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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pickin_grinnin" data-source="post: 7697253" data-attributes="member: 6697674">Last year I worked at a used book store for a few months as a temp.  Since people sold them their used books, they had a lot of older, out-of-print rpgs at prices that were at least comparable to what you would find online.  They sold a lot of stuff from that section, but even then there were certain things that moved very slowly, if at all.  Interestingly enough, the old D&D stuff was completely stagnant, even though they had a relatively good selection going back into the 80s.  The section served as a loss leader of sorts - they "lost" shelf space by keeping stock that moved slowly, but it insured that area gamers would keep coming in to see the new items as they trickled in.  They would inevitably end up buying something from outside that section whether they bought gaming material or not, since most rpg people read a decent amount of fiction, too.Shelf space in most FLGSs is even tighter, and most of them can't maintain a diversity of stock (things beyond games) that pretty much guarantees some sort of sale every couple of times a customer visits.  According to the game owners I have talked to (online and off), MTG cards make up something like 70-80% of their sales.  Many of them don't even like MTG and would prefer not to carry it, but it's the only way they can stay solvent.Space for gamers to play (and for events) eats up a huge amount of floorspace that could be used for extra stock.  For many, though, renting that space to a couple of groups will generate more money in a 6 hour period than they would make using it for stock over the course of several days or a week.  They have to pay rent for the building according to square footage, though, so balancing that with what they can get from using it as playspace is a delicate balance.  I'm really surprised that more of them don't use rolling displays, to be honest.In the end, even if FLGSs cut their product prices to the very bare minimum they could to simply break even each month, they still couldn't get them as low as what their customers could find those products for online.  That's the biggest issue.</blockquote>

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