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I have to admit, uniforms (or at least name tags and a very laid-back level of 'professional attire required' help deal with what I call the "Android's Dungeon Effect"... I've noticed that a lot of older game/comic stores were very rough affairs. Shelving built from 2x4s, poor lighting, dirty conditions, etc.

I as a pre-teen was cool with this, but mom was not. As such, no $^#@^ way was I asking her to go in for a birthday/christmas present.

On the other hand, many modern stores are a lot cleaner, brighter, and more professional. Try to consider any such decisions on the basis of what would keep parents happy if you want their business. Kids can be very persuasive to their parents.

I'd probably want to even extend the 'professional attire' clause to anyone who is running 'official' events in the store. I.E. Privateer Press Press Gangers, Pod Squad, etc. Most probably have something like this, but I know demo teams can be quasi-employees at times. They may help clean up shelves, point customers to stuff, etc. As such, they're your problem (and they work for free from your POV...) and they can be the ones that form opinions.

On a related note, when you're closer to opening don't forget to find out if any games you stock have demo teams. They can help get some traffic in: For example the DP9 Pod Squad members advertise their events on the DP9 forums and try to get local players in on demo days and such... I assume PP works the same way.


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Helgrenze has a good point about acknowledgements cutting down on shoplifting.

Wow, thanks again guys XD

We have an idea for the uniforms, just a polo shirt with "The Black Bunker" writen on them.
I will talk with the others about MTG as i used to play and would happily stock that and other card games.

I have spoken to the others about the snacks etc and we have come to a group descision not to stock them for now as we allready have alot to think about and concentrate on atm as we are taking our business plan etc to the bank next week to get the £100,000.00 loan we need.

Thanks again guys, you've all been a wonderfull help

£100,000?!

Yep, 100,000.

Thats about 70,000 for the store and the rates, 10,000 for the stock, 20,000 for the rest.

Couple of thoughts - firstly, who is your target audience? If going for established gamers, expect small sales and little in the way of business beyond paints and the use of your gaming facilities. They have their armies and are unlikely to get new ones soon.

If schoolkids - how are you going to get them in the store and convince the parents to spend money with you?

What about charging for use of club facilities - Triple Helix seem to be doing okay and I believe they have a charge for their facilities, which in turn funds better facilities.

I'd definitely do Warma/hordes and Flames of War as stock items too - at present your stock list sounds like a dumbed down model shop and there is already one of those in town. Make your places USP the fact that you've got popular systems - don't become too reliant on GW too as they have a nasty habit of building stores in areas where FLGS sell well.

Finally- be clear what YOU are in this for. Why are you opening this store - what is your vision for it - how do you expect to make money, how much profit will you make, what will you do if things dont take off?
I've been around long enough to see plenty of local stores open and very few of them are still in business now - you need to have a very aggressive, very clear 2-3 programme of business and a clear idea of what you're doing. Otherwise you WILL fail.

Right, got some bad news....the business rates are too much on the building we want, so we're having to find somewhere else

Good news, i have found somewhere that only costs 12k a year for the building and £500 council tax. Which means we wont need such a largre loan

Which means you need to be looking to take in a minimum of £230 per week just to pay the rent, let alone utilities, taxes or salaries.
That doesnt sound much - then you have to at least triple that to pay salaries etc - do you think your location will bring in a turnover of £700 per week just to pay you a basic salary of roughly £4K per year each?
To pay you each GW minimum wages (£13K each) and rent you'd need to turnover £51K per year (£1K per week) just to rent and pay you minimum wage. Do you think your market will generate over £50K of sales per year? If it could, why isn't there a GW in the area already?

Ouch...But i think we would be able to make 700 a week without too many problems.

Do you have any of that money budgeted as fall back cash? What if your store isn't profitable for 2 years (which is kinda the norm)? Can you afford to pay your salaries for that long on the loan you took out, on top of all the other bills?

At the very least if you are going for a cheaper location, I'd still get the higher loan so you have extra emergency money. You will need it.

