FLGS- Old Inventory and Organization UPDATE!!

[Belen]

Well, I went to the store last night. We ended up with enough 3.0 material to fill a 6 foot table nearly a foot high. We decided to use the bundled strategy and we put books together that made sense. For example, Hammer and Helm and Quint Dwarf were made into a bundle. I just could not believe the ammount of books they had. The former owner really screwed them.

Shrinkwrap: They will keep shrink wrapping the books, but they will place a sign up that says they will open any book that someone wants to see. Apparently, they were really burned before by customers who would come into the store and copy information out of books or just abuse them to the point where they could not be sold again. I will keep working on them to stop the shrink wrap, but this is all I can do at this time.

Aas soon as I get the bundles and the prices, I will post here on ENWorld, so that you guys can get a shot at the old inventory.

Hey all,

I am helping a friend, who owns a FLGS, organize her old inventory. She purchased the store from a guy who ordered way too much d20 and now she is stuck with so many books that she has no room for new books and no funds to really update the RPG section of the store.

I intend to go through the inventory with her and select books that need serious discounting etc. For example, she still has copies of the original Creature Collection! We intend to discount up to 50-75% off. Any suggestions on how to organize it?

In addition, they tend to wrap the books in shrink wrap. I was thinking about telling them that this was a bad idea because it prevents people from paging through the book and I think they lose sales do to this.

Basically, her co-owner, who owns a majority believes that RPG people know what they want, so there is no need to update the section. I need to convince her that a lot of gamers do not know ahead of time and that sales can be generated if the store has a great selection.

 

[rowport]

Two suggestions:
1. Instead of just high-discounts for everything, have scaling discounts based on bundles of related stuff. E.g. 50% off base for one Pinnacle book, or 60% off two and so on up to your max discount (75%?). Or, if you are really ambitious, bundle by type of book rather than manufacturer- say, "creature/monster books" or "character books", etc. That will encourage buying more, rather than just cherry-picking the best books and leaving her stuck with the really marginal stuff. Bargain hunters (like me) are suckers for deals like this- it makes it much easier to convince yourself to leap for the questionable book if it helps get a better deal for the stuff you know you want. You could also structure it with a buy one/get one free or such- you have to do the math to see which deal is better for you, and how much good stuff vs. junk inventory you have. For the older d20 stuff, it should be fairly obvious which books are easier sells than others by this point.

2. Great point about the shrink-wrap- I hate that, personally. That prevents interior art from helping the sale, which is silly. Browsing through game books really only allows time to check out the art, so why prevent that? At the least, keep one or two display copies unwrapped, with the sale copies wrapped. (I still wonder why bother wrapping, but...)

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

Skip the shrink wrap. I refuse to shop at a store that shrink wraps it's books. I won't buy a book unless I can open it and read a few pages, and I don't mean read it with the owner of the store breathing down my neck. I want to pick the book off the shelf, skim through a few chapters, read a page or two in a few sections, then put it back on the shelf and go on to the next book that I might be interested in. I want to be able to open two different books next to each other and compare things (if they are on similar topics).

 

[Sir Trent]

Ebay

Skip the discounts and sell those older items on Ebay. It's possible you'll get a better price and if not you'll at least sell them quicker.

 

[Wombat]

Shrink-wrap is usually a No Sale for me -- I want to be able to look at a book, whether it be a history text or a game volume, before I cough up the bucks.

And, yes, I am sometimes caught with impulse purchases, albeit usually with music

I might amplify on that eBay comment -- eBay can be a great, but tricky, place to sell older material. You will want to set a base price, but you might find an odd bidding war going on if timing is lucky -- in any case you will get the minimum you set! It's not a bad way to go. I have purchased several game books on eBay (I shoot for ones that get good reviews that I can't find locally or older ones that I know I want, albeit I expect a pretty steep discount then). So eBay can be VERY good, but it can also be VERY bad -- just make sure to set criteria on the potential sales

 

[Henry]

You can affirm for him that a game store LIVES and DIES by its ability to browse, and by making its services as friendly as possible; heck, any brick-and-mortar store these days except for supermarkets has got to live by this principle, or people go online to buy. If the RPG customers wanted shrinkwrap, they'd go online to buy their products instead.

