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Business savvy and the depth of knowledge held by other shop owners are not the same thing,

Absolutely. It's why there's such a huge rate of failure by new game stores.
The vast majority of which are started by people who are serious about opening a business.

The level of knowledge and savy is far, far worse in people that don't run game stores at all.) The guy with the game store is taking his lumps and learning while getting beat on by reality.)

After a couple of decades, you might even get good at it. Or at least you've shown you know how to survive.

Go join the forum I posted, and read all the back posts. You'll be able to distill quite a bit of knowledge from people that have run game stores for a long time. It's a diverse group, lots of different typse of stores and business plans. It's main reason for existing is to be read by people who want to open game stores.

Easier to learn from others mistakes than to do them yourself.

I would also recommend not having an age restriction. Or at least lower than 15.
Reason? Younger kids with lots of pocket money are the ones who are most likely to be coming in and buying on a whim, or have parents buy them tonnes for a birthday. Much of the hobby is really targetted at 12yr olds. They're the ones you can convince to walk away with Black Reach, a Codex, a Battleforce and a paint set after their first visit.
Older gamers are the ones who more likely have a planned list of stuff to buy and will plan things out a lot more.

If you want to have an age limit, impose it on the later hours (ie, no-one under 15 after 6pm)

I worked at a gaming store for 7 years.

Some stores are good to play at, where they have a lot of table space, and a lot of terrain. Some stores are good to buy from, with a huge selection and great prices. It's seldom that these two qualities can be found in the same place.

I appreciate a casual atmosphere in a store, but if I'm a customer trying to do business, then the help better pay attention to me. I've left and not returned to great stores because I tried to ask a question, or worse, spend some money, and Johnny the Clerk is playing a game of Magic with his friend. Any time an Employee tells me to "hold on," in any store, I want to deck them.

Prices should be clearly labeled, especially on stuff in a case. It's embarrassing to look at a nice painted figure, or a Magic single, and say "How much is that?" to be told $200 more than I had hoped for, and say "I can't afford that."

Honesty. We called a store recently asking about their Warhammer stock and they told us it was super awesome, they have everything we need. We get there and there's two Tau Fireteams, a Hive Tyrant, a Dark Eldar battleforce, nothing else, and no paint. When we asked them about it they told us "Well, we can order you anything you want." That's a quick way to get us to slash your tires. Our closest store is FAR AWAY and we go OUT OF OUR WAY to visit your store.

Special stuff. Anybody can get NIB stuff on the internet. If you're selling Warhammer, try and get some old out of print stuff cheap on eBay, or some nice painted figures. If you're selling Magic, get some real old cards, old packs, memorabilia, supplies, signed stuff. I can get current in print stuff anywhere.

I also want my store to be fully sanctioned and run as many sanctioned tournaments as possible, be it Magic, Warhammer, whatever. When we started running Friday Night Magic, our customer base doubled. People will go out of their way to show up if there's official promo stuff on the line, or a rating increase.

Most importantly, with regards to pricing, remember that these days you're competing against the internet. Charging retail value for things will net you most customers, and even I'll drop the $25 real quick for something I want NOW, but if I decide I'm making a big purchase? $100+? I'm going to be searching for the best price. And if that's a guy in Kentucky selling Games Workshop stuff out of his shack, then that guy's making the money.

Likely, if you're running a gaming store, you're probably going to be investing in t-shirts, statues, comics, singles, and such. The best advice I can give you for this is keep your inventory rolling. 8 out of 10 people who come to your store do so to browse, not to buy. If they believe that "they never have anything new," then they're not going to come back. However, don't order that awesome statue and put it on ebay on super sale inside of 72 hours when it doesn't sell. Be reasonable.

You're likely going to end up with a LOT of garbage. Bins of old comics, boxes of cards, cases of action figures, and stacks of books. Get that stuff out of your store by any means possible (super bulk ebay sale, craigslist, give it out free w/purchase) to fill your store with new, shiny stock that will sell. If you can turn a mountain of garbage into a hill of gold, you're doing the right thing.

Frosty Hardtop wrote:You're likely going to end up with a LOT of garbage. Bins of old comics, boxes of cards, cases of action figures, and stacks of books. Get that stuff out of your store by any means possible (super bulk ebay sale, craigslist, give it out free w/purchase) to fill your store with new, shiny stock that will sell. If you can turn a mountain of garbage into a hill of gold, you're doing the right thing.

Key thing here. For the most part, if you've not moved an item in 6 months or so, you need to start making decisions. I'd probably go with sale first (to encourage folks to come into the store regularly) and eBay second. The alternative is the 'well if I sell it and it's more than 6 months old, it's a bonus' approach. It's really a decision making game. Some things will just take more than six months to sell and some things are regular stock items that you have to have. If you hold onto too much though, you wind up with a cluttered store in which no one can find things effectively and you're well on your way to the Nerd Cave approach.

i can use one shop i ended up frequenting as an example.

where i used to live, there were really only 2 LGSs that carried WH/40k that also had playing space (the other shops were the local hobbytowns, where i go to get my WW2 models and whatnot)

first things first.. the shop i ended up not going to all that often, was mostly because the place smelled abit too much like BO and overcrowded, unwashed bodies. a major plus for them, was that they carried games that ive never even heard of.

The shop i ended up doing most of my shopping at (sadly, my stuff was moved before i could game there) had a quite large "showroom" space, where they had a very respectable assemblage of games (reaper minis, 40k, Axis and Allies minis, D&D/WoW minis, etc.) they had damn near every 40k/WHFB mini available for retail on their shelves and if it wasnt there, it was "on the way" or they could easily order it, with no shipping fees.

