"Hello Mr. Smith as you can see this is a very nice ranch style house."
"Great, can I go inside?"
"Ummm, no. We don't let you actually SEE the inside of the house until you buy it".
Would you buy the house. Or go elsewhere?
"Nice car, Can I take it for a test drive?"
"No, we have a strict policy against letting you drive the car before you buy it because you might get the floor mats dirty."
Would you buy the car?
Most local gaming stores only has ONE advantage over on-line retailers. Shop before you buy. I never buy anything on-line because I like to look through it before I buy it. I have literally driven over 100 miles to go a gaming store I saw in the phonebook. They shrink-wrapped everything. I left, Immediately.
If I ever visit Carolina I never buy anything from your store because of shrink wrap. If you don't want me to look through something before I buy it, I will ALWAYS, ALWAYS go somewhere I can. If that is impossible, I'll buy on-line & save a few bucks.
As for "Ask & we'll take it out for you" No thanks. I can go elsewhere & not have to go to the front of the store (wait if its busy), ask for the clerk to go to the back, take the precious item out off the shrink-wrap, wait, staring at me while I read (Yes read, I've been burned tooo many times by stuff that looked good just skimming through it to only find nasty problems later). Then have to tell the clerk "No thanks, the feats are over-powered & their monster-design is poor and the artwork uninspiring. Can I see this instead?"
Final answer. Shrink wrap makes it impossible (or extremely difficult) for me to evaluate a product before I buy it. I can sit at home in my underwear typing on my computer at midnight and get the same stuff & save a few bucks in the process. Their is NO reason for me to even CONSIDER going to your store because of shrink wrap.
Have you considered the cost of shrink wrap? How much do they actually SAVE when you include the price of shrink wrap? I know close to a hundred gamers well enough to know they will not even consider visiting a shrink-wrap store either.
As for the game room. Shrink wrap makes that useless. Do yourself a favor and turn it into a storage room. You'll probably never get anyone to game their (unless they have no other choice). I run a game at my local gaming store. I began the game at 1st level nearly 2 years ago & my players are now 23-24th level. I now have an apartment large enough to game in, but still go to the game store every week. Why? Because of the resources. I can't drag my entire gaming library with me, but I can look something up real quick from the stuff on the shelf. I can't do this if its all shrink-wrapped. My group has invested close to $5,000 dollars into the store as a direct result of my weekly games (that's usually when we buy our stuff). I wouldn't game in a store where everything is shrink-wrapped because I couldn't make use of the full facilities.
Finally, they need to get new product in. Even if its only 1 copy of the WotC products. If they don't get new stuff in, then they are stagnant, and people won't shop there for D&D. It looks like they are getting rid of product if they don't get ANY new stuff in.
Finally (part 2). As for discounting, The longer it sits on the shelf, the less profit that is realized from the eventual sale. (Weird economics about opportunity cost & overhead & stuff could be inserted here).
Finally (part 3) Drop the shrink wrap. I've patronized dozens of gaming stores. Every shrink wrap gaming store has gone under or (stores board games and such) gotten rid of their gaming because it just didn't "sell" (even though the 2 non-shrink wrap stores down the street had d20 stuff flying off the shelves. Shrink wrap drives off gamers. It simply does. Shrink wrap = no gamers. Got it?
Finally (I mean it this time). The owners have to make a decision. If they want to actually SELL gaming products they need to drop the shrink wrap. They'll never rack up stellar sales if they keep shrink-wrapping everything (unless they sell it at MASSIVE discounts). If they don't want destructive, note-taking, untrustworthy role-players (their GIVEN reasons for the shrink wrap) as customers, I don't want them as merchants.
Drop the shrink wrap. I repeat, DROP THE EVIL SHRINK-WRAP!!!!!!
Vraille Darkfang
Gamer who doesn't tear up books, copy them, & DOES make an effort to buy from my local game stores.
