Opening A Game Shop?

[Dr Velocity]

What is involved in this? Presume I'm going to buy a building and live in the back of it, and have about a 20 or so square foot "store front" - its already on main street, though this is a small town of 2600. What am I looking at for money and what would I need to do, and where would I find people to contact to order different games and such? I was thinking of a game shop to sell RPGs, board games and card games probably.

[Ranger7]

2600? That sounds like a really small market for a games store. The smallest town I've ever seen a store in was about 50,000. Maybe you are close to a lot of neighbouring comunities?

Anyhow, you'll need money for fixtures, a till (either electronic or basic), taxes and rates, opening stock (about 10,000 USD was suggested for opening stock before I think?), and I'd have about three months worth of operating capital (for paying electricity, water rent etc) ready because you are going to need it while the store takes off.

Joining a trade association like GAMA seems to be a popular choice for a lot of retailers in the states, I don't know how useful it is to European retailers since I've never known a retailer on this side of the pond that was a member. (I know quite a few retailers in Europe)

I think Alliance are a popular distributer for games etc in America. In the UK&Ireland Esdevium and Hobbygames are the only two I know of. Mainland Europe has its own distributers.

[Destriarch]

My step-father has run a successful greeting card shop for many years now, and while it's not the same market or even the same country, I think this spot of advice that he gave to me still holds a lot of sense: don't expect a new store to be paying for itself for at least a year, and if at all possible budget yourself so that you have enough money to support yourself for the basics (food, heating, electricity etc) for around three just to be on the safe side.

Ash

[LBrownIII]

What is involved in this? Presume I'm going to buy a building and live in the back of it, and have about a 20 or so square foot "store front" - its already on main street, though this is a small town of 2600. What am I looking at for money and what would I need to do, and where would I find people to contact to order different games and such? I was thinking of a game shop to sell RPGs, board games and card games probably.

I've done break-even analyses and financial projections for a lot of existing stores and prospective store owners. Most often, they need between $50,000 and $90,000. Got that?

I have a spreadsheet of store sizes, breaking down retail and game space sizes. The average is over 2,000 sf, and the lowest is about 600 sf.

I've never seen a store based primarily on game sales succeed in a community smaller than 10-20 times the size of yours.

You're welcome to come over to http://forums.delphiforums.com/gamestore/start

and discuss the details. It sounds like you have some misconceptions to dispel before you get seriously started.

I'm working on a basic FAQ for that site, as well as a step-by-step guide to determining how much money you need.

[Black Mamba]

What is involved in this? Presume I'm going to buy a building and live in the back of it, and have about a 20 or so square foot "store front" - its already on main street, though this is a small town of 2600. What am I looking at for money and what would I need to do, and where would I find people to contact to order different games and such? I was thinking of a game shop to sell RPGs, board games and card games probably.
You must look at the basics of the numbers. If you sell a $30.00 book you will make about $12.00 profit. Now compute how many books you will need to sell a month just to pay the rent? How many to pay the electricity and other utilities? How many to cover your salary? For your store to make $2,400 a month you would need to sell 200 books. That is over 8 books a day, assuming you were open 6 days a week. How many gamers are there in your 2,600 population town? 10? 20? Are they all going to be able to buy a new book every day or every other day? The reality of a population that size is that you would be lucky to sell 20 books a month. Unless you are independently wealthy and just looking for a way to pass the time, or you live in the RPG capitol of the world with 90% of the population playing various games, your energies would probably be best spent in another direction. Perhaps you should consider moving to a larger city and working at a FLGS for a while to get a feel for how the industry works.

[Dr Velocity]

Some good if somewhat disheartening news and advice from everyone. It is much appreciated. I will rethink this through. =)

[HinterWelt]

Sorry.

[LBrownIII]

An important point, a $30 book should yield more like $15. Most retailers (depending on the manufacturer) will get a 50% discount from distributors.

Who offers 50%? Not Alliance, and Alliance is far and away the largest distributor in the country. Not ACD (the second-largest), not Centurion*, not GAMUS and not Blackhawk.

Also, you don't get the nominal 47% discount from Alliance on WizKids, WotC, GW, Eagle, Upper Deck, etc. Much of what stores actually sell comes in "capped" at less than the full discount--the list of capped manufacturers/product lines is about 80 long. Sometimes it seems like only the little guys whose products won't sell more than $200 all year are the ones you get a full discount (no offense to the little guys).

