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With a view to incorporating suggestions and stuff into my plans for my Store, I though I would hold an open request to all Dakkaites.

What I am looking for are the things, facilities and attitude that you feel no Gaming Store should be without. Levels of terrain, events, number of boards etc. What I'd like to try to avoid are critiques about sales techniques etc, as like it or not, the store does have a target to meet each month. That, and I know people don't like being harrassed and cajoled into buying something. Hell, I don't like it myself!

Other things I can't help would be for instance the playing of Specialist Games in store. Whilst pretty much fine for the older gamers on the Friday night session, doing it any other time is more of a Head Office thing.

So off we go. Any critiques, please keep them constructive. If you find certain things less than ideal, of course say so but do try to suggest alternatives you would find more to your liking.

Without wanting to sound up myself, this is an effort to keep myself from losing touch with the customers. Trust me, just having the discount available changes your outlook!

Ensure that the staff are friendly and approachable, that there is a good amount of terrain, and that when running large scale events that you leave at least 2 open tables for people who aren't participating in the event.

Also, quick addendum. What sort of events would get you playing? Not necessarily in-store, but just in general. What gets your gaming juices flowing that can be achieved using say, 4 or 5 6x4 boards?

The big battles, the linking of tables and playing a mondo siege or massive armies (I think WHFB is better suited to it myself).

Strangely, for 40k I like seeing the reverse and watching 'kill teams' etc on masses of terrain in small areas, like using 40k for necromunda. Small units using terrain, creating fire corridors, taking sniping positions. Like Ghost Recon on a board.

Sell pop and a small selection of snacks. So even on a slow day you'll make some cash. I know in my experience from the FLGS I used to go to that gamers on the weekend would spend at least $5 each on junk food at the store. A coke machine near the front door might also get walk ins on hot days.

i expect a location that has products i want to get

I expect a place that has room for me to play

I expect a place to find people to play games there

-Offer discounts , as well some sort of loyalty program that increases in the % saved on repeat customers.

-Some sort of trade in program for unwanted armies.

-A clean washroom.

-Decent amount of game tables on gaming days , perhaps 8 collapsible tables.

-Vending machine , drink and snacks.

-depending how busy your store gets , offer some tables for painting sessions . This builds up the frequency for a busy store
as well as the customer's interaction between each other and you the store owner. The more often the customers feel like
your store is the place to hang out , whether they make purchase or not , is a positive form of advertisement.

-Offer none GW hobby products , we all know GW arnt the most honest on pricing these , but doesnt mean you cant!
Bring in tons of goodies ( might have to do some research on whats popular ) the customers will be very grateful for the quality + $ saved on them.

-Offer forge world orders twice a month , or once a month depending on the amount placed ( you are in England right? lucky... no custom tax! )

-Offer display case opportunities for the players. You get the plus for displaying lots of beautifully finished armies,
the players get the plus for not having to carry the army around .

Hi MDG.
Good luck with your new venture.

Some suggestions in no particualr order,
Plenty of terrain to support the narrative of the battles, and make the visual appeal stronger.

A variety of table sizes and game sizes.(Eg 2 X 4x4 tables for simple intro games, and larger tables for 'main events' to keep more experianced players interested.)

If you can keep gaming space/seated hobby space/retail space seperated in some way.(No one likes fighting through hoards of people to buy stuff, or have thier hobby discussion-painting-playing time interupted by retail activities.)

Possibly keeping more 'elaborate' gaming- hobby activities to out of restail hours perhaps?

Be honest about what you are selling!

TTFN
Lanrak.

frgsinwntr wrote:i expect a location that has products i want to get

I expect a place that has room for me to play

I expect a place to find people to play games there

You could do much worse than these corner stones. A personal interest and participation in the games being sold that is deep and geniuine; not just a stockist trying to sell some gak because baby needs a new pair of shoes.

-Fairness and consistancy will get you far.
-Food and drinks. It would be nice if you could get something besides just baasic gak-food snacks. I dunno how you would implement this, and it may not be worth it if your location has plenty of restaurants around. If so, stick to snacks and drinks but find out what your customers like and stock it.
-SO involvement opportunities. This is dicey at best, and yo may want ot bypass it. HOWEVER, that being said, it worked well ofr mat one "gaming home" I used to have. My wife insisted while we were dating that she come to the stor eot watch my games. I tried ot warn here that watching 40k can be like watching paint dry. She hated it, but there were plenty of other gaming widows there who got together and did things while their gamers gamed. They went to lunch, talked, played board games or D&D . They played a lot of Munchkin. They had a riot. Saturdays became an all day event for us at the store, with both of us lokking forward to it. My current store (we moved towns) doesn't have this, and it kills her. If you could open up a "Gaming Widows Society", and maybe throw some support their way in the way of games or whatever, you may find it beneficial. This would have some real inherent difficulties and if I were you I would focus on other things first. Core, stick to your core.

