Hi guys,

I am toying (pun intended) with the idea of opening a gaming store just north of Liverpool in the UK. I have the premesis more or less sorted and before I take the details to the a bank I am looking for some feedback from people all over the world as everyones views matter to me. Naturally I am also interested in the thoughts of people in the area too so that I can get an idea of the local community.

The site is very big and on a main road in a fairly affluent area with acces to buses and trains plus right next to the motorway network.

I would be stocking the entire GW range in store and would also look to stock other game systems too. This is where I fall down though as I only play X Wing as well as 40k so am not sure what would be good to stock. So thats my first question. What systems are popular enough that would be worth stocking and what should I avoid as people only buy it online?

I will have a webstore too by the way.

I am going to have about 12-14 full sized tables available for games that will be FREE to game on through the day and would have campaign/league nights on mid week that would cost a few pounds. Would people be interested in paying a couple of quid to play of an evening in a campaign/league?

There will be a hobby area with couches to sit and chat with fellow hobbyists and snacks and drinks will be available. There would also be paint stations for people to use.

I was thinking of having a trade programme available where people can sell their old models for credit in store or a lower amount of cash similar to the way computer game shops work. Would this be of interest?

Finally I would have a huge space available that I can turn into a tornament hall with space for upwards of 50 tables. If I hosted a tournament where you could use non GW minis too do you think people would come and what sort of price wuld you pay to be in such a tournament. Food would be provided so think along the lines of GW Throne of Skulls where it is competetive without being over powered.?

There are obviously other aspects I would run in the business too but cannot list them all here.

Please give me some feedback guys as I really need to know the market for such an idea.

Thanks

Martin

Note to the mods. If this is not the right place please could you move it somewhere more appropriate.

 McManiak wrote:
I would be stocking the entire GW range in store and would also look to stock other game systems too. This is where I fall down though as I only play X Wing as well as 40k so am not sure what would be good to stock. So thats my first question. What systems are popular enough that would be worth stocking and what should I avoid as people only buy it online?

That's really going to be a better question to ask your local gamers. How well a game does in different areas depends hugely on who happens to be playing what. FoW is huge in some areas... and doesn't sell at all in others. Likewise with Warmahordes.

You need to tailor your range to the people who are going to walk in the door.

I am going to have about 12-14 full sized tables available for games that will be FREE to game on through the day and would have campain/league nights on mid week that would cost a few pounds. Would people be interested in paying a couple of quid to play of an evening in a campaign/league?

You'll probably need to be offering something back from the league/campaign whatever to get people to pay for it.

There will be a hobby area with couches to sit and chat with fellow hobbyists and snacks and drinks will be available. There would also be paint stations for people to use.

I would avoid supplying paint unless you can get a supplier to donate it. Otherwise, those paint stations will turn into a huge money-pit very easily.

I was thinking of having a trade programme availablewhere people can sell their old models for credit in store or a lower amount of cash similar to the way computer game shops work. Would this be of interest?

This can work so long as it's managed by someone who is cluey on the value of second-hand minis. It can be trick to get the balance right, but can work well if you can do it.

Finally I would have a huge space available that I can turn into a tornament hall with space for upwards of 50 tables. If I hosted a tournament where you could use non GW minis too do you think people would come and what sort of price wuld you pay to be in such a tournament.

Again, that's going to depend on your local gamers. If the area doesn't have much of a competitive scene, you could be facing a bit of promotion work to get people in the door.

Appropriate entry costs vary, although in general people are happy to pay for perceived value. If you have nice tables with decent terrain, and a good prize pool, people are happy to pay a higher entry fee. If you're playing on bare MDF boards with a scattering of spray-painted foam for terrain and skimping on the prizes... not so much. Again, finding the balance can be tricky, but looking around at other tournaments, checking what they charge and what their entrants get for their money is probably a good place to start.

You really want to carry GW stock as an indy retailer?

I hate to be blunt, but that sounds like a failing venture.

First off, you can't carry the entire range of GW products as a lot of them are now direct only. Is there any GWs near your location? If there is, expect shipping delays, or even not being able to get certain items. Honestly I think anyone looking to go into business, and making GW there primary source of income is nuts. Have you seen how GW treats indy retailers? Read the horror stories. Trends are leading towards GW going direct (or GW retail stores) only.

That sounds like a massive amount of upfront investment and a whole lot of overhead.

Have you broken down what you'd need to take in, in terms of an average daily turnover, in order to meet your fixed costs?

Does that figure seem manageable, or does it sound anus puckeringly, scarily difficult?

Just keep your store area seperate from the gaming area, meaning you come in with your bags and army boxes and move around the cashier desk to the gaming tables. Products on other side.

About an old miniature trade in... No... just have an annual auction a couple of times a year where you take in and list folks old gaming stuff for auction and what they will take minimum for, auction the stuff off for store credit only and not at cost but retail. That way you don't have to keep record of miniatures and models and never fork out cash or store credit for things that won't sell.

No painting stations with paint you supply, have them bring in their own, and brushes. Allow good painters to have workshops.

Have someone there who can demo all games, advertise a particular game in demonstration periodically.

Theft is a big deal for game store owners.

Have enough of the products on hand for those folk who just make spontanious purchases, if you don't have a lot of stock on hand you lose out on smaller purchases every day.

Keep your negative opinions about games to yourself, if someone is buying or talking about something they've bought or collected they want positive not negative aspects and opinions. Someone wants to run a campain weekly or monthly, with a group let them, and ask if new players are allowed. Brings in more folks.

Keep it clean and well lit so parents feel comfortable letting their age appropriate children there to play games and buy things, with daddy's credit card...

Run tournaments, have reasonable tournament prises available, have painting contests, have snacks and drinks available. If there is a sandwich shop next door work out a deal with them if you can to get coupons for folks at your store.

Just some ideas. Best of luck!!!

Thanks guys for the quick response do far.

I would need to put an average of £250 per day through my till via the store, Web and any other means (trade? Drinks and snacks etc) so I think it is do able on that sense.

I'm not sure how the indy stores work in the states but In the uk they are leaning more to supplying via indy stores as they get the profit without the risk or staff cost etc. I can have access to the main 900+ products at good discount and anything that is Web only I get 25% from so still not too bad. I get new release stuff on release day and the only thing I can't do is sell outside the UK.

I really need to know what the local meta is for gaming as mentioned and hopefully people will respond in time to that. The paint stations would only be stations with water and paper towels. Customers would need to bring their own equipment in. Game tables would be well made with a good quality of scenery both GW and other brands. I have 3 high schools that I could enlist to help with the build projects too. Prizes would be anything from store vouchers to trophies and bragging rights.

This is exactly the sort of feedback I want tho guys so please keep it coming. Thanks


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Kelly that's right on the button thanks

Is that £250 profit or turnover?

Turnover wise, ~£7.5k a month isn't too scary, but if we're talking profit, that translates, give or take, to double that in terms of turnover, and if you're thinking in terms of sales at RRP, you need to add another 20% in VAT, so we're now talking a day rate of nearer £700.

Don't want to patronise, perhaps you could outline your knowledge/experience etc so I know where to pitch this stuff.

Per the day rate: I run a small store and games club and have to clear £20/day to cover rent, then add on rates, utilities and wages. Talking RRP sales, it isn't wise to count on more than a 25-30% return in order to cover taxes, VAT etc.

If I were to rely on just RRP games, turnover would need to be around £400. (£30 return per £100, £120/day = £20 rent; £6.50/hour wages (8hr day £48) £20 utiliities / rates; 25% turnover held in abeyance for taxes etc).

If in an accounting period I have excess, then I can expand offerings, product range etc....allows for a little growth....or a little padding if I think a bad period is coming up.

Drinks and snacks vary wildly, so average it out to a max of 20% (gives you a little cushion).

I mitigate these figures with club subs, which go direct to the rest without RRP turnover, meaning that I can reduce that figure.

My space is roughly 700sq ft, and given what you've listed as space, £250 a day through the till seems very small.......

Thanks again guys. I've been self employed for the last 10 years now and have been a consultant/trouble shooter for motor dealers. I basically go in and review, their performance and make changes where needed to increase profit. Whilst this pays exceptional money the work is bevoming more sporadic and is all over the country.

The 250 is turnover and dervives from everything being added annualy covering rent, rates, utilities, insurance, wages for me plus 2 other staff on a part time basis so there will always be 2 on site, stock at 20% above minimum requirements and a loan repayment. All these things come to £90k pa which cruedley diveded by 365 is £250 per day.