Low-volume stores, including those just opening, also have to pay shipping costs that higher-volume stores don't. Until they establish terms, they might have to pay COD costs, too. That shipping can add another 2+ percentage points to your cost.

That makes the real, out-of-pocket cost equivalent to about a 43-42% discount.

Then you have to calculate waste. You might have a special order flake out and stick you with a book. You might have a damaged product that you mark down to sell. Occasionally, somebody swipes a fig or a booster pack.

Overall, I recommend that new stores use a 40% gross profit margin figure for their calculations. If it improves overall, great, you make more money.

Retail stores don't make money off of a single RPG book sale. They have to calculate total COGS across all of their product lines.

*Centurion is awesome an offers 50% discounts on pre-orders, if you pre-order, and if the product ever comes out, and if you pay on time (otherwise, I believe it drops to 40%).

[HinterWelt]

Who offers 50%? Not Alliance, and Alliance is far and away the largest distributor in the country. Not ACD (the second-largest), not Centurion*, not GAMUS and not Blackhawk.

Also, you don't get the nominal 47% discount from Alliance on WizKids, WotC, GW, Eagle, Upper Deck, etc. Much of what stores actually sell comes in "capped" at less than the full discount--the list of capped manufacturers/product lines is about 80 long. Sometimes it seems like only the little guys whose products won't sell more than $200 all year are the ones you get a full discount (no offense to the little guys).

Low-volume stores, including those just opening, also have to pay shipping costs that higher-volume stores don't. Until they establish terms, they might have to pay COD costs, too. That shipping can add another 2+ percentage points to your cost.

That makes the real, out-of-pocket cost equivalent to about a 43-42% discount.

Then you have to calculate waste. You might have a special order flake out and stick you with a book. You might have a damaged product that you mark down to sell. Occasionally, somebody swipes a fig or a booster pack.

Overall, I recommend that new stores use a 40% gross profit margin figure for their calculations. If it improves overall, great, you make more money.

Retail stores don't make money off of a single RPG book sale. They have to calculate total COGS across all of their product lines.

*Centurion is awesome an offers 50% discounts on pre-orders, if you pre-order, and if the product ever comes out, and if you pay on time (otherwise, I believe it drops to 40%).
Never mind...
Bill

[webserverzone]

Use the power of the net. You surely will go hungry if you re-lie on a town that size to support you.

Save your money on the brick in mortar store. And put your time in something that can be marketed locally and world wide.


The Internet has made it so even the small companies can compete. Against the major box retailers



Jeremy

[Robinjsam]

Use the power of the net. You surely will go hungry if you re-lie on a town that size to support you.
Save your money on the brick in mortar store. And put your time in something that can be marketed locally and world wide.
The Internet has made it so even the small companies can compete. Against the major box retailers

Jeremy

Where's the fun in that? Running a web "gamestore" isn't remotely like running a live gamestore. You might as well be selling frying pans or scented candles- the job of a webstore-owner is ordering things, managing the website, and repacking the orders that come in and reshipping them. Blech.

Anyway, I disagree about "the internet has made it so even small companies can compete"- you've still got that pesky Cost Of Goods Sold to deal with, and the smaller you are, the smaller your discounts on wholesale purchases. As discussed above, the profit margin in this field is low to begin with, now you go online and everything is discounted below retail price, so you're making even less. I don't know how they do it- but frankly I don't see the appeal in trying.
Note: My totally subjective opinion only -- YMMV!

[LBrownIII]

I've created a FAQ for game store opening questions. It's available for rewiew now at the Game Store Resource Forum. Once we hash it out over there a bit, it'll go on their main site at www.gsrf.org

http://forums.delphiforums.com/gamestore/start

In the meantime, prospective store owners can check it out while it's on the message board.

[JJthorne]

I owned an ran a store for six or seven years back in the 80s.

Couple of things.

If you have your heart set on it:

If you sell games you should sell comics and you should sell non fantasy gamese like chess. You might even be able to add some hobby stuff like RC, Models, Trains etc.