Keep the store immaculate, a clean store always looks better...
keep out any foul language, Little kids are always present and parents don't like to hear it...
6 or more 6X4 boards and maybe two 8X4...
yeah, Snacks are always a good ideal, as long as people don't end up spilling them all over the gaming tables...
run well structured tournies to help promote sales, where theres competion theres always sales to buy a bigger gun...
great looking terrain helps the games look that much better! have several themed boards, desert, ice, lava, deathworld, city ruins (concrete and rubble) also helps the games look better...
Displays of some awesome painted figures for those of us who are less talented painters to drool over...
maybe some extra shelf space just for people to unload their armys and chill between games, or put casualties onto durring a game...
lockers to secure ones army...figure a locker big enough to accept one GW hard case...or a lock room where only employees can enter to help secure peoples items when the group takes a break for snaks or dawn...

My wife suggested renting storage space for armies. Maybe a bank of lockers or soemthing.

If you're gonna host big games, occasionally, install an age limit with it. Big games are nice, but when you're gonna be playing it with 3 adults, and 6 12 year olds who squeal a lot and barely know the rules, you just don't want to participate in the big games any more.

grizgrin said:
My wife suggested renting storage space for armies. Maybe a bank of lockers or soemthing.

personally i think thats a helluva an idea! give ur wife a peanut!

Lockers are a great idea.

A couple fridges with snacks and drinks... The best ever.

Perhaps organize a couple nights a weeks so players can meet under friendly flags. Tuesday night is fantasy night for example.

I hate to say this, no computers. I always find that the computers eventually pull the shop keeper away. Or attract some loooong term people who definitely need a shower.

Our local store runs a glass cabinet of people who are selling used armys or units and its an absolute treat. The stock changes weekly. They also buy bits and old models, and pitch them in giant boxs, kids come through weekly just to see what the store has picked up.

Music, absolutely, but older folk dont seem to appreciate slayer, for their sake, lets leave the heavy metal in the car.

Finally, i wouldnt go over the top with terrain, i find generic, yet very well finished boards are the most pleasing. And for good measure, a specialty board or two. Perhaps a Plexiglas plate for BFG, maybe a city fight board.

So many stores so many suggestions, sorry for the long post

Chickenlegs! wrote:

grizgrin said:
My wife suggested renting storage space for armies. Maybe a bank of lockers or soemthing.

personally i think thats a helluva an idea! give ur wife a peanut!

I'll pass on that sentiment.

Twoshoesvans wrote:Lockers are a great idea.

A couple fridges with snacks and drinks... The best ever.

Perhaps organize a couple nights a weeks so players can meet under friendly flags. Tuesday night is fantasy night for example.

I hate to say this, no computers. I always find that the computers eventually pull the shop keeper away. Or attract some loooong term people who definitely need a shower.

Our local store runs a glass cabinet of people who are selling used armys or units and its an absolute treat. The stock changes weekly. They also buy bits and old models, and pitch them in giant boxs, kids come through weekly just to see what the store has picked up.

Music, absolutely, but older folk dont seem to appreciate slayer, for their sake, lets leave the heavy metal in the car.

Finally, i wouldnt go over the top with terrain, i find generic, yet very well finished boards are the most pleasing. And for good measure, a specialty board or two. Perhaps a Plexiglas plate for BFG, maybe a city fight board.

So many stores so many suggestions, sorry for the long post

Don't apologize, there's some good stuff in there. Great SNR.

There were two main things that pulled me in the hobby which were
1) every friday they would have beginner battles were 4 or something players would used one of the Lgs's prepainted armies against another ( i really like looking at other people's armies cuz i hate mine)
2) they had bi weekly or weekly mini-tournys like 1000pts winner got a $5 gift-card or something and it was fun and not competitive at all

Try to hold monthly tournaments... At local stores around me, they motivate me to get my army painted and together. Reward army composition and sportsmanship in these tournaments... it will encourage people to try new, less common builds, meaning you sell more models. Always give prizes of store credit (from the entry pool). no matter who wins, you make sales from the tournament, and I know that whenever I loose a tournament, I tend to buy models from the store that I think would improve my army.

Depending on the number of people in the store, some background music would be nice. (nicer if less people in the store, annoying if its at a tournament).

a painting table / bar is a great thing for any gaming store, but don't put one in at the cost of a gaming area.

next to each gaming table, try to make sure there is a place for someone to stage their army, or make sure each side of the table has a 1" lip. nothing is more annoying than playing on straight 6x4 tables, because you have nowhere to put your army except on the floor, and that ends only in tragedy.

depending on how many people you have at your store, 4-6 tables for gaming should be enough. Don't just put out 2, i've been to stores like that, they are annoying.

definately serve snacks, but don't charge movie theater prices for them. $1.50 should be about the max for a bottle of pop.

I know you need to make sales quotas, but always try to sell people useful things for their armies. if you see a guy with a mechanized SM army, don't try to sell him a squad of scouts... I've heard some stories about GW reps who just try to unload useless items on newbs. Make sure every purchase will actually benefit the guys army. (that you suggest, of course if someone wants to buy something sell away)

volume discounts are a huge encourager. I like to go on spending sprees, and if a store offers a discount of like 10% off on orders over $250, thats probably all the encouragement I need to go from thinking about starting a new army to actually starting a new army. and we all know that once a new army is started, you just keep buying and buying and buying and soon that $250 is $500 and your selling your organs for warhammer monies.