It would not pay me a fortune at this level but my qualty of life with regards to my happiness and being able to see my partner and daughter would increase, plus if the business was successful then I obviously reap further rewards.

I imagine 70-80% of my sales would come from the webstore and have not costed any tournament profit as I really do not know how well that would work.

I agree with a comment above of having the stock in the shop and that is why I would want yhe extended GW range so that impulse buys and mummy/daddy credit card sales are more likely. We've all done it were the new box comes out and we buy extra stuff because it's there.

I would also be stocking Battlefoam which has a large return plus I imagine some of the other systems have a similar level of discount too.

I can hire out the hall for other things such as conferences etc as it really is big (300sq meteres) and one thing I struggled to find in the north west was an airbrushing class. There doesn't seem to be any that are specific to miniature painting so I could run some of those and a high percentage of people will buy equipment at the end of the course.

Naturaloy I would have a stock of hobby accessories ranging from various paints and brushes to tools, greenstuff and plasticraft for help with scenery, bases and conversions.

This is all good guys keep it coming please.

Over here in the U.S. Magic the Gathering and other forms of cardboard crack are pretty huge. The other surprisingly popular best seller at a few of my FLGS are high quality chess sets as apparently outside of mail order they're almost impossible to find locally.

I think your numbers are optimistic. You mention going to a bank, banks are extremely reluctant to lend to niche businesses currently.

Hobby stores for the want of a better term look really appealing to run if you are into gaming and want to turn a hobby into a livelihood. But the reality is so different. So many stores fail for all sorts of reasons, underestimation of costs involved is one of the major ones.

It sounds like a great adventure!
I'd look to investing in some anti-theft measures for your stall first up, or get good insurance for shrinkage. When I was a youngin a group of my dodgier mates would shoplift their flg store blind. Was pretty shocking in hindsight.
Also on a side note, if you could open up a web store with an Aussie shop front you could make a mint grey exporting GW mini's to Australia, even including shipping you could find some massive sales over here, it'd just have to fly under the GW radar.
Otherwise, it sounds like a brilliant idea. Good luck!

As for what to stock; I'd try and get at least starter sets for the most common dozen or so games, and ideally burst one of each open to use for demos. That should at least allow you to gauge what's going to be popular whilst boosting sales/games/loyalty.

Buying used stuff is a gamble, but maybe you could get away with a commission system where you have a display of used stuff that the seller still owns, and when it's sold you give them credit to 80% of the sale value. It's lower risk for you and should still be good for the seller/customer.

A few things;

-Are there any already established LGS in the area? If there are, you'll be in direct competition with them.

-Free tables to use doesn't sound right. They are a big reason people go to the gaming store, and not asking for money to use the facilities seems silly to me. A pay-to-play and/or membership would be better.

-As for the game systems, at my LGS, 40k, x-wing, WarmaHordes and magic seem to be the most popular.

-I dont think you need to be specific about using non-GW models in tournaments. I can understand why GW say to only use GW models, but that obligation doesn't really extend to you. Just go with the rule that you have to be able to tell what it is, and wargear/weaponry must be wysiwyg.

-Have you thought about the cost / time involved with a web store? I made a website once, it was a royal PITA. I dont know the going rate of web site creation, but I imagine it to be a fair amount. You're also going to want someone to manage it.

I wish you luck with this!

I’m not a business owner, so don’t know the hidden costs. But you need to find them before going forward. You seem to have the obvious ones covered, but it’s the ones you don’t see that get you.

You are using 365 for calculating your daily costs, you planning on being open holidays?

You have wages for staff added in. Are there any HR overhead things (health insurance, retirement, etc) that you need to add in? Are you going to need to hire a lawyer and/or accountant? Are you and your family protected financially if this goes under?

Do you have maintenance and upkeep budgeted? There is going to be wear and tear, accidental breakage, supplies.

Reward/loyalty program?

Use store credit as payouts for tournaments. My FLGS had $5 tournaments every other week, top three get credit back, how much depends on the number of players.

Card games.

I'm not a business owner and YMMV depending on regional differences. In my years of hobbying... here's what I've learned from some of the owners of the local FLGS:

1. Card games do not provide much profit. They provide cash flow and traffic. This is good AND bad. It is good in that it generates word of mouth for your store and snack sales. It is bad in that card game CAN potentially crowd out other customers and card gamers are the worst of the internet bargain hunters. Card gamers are also very entrenched in their game and are unlikely to branch into your other stock.

2. Boardgames are gaining traction as they are becoming more acceptable main-stream entertainment and can attract a lot of foot traffic. Pricing at or near RRP can still work due to convenience. Choosing which items to stock is a bit of a challenge however.

3. Cleanliness is huge. The store will turn away random passers by if it is messy and/or dirty. Also, huge hordes of gamers in the store space can be intimidating to random foot traffic. All the more reasons to keep the gamer section away from the merch.

4. None of my local FLGS are able to survive off miniatures alone. They all require MTG (and other card games), Board Games and/or comics/anime to generate additional profit. Of course, YMMV.

Just a bit of feedback, as everything else I would have said would be covered.

Instead of a straight discount to members or shoppers, a couple of LGS's around here used to have a buy 3 get one free or buy 4 get one free. I would dump a LOT of cash into those stores. Another has a straight 15% off for members to the local club.

I love the idea of paying a few bucks to be in a campaign for an evening. If my LGS's did this, I'd probably go every time. This would be a great starting point to get people into playing Kill Teams (for 40K beginners), Malifaux, saga, X-Wing, Dust, Dreadball, Deadzone, Song of Blade and Heroes...there is a lot you could do.

Keep it clean, pay attention to your customers. There was an LGS here that wasn't so clean and organized, and you'd walk in and they'd be playing video games or on the computer the whole time. While I don't really want to be followed around and bullied into buing thins, I do like the social interaction.

I wish you the best of luck!

For popular games systems look to the local clubs, these will be indicative of the local community, so for example here, outside of anything GW (including old specialist games - don't forget these as leagues can still draw people into your store), it's Warmachine, Flames of War, Dystopian Wars, X-Wing, Infinity and Bushido. Many of the popular boardgames like Zombiecide and Relic get some play too.

Historical Gamers should be considered also. Now they wont be interested in FoW so much but if you have 20mm WW2 or one of the many Napoleonic scales catered for you might get a clique going. These chaps tend to be older gamers but older tends to mean £s so worth considering.

On the subject of clubs I would suggest ingratiating yourself with as many as possible. Club discount and hosting or sponsoring events will work to increase your popularity/footfall. Our club has 3 or 4 retailers that offer this for us and one that has an order thread on the club forum that is very popular. It makes the clubmen very loyal to these retailers.

You could of course start a club there or host an existing one.

Finally beer or at least refreshments. A bar will turn over a massive amount when associated with even small crowds. True the hassle of a drinks licence on top of your other concerns may be a bit daunting but the margin on a coke pump alone can be nearly 1000%. Add beer and crisps and you have happy gamers, which should = sales.

This is brilliant thanks guys. Exactly the sort of thing i'm after.

A few answers.

I would expect 70%+ of my trade would g through my webstore so will have to have a a website made for me. I dont think you can survive without the basics of webpage, facebook and twitter nowadays. I would mainly manage that side of things.

I don,t think charging for tables would help me as I would surley create more revenue by letting people play for free and letting them buy new products and consumables.

I have taken account of fees for accountants, legals and maintenence in the budget plan Nev but thanks for pointing them out.

I have approached a few local game clubs and am awaiting their response. That will help with the games to stock hopefully.

I would love to be able to sell beer but as mentioned the licence for something like that is difficult to come by plus there would be some parents who would be put off letting their kids go into somewhere that people are drinking.

I intend to start a club plus offer discounts to existing clubs and the chance for them to host bigger apoc games and events at the store in the event hall.

I would love to be able to sell outside of the UK but the risk is too great if I got caught so wouldn't i'm afraid.

Never considered card games but will defo look into them now as a traffic generator.

Cleanliness is something I agree with you all about. I intend to be as spotless as possble and staff will always be well presented and friendly NOT pushy. With a little guidance this hobby sells itself and the other gamers generally sell better than staff anyway.

With regards to commission work I am unsure what the going rate is in the UK. I would be willing to do pretty much anything from just paint to building and conversions and would definatley be happy to ship outsidde the UK for this service as it is not selling boxed minis. How much do you guys charge/pay and what are the pitfalls.