But the truth is, its not a great idea to try and get in a business like games to make money. For one thing, there are a ton of types of stores that make much more money. If you want to be a shopkeeper then pick something like a mini mart or a magazine stand or a bagel shop. Pick something 99 percent of the population uses not something that %1 of the population uses. Not to mention that most of that %1 is young geeky and broke most of the time.

I you don't want to be a shopkeeper then don't be a shopkeeper. The thrill haveing a shop full of something you love fades very quickly then it turns out you are just a shopkeeper.

If you like hanging out in game shops, go hang out in a game shop.

[Robinjsam]

I owned an ran a store for six or seven years back in the 80s.
<snip>
If you sell games you should sell comics and you should sell non fantasy gamese like chess. You might even be able to add some hobby stuff like RC, Models, Trains etc.
I'm not sure I agree. In fact I'm sure I don't. If you don't love those things, that's going to come through, and they won't do well. Plus, comics and RC stuff are hobbies you need to know a lot about in order to run them well, and if they aren't your forte it's a total waste of money, time, effort, and space.
But the truth is, its not a great idea to try and get in a business like games to make money. For one thing, there are a ton of types of stores that make much more money. If you want to be a shopkeeper then pick something like a mini mart or a magazine stand or a bagel shop.
Hardly anyone just wants to run a shop. We want to run a shop that we can put our heart into because we love the product, it interests us, it makes us happy.
The thrill haveing a shop full of something you love fades very quickly then it turns out you are just a shopkeeper.

I'm sorry it turned out that way for you, and it's true that many or most game store owners move on and do something else eventually for a variety of reasons, but the bloom fading from the rose "quickly" isn't how it happens for everyone. I'll admit my husband and I have only been running our store about a year and a half, but we don't feel like we've even come close to reaching the potential it has, and aren't bored in the least. We know a number of other game store owners very well, and never got the impression any of them feel like "just a shopkeeper" or would have any interest in being a shopkeeper of any other kind of store.

That said, far too many people open a game store because they like hanging out in them, and think that's all that's involved- hang out and game, call up a guy and order stuff, hang out and game, put it on the shelves, hang out and game, take people's money, hang out and game, and order more stuff and start over again. To be successful, one needs to have a background in (or at least an innate ability for) the business end of the business, which is about 90%. We work a total of about 100 hours a week in the store (I'm only there half-time because I have another job) and nearly all of that time is spent working. So I have to agree with JJThorne-- if you like hanging out in game shops, hang out in one-- don't open one.

Sorry this got so long...

[webserverzone]

Where's the fun in that? Running a web "gamestore" isn't remotely like running a live gamestore. You might as well be selling frying pans or scented candles- the job of a webstore-owner is ordering things, managing the website, and repacking the orders that come in and reshipping them. Blech.

Anyway, I disagree about "the internet has made it so even small companies can compete"- you've still got that pesky Cost Of Goods Sold to deal with, and the smaller you are, the smaller your discounts on wholesale purchases. As discussed above, the profit margin in this field is low to begin with, now you go online and everything is discounted below retail price, so you're making even less. I don't know how they do it- but frankly I don't see the appeal in trying.
Note: My totally subjective opinion only -- YMMV!


I wish it was that easy. The build it and they will come.

As far as the second part. I have been watching the little guys close down for years now. It really is a sad thing we are all doing. The walmart goes up and the little guy shuts down. Either way if your business model. Is to be the cheapest price around. You are doomed to fail. It all comes down to whether, or not you go the extra steps for your clients.


Jeremy

[Redforce]

Dr. Velocity,
I am not trying to dissuade you from following what you want to do, but the truth is, as other have said, this is an extremely tough time for FLGS's, at least from what I've seen. I really don't see how a town as small as yours can support a game store. I live in Atlanta, and even 5 years ago, we had a lot of game stores. However, in the past couple of years, a lot of them have either folded or moved. Batty's Best and Sword of the Phoenix (man, that was a sad day when I heard about S&P, they've been around FOREVER, and had bar none the best game selection in town) went under, and The War Room (the one nearest to where I lived) moved across the city. We had a lot of Titan's as well, but sadly most of those have closed too. They closed or moved for various reasons I'm sure, but they all closed. The ones left (There are a couple of Titan's and Oxford Comics and Games, among others) are 'Games&' stores, like Games & Comics (War Room is Games and Models). I am not sure what it is (Atlanta has 4 MILLION people, and White Wolf is located here), but I suspect that it's the larger book chains selling WW and WoTC stuff along with gamers buying online.
I wish you luck, and if you still want to pursue this, you should probably sell more than games as a backup, and put your store in a high traffic area of a big city.