"But i think we would be able to make 700 a week without too many problems. "

Not being rude mate, but how much work have you done on this? You think you'll make 'about' £700 - thats a turnover of less than £36K per year.

How do you know you can do this - as I said above - what is your market, who are your audience, how many people out there are GW players? How are you going to get people through the door?

I'm not trying to put you off, but there is a world of difference between running a profitable business and having qaming store with mates. If you want to suceed at this, you need to know how much you are going to take, how much your overheads are, how much you are going to pay yourself, and so on.

What work have you done in terms of identifying what will sell well, versus what is cheap to stock? What about total costs for the year - plus stock costs, plus the basic costs of running the shop - then divide the total figure by 52 - that is the minimum amount that you must take to pay your basic bills - and thats before you even think about paying your salary.

If you dont go into this with a really clear understanding of just how expensive this could be, then you will find yourself with some serious debts around your neck. If you cant pay them, you go bankrupt - do you know what that does to your future credit ratings?

If you're serious, then personally I'd go and work in a GW for a while and identify what its like there - they are the sort of clients you'll need to deal with daily to make money. If you dont like them, or if you dont get on with it, then dont open the business!

I've been watching this thread, I co-run a business (not retail).

LazzurusMan: I like the idea of a new business starting up, especially in this field. I like all of the ideas and guidance that has come up so far.

Big important question: Do you or your partners have experience working in a retail-type setting?

jim30 wrote:
To pay you each GW minimum wages (£13K each) and rent you'd need to turnover £51K per year (£1K per week) just to rent and pay you minimum wage. Do you think your market will generate over £50K of sales per year? If it could, why isn't there a GW in the area already?

Correction, your store will have to generate 50K GBP in profit each year. How much stock do you have to move to make that much profit?

I've been doing some reading into this recently, and to be frank, ten thousand pounds worth of stock is peanuts. You can easily carry thirty grands worth in any store worth its salt with a decent range of games. I'm also wondering where your seventy thousand is going, in order to cost seventy thousand to get the store paid in rent for the first year, and set up in fixtures and the like(presuming accountancy and legal fees are paid out of that other twenty).

jim30 wrote:Couple of thoughts - firstly, who is your target audience? If going for established gamers, expect small sales and little in the way of business beyond paints and the use of your gaming facilities. They have their armies and are unlikely to get new ones soon.

Not quite.) Many people enjoy spending money on games. They like to buy new games, start new armies, and spend something each week. The stores responsibility is finding those products, and having them on the shelf and ready to buy. Can't sell what you don't have. I'm currently adding more stock to my store, so that I'll have more things to sell. A lot of that is to veteran gamers.


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Ketara wrote:I've been doing some reading into this recently, and to be frank, ten thousand pounds worth of stock is peanuts. You can easily carry thirty grands worth in any store worth its salt with a decent range of games. I'm also wondering where your seventy thousand is going, in order to cost seventy thousand to get the store paid in rent for the first year, and set up in fixtures and the like(presuming accountancy and legal fees are paid out of that other twenty).

A very good point. Speaking from 22 years experience, 10k is a very small amount of stock. My stores each have more than 20x that much. I would focus much more on stock than anything else. The 100k loan you were going for should have been split up to put at least 30k into stock, if not more.

And a reminder to something I mentioned earlier: Go joing the Game Store Resource Forum. It's free, and can give you a huge amount of information from many top retailers. http://forums.delphiforums.com/gamestore/start

This forum is only has one purpose: Giving advice to people in your position.

LazzurusMan are you refering to the toy store with the woman who owns it?

I live near Wisbech and have seen no other store that sells GW.

LazzurusMan wrote:Ouch...But i think we would be able to make 700 a week without too many problems.

Erm....you are aware GW went to one man stores for a good reason...

Seriously, you might take £1,500 a week easy once you've found your feet, but minus your operating costs, including that of the actual stock, how much profit are you actually making? From what I've heard, GW sell whoesales at 60% of their price.

Thus, for every £10 of GW product you sell, the product itself has cost you £6 of that. So, in order just to pay your rent and your council tax, that would mean you need to shift £575.00 of stock, every single week, just to break even, going on the aforementioned £230 a week running costs. And you really want to pay three people a working salary? £5.93 an hour, assuming you are all over 21.