My standard I believe is above tabletop but not golden demon winning by a long way.

 McManiak wrote:


I would love to be able to sell beer but as mentioned the licence for something like that is difficult to come by plus there would be some parents who would be put off letting their kids go into somewhere that people are drinking.

I'd suggest this is a bad idea anyway, people tend to sometimes get emotional around there gaming anyway, allowing alcohol into the equation is a powder keg IMO.

If, however, you like the idea of an "adult" gaming session, a licence allowing people to bring their own alcohol to consume on premises is much easier to obtain, make it one night of the week, clearly advertised as 18+ only, starting and finishing a little later perhaps! to allow for people who work etc. Use the drink not as a means of making money, but to drive footfall. Besides, slightly pissed people probably won't make the most sensible buying decisions!

I would love to be able to sell outside of the UK but the risk is too great if I got caught so wouldn't i'm afraid.

If you establish the store as a Ltd company, then sell to an individual person (yourself or a family member) and that person them sells the product online to people outside the UK, it would be near impossible to a).detect and b) prove.

Just sayin.

Never considered card games but will defo look into them now as a traffic generator.

This statement concerns me a bit. It suggests that you're thinking about the business from the point of view of what you, as a wargamer, play and enjoy.

Really, CCGs, LCGs and board games should be top of the list. It isn't for nothing that many FLGSs fail, because people who are passionate about something often lack the objectivity necessary to run a business based on that thing.

Be aware, in fact, be paranoid, that this is you. Above all things, be aware that just because you think something is cool, it doesn't mean that it will sell.

 keezus wrote:
1. Card games do not provide much profit. They provide cash flow and traffic. This is good AND bad. It is good in that it generates word of mouth for your store and snack sales. It is bad in that card game CAN potentially crowd out other customers and card gamers are the worst of the internet bargain hunters. Card gamers are also very entrenched in their game and are unlikely to branch into your other stock.

I think the people you are talking to might be doing it wrong. All the stores I know of have Magic and Yugioh as their top sellers. And since everything comes from the same few distributors, the margin is the same as any other product in the store. Here are some ways of making it work:

Draft events: they directly sell products and once you get an established player base, you can reliably sell boxes of cards on a good night.

Standard events: constructed creates the buzz and hunt for singles. When you get someone starting to think a bit competitively you can sell them entire boxes of boosters as a preorder.

Get volunteers: ask WotC about rules advisors and judges in your area and for help in starting up organized play. Don't rely on flaky volunteers though. Magic is more than capable of attracting dedicated ones. One local store ended up having the guy running their Friday Night Magic not show up two weeks in a row with no notice. This can cost you serious money as you get a reputation for events not happening and people stop coming and go elsewhere and buy elsewhere.

Singles: you need to know the game to pull this off. I would still recommend only dealing in rares and not commons and uncommons. For the uncommons and commons, I'd recommend a flat price approach. And never buy them from customers. You'll find people will leave them behind after drafts so you can just gather them up and put them in a box with a sign that says "commons 10 cents each" or whatever (I don't know the going rate in GBP).

Niche products: From the Vault, Commander, Conspiracy, Modern Event Decks, Modern Masters, are almost always limited run products that sell out quickly. Take your full allocation of these, sell what you can on pre-order, keep the rest on the shelves for a month or two and then eBay them at auction with no minimum.

Don't spend time or money on low money interactions. This is a reason you don't track and inventory commons. You will get people coming in wanting to buy a dollar or two of cards but wanting to chat with you for 45 minutes about their deck. If you're the type of person who can smile and nod and make the occasional sound while you do something productive, great. Otherwise you'll have to figure out how to not waste time on these people. However, don't burn bridges here as the 15 year old who only has a few dollars to spend might get a part time job and in a couple years be one of the guys who preorders an entire booster box every release.

4. None of my local FLGS are able to survive off miniatures alone. They all require MTG (and other card games), Board Games and/or comics/anime to generate additional profit. Of course, YMMV.

I know there are stores that can survive on miniatures only, but they tend to have an online component as well. And that can take time to develop and is very, very cut throat when it comes to competition.

Azreal, that is EXACTLY what I needed to be told. I have no concept of the depth of the card games so will need to gen up and then some. Thankyou for pointing this massive point out to me.

With regards to opening times I was thinking of opening midday till 6/7 midweek but as you have suggested then I would be having 2 or 3 nights where it would be club/campaign nights for adults who work of a day.

I may also run 1 night a week for only school ages so they are not intimidated by the exoerienced older guys..

 azreal13 wrote:
This statement concerns me a bit. It suggests that you're thinking about the business from the point of view of what you, as a wargamer, play and enjoy.

Yep. I know the UK and Canada can be quite different, but Hasbro did report that their areas of Magic's greatest growth were Asia and Europe, so missing out on card sales could be quite a blow. And traditional distributors won't have the same barriers to ordering one thing here and one thing there that GW does. So it's easy to just bring in one booster box and one display case of starters for a card game and start running organized MTG events there.

Also, be wary of what GW trade sales tells you about how thing work selling GW. They may tell you that their average independent sells X per year and it's great, but the average current stockist won't include those who tried and failed, so it selects out the worst performers. And then you have stores with a massive online presence that are going to skew the average up. The point of GW trade sales is to get the maximum amount of money out of you.

For games to stock you need magic the gathering and run events for it. Also stock warmachine and hoards. Consider small stock of flames of war and infinity for testing the waters.

Figure out what destributers you will use. You can order collectables and rphs threw them too.


Selling just wargames will not work in the long run.

McManiak wrote:I would love to be able to sell beer but as mentioned the licence for something like that is difficult to come by plus there would be some parents who would be put off letting their kids go into somewhere that people are drinking.

I've seen places that have an ajoining Pub portion of the store, which is clearly delineated from the rest of the premises. Beer does not cross this line.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 frozenwastes wrote:
I think the people you are talking to might be doing it wrong. All the stores I know of have Magic and Yugioh as their top sellers. And since everything comes from the same few distributors, the margin is the same as any other product in the store. Here are some ways of making it work:

Top sellers yes. You'll go through a crap ton of cases. Margin on boxes / cases is generally poor. Sets are hit and miss. Inistrad sold like hotcakes. Journey to Nyx is so terrible it can't even be given away. Niche items are hit and miss and can't be relied upon to be consistent revenue generation. For example: Commander MK1 was a hot seller. Commander MK2 was a dud. As primary generator of profit, basing the entire business around card players is hard because they are a fickle bunch. Events will be poorly attended unless there is lucrative prize support. Even with rich prize support, all it takes is an underattended event to put you in the red. Downsizing the prize support if your event is underattended will generate poor word of mouth. Focusing too heavily on the competitive CCG scene is a losing proposition. About eBaying the leftovers - Not sure what the metric is on recovery of capital on this either... with no min-bid... not sure if it balances out in the black.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lockark wrote:
For games to stock you need magic the gathering and run events for it. Also stock warmachine and hoards. Consider small stock of flames of war and infinity for testing the waters.

I don't know how it is in Europe, but Wizards of the Coast (Hasbro) has different tiers of MTG Store Ranks... At the initial entry levels, you get little support from them (and comparatively rubbish allocation of product) at the lowest levels, so events is a must. You may have to supplement your product buys with product from other distributors... (which sucks, as your margin shrinks), but having no stock doesn't help the business either.

Okay. Interesting proposition that I can offer advice on. My buddy and were all set to do exactly what you are suggesting in Liverpool last year but cancelled it all before we began.

We had done what you had: costed everything out and worked out we COULD make money after about 18months of good business. We had a venue that was pricey and it sounds like the space you will need for 12-14 tables and a shop area, chill out space etc... Would be quite expensive. Maybe you have found the location we couldn't?

We worked out food and drink would be a big seller and money maker with a very good profit margin. Sales would need to come from other models and not GW. You don't get the best discount rate from GW until you have been a supplier of their stock for about 4 years. Plus you cannot cherry pick and have to buy up The Hobbit stock which is dead money. Plus you have to display it all as per instructions...

Be we did note that card games would be the main lifeblood of business.

We had costed the price of decedent tables and how much we would need upfront to spend to get stock in, build terrain etc etc...

We set ourselves up as a Ltd company and were all ready to go then we met the bank! They were not interested in our business plan at all and simply asked these questions:

How much money will we put in?
What would we be putting up as collateral for the lend?