[Dr Velocity]

Thanks to all for the continued comments. I think maybe if I rephrase this, I can be more clear, and get more relevant responses. So disregard my previous or read the following in light of the previous. Not everything is completely true RIGHT now but will be, so that's how it needs to be read, in a hypothetically true context.


* * *


I live in northeast Oklahoma ("the Bible Belt"), about 45 minutes from Tulsa on Rt. 66, between Joplin, MO and Claremore, OK. My hometown has a pop of about 2600. We have "the" stoplight, one grocery store, two convenience stores, one movie rental place, one laundry, two bars and about 24 churches.

I *own* a building on "main street", right in the middle of town, between the movie rental place and the town's newspaper, which are in turn between two restaurants (one is my uncle's).

I *live* in the building. It has a 20-25' x 20-25' clean store-front with shelves and a counter, cash register, etc.

I am *NOT* relying on the store to make a LIVING (I have an undisclosed other income). I am wanting the store to break even or make some semblance of a profit to make it worth doing at all - basically a hobby.

I planned on selling board games, RPGs and related items, card games, etc.



Now, given the above, what kind of stock would anyone think I would need, and how would I go about getting it, if I did decide to try a game shop? Basically, the way I look at it, besides maybe some extra shelves, all I really need to do is order stock - I have everything else and can do the taxes and bookwork myself.

PS: I attempted to sign up for that game shop opening forum but it seems a lot of forums send the response e-mail into the aether when you have a yahoo e-mail account, and I'm not interested in sending an e-mail to the admin to sign up.

[LBrownIII]

I live in northeast Oklahoma ("the Bible Belt"), about 45 minutes from Tulsa on Rt. 66, between Joplin, MO and Claremore, OK. My hometown has a pop of about 2600.

Near Vinita, then?

[socket]

PS: I attempted to sign up for that game shop opening forum but it seems a lot of forums send the response e-mail into the aether when you have a yahoo e-mail account, and I'm not interested in sending an e-mail to the admin to sign up.


Try checking the spam/junk mail folder of your Yahoo account.

socket

[Dr Velocity]

It finally arrived. But usually when I sign up for forums with that address, it NEVER shows up - not in spam, just nowhere - like it doesn't even send it. I dunno why - but miraculously, this one did. =) Chelsea.

[thele]

What is involved in this? Presume I'm going to buy a building and live in the back of it, and have about a 20 or so square foot "store front" - its already on main street, though this is a small town of 2600. What am I looking at for money and what would I need to do, and where would I find people to contact to order different games and such? I was thinking of a game shop to sell RPGs, board games and card games probably.

One should not wake up one morning and say "I think I will open up a gamestore."

Anyone can do that, but to be successful you have to really look at all the numbers. It's a full time job, and you'd be surprised at how hard it can be. Please consider how much you need to make to survive month to month, and ask yourself if you can really generate that amount.

Go into any comic book and/or gamestore, and ask them if they have rpgs on sale - chances are they will say yes. For every hit there are dozens of misses which translates into inventory you paid for but can't move.

Then consider your audience. As LBrownIII mentioned - what is the size of the community? Is there enough people in your town to support a gamestore? The smaller the town the bigger the risk.

And what about competition? Gamers like some stores more than others, and won't migrate to a new one for sheer discounts alone.

It's a really tough business. Make sure you do alot of research, and some business/marketing classes would definitely help.

Personally, I think you are better of turning it into a mom+pop shop, or maybe just sell new comic books - that has some good profit and can get some consistent business week-to-week.

~Le

[JJthorne]

I think it is crazy to sell games and not comics or vice versa. But if you get into comics you must must must understand sell through or you will go broke quick. If your local laws allow i also recomend swords. Anything geek related that adds to the bottom line should go in your store.

You will get x number of loyal companies with x ammount of disposabal income. You want as much of that income as you can get.

[Robinjsam]

I think it is crazy to sell games and not comics or vice versa. But if you get into comics you must must must understand sell through or you will go broke quick.