Yeah my FLG has a case with used minis usually around 30%off or more, and I usually will pick up some stuff every time I visit because of it. I love bargains.

The basic thought for me: if you expect me to support your FLGS, I expect you to support me. To which: dont dick me around, play times that one would expect an adult with responsibilities to be able to keep. The local store has their "game night" Wensday 6-9pm.

*rolls eyes* Yeah, like who shows up then?

Dont start or ask a club to come in, then yank the rug out. Tends to annoy us. I'm sure I can think of loads of others later.....

The things that I've found odd or annoying about gaming stores:

- Lack of a bathroom the gamers can use. I find this really annoying, especially if the store is in a strip mall where there are no public bathrooms.
- Lack of chairs. There should be at least some chairs so the the gamers can chill while waiting on a game or keep a bit fresher if they play more than one game.
- Odd sized or undersized gaming tables. The gaming tables need to be whatever the standard size is for the main games your going to run. If your running 40K, have 4x6 tables.
- Good quantity of fairly generic terrain. The terrain shouldn't be oddball, even if it looks cool. Having a lot allows people to have some choices about the terrain.
- Have a sale every now and then. This is one of my complaints about GW, they never have sales in my area.
- Last and hardest, don't allow the store to become a babysitting service for lazy parents. This tends to be more problematic in malls, but still can happen other places.

This is actually something myself and my father are looking into, as we're considering starting a store ourselves.

So, after asking some of the gaming folks around here what they thought, what we came to was this:

-At least one person who is willing to run dedicated campaigns for game systems. This is an absolute MUST, in my view and the folks I talked with. Pick-up games are fun, sure. But running a dedicated campaign, from start to finish, gives people a sense of accomplishment. It can also be a way to draw new people in and get them building their forces for the end fight.
-Three tables, at least, of 8x6. Another three 6x4 tables, that can be linked together if need be. One 8x6 and one 6x4 table should be 'dedicated' to specific systems, with the third being neutral in terms of terrain.
Examples:
One of the 8x6 tables is a combination of a built-up ruined Imperial City(collapsed building walls around the outskirts of the building), with trenchlines dug in around it, and a few clumps of forest around it.
The other, intended to be neutral, is an open field with a river cutting through it and a bridge as the "focal point". The table itself is fairly bare, barring a few dense forests and a marsh at the mouth of the river.

Those are really the only things I can add that haven't already been said.

MDG, if you set up in London, I'll give you as much free support through dakka as possible. The fact that there is no accessible FLGS in London is ridiculous (Orc's Nest does not count due to lack of 'F' in FLGS). I can only speak for the London area but a supplier of Vallejo paints and Flames of War minis would be the main draws for me and many others. There are already loads of great suggestions in here so I wont echo them.

Don't allow your store to turn into a daycare- Not necessarily young kids (I know some younger gamers who are great in store), but parents who drop kids off for you to entertain.

Keep hygiene standards: Gamer Funk will eventually only keep those who are immune to it. One game store I knew had a list of rules for customers and players, I think #3 was "Be Hygienic or leave".

Be friendly. Sounds like a must, but I've walked into stores, looking for something or been looking and thinking about projects and never get spoken to. Most of us really don't like to announce our ignorance about products

1. Have things in stock. Having shelves with big empty spots because you haven't got new stock in is a pain. I'm the type of person who buys in bulk, so if I come in to buy an army, and a few things are missing, I won't buy anything.

2. Don't try to sell me a Stompa when I come in to buy glue.

Letting me browse without trying to dry-hump my leg the whole time I'm there. Obviously, I try to avoid GW stores where possible.

Mithrax makes a good point.

However, you need someone on hand to explain to the parents before they leave that you are not a daycare. Make it clear that you have no issues if the child wants to learn how to game or what have you, but don't let the "F" in FLGS get in the way of making sure the point gets across.

And, running a painting/modeling clinic for younger people could end up leading towards more revenue for you later on . The FLGS I used to go to before it shut down, for example, ran a parent/child "demo" days to let the parents see what their kids are doing, and made quite sure that was the only way they'd allow these younger kids to be left at the store without the parent. Even then, the parent had to leave emergency contact information and sign off on a release form for the store's legal purposes.

H.B.M.C. wrote:1. Have things in stock. Having shelves with big empty spots because you haven't got new stock in is a pain. I'm the type of person who buys in bulk, so if I come in to buy an army, and a few things are missing, I won't buy anything.

2. Don't try to sell me a Stompa when I come in to buy glue.

I second your number two suggestion. But for me it was usually don't try to sell me crappy GW glue when I've come in to buy a stompa.

feth sake, lego needs an FLGS. THat's some back, right there.

My suggestion is don't let one group of customers take over the store, its very discouraging for a new person to come in and be ignored because everyone in the store only wants to play aginst their friends.

Ales and whores.