Basically this is what they were saying to us:

We would put in tons of personal money and they would match what we put in and nothing else. They explicitly pointed this out.
We would not be a Ltd company but a partnership so that if we failed to repay they would have our personal houses as money to claim back against.

At this point our respective partners pointed out that this was a total non starter and hence the idea died then.

If you have solved all this then go for it as it is possible to make money.

Hope this helps.

Cheers nanook, where abouts were you looking to open? I can imagine that the bank will be lee intsted than in some other ventures. I have a big chunk of caah to put into if needs be and ghere are new govwrment grants available now too.

Also im not sure if GW has changed its trade policy. The trade department has grown considerably recently as this is obviously the avenue they want to down. If I stock the entire range then I get to pick my stock over and above their basic requirements which only includes 1 box of the hobbit starter game plus I can display it nowever I want and can sell it for whatever I want too.

May have changed somewhat.

Just been looking into the cards qnd yes the margin is small but as you have all said the games are massive and will definitely be incorpoated into my plan now. This was the reason I want this thread up here because I naturally only know what I know and need advice from other gamers to help expand my mind as such.

nanook wrote:
Okay. Interesting proposition that I can offer advice on. My buddy and were all set to do exactly what you are suggesting in Liverpool last year but cancelled it all before we began.

We had done what you had: costed everything out and worked out we COULD make money after about 18months of good business. We had a venue that was pricey and it sounds like the space you will need for 12-14 tables and a shop area, chill out space etc... Would be quite expensive. Maybe you have found the location we couldn't?

We worked out food and drink would be a big seller and money maker with a very good profit margin. Sales would need to come from other models and not GW. You don't get the best discount rate from GW until you have been a supplier of their stock for about 4 years. Plus you cannot cherry pick and have to buy up The Hobbit stock which is dead money. Plus you have to display it all as per instructions...

Be we did note that card games would be the main lifeblood of business.

We had costed the price of decedent tables and how much we would need upfront to spend to get stock in, build terrain etc etc...

We set ourselves up as a Ltd company and were all ready to go then we met the bank! They were not interested in our business plan at all and simply asked these questions:

How much money will we put in?
What would we be putting up as collateral for the lend?


Basically this is what they were saying to us:

We would put in tons of personal money and they would match what we put in and nothing else. They explicitly pointed this out.
We would not be a Ltd company but a partnership so that if we failed to repay they would have our personal houses as money to claim back against.

At this point our respective partners pointed out that this was a total non starter and hence the idea died then.

If you have solved all this then go for it as it is possible to make money.

Hope this helps.

The banks are a joke.

When I set up my company, approaching 4 years ago now, I had my own financing, so I approached the bank I held my current account with to open a business account.

I needed no capital, no overdraft, no credit card, nothing, just a debit card, cheque book and a place to pay my takings into.

I was declined because they deemed my business as being in a "high risk sector."

Fortunately not all banks have the same attitude (Lloyds TSB and Barclays were both far more reasonable, it was HSBC who I'm talking about here) but don't expect any help from them at all.

I'm not an expert on these things but I assume any little bit helps. I recentley had a FLGS open near my house about a year ago. It was a comic/movie/video game/traditional game store and it had a lot of competition in the surrounding area. But it has been very successfull and my prefered place to go. It started out with little GW products and most of its proffit was from Draft/Friday night magic tourneys. Now has a whole section for wargamming due to the mass influx of 40k players and the profit its been making from that. I think its success has been due to the fact that it listens very closely to its community. If people want a video game tournament, movie night, or even a bitz bizzar, it has systems that allows people to set up and make the store a proffit or even just attract new customers. I think to summarize, it never had an idea of what it was going to be, it was open minded to what it could be. I hope that helps but I really do wish the best for your endeavors

Yeah thats kinda where I want to go. I want to have an idea of what the store will be laid out like but want the custo ers to help guide the direction it goes. That way they will gain some sense of ownership and therefore inrease their loyalty. Thats one of the reasons that I won't do the tournament hall as part if the plan as this will be determined by the customers.

 keezus wrote:

Top sellers yes. You'll go through a crap ton of cases. Margin on boxes / cases is generally poor.

You don't have to deep discount on pre-order boxes. Just a bit. In Canada, the largest online seller (Face to Face Games) preorders booster boxes at $100. So come in somewhere between there and full MSRP and you'll be fine for margins.

Sets are hit and miss. Inistrad sold like hotcakes. Journey to Nyx is so terrible it can't even be given away.

Third sets in a block are like that. Avacyn Restored, Dragon's Maze, Journey into Nyx. All do worse than the lead and second set in their block. So you stock less of the third set in a block. The other thing that causes reduced sales of later sets is you don't have a draft season that is 3x Journey into Nyx like you had 3x Theros. So you're going to want to stock less of JOU than THS.

Niche items are hit and miss and can't be relied upon to be consistent revenue generation. For example: Commander MK1 was a hot seller. Commander MK2 was a dud.

Wow. You really don't know what you're talking about. Commander MK2 sold out in preorder and there were waiting lists all around the world for the reprint. Then they were reprinted again. People were paying Walmart and Target employees to set aside the product for them and not stock it on the shelves. Now they've hit saturation and buying has drastically slowed down, but it was probably one of the most successful product launches ever for MTG.

As primary generator of profit, basing the entire business around card players is hard because they are a fickle bunch. Events will be poorly attended unless there is lucrative prize support. Even with rich prize support, all it takes is an underattended event to put you in the red. Downsizing the prize support if your event is underattended will generate poor word of mouth.

Prize support is based on attendance. It's a simple formula that works. Having prize levels set regardless of attendance is how you lose money.

And you build attendance up, not just launch a big event. You need 4 people at FNM to make it work. And you pre sell registrations to pre-releases so you know how many sealed kits and prize packs you'll need.

About eBaying the leftovers - Not sure what the metric is on recovery of capital on this either... with no min-bid... not sure if it balances out in the black.

It's just a means of clearing out stock so it doesn't clog up shelf space and use up capital. And for everything that goes for only half retail, you'll get another thing that goes for twice retail like Modern Masters. If you end up clearing more on ebay than you sold, bring in less.

The other thing that can consistently sell well are the $15 starters that casual players like. The local shops here go through tons of them. And they run league events where you buy them as the basis and add boosters each week, have a trade session and play games.

MTG success isn't about just catering to the competitive players. It's about building a community in your store where people keep coming back.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just wanted to add a bit more about why you don't keep old stock as a retailer.

Here's a chart of the average prices for cards on the secondary market for the Journey Into Nyx set:

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/index/JOU#paper

Notice how the highest price per card on the secondary market is paid in pre-order and then it drops from there. This is consistent at pretty much every release.

You'll also find something pretty similar on eBay with special releases like the Commander Decks, Duel Decks and the like. Early spike with a mad scramble and then as Wizards prints more, the secondary market slowly drops out and there's less interest among players for the given set. So don't over order and if you find yourself sitting on a booster box beyond the one you have open to sell pecks and it's almost time to get the next set in, clear your stock via the internet.

The other reason to do it via the internet and not face to face is that you don't want your locals to get the idea that if they just wait long enough, you'll deep discount. You want to send your discounted product to other people's markets, because they'll be trying to send theirs to yours!

Do you have a business plan that tells you what you need to sell each day to cover expenses?

 Easy E wrote:
Do you have a business plan that tells you what you need to sell each day to cover expenses?

Somebody's only scanned the thread....

Hi OP, I've no experience running a business so I'll share my viewpoint as a gamer.

As for paying for tables, I think it may be wise to have it. It does help to move traffic because with a time limit (which can still be generous) you enable more players to play for a given time. Free tables, players may hog it and others may not get a chance.

If you are worried about paying to play driving customers away, you can have discounts for those who may not be able to afford it. As a student, I would have avoided paying to play and choose another LGS. But as a working adult, I think a few dollars to help defray the FLGS (mostly if it is F) is fine by me. Perhaps students can pay 20% of table rental rates? Something like that.

Interesting Milkboy.....

What if rather than paying for each table there were strict (ish) time limits and a monthly membership which would alow some sort of priority in booking tables plus a 10% discount on all store purchases. I would be 10% cheaper than RRP on webstore and this would allow people the same discount in store whilst generating a loyalty to the physical store.

I was also thinking of having a loyalty card where for every £250 or something like that you would receive 25% discount on your next purchase.

Plus ontop of all this I have an idea that may just work.....