I think you have to understand more than the concept of sell-through. How well do you think a gamestore owner will do if he can't discuss the pros and cons of the D20 system, or the differences between 40K and Warmachine? Not too well- and if you don't know the comics field you won't do well selling them. A few of your gaming customers might buy from you, but hardcore comics fans will buy from someone who knows the field. Then you're just wasting space you could fill with gaming merchandise.

[Robinjsam]

Now, given the above, what kind of stock would anyone think I would need, and how would I go about getting it, if I did decide to try a game shop?

Nobody here can tell you that, really, because the hobby varies greatly from one geographic region (hell, from one town to the one next door). You need to find out what the folks in your area- whatever sized area you think you can draw from (how far away is the nearest game store? Can you pull any business from Tulsa?)- want to play. Are they boardgamers? You can get a lot of family business that way, from people who aren't what we think of as "gamers". Are the kids around there into YuGiOh or Magic? Are there a lot of historical wargamers? You want to carry whatever the folks around there want to play - you're going to follow the trends, not create them.

[zomben]

Years ago, on behalf of friends who wanted to open a game store, I asked another friend of mine who had been running his own store for nearly 15 years how to go about opening up a games shop.

His advice was so good, and concise, I feel it's worth passing on whenever I come across a thread like this.

So:

"Well, figure you're going to need about $20,000 to open a game store. So here's what you do. You give me $10,000. I will kick you in the nuts. You will get the same level of satisfaction from getting kicked in the nuts as you would running a game store. And you just saved $10,000."

[DougSun]

I am wanting the store to break even or make some semblance of a profit to make it worth doing at all - basically a hobby.

Do you think you can even come close to breaking even when your local customer base is so small? How many gamers are there in your town of 2600? What do they play and how much disposable income do they have? That's what you should be looking into.

Even if you don't have to pay rent, I don't see how you'll be breaking even unless you can pull in customers from surrounding areas. I mean, I've seen game stores in Los Angeles County give up the ghost when they had a population of 250,000 within 10 miles of the store pretty much all to themselves.

[LBrownIII]

Do you think you can even come close to breaking even when your local customer base is so small? How many gamers are there in your town of 2600? What do they play and how much disposable income do they have? That's what you should be looking into.

Even if you don't have to pay rent, I don't see how you'll be breaking even unless you can pull in customers from surrounding areas. I mean, I've seen game stores in Los Angeles County give up the ghost when they had a population of 250,000 within 10 miles of the store pretty much all to themselves.

I imagine they were paying LA rent and not NE Oklahoma rent.

Instead of guessing, I checked out the surrounding communities on city-data.com, plugged in actual known numbers into a break-even analysis and made a projection. Given his personal goals, it's feasible.

A lot still depends on execution and luck, but the basic plan can work. We've drawn out a floor plan and started discussing basic marketing strategies on another forum.

[Black Mamba]

As I said above, just run the numbers. Since you own the building you do not have any rent costs, and since you have "other income" you do not need to use the profits to survive. I assume you are going to absorb all the utility expenses into your personal expenses, so no electricity, heating, telephone expenses, etc. The only other things to take into account are Insurance, Property, Income, and Sales Tax.

Since your volumes are going to be small you are probably only looking at 30-35% on purchases. We will use 30% for easy math. So each $30.00 book you sell makes you $9.00. To make $200 per month you must sell 23 books per month at full-price. I believe Magic booster sets sell for $3.69. So you would make $1.10 on each booster set. To make $200 per month you must sell 182 packs.

So in your small community if you can sell 10 books and 100 packs of cards per month you can make about $200.00 per month, before taxes. If it is worth it for you to stay there every day for $50.00 a week then I would say you are a rare individual. In reality you are probably only going to sell books and cards to your dozen gamer friends, and you are going to give them a discount. That means you are probably not going to make much, if any, money at all.

And please do not forget about the community feedback you will be getting. The "Bible belt" has never been a gamer-friendly place. Be prepared for the negativity thrown at you about your decision.

[LBrownIII]

Since your volumes are going to be small you are probably only looking at 30-35% on purchases.

Based on what? Guesses? I'll give you a hint: that's not right at all.

And please do not forget about the community feedback you will be getting. The "Bible belt" has never been a gamer-friendly place. Be prepared for the negativity thrown at you about your decision.

