Why should I care about the FLGS?

[Mystery Man]

For some reason Omaha is peppered with FLGS's. One in particular will trade in your old gaming books, d20 or otherwise and offer in store credit or cash money. In store credit is better (naturally) and the trade ins are significantly cheaper.

 

[Setanta]

I'm always interested in these threads because I live in the second largest city in the US, and I don't have an FLGS, so I'm always intrigued by the observation that it seems smaller towns/cities are more likely to have an actual FLGS. Now, when I say I don't hae an FLGS, what I mean is that there is certainly no "F" and not really an "L" to be found. I live maybe five minutes from LAX (so I'm certainly not in the boonies), and yet I have to drive at least half and hour to get to a game store.

 

[DreadPirateMurphy]

To be fair, I know a little about retail and I want to answer Dragonblade's comments:

1) They offer no discount on prices. Amazon offers anywhere from 25% to 32%. If they offered 10% or 15% discount, I would spend a lot more in their store since I love to flip through books before I buy them and would prefer to walk out with physical copies of books instead of waiting days for Amazon to ship. The FLGS better starting competing in price.

As you acknowledge, small stores will never match Amazon's prices. Amazon's overhead for personnel/real estate in relation to their revenue is tiny compared to that for a brick and mortar shop. The smaller the store, though, the worse that ratio becomes. Since gaming is such a niche, we're not likely to get a box store (Gamer's Depot?) any time in the near future. Without the size of a box store like Staples or Home Depot, even 10-15% off becomes problematic. What makes it even harder it that small stores will lose some of their profit to bad "customers" who steal or damage merchandise.

2) They wrap everything in plastic. I HATE that! They have signs everywhere saying you can take the plastic off, but then I feel like I'm expected to purchase something if I go through the hassle of taking off the plastic. Plus the plastic is a waste of money that they don't need and could be better spent offering a discount on non-plastic covered books.

Books get shrink wrapped because bad customers damage them. They drop them, or they tear them, etc. Once something is damaged, it is hard to sell. Be thankful that they allow people to remove the plastic.

3) Their staff are annoying...then they watch you like you are going to try to slip something in your jacket!

First of all, I'm not a criminal.

You may not be a criminal, but it is pretty obvious that some of the people who frequent that store are. For small businesses, theft is a significant problem. The fault for that lies with other "customers."

Basically, people who frequent the store can do things that ruin it for other customers. I understand you find some of these things annoying, but place blame where blame is due.

 

[spectre72]

Before I start please remember that this is my opinion only and is based on my experiences over the last 20 years or so.

Also from reading this thread it appears that other parts of the country have “FLGS”, but in my experience “F” is not something I would attribute to any of the stores I have frequented.

Before I start I want to mention that I have an MBA and work for a good sized corporation as a database developer building reporting systems so I know a thing or two about how businesses make money.

Over the years I have worked very hard to support LGS. This has included doing demo’s for various gaming companies (AEG, WOTC, Wizkids), Running RPG events at stores and conventions organized by LGS, running the store of a friend during a family crisis, buying overpriced product, and generally promoting the stores. Every one of these stores has failed, and all of them failed due to bad management.

The biggest problem I have seen is that stores are not run as businesses, and are usually more of a “Boys Club” for gamers.

Through the years I have been treated badly by store employees, even when doing demos. There is one occurrence of this that sticks out in my mind, it was the day that I drove an hour to a nearby store to do a L5R demo and found that all of the space that had been promised to me had been taken over by a Pokemon tournament. The store owner didn’t even call me to let me know. This type of thing happened all the time, and 99% of the time the store owner didn’t even bother to promote the event so I would travel for an hour and find no one there to demo. One time I traveled two hours in a freezing rain storm to find that the owner had told everyone the event was cancelled (and I was there on time).

I have seen employees many times take reserved books and sell them to a person other than the originally asked to hold it, and then try to give a lame excuse when the person who called walks in ten minutes later.

I have seen owners (including my friend) take money from the register to go out to dinner and then not have money to pay for stock for the store shelves.

I have seen 2 people in line to buy Magic cards and the first person pays less than retail because he is friends with the owner\employee and the second pays over retail by a hefty amount because the set is hard to get, try explaining that one to an irate customer.

I could go on forever, but my point is that if a LGS wants to survive then they need to learn something about business and putting “Support your FLGS” in the middle of threads on this board is not the way to do it.

I no longer support LGS since I don’t want to deal with these things. I buy online from a select number of vendors and since my purchases are not impulse purchases it does not bother me to wait for a week for my stuff to arrive. For me it is not about the savings, but it is a nice added benefit of ordering from online vendors.

One of my friends and his wife have recently opened a new store, and I have not gone near it. There are a number of reasons, including the long drive to get there (close to 2 hours). I also don’t want to get involved, and I know from experience that there store will be just like every other I have been in and there chance of success is about the same as the rest. I have wished them luck, but without a change in the general attitude of store ownership in the area every store is destined to fail unless they are backed with a huge amount of cash and don’t mind losing money.

 

[Remathilis]

Unless I'm buying in bulk (2-3 books at a time, which is rare) I buy from my FLGS, which is just down the street from my house. I can't game there though, cept for the Enworld gatherings (speaking of which...)