?....FW do not do a trade discount so I would stock their items at full cost to me but customers would not be paying shipping so would buy from store and hopefully pick up other items at the same time....thoughts???

That FW plan sounds like a terrible use of capital. Margins. <-- any small retailer needs to be familiar with protecting them.

HI,
I am a long way from you (Berkshire) but I would love to have a facility where I could play on big tables, free is good but to be honest, I would also pay.

Good luck with your venture - and make sure you have the cashflow sorted!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As to how to split the pay/play times, let demand decided. Start everyone off free, then when it gets too busy, start charging in the busy periods.

Thats a good idea with just charging at peak times. I like it.

With regards to the FW margins taking capital, I wholeheartedly agree but feel that it would be a footfall generator and would work like the MTG cards where they are not about the profit but more about the access for customers. I could maybe mark them up 5 % to take a small profit and still be cheaper than FW postage?

 McManiak wrote:
?....FW do not do a trade discount so I would stock their items at full cost to me but customers would not be paying shipping so would buy from store and hopefully pick up other items at the same time....thoughts???

Probably not a good idea. FW stuff tends to have a lot of variation in which things a particular customer wants. They're usually unique centerpiece models or something for a special product, and many people who buy FW kits don't buy very many of them. So two players with the same army might each want 1-2 FW kits, but there's no guarantee that they'll be the same kits. You can maybe try to guess at what items are most popular, but you have a high risk of either getting stuck with stock that nobody in your area has any interest in, or having to constantly tell people that you don't have the kit they want.

What I've seen stores do is arrange group orders to reach the free shipping level. You might not make any profit from it, but it's an easy bit of community building that might get people to come to your store instead of the competition.

Just to clarify, when I said pay to play, I dont mean like x amount for y time. I meant that they pay a set amount for the use of the tables. For example, in my FLGS, you go in and there is a shop front, and a door leading out back to ~30 tables. It's £3-something to go and use the tables for as long as you want. Alternatively, it's £17.50 per quarter and you can use the tables for free when ever you want (club nights or not).

 azreal13 wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
Do you have a business plan that tells you what you need to sell each day to cover expenses?

Somebody's only scanned the thread....

Yup, busted. However, it never hurts to reiterate the most important question over and over and over again. I have seen way too many people fail over this easy mistake.

I would say don't ignore the historical players, most gaming clubs that i know who have nights for 40k or warhammer also have one or two nights for historical gaming.

Stock the basics like Warlord, Perry, Plastic soldier company and maybe some flames of war. Also some quick games like Wings of Glory and Sails of Glory would not go amiss if you can get hold of them.

Probably goes without saying, but alternatives to GW paints, something like Vallejo.

Would definitely say go for the card games, i am forever spending money left right and center on MTG whenever i go near a store that stock them.

Board games as well, Zombicide, Lords of Waterdeep the Firefly game i have all seen do well in gaming clubs, not sure what your margins would be like but if your bringing in the card playing crowd board games always seem to be popular with them as well even if they are not into war gaming.

Then simple modeling supplies, bases, metal, wooden and perspex rods etc, the kind of thing that is useful for any modeler.

I also believe Battlefront, the Battlegroup chaps, Warlord games and Mantic have some sort of support for demo games so i would contact them about that see if they could help you.

Advertise in Wargames illustrated to, and also try and get some presence in any localish wargame shows.

Make sure you are fully up on your liability and have some thoughts if you are going to have adults and children sharing the same space to public protection issues.

All good guys,

Zambro I did think you meant per table per hour but still wouldn't charge for them I don't think.

Hadn't thought about the child adult protection other than having all staff with a current crb so will look into that.

Historical games look like a good idea upon a bit more research too.

Kerp it coming

Contact the manufacturer of every product line you want to sell. For example, if you want to have some Bolt Action stuff going on, find out from Warlord if there's some sort of volunteer demo team or how you go about sponsoring one in your area if a customer is interested in doing that. GW has largely abandoned leveraging volunteer event organizers, but everyone else hasn't. If you can get dedicated fans to do the organizing of events and the demoing of the game for you, that's less work for you.

It would be good to get tourneys for your store up, and be very co operative with your customers like games workshop and their school league and painting sessions and all that baloney. Your store will get so much more popular that way


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It's best to charge for your games to, by the way, and if you do some late night games it's probably a good idea to get pizzas, kebabs, etc. (it's what my war gaming club do)

Just to pickup on Forgeworld again, some nice models painted on display maybe but to stock them is suicide. Not even for the lack of profit.



They do vary immensely in Quality, If I buy from you and it's not fixable it's you I'll be gunning down, I ring up Forge World they send me new bits. (yes they are very nice people on the telephone)

You can group order things as suggested above, but again it will be you dealing with any problems as it'll be your name on the invoice.

Get yourself a Criminal Records Check and a Working with Children card (or whatever the UK equivalent is) if you're going to be running gaming nights where you have under-age players. Make sure all your staff have them as well - before they start.



There's also been a big thread on charging for tables in the past. You'll have to see how your local area goes with it.

For me (and I'm an older one with $ now) it would put me off and make me far less loyal to a FLGS - it's piss easy for me to buy anything I want online, so if I'm going to potentially pay more in your FLGS, you don't want to put me off.

Or I'll pay your 3 quid if I must, but screw you, if you're going to be like that - I'll buy the majority of my new army online instead then!

...if you see what I mean.

I saw this brought up in another forum, but it's a good idea. If you are dead set on charging to play on the tables, instead get a fridge or vending machine and stock it with drinks. Make a 2 drink minimum (not hard, gamers get thirsty constantly bickering over games) and you'll probably get more back than what you were going to charge per table.

Hi guys thanks for all the input so far and please keep it coming. It really is invaluable. I did a video on my youtube channel the day I started this thread and if you would like a little more insight to what I want to do the please check it out. I'll be updating both here and on youtube with both the store progression and my hobby stuff too so please subscribe.

New war game store ideas and feedback wanted: http://youtu.be/qWAGN6zqv9k

Thanks again

Martin

 McManiak wrote:
Interesting Milkboy.....

What if rather than paying for each table there were strict (ish) time limits and a monthly membership which would alow some sort of priority in booking tables plus a 10% discount on all store purchases. I would be 10% cheaper than RRP on webstore and this would allow people the same discount in store whilst generating a loyalty to the physical store.

You plan on selling at 10% off online but at full price instore? Well that sounds like the world's most awful business plan right there.

For what its worth, the owner of my flgs says he makes as much of his money on Magic the Gathering than all the other games he sells combined, including the usual suspects like 40k, WHFB, D&D, Warmachine, X-Wing, etc.

 McManiak wrote:
There doesn't seem to be any that are specific to miniature painting so I could run some of those and a high percentage of people will buy equipment at the end of the course.

I think you'll find a high percentage of people will take your course and proceed to ordering equipment online. I'm not saying I would, but I've seen very similar things happen.

I think it's great you want to open a store, that is one of my dreams that I will hopefully accomplish one day. My main advice to you, as a businessman, is to be a pessimistic as possible about possible streams of revenue so that you aren't banking on too many things working out because oftentimes you'll find, especially in retail things hardly seem to go as planned. Good luck!

 frozenwastes wrote:

Wow. You really don't know what you're talking about. Commander MK2 sold out in preorder and there were waiting lists all around the world for the reprint. Then they were reprinted again. People were paying Walmart and Target employees to set aside the product for them and not stock it on the shelves. Now they've hit saturation and buying has drastically slowed down, but it was probably one of the most successful product launches ever for MTG.

Hey... I can't argue with that kind of logic... all those Jund and Naya boxes that remained unsold in Walmarts the 2 weeks following release must have been merely in my imagination. Of course... this is in Toronto, y'know... small market.

Start a game club. If folks belong to something they will come back and are likely to be more loyal to the shop it is based out of. Sweeten the pot by giving a discount to members and perhaps cutting their tourney fees.

How about beginers and refreshers nights for adult gamers only?

As far as I am aware many stores run beginers nights for children only. This can make older gamers who are looking to either get started or get back into the hobby uncomfortable.

I have often wondered how many of these older guys have been put off getting into/back into the game because they don't want to be lumped with the kids.

Ultimately if you can attract new older gamers they are the ones who will have a large enough disposable income to buy a new army and hobby supplies.

 keezus wrote:

 frozenwastes wrote:

Wow. You really don't know what you're talking about. Commander MK2 sold out in preorder and there were waiting lists all around the world for the reprint. Then they were reprinted again. People were paying Walmart and Target employees to set aside the product for them and not stock it on the shelves. Now they've hit saturation and buying has drastically slowed down, but it was probably one of the most successful product launches ever for MTG.