It's true that stores in the South/Southeast tend to see less sales than stores in the Midwest or Northeast. It doesn't mean you can't be successful. Some of the highest-volume stores & chains in the country are in Florida, Missouri and Texas.

[Black Mamba]

Based on what? Guesses? I'll give you a hint: that's not right at all.
On a store that size assuming you get a 40% discount you are most-likely going to need to pay for shipping yourself. Factoring in the cost of shipping on 10 books a month you will probably be lucky to get 30-35% out of the books. I am sure someone still in the business can probably post Alliance's volume discount and shipping information here if they choose. Perhaps you can rather then just denying information.

[LBrownIII]

On a store that size assuming you get a 40% discount

Why would I assume something inane like that? Personally, I'd call Premier and get 50% off. Of course, if it was me, I'd sell a lot of used stuff for the average 70% margin with no shipping.

Perhaps you can rather then just denying information.

I'm not just denying information. I already discussed industry discounts in post 8 in this very thread.

With this business plan's break-even analysis, he's carrying a limited enough inventory selection that he can use a single distributor, making one order a week of about $300--enough to reach most, if not all, free shipping thresholds.

If he has to pay shipping for the first three months, it'll add less than 2% to his total annual COGs. And shipping is tax deductible, whereas inventory is not.

[DougSun]

And please do not forget about the community feedback you will be getting. The "Bible belt" has never been a gamer-friendly place. Be prepared for the negativity thrown at you about your decision.

A generalization that is broad enough to be non-functional. Tulsa is a university town. Ken Hite grew up in Oklahoma City, and picked up gaming as a hobby from his late father.

[Black Mamba]

Why would I assume something inane like that? Personally, I'd call Premier and get 50% off. Of course, if it was me, I'd sell a lot of used stuff for the average 70% margin with no shipping.



I'm not just denying information. I already discussed industry discounts in post 8 in this very thread.

With this business plan's break-even analysis, he's carrying a limited enough inventory selection that he can use a single distributor, making one order a week of about $300--enough to reach most, if not all, free shipping thresholds.

If he has to pay shipping for the first three months, it'll add less than 2% to his total annual COGs. And shipping is tax deductible, whereas inventory is not.
He would not even come close to selling $300.00 a week in a town of that size. He would be lucky to order $300.00 a month.

[Black Mamba]

A generalization that is broad enough to be non-functional. Tulsa is a university town. Ken Hite grew up in Oklahoma City, and picked up gaming as a hobby from his late father.
We are not talking about Tulsa. We are talking about a town of 2,600.

[LBrownIII]

He would not even come close to selling $300.00 a week in a town of that size. He would be lucky to order $300.00 a month.

Yer killin' me. Has it not occured to you that there might be other towns?

Based on your research, what's his primary draw and how many people live within that radius? What are the local demographics, and do they favor a game store customer base or not? What's his break-even? Based on his burn rate, how long would it take the store to become cash-positive? How much does the average CCG player spend annually? What's the average time in brand for a Magic player?

It's one thing to throw out an idea, but how can you be so insistent on your conclusions when your answer to every relevant question is "I don't know"?

So, what would you say about a town of 9,081? Would that sustain a new store currently doing over $110,000/year and still growing? Say no, I dare you.

How about a town of 10,489? Would that maintain a store doing nearly $300,000? You think not? You'd be wrong yet again. I bet it would really blow your mind to hear that that particular market supports 3 game stores (I only know sales volume for one of them).

I know of many successful stores in towns with population under 10,000 with standard business models.

[DougSun]

We are not talking about Tulsa. We are talking about a town of 2,600.

And the original poster clearly said that Tulsa was about a 45-minute drive from his town, and that he considered the possibility of drawing customers from that area.

[socket]

Depending on what you do to draw in those customers from the surrounding communities I think you will achieve the goals that you have stated. In my hometown a personal friend of mine had about 50 consistent customers that spent on average of 520 a year which is about $26,000 just from those 50 ppl and then he had a bit more income from the more infrequent customers. To draw them in he had LAN gaming, LAN tournies, Magic tournaments, and Friday Night magic. He made a lot of money on the snacks and sodas for those events. His store was also the only serious game store, his sole competition was a hobbist running a store because he thought it was cool. He was even able to draw customers from a nearby city of 70,000 over 45 mins away since the gaming store there didn't have Friday Night Magic.

