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Message: <blockquote data-quote="chriton227" data-source="post: 4336612" data-attributes="member: 33263">I've worked in the retail industry for well over a decade.  This statement alone tells me something important about your business - your customers don't value the additional services you offer enough to balance the price difference.  If you can't compete on price, you have to find something that your customers find valuable enough to be willing to pay the additional price.  Convenience stores like 7-Eleven have just as great a price disparity when compared to grocery stores, but they still manage to stay afloat because they have found that their customers value the convenient location and quick shopping experience enough to be willing to pay the higher price.  The hard part is finding out what your customers value.  Currently you are fighting against not only the base price difference, but also the difference in sales tax and free shipping vs. gas to get to the store.  One thing that you might consider is offering drinks and snacks. My local FLGS was offering a card that was good for 10 drinks that was a discount off buying them individually, it worked well for them as people tended to get more drinks over the same period of time using the card, and it was much less labor intensive to ring up the card once and then just punch the card for each drink than it was to ring up the 10 drinks individually.  CMG and CCG sealed deck and draft tournaments can be great for income.  A successful miniatures game like Warhammer Fantasy or Warhammer 40k can generate a lot of sales, especially if you have tables with 3d terrain available for use and/or offer painting demos.  I would be willing to pay to rent time in a semi-private gaming area (like a back room) as long as it was clean and well maintained.  I'd even be willing to pay for wireless internet access in the store.  If you can find add-on services that the customers are willing to pay for, it may allow you to offer more of a discount on the normal merchandise, which will hopefully drive sales and get more people into the store where they can spend more money on your other services, creating a nice feedback loop.  You might even find that offering a small discount increases sales volume enough to make up for the lower margins on its own.But no matter what you come up with, it will all come down to whether the customer thinks what you are offering is worth the price you are charging, and if not, no amount of begging, pleading, or complaining here or anywhere else will save your business.  Sometimes the most important decision regarding running a business is knowing when to stop before you end up in too deep of a hole.</blockquote>

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