The employees quite normally greeted you, asked simply if you were looking for anything in particular, and if you werent, they let you be. i am disappointed that i didnt get to utilize the Back Room, where they had something like 12 gaming tables, and insane amounts of terrain for games, tournaments or whatever else you might want in your gaming life.

long story short.. if your gonna make a gaming shop, be friendly, have lots of space for games/gaming. cater to the gaming community, not just one company of games. Ohh, and make sure that employess/customers are clean/bathed and arent smelling like they just waded through the trash dump to get to the shop (unless of course, they DO have to go through the trash dump to get to the shop)

MrGiggles wrote:

Frosty Hardtop wrote:You're likely going to end up with a LOT of garbage. Bins of old comics, boxes of cards, cases of action figures, and stacks of books. Get that stuff out of your store by any means possible (super bulk ebay sale, craigslist, give it out free w/purchase) to fill your store with new, shiny stock that will sell. If you can turn a mountain of garbage into a hill of gold, you're doing the right thing.

Key thing here. For the most part, if you've not moved an item in 6 months or so, you need to start making decisions. I'd probably go with sale first (to encourage folks to come into the store regularly) and eBay second. The alternative is the 'well if I sell it and it's more than 6 months old, it's a bonus' approach. It's really a decision making game. Some things will just take more than six months to sell and some things are regular stock items that you have to have. If you hold onto too much though, you wind up with a cluttered store in which no one can find things effectively and you're well on your way to the Nerd Cave approach.

What worked relatively well for us was the "SUPER AWESOME DISCOUNT TABLE." Which was, as it sounds, a table covered in old junk that we had priced just next to "We'll pay you to take it out of here." Unsurprisingly, this product began to move pretty quickly out the door. One of the tricks is to put a date on the price tag when it first came into your store (not all price guns do this). Anything that's there that hasn't been touched for six months and obviously isn't a "big seller" (Magic is always solid, Medabots isn't going to make a comeback) needs to be chucked onto the table. After that, if it's on the table for longer than a month, it's time to find another way to get it out of the store.

Customers have finely tuned BS detectors. They see "grab bag" and immediately recognize it as "bag stuffed with junk we couldn't sell." Don't waste your time with these. Start searching around on Craigslist for somebody to buy bulk of all those 1980s Valiant comics first, then consult eBay if you absolutely must. There are a lot of opportunities for you to make back at least a little of the money you've invested in junk; donate it to charity if you have to for the tax deduction.

The best piece of advice I can give you is "make a decision, even if it's wrong." My store started quickly going down the tubes after a hasty move (don't ever move your location, even two doors down, because you lose a lot of customers), and my boss refused to try anything to raise awareness of the store. Listen to your employees and the people you trust for advice. If things aren't going well, doing nothing about it won't solve it.

What do you look for in a FLGS?

Free shipping.

My LGS is a Games Workshop, so I prefer not to go to it.

Friendly owners, not the dude at the counter that says "Welcome to hobbyland" eating a whole large pizza while reading the grubbed up latest edition of White Dwarf and spies on you as you walk around the store and just makes you feel like you are about to be his next meal. I like the guys who strike up a conversation about what you do and your army and how do you like them and stuff. Even just stuff about hows it been goin and what he's heard etc. Not like "Oh you play spacemarines, you should go look at that AWESOME new spear of sicarius deal (<-- cough)!!!" I am more likely to buy from a guy who is cool about it then who pressures me into buying something.

Big TABLES for gaming! Plus a lot of scenery!

Have some tutorials for new gamers. Aka. "Monday Night @ 7:30, bring your Friends for a Warhammer 40k painting night where you can learn to build and paint a Games Workshop miniature", stuff like that to introduce people into the game. I would have KILLED for stuff like this when I started.

Game night of course

Have Campaigns and Tournaments! Along with that, raffles and other prises and stuff like that.

If you want to be a really cool store, have repeat customer deals (sadly I don't know if you can, but my LGS has a guy that likes to give us all a gamer discount and hooks us up from time and time, and I really appreciate it and always bring my business there and even forgoe ordering from online stores unless I want a mass buy) and try to make it a nice big store with maybe a hangout and paint area or just an area to sit down and read your new Codex you just bought or to flip through the new white dwarf. Like a store copy or something. And you are able to stay there a while and truthfully, if I waste more time in there, I will buy more stuff!!

I agree about the kids thing... and im 16 XD. Trust me in saying I have played some kids my age that amaze me... One kid (14) got taken out of the store and yelled at by his dad for yelling at me over a rules argument. I was talking about it and then he flipped. It was extremely awkward.

Have several distributors once you can get them and encourage special orders. A friend of mine does this and though games won't leave the shelves quickly, he does make more than enough for the bills.

ohh, i had forgot, but was reminded by EzeKK... have a semi large whiteboard type calendar. The shop i frequented had their league nights posted, special events, tutorial nights... basically, anything you could ever want to know about "whats going on"

if at all possible, dont charge customers for postage/shipping on special orders. the LGW in the town i live in does this, so it only makes sense that you should offer the same or better.

1) honesty
2) willingness to take my money.
3) be open during the week

i thought i had 2 FLGS. the first is 27 miles away and said that they have an active 40k group on thursdays. low and behold when i show up on thursday, no one is playing 40k and the two people playing fantasy said the 40k group died off 6 months earlier. the closest store (about 4 miles) has screwed up 2 out of 3 GW special orders that i've tried to place. if i come up to you (the manager) and offer to give you MSRP price money in return for a product you supposedly sell, please place the order successfully. i finally found a third store (23 miles away) that has an interested owner who is friendly and an active 40k group... but is only open on weekends (it's the owner's side job/dream job)! i guess two out of three ain't bad...