I think the bundles that rowport suggests are a good idea, or the store will likely get stuck with an even more miserable OOP selection that you say it has now. Other thoughts include offering special deals weekly or monthly, letting customers know about it via e-mail, etc.

One question: are they in a position where they possibly save MORE money in taxes, etc. by writing the inventory off as unsold and destroyed, instead of discounting it to death?

 

[WayneLigon]

Shrink-wrap is a no-sale for me.
I generally 'know what I want' but I still go straight for the 'new releases' section of the FLGS first thing when I go in. If I went into a store that had no new releases, I'd assume they never would have any and probably never go back.

 

[Mark]

Hey all

Hey

I am helping a friend, who owns a FLGS, organize her old inventory. She purchased the store from a guy who ordered way too much d20 and now she is stuck with so many books that she has no room for new books and no funds to really update the RPG section of the store.

Good to see someone bought it rather than it completely closing.

I intend to go through the inventory with her and select books that need serious discounting etc. For example, she still has copies of the original Creature Collection! We intend to discount up to 50-75% off. Any suggestions on how to organize it?

Aside from setting it up so that it is easy to look through all of it, I wouldn't suggest they do the extra work. People looking for discounted materials are more likely to impulse buy if they run across stuff as they sift through whatever else is there. Bins where stuff stands upright and facing forward where it isn't a struggle to reach even the back material would be ideal.

Let folks dig through it and never worry about the order it is in because people will then look through all of it and are more likely to pick up a copy of something that suddenly strikes their fancy.

On the front of the bins, put only the range of the pricing discount (AKA "50% to 75% OFF!") and not the ramge of prices. Put the prices of the individual books on the bottom of the back of the books so that people have to draw the book out of the bin and flip it over to see the price. They'll also be able to see how much less it is than the original price. It's better to get people to focus on how much they are saving than how much they are spending.

In that process of pulling the book out of the bin they will get the full impact of the cover and are likely to read the information on the back as well. Once someone starts to dig they feel an obligation to themself to buy at least one thing, to justify and reward their own efforts. Once someone has something in their hand they are more likely to buy it than is they are only viewing it.

In addition, they tend to wrap the books in shrink wrap. I was thinking about telling them that this was a bad idea because it prevents people from paging through the book and I think they lose sales do to this.

Never shrink wrap anything that isn't a collectible unless it has pieces that could be lost (i.e. a box game/set).

Basically, her co-owner, who owns a majority believes that RPG people know what they want, so there is no need to update the section. I need to convince her that a lot of gamers do not know ahead of time and that sales can be generated if the store has a great selection.

I wouldn't presume to give advice on what might sell in your area or on what to stock. If there are other stores, there might be some clues to be had by seeing what sells at those. While they are selling out the overstock, be sure to ask a lot of questions and find out what are the favorite companies of the people who are coming into the store. What the traffic buys should always give a fair indication of what is likely to sell in the area. Better to be stingy on the stocking and let absolutlely every customer know that you are looking for information on how to best serve them than to commit a lot of funds like the former owner and having to liquidate or outright sell the store.

Anyway, that's from someone who has been an RPG gamer since D&D came out in 1974 and a wargamer for a short while before that. Take it for what it is worth. With luck, someone like my friend thalmin will pop in here and share some advice. He's the co-owner of a gamestore in the Chicago area that has been around for about two decades now.

 

[Mark]

And another thing...

On the front of those bins I described, put another sign that says, "Build your own Bundle!" Allow people to bundle any five items and get the cheapest one for free.

 

[Creamsteak]

I'm fairly typical, I'll go online to buy a book if I already know I want it. It tends to be cheaper, and the shipping isn't so bad. The two primary reasons I drop by the FLGS is priority or impulse purchase.

If I need "module x" or "magazine x" or "some player supplement that one of my players wants to use x", or "setting book x that the DM told me to buy" I'll drop by the FLGS and pay full cover price for it. If I seriously need two or three extra player's handbooks (and that happened once already), I go to the FLGS.

Impulse purchases are price-dependant. I almost never make an impulse grab except out of pity for the store. Even then it's probably a mini's booster or one of the map folio's from wizards. Failing those, I've been known to buy a module or magazine. Small stuff. But if a book can be discounted more than Amazon (30-32%) I might buy it right there and then if it's only faintly interesting. A bundle of books at (60-62%) would definitely be something to grab up though, if only to fill out my book collection some more.