Hey... I can't argue with that kind of logic... all those Jund and Naya boxes that remained unsold in Walmarts the 2 weeks following release must have been merely in my imagination. Of course... this is in Toronto, y'know... small market.

There were five products in the release, so it's natural that the least popular two would be the most likely to be seen on the shelves at any given moment. True Name Nemesis skewed the demand for one of the decks because of Legacy usage. There were waiting lists for almost all the decks at the largest online retailers. I contacted Face to Face, Card Kingdom, Star City Games, Channel Fireball and others about how likely they thought they'd be able to get more product in and they told me I could go on the waiting list with everyone else because they just didn't know and so far everything had sold out on preorder. The second printing didn't get my order fulfilled. It wasn't until the third printing happened that I actually got my Eternal Bargain deck. And apparently the second and third printing was larger than the first one.

I'm guessing that it simply didn't take off as a format in your personal meta (which events you go to, who you play with), so you've extrapolated that to the rest of the world. Probably even to the rest of your city. I'm guessing Toronto has a thriving EDH scene that you just don't know about or see in any regular way. You could be a really active MTG player and go to three events a week and never see an EDH game because when you go to a draft or a standard tournament, that's what's going on there.

For the purpose of this thread, I think my point stands. If you are going to sell MTG, bring in some of the side products. You never know when you'll sell out rapidly and you have enough potential online customers to clear stuff without taking too much of a loss (if any).

nanook wrote:
We worked out food and drink would be a big seller and money maker with a very good profit margin. Sales would need to come from other models and not GW. You don't get the best discount rate from GW until you have been a supplier of their stock for about 4 years. Plus you cannot cherry pick and have to buy up The Hobbit stock which is dead money. Plus you have to display it all as per instructions...

Do you still have to follow their directions if you're buying it indirectly from a distributor (if they still have them)?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 McManiak wrote:
Interesting Milkboy.....

What if rather than paying for each table there were strict (ish) time limits and a monthly membership which would alow some sort of priority in booking tables plus a 10% discount on all store purchases. I would be 10% cheaper than RRP on webstore and this would allow people the same discount in store whilst generating a loyalty to the physical store.

I'd only be inforcing strict time limits when it's busy; i.e. when there's a waiting list.

I'm not sure how memberships would work, but it might make sense to have a token table fee (£1/hour) and offer that as store credit, so if they buy something, the table is essentially free and if they don't you will still cover wear to table and they won't need to worry about freeloading.

I was also thinking of having a loyalty card where for every £250 or something like that you would receive 25% discount on your next purchase.

One I visited at the weekend has a loyalty card, you get a stamp for every £10 and after you get 10 stamps you get £10 credit. So essentially spend £100 get £10 off. You could investigate percentages but you might need an upper limit.

A few stores have a tiered discount system, so say you do 10% of RRP normally, going to 15% if you're spending £100, 25% at £200, might tempt people to buy up to the next band for more revenue. It also introduces a risk that they'll hold back on purchases until they can bulk order though.

?....FW do not do a trade discount so I would stock their items at full cost to me but customers would not be paying shipping so would buy from store and hopefully pick up other items at the same time....thoughts???

It's really not worth trying to have a constant stock of FW items, you'll get to deal with the QC issues and unless you're only ordering in £250 worth you'll be paying the 10% postage anyway, and you could be stuck with a lot of stuff that people don't want that you paid RRP for (so will probably take a loss if you decide to clear them out)

What might make more sense is to have a sort of FW club/pool, where take deposits and then place a large FW order when the order list hits the free postage mark. Then you're letting the customers save the postage costs and providing some value without being out of pocket.

Whatever you do, keep it simple. Don't do anything where the process or enforcing them becomes a burden or alienates your customers. Don't charge for tables would be my strong suggestion. You want people in the store and they will spend once there.

Rich is right on the money here. I used to be in a regular Friday night gaming group and typically spent anywhere from $50 to $200 each week. Sure, some of the group didn't buy much regularly, but if you alienate any of us, then you lose the group, and therefore the spenders like myself. (Or if the group decides to stay, I'll quietly take the majority of my purchases elsewhere and pay your pithy table tax).

Here are two reasonably good threads/debates on this. I'd suggest reading both in full.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/577829.page
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/564137.page

Also agree that it's not worth getting involved in Forge World stuff. It's a lot of effort for no profit. Use that time and energy on your tables and a drinks fridge.

I wouldn't even try and enforce a 2-drink minimum - thirsty gamers will buy drinks and snacks on the spot, and if they feel it's there for their convenience instead of browbeaten with "you must buy 2 drinks" then they'll be much more positive about it all.

TLR - you will always get some people who don't want to buy or pay anything. Don't look at them as individuals, but as part of their little gaming group. Chances are there's someone in most or all (non-kid) groups that buys enough crap to absolutely make it worthwhile to welcome their tightarse friends as well.

 frozenwastes wrote:
I'm guessing that it simply didn't take off as a format in your personal meta (which events you go to, who you play with), so you've extrapolated that to the rest of the world. Probably even to the rest of your city. I'm guessing Toronto has a thriving EDH scene that you just don't know about or see in any regular way. You could be a really active MTG player and go to three events a week and never see an EDH game because when you go to a draft or a standard tournament, that's what's going on there.

That's a pretty strong generalization there. EDH has a significant presence Toronto, and a huge presence at my local store. The reason why Commander MK2 didn't do as strongly in my neck of the woods is that there were fewer new cards printed and the decks in general contained less "value" than MK1. Heavy EDH players are the ones LEAST likely to buy this product as they would have most of the cards already, making it more worth their while to track down singletons of what they need. The Commander decks are IMHO designed entirely for players entering the format. The only ones moving as you said, were driven fully by True Name Nemisis, and those were being used in Legacy, not EDH. I don't disagree that you should stock every product that is out there. I don't agree that you should max out allotment as a rule of thumb however. There are certain types of product - i.e. intro packs and duel decks (with some exceptions) seem to have low shelf life (intro packs in particular) and poor turnover. Even event decks are very hit or miss. IMHO, to stock MTG intelligently requires that the store have an employee/owner who has their finger on the pulse of the meta.

Wow guys, this is great. Some really good ideas coming in. Beginners classes for adults is good and im convinced not to charge for tables (was never keen anyway).

I will defo need an employee who understands MTG as I really have no idea.

As for FW, I have to agree that it would be more hassle than its worth so won't go down that route.

If you're going to do CCG as a major part of your business you need people on the staff who know the systems and who can price and sell singles. That's where the money is, speculation.

You'll make a few pounds off of booster boxes and sets but what you want is to sell cards individually. Card speculation is where you can make out with real money.

If you're just going to have a shelf sets and some booster boxes on the counter that's fine, but don't expect to make too much cash on them. You can't sell them for all that much more than you paid for them. Every little bit helps though. If someone is dropping 50-500 bucks on Games Workshop they might spend another few dollars on MTG. When I'm already feeling stabbed in the back by product prices I tend to twist the knife.

 Col. Tartleton wrote:
If you're just going to have a shelf sets and some booster boxes on the counter that's fine, but don't expect to make too much cash on them. You can't sell them for all that much more than you paid for them.

Do not sell for less than MSRP for magic unless it is for a preorder or box/case of product at a time. Or to round down the cost of a draft entrance fee. This idea of selling for a bit over cost is madness. You should be able to get MTG through your main game distributor at your full distributor discount. Use it to make some actual money on your margins.

If a store owner is selling MTG at full MSRP and telling customers they are barely marking them up, they're lying to their customers. It sounds like a fake explanation to satisfying a complainer.

I've worked for small hobby shops and I would be glad to give some advice.

For the play area, you have to kinda draw a hard line between free and membership. If you charge for the area it has to be worth it! I'm talking full blown tables with immaculate terrain, custom pieces and organized. I don't recommend charging for the area.

I know it has been mentioned but if there is a card game community in your area I recommend trying to get in on it. Even more so if you have a webstore. Card gamers are a fixed income that you get to count on for every new set. Doing singles and trades are actually very profitable but you have to stay on top of your prices and I would push excess product online. Take in 60-50% store credit, 30-20% in cash and anything make a flat rate for any card under 5 bucks. A similar bracket could probly be applied to used miniatures as well but I don't recommend taking those in. Maybe take full armies in on consignment.

