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Have a Business Plan, a Marketing Plan, and Track the Tracking!

Make sure you know where every dollar goes, and what ever dollar spent returns to your bottom line.

Just make sure you have lots of money

I was looking into opening a store, did all my research and had all my ducks in a row but in the end I didn't do it.. I might have had enough to open my doors for a couple of months but not enough to stay afloat for a year or more.. and that worried me the most since I know it wouldn't be an overnight success, and I didn't want to have a business loan hanging over me. So my plans are back burnered.. maybe someday

If you are an LLC and the loan is int he name of the LLC than a business loan isn't so much of a burden.

Edit: Oh, if you are not an LLC or S/C-Corp talk to a legal professional immediately. You do not want to be a sole-proprietor or partnership. Too much potential risk.

You know Easy, you would think that, yet despite being an LLC with a solidly written and revised business plan we were denied an SBA start up loan because the incomes of the two owners from past years did not seem adequate to them for potential payback of the loan if the business should fail.

After we are an established business and do not really need the money is when they will want to give it to us.




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Oh yea, We sign the lease and get the key tomorrow morning.

 Jinxy wrote:


Is there anywhere with a decent guide on the price value of cards?

http://www.starcitygames.com

We use this as our pricing guide. In fact, a lot of people do because their database is easy to use and very up to date on the day-to-day changes in pricing.


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 Shadowseer_Kim wrote:

Oh yea, We sign the lease and get the key tomorrow morning.

How have your first few days been?

Good luck. I'm interested in following your journey as new store owners.

Best of luck and show us pictures of your store!

Best of luck with opening your store.

I'd shop there to show support, but I'm several states away, so this is the best I can do for now :(

So, I'm not a game store owner, and can add little to what has already been said, but if I may...

1.) At our FLGS, MTG basically single-handedly keeps the store open. Yes, through selling booster packs, but also from card trades, where the store takes a cut both ways. Plus the huge release parties. The MTG guys basically pay for the rest of us to play there...

2.) Definitely get in touch with a college or university. That kind of turnover in your customer base (assuming you also have some regulars) is a very good thing. You always want to catch people just as they start their 40k or fantasy armies, rather than after they have them established, and getting new blood helps that. Lock in with student groups devoted to gaming, and you can get a loyal, infinitely-regenerating customer base.

3.) Gamers are into fads. Follow them. I don't spend very much time at my FLGS, but twice when I've been there in the last month, someone has come in looking for Smash Up, and had to be turned away because they were out of stock. Things stay hot for only a short period of time, so you've really got to be willing to strike when they are.

4.) Have demos. At my current FLGS, people only play the games they're interested in already. The last FLGS I played at had like three or four 1,000 point 40k armies just laying around, and store copies of the rulebook and codices. It seemed like a new person got into 40k every week at the old store, because when a person looks at the huge rack of 40k stuff the owner didn't say "that's 40k, a cool game", he said "You got a half an hour? Because you're just about to play a (stripped down version of an) awesome game".

The same thing was true of other games as well, especially for faster games. You could just go in and play heroclix back when that was popular, and everyone who worked at the store had learned how to play it.

In any case investing some money and some time learning rules into letting people play some games for free for a bit will be a MUCH better way of getting people into games they didn't already know they were interested in, and thus spend money later.

Offer a discount on warhammer stuff.

There is a local place here that gives a 25% discount on all GW stuff. I don't know how they stay in business, all I can assume is it is how many tournaments they have, as the prizes are not all too hot.

Seriously though, people drive past other game stores to save 20, 40, or 60 bucks pending on what they are getting. Even like a 5% would make people happy. (but also probably cut into your profits)

Lots of good advice here, I grew up in my father's store and the number one thing he said was the best was knowing people. Specifically, he knew all the parents of any kids who came in, or at least demanded to have a cell phone number so he could call them if anything happened. Usually that was the kid being an ass and needing to be picked up and banned for a couple of weeks.

Another group he loved was the police, with late night gaming, such as Magic or tournaments we would end up with tons of minors hanging around the store late at night. Knowing the cops helped cuz they would cruise by more often on Magic nights for safety and also wouldn't harass the kids waiting on the curb for their rides for curfew. Added bonus was that if anyone stole, or there was an issue he would normally have an officer there within a couple of minutes to help sort things out.

One other tactic that was good was locking the door when someone came up with something missing. It sucks and people complain, but if someone was suddenly missing something, like cards or a figure he would lock the door and say no one leaves until we find this item. Usually we could "find" it in no time on a table somewhere or on the ground. If we couldn't find it that way he would call the cops and have everyone go through the cop before they left. Sometimes the person would have already left, and nothing came of it. But more often than not we'd catch them.

