How do you support a hobby store when you don't buy products from the hobby?

[Bleys Icefalcon]

We have a similar scenario here - a new store just opened up, with several gaming tables for minis, rp, etc - and almost every night, there's a dozen - or more - people. The problem they are facing, no one BUYS anything. They bring all their stuff in with them, play, and leave. In many cases they don't even buy the snacks, but bring them with them, or insult to injury, go next door to the pizza by the slice place. They don't want to change their rule and start charging for the tables by the hour, but so many people get their gaming stuff via EBay or Amazon, it's hard for the new local shop to compete.

The store might be closing in the next few months.

 

[Kobold Boots]

1. Run a regular game that is reliable and open to anyone, even one-shot players.
2. When running that game, go for business casual and not gamer casual so you can get parents to be cool with their kids hanging in the store.

3. Buy one item a week. Your oath to not buy books to me is silly, but if you insist, I'm sure they have board games or modules you can use. Profit is generally higher on smaller items.

4. Be a better you than you are when you're spending hours in a store on a regular basis. This ties back to point 2, because if you're the weird smelly guy in the store running a game and you start noticing that only other weird smelly guys are frequenting the store a few months later.. you're not helping.

Best,
KB

 

[Kobold Boots]

We have a similar scenario here - a new store just opened up, with several gaming tables for minis, rp, etc - and almost every night, there's a dozen - or more - people. The problem they are facing, no one BUYS anything. They bring all their stuff in with them, play, and leave. In many cases they don't even buy the snacks, but bring them with them, or insult to injury, go next door to the pizza by the slice place. They don't want to change their rule and start charging for the tables by the hour, but so many people get their gaming stuff via EBay or Amazon, it's hard for the new local shop to compete.

The store might be closing in the next few months.

Did some research on the hobby store business model when I was working on the MBA. The best overall approach ended up being the use of Amazon to set up a store tying back to a distributor and turning the place into a "gaming experience" with lan games, rpgs and miniatures with rental by the hour or by the block.

The work around to the pizza by the slice place is to work with the other business owners to ensure referral business OR to integrate their offerings backwards into a club membership at the store. (ex. you get 4 hours of time at the table per week, plus a pizza and drinks for X plus get entered into a drawing for X at the end of the month.)

The trick is looking at the whole store and package deals as well as only offering free table time at slow traffic periods. Whether to offer snacks and food is a personal decision as frankly, offering granola bars, candy and soda won't cut it when there's a subway or papa ginos next door and most game stores don't have a kitchen to support safeserv.

KB

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Presumably running a game will help bring people in or keep them there where they will spend money even if you don't.

Learn to enjoy games that are not 4e.

Good ideas, both.

I'd also add the simplest: spread the word. Stores can't buy good word of mouth, and it's one of the most potent marketing tool out there.

Even if you don't buy stuff there, telling others something like "If I were buying ________, I'd look at store X, because they have everything in stock and good prices, too." goes a long way.

 

[MerricB]

Start buying boardgames.

Cheers!

 

[haakon1]

Ask them to stock Kobold Quarterly and other game magazines, and buy them there.

Or switch to Pathfinder and buy their adventure paths . . .

Dragon and Dungeon used to be good for that purpose -- I don't like going into a gaming store and buying nothing, but it frequently happens now.

 

[NewJeffCT]

You could buy non DDM miniatures - Reaper, Warhammer, etc. If you don't have time to paint them up, maybe you could ask some of the people who game with you at the store to help out for you?

How about non-gaming books? Do they have any fantasy/sci-fi novels? Do you play Magic or any other CCG?

And, while you may not run the adventures/modules that you buy, good ones are always a source of inspiration and ideas.

And, as somebody said upthread, if you know the owners/managers well enough, maybe suggest to them a deal with some of the restaurants nearby...i.e, if you buy more than $25 worth of stuff at the gaming store, you get a $5 coupon towards a large pizza at Paulie's Pizza next door.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Even if you don't buy stuff there, telling others something like "If I were buying ________, I'd look at store X, because they have everything in stock and good prices, too." goes a long way.

Great point on this. Plus, the original post said he was surprised when he found they had re-opened in a new location that was much bigger than before.

If he was surprised, you can bet some other people didn't know about this grand re-opening either. Or, they could have forgotten about it if there was a decent amount of time between closing the old store & re-opening the new one.

So, word of mouth can really be huge when a store is "new" like that.

 

[Elric]

Give them money.

 

[Thagdal]

Run casual introduction to RPGs games. Get more people into gaming who need to buy dice & books.