A big hurdle for game shops is if you don't have it, how soon can you get it. Try to have multiple retailers that you can order the same product from.

Discounts are hard to do... Once you start down that road it is hard to get off of it. The best discount system I've seen is kinda clever, it makes regulars feel good and doesn't actual eat that much margin. For every 10 dollar chunk you spend you get a 1 dollar credit/point. You can cash these out for purchases when ever you have saved up 10 or more credits. Credits can't earn you more credits. It's like having a ten percent discount but not really when you round down ( if they buy 18 dollars of stuff they only get 1 credit).


I just remembered a cool thing a place I went to in Colorado did, if you kept your receipt for the models you bought, painted them, and brought them in you got a discount for more models. It's cool things like that that gamers remember.

 McManiak wrote:
I would be 10% cheaper than RRP on webstore and this would allow people the same discount in store whilst generating a loyalty to the physical store.

Having different prices on your webstore and physical store is a bad idea. You'll just get people in store wanting to know why they can't just have it for the online price, since they could have just bought it that way instead of walking into your store.

Doesn't darmsphere do that? Though you can order online to collect at the internet rate

Alternatively for charging for tables, what about charging for them but giving the money back as a discount if they buy anything from the shop? £3 for a table, but you get £3 off when you buy a box that day.

DaKrumpa wrote:



I just remembered a cool thing a place I went to in Colorado did, if you kept your receipt for the models you bought, painted them, and brought them in you got a discount for more models. It's cool things like that that gamers remember.

THAT is a great idea. I would love it!

VanHallan wrote:

DaKrumpa wrote:



I just remembered a cool thing a place I went to in Colorado did, if you kept your receipt for the models you bought, painted them, and brought them in you got a discount for more models. It's cool things like that that gamers remember.

THAT is a great idea. I would love it!

That is a good idea actually.

Brought them in... to game with? Show the store? Display in the store cabinet?

 Azazelx wrote:
Brought them in... to game with? Show the store? Display in the store cabinet?

All the above, they had a display cabinet. But mostly it was people who brought them in for game night, either in their army or just along to get the discount.

VanHallan wrote:

DaKrumpa wrote:



I just remembered a cool thing a place I went to in Colorado did, if you kept your receipt for the models you bought, painted them, and brought them in you got a discount for more models. It's cool things like that that gamers remember.

THAT is a great idea. I would love it!

This is a fantastic idea. I really , like what it does.

Sorry not been on for a few days guys been mega busy sorting things out. The bad news is that the property I want is not available long term and only for 18 months now so thats a no go and I am currently looking for an alternative place.

The good news is that I can raise some more cash whilst looking and my commission work is starting to take off a bit now so will help load money into the fund too.

Thanks for all the suggestions and advice, I really appreciate it and will update as I find new properties.

Thanks again guys

Martin

Hey guys, just wanted to come back onto this thread. I have now secured a building and it's bigger than I could have imagined, on a high street so lots of footfall and things are rocking along nicely. I have started another thread for my kickstarter but thought I would post it in here too. I know some of you will have little benefit from either the store or webstore as I am limited where I can sell to but hope that you can get behind a fellow gamer and hopeful business start up program with a pound/dollar or 2. It is a small amount to ask but if enough people pledge then the dream becomes more real

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wargames/wargames-a-new-store-that-does-what-all-stores-sho

Thanks in advance guys

I have a friend who works in the local game shop and he said the most income comes from MTG, it's their cash cow. The store stocks GW, flames of war, war machine, chessex, comics, action figure and busts, skateboards, board games; they also go to various nearby cons to sell their products. My advice is to keep your store varied as product popularity rotate in seasons. Online store is only there to sell stuff that couldn't sell locally, or damaged boxes with full undamaged content; hiring the right employees helps too, those that are expert in certain field of the product you sell and actively run tournaments to promote the sale.

All good advice and very much taken on board thanks pal

If you're in Liverpool, I suggest a trip over to FB3 in Manchester, they've weathered the ages and are one of the UK's central points for many organised play tournaments. Go, have a chat, be frank about what you want to know, and try not to let Dave frighten/bite you.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
If you're in Liverpool, I suggest a trip over to FB3 in Manchester, they've weathered the ages and are one of the UK's central points for many organised play tournaments. Go, have a chat, be frank about what you want to know, and try not to let Dave frighten/bite you.

Cheers mate, will look them up and pop over

I'm going to try and not repeat stuff already said, but not sure how well I'll do..


1. Make the space as airy and light as possible. If you have windows, don't block them with non-glass cabinets, posters etc. Make it look welcoming to people (and this is proven with kids and parents) and not like some BO cave.

2. Clean, clean clean. There is a strange but unescapable fact, wargamers smell more than the average human. It might just be one dude, but he'll generate plenty. so keep the air moving. First impressions and all.

3. Engage the community early on. If there are clubs, start going then make sure people know you are opening. But not just for a night, engage and participate. And find out who the better painters are, you'll want stuff in the store to show off.

4. If you are socially awkward, get someone in that isn't to help. My local FLGS is run by a friend that is able to chat with anyone, and will be friendly to all. My missus often pops in with me when I'm buying something, she's the one that needs hurrying up often because she's yaking away, not me. And she's the reason I have bought several boardgames from there.

5. Be -hot on orders. If a customer wants something, get it on a list and get it on the next order. Then message him when it's in.

6. Social media. Get a facebook page, and post all the new toys on it. post cool pictures of customers minis. Be active, and friendly. And show the show to be the same. Some people might be a bit nervous about going somewhere social, if it looks welcoming, it's got a better chance of actually being that way. Get a twitter account and engage the companies that you want to stock, get your name retweeted by some of them.

7. find out who the local games reps are (like a mantic pathfinder, PP press-ganger etc) so you can start getting leagues and tournaments under way. These guys do this for a job. Get them in doing demos. Because demos mean money behind the till.

8. don't overstetch. You'll want to get a load of product in. find out the games played at the various groups, and get that. If you can get a game in it's infancy, then all the better. We've just started Guildball. A lot of stuff sold.

9. Make it easy to play. I personally don't agree with charging for tables, as it discourages attendance. They can't spend money if they aren't in the store. You are up against the internet, you need your customers to be tribally loyal to you, that means getting them in to the store and having fun. By all means charge for a tournament, but make sure there is a reward.

10. food and drink. If you can pick up a second hand vending machine on ebay, and fill it with energy drinks, winner. it'll pay for itself soon. We have a one-stop store next to us so it's a bit pointless here, but unless you can walk a minute or so to a shop, get a vender when you have the free cash. Or just sell it over the counter, will depend how busy you are.

Theres probably a shed load more but I've not had a coffee yet..

Have you read these blogs?


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

I was thinking about opening a games store at one stage but couldn't make the money work out to a wage I was happy with. Reading through these columns though gave me a ton of ideas and things to think about.

Herzlos wrote:
Doesn't darmsphere do that? Though you can order online to collect at the internet rate

Dark sphere charges 25 per cent off retail on line, 20 per cent off in-store. If you order more than £100 retail value on line, and order instore collection, you get the full 25 per cent off. so yes, there is a differential, but when you buy online you have to factor in postage.

Hi!

Lurker here, but thought I could give some advice on this all.

Site Location - Very important. Is it near the University at all? Sure, for GW stuff, parents and kids are going to be a fair chunk of your income but geeky students and access to a place to play MTG and the like will be a big source as well.

I'd have loved a decent place close to University to play some MTG or any other geek game in between classes.

Also, have a word with the University and see if they have any wargaming or card gaming societies and work with them. Might be an easy way to fill the shop once a week for a tournament (these societies get given cash by the University for things like that, so its easy money!).

Now... for some advice you might not want to hear.

Since your main income is going to be via the online shop, maybe its worth getting all that set up first, without the shop. It's going to be quite hard to break into that market without some forward thinking and being able to do a better job than what is currently out there (one of those being your shop needs to be better... the current offers from wayland and elemental are horrible shops from a users perspective).

So my advice, get your online shop up and running first and make sure that's earning enough money to run a physical store BEFORE you set up shop (so to speak!), since you're not going to be able to turn a profit in your shop for a good while since you need to build up your customer base.

