a waiting game...hmm I can get this now for $2.00 but if i wait 3 months It'll be just $1.00. Never saw that at a Barnes & Nobles or Borders.

 

[withak]

Some friends and I were driving through Liberal, KS back in 2001 on our way to California and decided to check out the FLGS to take a break from driving. Well, turns out that the FLGS was a game/porno store. Seriously. They had the Forgotten Realms product on the shelf right next to the. . . bad stuff. I bought some TWERPS books. My friend bought some. . . really bad stuff. It was the most surreal RPG shopping experience of my life.

This is more common than you might think.

Before they went out of business, at least three Shinders (a Twin Cities, MN chain) had a "back room" full of interesting materials. Granted, it didn't directly share shelf space with RPGs, comics, or trading cards, and you needed to be able to prove you were 18+ to go back there, but it was there, and it was more than a little bit creepy. Certainly not Friendly.

So, yeah, I didn't have an FLGS growing up. I had a CLG&PS. (And I suppose it wasn't all that L, either, being a half-hour's drive away.)

 

[Corjay]

Exactly. Just like Shell, Unico, and other gasoline vendors keep prices down due to competition.

And, as far as the death of LGS hurting the hobby, I imagine that the loss of LGS will be felt no more than the loss of independent book stores or music stores in terms of what "voices" are presented, or how strongly they are presented. There is absolutely no difference between the content of a Barnes & Nobles and a small, independent book store. And, obviously, no indy band has ever gotten more rack space or "play time" in an independent music store than it has at a giant chain.


RC

On the contrary. Due to circumstances beyond my own control, I have no means of purchasing anything online, and my local Barnes & Noble and Borders books carry very limited roleplaying materials at FULL PRICE (For instance, B&N only has the 4e DMG along with Exalted and a few other products I have no interest in). Though I might be able to get a club card as long as they don't check my credit. But I would definitely feel it badly.