#6: Deciding What to Carry

[RPGnet Columns]

http://www.rpg.net/columns/businessofgamingretail/businessofgamingretail6.phtml

Summary:

What to stock, how much space it needs, and how much it costs.

Go to the column (http://www.rpg.net/columns/businessofgamingretail/businessofgamingretail6.phtml) for more information.

[ludyee]

Interesting read. I often daydream about how I would want "MY" gamestore to be (think Starbucks with games.)

Anyway, I was wondering if you have much to say about offering indivual cards for CCGs and minis for CMGs? Is the singles market worthwhile in a brick-and-mortar shop? Or are those the realms of online purveyors? And should your business model include an online footprint?

Thanks,

Eric.

[LBrownIII]

Some stores sell singles. Some don't.

It's a labor-intensive effort, that's for sure. I've also seen a recent trend away from offering singles after several stores report a lack of gain compared to selling booster packs. Nobody wants to do that much work to break even.

Advantages: done with effort and by updating prices to take advantage of the local market, you can make good money with it. It retains customers who would otherwise go online for their singles. I like that you sell different cards to different groups. Cards your tournament players scorn sell for $6 to casual players, and vice-versa (hint: buy card-drawing or deck manipulation from your casual players while selling them the big creatures you bought from your tournament players).

Disadvantages: you reduce your booster pack sales by a certain amount, you spend a lot of time (or labor dollars), you create more potential for theft inside your company, and you increase paperwork by increasing the number of items in your store to track.

You should have an online presence, but only (in most cases) as a virtual brochure and possibly a meeting point. If your store is new or does low volume, a message board with no traffic is a big sign showing off your lack of sales. Most of the time, a simple site with directions, an event calendar, and a bit of background is all you need.

The Starbucks-with-games model is pretty common among the daydreamers, but when they start crunching numbers....well, they stop there and don't open. Unless you can come up with some element nobody else has yet (I've probably seen it 30-40 times), it doesn't work.

[Dwhitaler]

I must say that having owned a store at one time, and in fact selling so many singles for certain games I was recruited to manage sales for one of top 5 largest game manufacturers I think singles are an absolute must. The caveat is though, not for every ccg you carry. Pick and choose properly. The truth is that margins have shrunk a good 12-15% on retail game products and overhead costs have done nothing but go higher. If one assume that the only way to get singles is to open packs then yes, at first it doesnt seem to be all that cost effective. However, the average smart retailer offers to purchase a "hot" card for store credit, and for the most part those types of deals, like the odds in Vegas, are stacked in favor of the house. Case in point a single I might sell for 12 dollars would fetch between 6-8 dollars towards store merchandise, or lower if I already had copies of that card. That means that 8 dollars in credit, in rough numbers was worth a total of $4.60 (or roughly a 40% off retail cost comparrison. Now, again in rough figuring id that card sells for 12 physical dollars, my acutal cost in that card is closer to 40% of selling price as opposed to the 55-60% of cost of new goods. Again these are rough numbers but it tended to work out well for me.
If cash value was tobe offered it was 33% of my selling price.