Now then, that equates, based on a standard 40 hour week.....£237.20 EACH. So, for your revised operating costs, each and every week, you need to make £941.60 profit, each and every week. Now assuming I'm working this out correctly (and I can't guarantee I am. Been a while since school...) that would mean you need to shift £2,354.00 worth of GW stock, each and every week. And that's not even broaching having to pay back the rater substantial loan you are after from the bank. (if anyone is interested, the sum I used was to divide the target amount by 4, the amount of pounds in ten that would be profit. I then multiply that result by ten. I'm not entirely sure why, but I think it works out? Worked it backwards now, multiplying the target amount about by 0.4, and yup, it matches) Also, working on the GW figures because I think I know what the profit margin might actually be, rather than any other reason.

I urge you very, very strongly to reconsider your staffing level. 3 people just isn't feasible for a new store.

My local is run by one guy. He's a great guy, very involved in making all his customers happy, runs Magic, 40k and Warmachine tournaments constantl, hosts D&D after-hours weekly and even comes in on his one day off to let people play during Warmachine leagues. His store seems to be busy all the time, he carries Magic, 40k (within the last 2 years), Warmachine (started this year), Comics, D&D, Boardgames, Heroclicks and a few other bits and pieces.

Now, I obviously don't know how well he does, but presumably he wouldn't work solo for six days a week with no vacation time if he could afford not to.

It's a pretty brutal business to be in, especially if you're unprepared for it.

Alright, having managed a games store in my youth and more recently managed a recording studio. I can say you in for a up hill battle my friend.

- MTG oh MTG, the card board crack. In my days of running the gaming store we could go weeks with out a single GW/mini purchase. But everyday we would sell at least a couple hundred in boosters of MTG

- Rpg's always good to keep in stock, but also a tough market. Of course you'll make your bread and butter of DnD but try to stock some of the smaller systems. I'd say palladium games, steve jackson games and possibly white wolf stuff (but ive seen those books rot on shelves)

- Board games/ non ccg card games again a good money maker that brings in more customers. between axis and allies, munchkin quest and settlers of catan you will have a decent stock rotation.

- Food and Drink, while you may want to avoid since it can be messy (trust me your going to be cleaning ALL THE TIME or your place is going to turn in to a stinky hole pretty quick, remember gamers can be a unhygienic bunch) but it's also a cash cow.
Yah figure you buy a 12 case of pop for $4 you sell them for $1 each. if you sell all of them that's a total income of $12, a profit of $8 (or 300%). it is by far the best profit margin you will ever make. People are going to bring in food/drink regardless of weather your selling it or not on gaming nights they will ring in food to cover that 3 hour long gaming session.
Take my studio for example, we charged $20 an hour for our rehersal rooms, and like clock work we always made better cash off our mini store. hell people will buy things they dont like just to get the annoying food/drink craving out of the way.

- Events are the way to bring in the people. It shows your willing to help the people out who are making you your money. But its loads more work then anyone (except those that have run events) will ever give you credit for.

- theft, no one seems to be talking about it, IT IS GOING TO HAPPEN!!!!!!! what will you do about it? what are your realistic expectations for loss? will you have any form of security, will you ban people for theft, will you press charges (which take time form the store in police reports and court appearances) how wil you enforce said bans.

do you know what even legal counts as shop lifting in your country. here in Canada i can walk around your shop stuffing things all over my person i can seriously have half your stock down my pants, but if you try and touch me in any way guess what im still in your store and your getting charged with assualt. you can only attempt to stop shopo lifters in canada once they have cross your lease lines. But then trying to stop them physically can result in you being named defendant in a personal injury law suit.

Insurance, the company who will gouge you the most. since you coverage and rates will be subjective to A space and B expected traffic. the higher on both the more you pay in premiums.

Last, since again no one else has asked. how much startup cash do you guys have? It's all well and good to assume the bank is going to just hand over 100k, but with out a solid business plan, some start up capital and some heavy collateral (IE your house) there gonna laugh at you.