I would suggest figuring out your service area and then look to see what competition you have and then deliver what your competitors aren't. Find out what the needs of the gamers are in that area and deliver them in a consistent and professional way. Good PR and customer service will reward you will in the longrun. Do events and promotions that benefit the community especially in the holiday times, like supporting Toy's for Tots, food drives, etc. Find ways to bring new blood into gaming or have bring a friend days that have special benefits for those who bring in their non gaming buddies. Have demos and even demos of the stuff you dont like because it's not about what you like anymore it's about what your customers want. The above friend had a "professional gamemasters pool". He had a schedule of games that were run by GM's that he knew where good and knew their particular game well and woudl be consistent. He gave them some free soda and snacks during the game times and a discount on product. There was never a lack of players signing up for htose games and that brought ppl in would would at the very least purchase snacks and sodas.

I hope your venture does well.

Socket

[Dr Velocity]

Interesting and insightful responses, all around, thank you all.

I've been still studying some of this and other information relevant to this. I agree I am not entirely certain $300.00 per week is a good estimate or not, though also my uncle's restaurant has picked up and is running at nearly a 5x profit for food cost, whereas a few years ago, he had to close the doors - and he's doing LESS stuff now than he did then, so the town and the area is a bit of a chimera, it turns out. We had a Taco Tico come in, basically the first and only national fast food chain we've had, and it went out in about 8 months with zero notice - I had tacos from there one night and it was just closed and for sale the next day.

I realize you can't compare a retail specialty board game store to a foodservice entity, of course, but my judgment of other things that have happened in the town in this same span of time has me leaning toward the surprising possibility that a game store may indeed work, though I rather doubt it would if it were anyone other than me with my exceptionally low-yeild/return requirements. I can safely say just as a CITIZEN of the town, I would NOT recommend someone open up a game store to MAKE a living, within 60 miles of this town, so I don't have any sort of grandiose illusions about what is available on a "shallow skim" of the area - no, the town and outlying areas simply does not contain enough gamers overall to normally support a game store - like I said, the town has 1 grocery store, basically 3 restaurants and only 1 main convenience store (not a chain store either), 1 bar and (not exaggerating) over 2 dozen churches - the majority of the town's financial throughput is outskirts-of-town industrial, farming and ... unemployment/disability/socia security checks.

But the peope come up with more money than can be believed, for the most unbelievable things - ten year olds come in and order double bacon cheeseburgers or grilled lemon-pepper chicken breasts for $7.00, batteries cost $4.59 for 4 Energizer AAs at the grocery store and $2.59 at the convenience store and both sell craploads of them, people buy silkscreened hats from my aunt for $16.00but they also buy the 50 cent generic soda pop from the dollar store - the whole town seems almost random.

I'm almost leaning more toward opening a game store as a means of injecting culture into the town, more than even worrying about a profit, because I have the luxury to be able to think like that.

[E_A]

Hi there!

Some observations (albeit ones from a european point of view - so apply with care :)).

Most gamers around here wouldn't commute more than 30 minutes just to buy stuff. At the same time a lot of your target demographic might not own a car or be able to get one on a regular basis. So providing "events" that will give them a reason to commute will be important.
In that regard have a look at what is offered by shops closer to the big towns.

A key advantage for you is the free space. It might enable you to carry stuff that would not be considered when paying town center rates - especially LARP stuff and tabletops. Both gamer groups are about the most spend-happy in the RPG field.

Try to hook up with the local gaming groups, again with an focus on LARP and Tabletop.

Tabletop gamers LOVE sculpted terrain but it is usually too large to carry around and too big to keep at a normal gamestore on the owners sufferance. Getting the local warhammer guys in every week to play on good-looking terrain can be a real draw.

LARP weapons and costumes need lots of space but have a high profit margin. Most LARPers appreciate the opportunity to try stuff instead of going mail-order or waiting for the next convention.

Finally making it a "kid-safe" zone might be a good way to go. Parents usually don't mind commuting for their kids that much. Have a look at the yu-gi-oh little leagues and try board game demonstrations.

NOTE "kid-friendly" and Vampire-LARPers are usually mutual exclusive :D

Hope any of that stuff is of use. I will quit rambling now :o