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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Orryn Emrys" data-source="post: 1633384" data-attributes="member: 6799">I'm looking for a little advice.  A friend and I are considering starting up a small business devoted to gaming.  The do's and don't's of establishing a small business, as it turns out, are readily available and in abundant supply.  The specifics of establishing a workable FLGS, however, are not so easily located.A couple of points: the community we live in, which has, we believe, a serviceable gaming population, currently boasts no such business... an important point, I feel, since it seems risky enough expecting it to support one such store, much less two.  Some local market research is certainly forthcoming.  Furthermore, the city is of a population of merely 30-some-odd-thousand, with a nearby (50 miles) community of nearly 50-thousand (also without an FLGS), and numerous smaller towns in an otherwise very rural area.The only competition for gaming products would be the local book-music-video franchise, which boasts a fairly small selection and sells nearly everything at full price.The specific advice I seek is actually of a more speculative nature.  Firstly, any advice geared toward actually operating such a business would be greatly appreciated, particularly from those with experience.  Secondly, we are uncertain how to go about contacting and selecting potential distributors... some basic websearching has yielded a few such wholesalers, but I could really use some advice in making the appropriate selection.  (Any contacts could really be useful, of course....)I am also attempting to divine what to sell along with gaming products.  I've noticed that a lot of game stores are also comic stores... does this seem a good approach?  Some of my friends are real comic fiends, but they certainly don't know anything about the business of stocking and selling them.  I've noted the CCG craze hereabouts... particularly amongst younger children.  Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon, Harry Potter....  What works?  What seems to get attention...?  We use to be avid MtG players, but that's as much CCG experience as I've ever really had.What else might make a good product for generating revenue?  Potentially related avenues might include genre-related books and movies, second-hand books, anime, new age references and materials, toys, models, puzzles, hobby supplies and materials, games of all sorts...?  Any suggestions are more than welcome.And finally, what makes a game shop tick?  I've witnessed a couple of brief ventures by hopeful locals in the decade or so since I moved to this area.  Neither store survived more than a year to two years... but the popular theories concerning their failure typically include poor management.  (In at least one of the cases, I witnessed this first-hand.)  The great thing about them was, of course, the amount of gaming that went on within their store(s), as well as the number of gamers I met whilst patronizing their establishment(s).  In your experience (or even speculation), what services, events and functions make a game/comic/whatever-else store popular?Any particulary helpful resources (i.e. manuals, references, websites, contacts, etc.) would be mighty well-appreciated as well.  It seemed the most diverse and eclectic audience I could hope for, with a substantial knowledge of the industry, or at least the product, could likely be found right here at EN World... so thank you in advance in any interest you may take in providing your valuable insight to this project.</blockquote>

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