However, I might have to begin buying my Giants of Legend Boosters online. Amazon has them for 14.00, a far cry from the 20.00 my FLGS wants...

 

[Salad Shooter]

One of the nice things about a Friendly Local Gaming store is the selection...they tend to have racks of older books that are no longer in print, like 1e and 2e stuff. While it ain't all that useful rulewise, they're often better written, and provide egads ideas for games. That and they're purty to read through. Also, they have the read through factor, as well as the "Hey, I've always wanted that book but forgot that I wanted it so never looked it up to buy online" factor. Also, yeah, Capitalism supports the big guys, but not everyone can work for a big guy, and by you supporting the big guys, you're taking away part of the little guys income that he needs to live. I've not run into a not Friendly LGS, both the one up at school and the one here at home are friendly. Not too much experience with the one at home, 'cause I just discovered it recently, but it seems good. And besides, getting your group together, in a store, where they have books, makes it easier to coerce those that purchase less material to maybe lend their wallets to the cause.

Not that I'm against buying online, I've done it a lot, but I'm all for picking something up in your FLGS if possible

And thats my 2 cents

 

[Frost]

The last is clean and well-lighted. The selection is pretty good and the staff is friendly and knowledgable. But...the prices are always cover, and the goods are all shrink wrapped because they have had problems with damaged goods in the past.

I assume you mean the Game Parlor in Chantilly? Wow, I've noticed quite a few Northern VA players post in this thread. I didn't realize there were so many of us.

As for me, I'm not a big fan of my FLGS (the Game Parlor). Granted, it is a nice store, but the shrinkwrap annoys me and they offer no discounts. The latter is what really stops me from buying. I'm not asking for much, just 15% or something... make it worth my while to come to your store. With zero discount, it's hard for me to justify why I should buy there as opposed to an online store which offers an excellent discount. FYI, check out Overstock.com, I have found great deals there and they charge next to nothing for shipping if you can put up with the wait of "media mail" (aka book rate). FYI, I've only had to wait about 4 days for any purchase.

And with the shrinkwrapping, it negates the "impulse" buy. Sure, they may take it off if you ask, but it's much easier for me to put a book back on the shelf when I haven't looked through it. If I want to have it unshrinkwrapped, I probably am already planning to buy it, and therefore, will have ordered it online because of the lack of the discount. See the cycle?

If you want me to buy products at your FLGS, give me a dollar and cents reason.

 

[JesterPoet]

I would say I spend 80% of my gaming dollar online (primarily Amazon.com) and 20% at my FLGS. My FLGS is The Source in Saint Paul (well, Falcon Heights, actually) Minnesota. Really, you couldn't ask for a better store. It's as good if not better than Games Plus in Illinois, which is a hard thing to be. The employees are generally friendly and helpful. I have no idea who the owner is, but he's probably pretty nice. They do an all-around great job (and have often held or ordered items for me, which I appreciate). They also have lots of room for gaming in the store, though I've never taken advantage of it.

So, I guess the question that remains is why only 20% of my money goes to The Source... The main reason is my gaming budget is tight. I really like being able to get as much as I can for every dollar... and I can get a lot more at Amazon.com than I can at The Source. However, I really do try to bring them some business. I would say that I go out of my way to do so. I have often found that the savings on modules at Amazon.com are not tremendously significant ($2-$3) so I buy those at The Source. I also buy all my miniatures and Vallejo paints there. Many times I have found out of print board games there, so I buy those too.

I don't spend as much there as I could, but I do make an effort to spend money there. I think it is important to support the FLGS, if they are indeed friendly, but I think it is going a little bit far to tell others that it is wrong not to do so. Do what your conscience and sense of appreciation tell you to do. You can't ever really go wrong doing that.

EDIT
For the record, I would never shop at a LGS that shrinkwrapped books.

 

[Storm Raven]

If you want me to buy products at your FLGS, give me a dollar and cents reason.

Here's a reason: good game stores help create gamers. A place like the Game Parlor is a big reason why northern Virginia has a thriving population of gamers. Simply put, online outlets don't have the secondary benefit to the gaming community of helping provide a base of gamers to allow a community to thrive.

No one goes to an online shop looking for gaming products unless he is already a gamer. Few people come to places like ENWorld unless they are already gamers. If the only thing available were online retailers, then we would not have nearly as many gamers out there. The only people interested in RPGs will be people who are currently interested, with few new faces arriving to replace those who leave.

And why should you care about that? For one thing, having lots of gamers buying products means that more products will be produced. A smaller hobby means fewer products. For another thing, games are social activities. Every game needs new lifeblood for it to remain viable. Your D&D group may be stable now, but at some point someone will move away, drop out, or otherwise leave the group. At some point, you will need replacements to continue gaming. Your FLGS (provided the "F" is for "Friendly") helps provide this.

I try to shop at my FLGS whenever possible, even though it costs me a few extra bucks to buy a book. I view it as an investment in the gaming community that will provide me with gamers the next time half my gaming group winds up having to take a job on the West Coast.

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

... For small businesses, theft is a significant problem. The fault for that lies with other "customers."

Basically, people who frequent the store can do things that ruin it for other customers. I understand you find some of these things annoying, but place blame where blame is due.

Isn't it true that most retail theft is perpetrated by employees?