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Hi All!!

Nearly all the gaming stores in the Inland Empire area have closed, leaving a lot of gamers with no where to go to get supplies or sit down to their favorite RPG. I also have been unemployed for the last 2 years, so my solution is to help Reopen a gaming store, GamIng is my passion and I'd like to share it with others, so please if you can, contribute and share!

Thanks!

Max.
http://www.indiegogo.com/p/144440?a=702549

How come you don't just put together a business plan and go get a small business loan?

I'd think you might get better action if you would use a KS project for something specific.

I have seen a bunch of stuff from a guy we know in Penn. that posts here quite a bit. He could be a good source for you to get in on this game store business. There was even a website he recommended for people who run game stores, IIRC.

Good luck to you, either way.

Don't take this the wrong way, not bashing you or anything, just offering some advice.

$20,000 is nowhere near what you will need to open a game shop. Add another 0 to the end and you'll be closer. Well, you could open your door for that much maybe, but how long will the door stay open?

$20,000 may be good for your initial order of stock for the store, but then what about rent? phone? internet? water? electric? Money to feed yourself? And what happens if you spend that $20,000 on GW and other miniatures, and then it turns out your customers just want to play CCGs? Are you just going to fill your shop with $5000 worth of stock? If so, chances are you won't have what people want, and then they'll go buy what they want online instead.

You need to make a real business plan, calculate how much it's going to cost you to reach a point where you'll start turning a profit (usually over a year, closer to 2) and make sure you have enough cash on hand to cover everything you need from before you open until you reach that point.. and it would be good to pad that number and hope to have even more than you think you need.

I would drop the campaign, and get a real business loan. However, being unemployed, a bank would probably laugh at you if you asked them for money. But I don't really see a crowd funding campaign for a store really going anywhere.

You should do a lot more homework. There's a lot of resources out there on the web that can give you some great advice.. here's 1 post on Board Game Geek

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/691669/so-you-want-to-start-a-game-store-recommended-reso

And RPG.net has a lot of great articles. Read every one of them

http://www.rpg.net/columns/list-column.phtml?colname=businessofgamingretail

If you're not scared off by the time you get done reading everything, then maybe the game store business is for you

Anytime someone posts about opening a gaming store, I'd say that my reaction is always the same. No business plan, no interest from me.

Max,

Grot 6 - is dead on the money. Without a business plan and the right amount of capital - a failure of planning is a plan to fail. Not being unkind or taking a dig at you. I have had 5 friends form either high school, college, the Army and/or gaming groups who have tried. All 5 failed - none of them had business plan, none had the capital to bankroll anything beyond the first six months of operating expenses, including the product lines initial stocking.

I bought two life memberships trying to support a couple of my friends and almost went into business with one as a side job. Both were total failures and I lost a few hundred dollars - but my friends lost their dreams and subsequently hate wargaming as a result of the failure. Two of my friends went into business together only to have one rip the other off, and some other issues that would go off topic. To this day they hate each other. So be careful if you enter a partnership as a means to build the capital.

You might want to start with cost projections of lines along with some marketing of what really sales in your area to help scope the lines (determine the initial and start-up costs). Look at the cost of renting a space, check the crime stats and insurance rates for the businesses in area of your town. You will also need a traffic ability test - how far from main businesses, traffic flow patterns times that a peak. Distance to other shops and types of businesses. Advertisement is always expensive - a strategy that works well is to open near a solid business that has your target age group. Remember for most age groups below 18 - many of the parents will be subsidizing if not totally funding their purchases.

Movie theaters and toy stores are a generally where I see most people target - for some reason I've not see one outside of N VA / DC work too well. People will not drive too far out of their way - particularly with the economy in a nose dive.

Some questions to think about:

Where can you get this information? Some of it is online - some your local commerce group may provide gratis, city managers and planners office often can help. I'm sure there are others
What are the details I'm unaware of? Business licenses, zoning restrictions, etc.
How many businesses have failed with similar lines of products in the last ten years? Trend analysis for the area.

You might call some of the larger suppliers of the products you intend to carry. I suggest The Warstore - most independents I know on the east coast get some if not all of their main lines from them or a place in Atlanta that I have forgotten the name of.

By no means let this be the death of your dream - just make sure you plan and project for the initial startup so you will succeed. There are hundreds of other small business issues to be addressed.
One guy went to work in a local game/hobby store part time just to learn the business before he jumped into head on. I don’t know if he succeeded at opening his own store, but this was a means to further his education via someone else’s money until he was ready.

Good lcuk and best wishes,

PanzerTC

http://gmigames.com/

Granted they aren't the most centrally located business in Riverside County, but the store is unrivaled. They have tons of gaming space, a rather large inventory, and are open 7 days a week with excellent hours.

This is who you'd be competing with, and they have been there for years.

Then there's The Adventurers Guild. Also in Riverside, also been around for years.

The Riverside area market is saturated. Another store there won't do well. If GW thought it would make money, they'd have opened a store there already. Granted GW doesn't sell PP or MtG which are big money makers for LGS's.

Temecula has Thou Shalt Game. Not the best store, but it has gaming space and basic hobby supplies and product.

The only areas in the 951 that don't have a store(to my knowledge) are Corona, Hemet, Palm Springs, and Banning/Beaumont. Moreno Valley is too close to GMI and it's demographic wouldn't support a gaming store.

Banning/Beaumont, and Hemet are very low income areas that won't support a gaming store.

Corona might, Palm Springs might(doubtful though).

Even in Corona, GMI and TAG are just down the freeway.

Southern California doesn't have much room for new gaming stores.

Necros wrote:Don't take this the wrong way, not bashing you or anything, just offering some advice.

$20,000 is nowhere near what you will need to open a game shop. Add another 0 to the end and you'll be closer. Well, you could open your door for that much maybe, but how long will the door stay open?

$20,000 may be good for your initial order of stock for the store, but then what about rent? phone? internet? water? electric? Money to feed yourself? And what happens if you spend that $20,000 on GW and other miniatures, and then it turns out your customers just want to play CCGs? Are you just going to fill your shop with $5000 worth of stock? If so, chances are you won't have what people want, and then they'll go buy what they want online instead.

You need to make a real business plan, calculate how much it's going to cost you to reach a point where you'll start turning a profit (usually over a year, closer to 2) and make sure you have enough cash on hand to cover everything you need from before you open until you reach that point.. and it would be good to pad that number and hope to have even more than you think you need.

I would drop the campaign, and get a real business loan. However, being unemployed, a bank would probably laugh at you if you asked them for money. But I don't really see a crowd funding campaign for a store really going anywhere.

You should do a lot more homework. There's a lot of resources out there on the web that can give you some great advice.. here's 1 post on Board Game Geek

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/691669/so-you-want-to-start-a-game-store-recommended-reso

And RPG.net has a lot of great articles. Read every one of them

http://www.rpg.net/columns/list-column.phtml?colname=businessofgamingretail

If you're not scared off by the time you get done reading everything, then maybe the game store business is for you

I have read those articles, thanks for the feedback!