- MTG oh MTG, the card board crack. In my days of running the gaming store we could go weeks with out a single GW/mini purchase. But everyday we would sell at least a couple hundred in boosters of MTG

- Rpg's always good to keep in stock, but also a tough market. Of course you'll make your bread and butter of DnD but try to stock some of the smaller systems. I'd say palladium games, steve jackson games and possibly white wolf stuff (but ive seen those books rot on shelves)

- Board games/ non ccg card games again a good money maker that brings in more customers. between axis and allies, munchkin quest and settlers of catan you will have a decent stock rotation.

MTG still going strong as hell. Good product to just stock. Does better with singles and OP if you can manage it. Can have a tendancy to take over a shop if not careful, and drive other customers away.

RPG's are dead/dying. White Wolf is owned by the EveOnline group, and many items go straight to download, their print stuff is dead as hell. Palladium is going in and out of bankruptcy/hardtimes. Very little new. Gurps is S..L..O..W. The best RPG's right now: DnD, Pathfinder (fills in for DnD 3.5, Savage Worlds, Dark Heresy/RT/DW doing very well due to excellent quality. I just had to move several tons of books to my new store, and debated chucking half of the RPG's out on a table on sale for a buck a book, they are that slow. Stick to Core books for anything but the top sellers until you know you have players.

Board Games on an upswing, and many sell on a continuous basis. I go through about 60 Settlers of Cataan a year, and it's been out forever.

GW can still be your bread and butter, but it needs painting classes, leagues, late nights, apoc games, etc. Organized Play is the new black. It drives games and sales of games for many lines, and GW isn't immune to that. Look hard at GW stores, they sell what they do because of constant events.

And now I'm off to another 16 hour day of moving my store. Just to give you some perspective, I've had two successful game stores for over 20 years. Being the boss right now in a bad economy means 70-80 hour weeks, no days off, and no vacation. For three years. This is not a venture to take lightly, it takes constant work to succeed, and no one is going to work harder than the guy that owns the business.

Really work on that business plan, and do your research. Go to GAMA, join the GSRF. Those two things will give you twice the chance of suceeding. Send me a PM if you have questions, or email at ShowcasePA@aol.com

I for one buy all of my stuff on line - going round shops is so tiresome! Like others have suggested - perhaps think about setting up selling on line first and build from there. As for GW, I only ever look at the displays in the window at the stuff that the staff have painted - I never actually cross the threshold!

Okay, not going to the bank just yet, gonna find another place to start the shop then go to the bank.

I'm going to take up the idea of more stock and M:TG with the other two on thursday.

And we will be opening an Ebay shop soon, then a website and the store in wisbech....if the bank give us the money we need

I just have to ask...

What is the business plan you are presenting to your bank?

Do you have any sort of sales or PnL projections (what you need for b/e, how you can reasonably expect to generate the necessary foot traffic and sales volume to beat b/e) that you can show to your potential lender?

Banks in general are on the defensive right now. They're hoarding cash in the face of a great deal of regulatory uncertainty and greater scrutiny regarding the role of banks and banking practices. The recent financial crises have been a gut check that has made the lending process in general more onerous, which makes it more difficult to secure a loan.

From the sidelines, it looks like you have very little equity of your own to put into start-up capital; this means the banker has to feel "really good" about your prospects of success in order to guarantee that he gets his return on the loan. Do you have an elaborate song and dance routine to get your banker to that 'feel good' level, or are you just going to walk in and say 'HAY! we're gamer's who like gaming! We want to open a game store! Please give us a quarter million US Dollars!'?

I'm going to follow the progress of LazzarusMan and his colleagues with great interest. I have it in mind to open a store myself, but I'm planning about 3-4 years out with a business plan between now and then to develop a substantial cash reserve and independent income.

I was interested to see £100k mooted as the start-up figure and would be curious about what other sources of finance there are for the start-up, because that's pretty much the same number I came down on as the up-front figure to finance start-up and the first year and a half of operations.

R.