Some ideas for your online shop to be different from the rest:

- Ultra user friendly site, needs to be really easy to use.
- Not make it as "nerdy" as the other offerings, it doesn't look cool.
- Offer a simple postal service.. these other sites have 6 or 7 different postage options. Find one and stick with it, nice and simple. Make sure you can have it so you can get items out before 4pm and they arrive the next day. Find a way to get really cheap postage (or free!) for small items as it encourages people to just go "what the heck" if they don't have to add much more money onto the price tag.

(if you need some more help or whatever, PM me, am a web developer part time!).

Just posting to say that I'd like to see pics of this when you're done.

Game stores are like home to me, littered with models and opened soda cans.

Thanks guys. Some great input. Echoes a lot of what i am planning so is a good reassurance. Webstore is in construction and will be very simple in look and use whilst looking professional. Will defo post pics when open but feel freeto check my youtube channel for more visual updates

Some people you should definitely get in touch with:

Esdevium Games - this is the main UK distributor for pretty much all CCGs, board games, RPGs etc. They have a lot of expertise and are generally a nice bunch.

Simple Miniature Games are a fairly small distributor but supply a lot of ranges - Infinity, Malifaux, Spartan Games etc. You want to speak to Graham - he's the owner and is very knowledgeable and a really nice guy.

Best of luck with your venture!

Go to GAMA website and get into the Game Store Resource Forum on Delphi.

Go to GAMA tradeshow and take the classes for beginning retailers on running OP, accounting, etc.

See all the manufacturers at once and learn tons of stuff in 4 days.

 squilverine wrote:
How about beginers and refreshers nights for adult gamers only?

As far as I am aware many stores run beginers nights for children only. This can make older gamers who are looking to either get started or get back into the hobby uncomfortable.

I have often wondered how many of these older guys have been put off getting into/back into the game because they don't want to be lumped with the kids.

Ultimately if you can attract new older gamers they are the ones who will have a large enough disposable income to buy a new army and hobby supplies.

This times 10,000.

The only reason my wife and I shun local game shops is because we do not feel comfortable playing with / around kids. We can stay home and do that. A 21+ or even better 30+ would land us hook, line, and sinker.

I cannot imagine we are the only ones who feel like that.

Yeah this is defo gonna happen. On wed and thur nights I will be open until 11:30 pm and there will be an over 21 policy so as the gamers can learn with their own age groups. I will happily run classes for others if the demand is there. Shame you are not this side of the pond :(

Some of these schemes have a lot of micromanagement
involved. Track if people bring in their models that they bought
at the shop? I can barely track my own collection.

Reserve the tables for events. Tables are your marketing wing,
so use them to market.

Get known!
Is there an entry in the Dakka Store Finder yet? Even if you aren't selling yet, I'd get it up ASAP.
If there is a local model shop that doesn't stock gaming stuff, leave your details and stock ranges. Do the same for them. This would work with book shops, art shops, RPG shops, etc.

Good luck with it. I only get to see small shops with limited stock, but there are a couple popping up with space to play, too.

If the gaming space is away from the store area, either make sure it is visible, or look at getting cameras in. You can't be everywhere at once. Make sure people know they are there.

Will any of the gaming space be bookable for events? If a party wanted to play an Apoc game for a day, would you provide a segregated area for them?

Will the gaming side have a Facebook page or forum? Pre-planning games can save people from a wasted trip. Lugging an army around on a bus to find there's no-one to play against is a sod.

A VIP scheme. If you do look at charging a subscription, maybe give queue-jumping at the tables, and a better discount. Run occasional raffles when a new game comes out, giving away a starter set or rulebook. Give out VIP subs as prizes, or on big purchases.

See whether the local council or community charities give grants for setting up or events.

I'm rambling, but just stuff that popped up while reading.

 McManiak wrote:
Yeah this is defo gonna happen. On wed and thur nights I will be open until 11:30 pm and there will be an over 21 policy so as the gamers can learn with their own age groups. I will happily run classes for others if the demand is there. Shame you are not this side of the pond :(

Lol I wonder what it says about me that I've looked into getting a job in the UK so that I can attend things like salute and stuff

 Phobos wrote:

 McManiak wrote:
Yeah this is defo gonna happen. On wed and thur nights I will be open until 11:30 pm and there will be an over 21 policy so as the gamers can learn with their own age groups. I will happily run classes for others if the demand is there. Shame you are not this side of the pond :(

Lol I wonder what it says about me that I've looked into getting a job in the UK so that I can attend things like salute and stuff

I'm in the same boat, your events are more frequent though. Hopefully we will both get what we want ;-)

 Skinnereal wrote:
Get known!
Is there an entry in the Dakka Store Finder yet? Even if you aren't selling yet, I'd get it up ASAP.
If there is a local model shop that doesn't stock gaming stuff, leave your details and stock ranges. Do the same for them. This would work with book shops, art shops, RPG shops, etc.

Good luck with it. I only get to see small shops with limited stock, but there are a couple popping up with space to play, too.

If the gaming space is away from the store area, either make sure it is visible, or look at getting cameras in. You can't be everywhere at once. Make sure people know they are there.

Will any of the gaming space be bookable for events? If a party wanted to play an Apoc game for a day, would you provide a segregated area for them?

Will the gaming side have a Facebook page or forum? Pre-planning games can save people from a wasted trip. Lugging an army around on a bus to find there's no-one to play against is a sod.

A VIP scheme. If you do look at charging a subscription, maybe give queue-jumping at the tables, and a better discount. Run occasional raffles when a new game comes out, giving away a starter set or rulebook. Give out VIP subs as prizes, or on big purchases.

See whether the local council or community charities give grants for setting up or events.

I'm rambling, but just stuff that popped up while reading.

Haven't put it up on dakka store finder as not confirmed lease yet but as soon as the ink is dry i will do that.

Tournament floors will be bookable for apoc etc when tourneys not running and as a member you get a chance of winning store product in a VIP draw each quater where 5 people win. Facebook page for booking etc sounds like a good idea and the main gaming tables are in the retail area, the whole place is covered by cctv tho

Thanks for the input this is exactly the sort of stuff I want

Make your customers Want to buy from you. Give every popular game it's due. Yeah it mayet not make sense from a business standpoint to support rpgs or other games, but word spreads easily, don't rely just on magic. Keep the place decently stocked.
Above all, don't take it personally if they don't buy from you but online, you don't know their situation.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Make your customers Want to buy from you. Give every popular game it's due. Yeah it mayet not make sense from a business standpoint to support rpgs or other games, but word spreads easily, don't rely just on magic. Keep the place decently stocked.
Above all, don't take it personally if they don't buy from you but online, you don't know their situation.

100% agree with this

OK guys there is 5 days left and I am only £1k short of the target. Can I rely on some of you guys to help me out (plus reap the benefits too obv)

£1+ is greatly appreciated
£10+ get you an extra 5% off your first purchase (discounts will be 10-15% already) plus entry into a raffle where 1 person for every £1000 pledged wins a £75 voucher
£50+ gets you a years membership which is normally £100 (£1.92 per week) PLUS 3 x 10% discounts
£100+ gets 2 years membership and 10 x 10% discounts
£250+ gets you lifetime membership plus 2 years of extra 10% discounts
£500 gets you the same as the £250 PLUS accomodation in Southport and the chance to be 1 of the first 5 people to have a 'challenge Martin' batrep recorded for Youtube
£1000+ get you COST PRICE hobby products for 2 FULL years. That is off anything I sell or can stock so if you need anything then you only pay what I pay

Membership gives you unlimited FREE play on the tables and discount on an events and tournaments, PLUS 1 member each month wins a £50 store voucher (online use too)

So c'mon guys let me some support from dakka...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wargames/wargames-a-new-store-that-does-what-all-stores-sho

Martin

In, if only for the raffle.

I think the cost price thing is a great idea on a KS. A bit pricey for my blood mind, but a very good way of getting a valued customer who will hopefully help you thrive with regular top ups on your orders.

I'm in the midst of looking in to a store in the Midlands area with a good gameplay area as well as some other nifty things, but it's about finding the right premises right now.

tigerstyle wrote:
I think the cost price thing is a great idea on a KS. A bit pricey for my blood mind, but a very good way of getting a valued customer who will hopefully help you thrive with regular top ups on your orders.

I'm in the midst of looking in to a store in the Midlands area with a good gameplay area as well as some other nifty things, but it's about finding the right premises right now.

Yeah mate, the premises is very important and the figures obv have to add up too. I have spent 12 months putting all of it together and can tell you it is NOT for the feint of heart. As long as you put the business first and hobby second then it CAN work with a lot of determination and a bit of luck...