I also completely agree with signs declaring your rules.
No touching, no borrowing, no yelling, we reserve the right to not sell you something if you're being an ass.
We always had people who wanted to just use a book, or borrow an item over and over. It's ok to browse, but when you handle the stuff it damages it, and no one wants to buy a codex with jacked up pages.

I would have a table reserved for painting and modeling. I'd even have free paints available for awhile to get people into using the store as their base of operations and a gathering point.




(also, i would segregate the CCG folks off into their own little corner, preferably in a soundproof cage )

If we're going to keep throwing out suggestions I feel like we'd need more information to judge what can be reasonably done.

What kind of income do you have to work with? Did you get a loan? How much? After rental and stock purchase, what's left over to work with, things like that so we can accurately judge what you can do immediately and what may need to wait til business takes off.

 Ailaros wrote:
4.) Have demos.

This.
So much this.


I was at my FLGS yesterday and (finally) got an intro game of X-Wing in then ended up spending $100 on stuff for it.

The first few days have been hectic, and I feel like I wasted a lot of time. I did a lot of driving around going to meetings with accountants and the bank, and the sign maker, carpet, paint, and and and and and. Yesterday and today I actually started some remodeling. Here are some before pictures.. It's a cool space that needs some TLC. Luckily I am the right person to do that.

The landlord is giving us an allowance that will cover the paint and carpet, so we will be reimbursed. This was part of lease negotiations, great landlord, easy to work with, really wants to do what he can to help us succeed. The really nice actually wood bookshelves, are his, we can use them for the role playing books and stuff.











Weird wall in the back with the window in it, gone......

Tomorrow more work, Sunday more work, tearing out carpeting. the panels covering up an entire wall of pegboard....... Awesome.


More pics will come. Thank you everyone for the encouragement and suggestions.



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It is not the largest game store ever, but if we meet our projections or hopefully exceed them, there is another space connected behind this one that is slightly bigger which we take over and fully connect through. When that time comes, the space you see here will be fully retail kitted out, and the gaming tables will be in the back.

At that point, the entire store will be about 2200 feet. the useable space you see pictured is about 1000, inlcuding the bathroom.

Looks like a good size. My previous FLGS was about that size and still managed to cram 20+ player Warmachine tourneys in there with some effort.


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How's the ventilation? Serious question, you'll soon find out how conducive the place is to gamer funk.

It has ventilation, I am hoping it is adequate.

On the subject of special orders it would be great to take some form of 'free' contact info to go with them ]

(email/facebook/or phone number if you've got a callplan that will fund it)

and keep folk updated with how their special is going

eg ordered from distributor today
distributor says X is out of stock, restock due in 7 days
goods are on their way
We have your order, collect within 14 days or it will move to general stock

waiting is easier if you KNOW things are happening, and as has been mentioned before special orders can be problematic if the store (or even a single staff member) forgets to order them or even worse sell the special when somebody else comes in and asks for it

Depending on how you plan to handle special orders keeping track of who ordered what is important in case little jimmy likes making special orders but never ends up actually paying for them

good luck, good business and have fun

on special orders, get a ticket book like they use for taking orders at a restaurant.

Cheap and it is carbon copy. One goes to the customer and one goes to your special order bucket (flgs puts them all in a bucket). Name and phone number, plus item name and number.

The owner informs us on facebook whose order came in that time and who still has to wait.

The place looks like it'll be awesome Great thread, this.

One thing no one has mentioned yet and will likely come down the road when you have an established community is people selling and swaping stuff in and around your store.

For some reason people think its OK to poach on your land. Here is how it works, You get a new gamer in and they are looking at starting an army. A regular will walk up to them and tell them they can sell the newb their used army at half of the price. Cutting you out completely.

Set up a policy that all trades/ customer to customer sales are done through the store in store credit.

Also if you have the cash flow. I recommend buying up players unwanted armies. You can get them cheap for store credit (hence making it even cheaper) and it takes it off the market for other players that should be buying from you. This also gives you an easy start into an ebay shop, which can lead to an online store. Its a great way to keep money flow during down times.

 gwarsh41 wrote:
Offer a discount on warhammer stuff.

There is a local place here that gives a 25% discount on all GW stuff. I don't know how they stay in business, all I can assume is it is how many tournaments they have, as the prizes are not all too hot.

This is odd. If they deal with GW to get their product then they are breaking their contractual agreement with them. If they aren't getting their stuff from GW then they're making almost nothing on that product because of the discount.

 darefsky wrote:
Also if you have the cash flow. I recommend buying up players unwanted armies. You can get them cheap for store credit (hence making it even cheaper) and it takes it off the market for other players that should be buying from you.

I don't think you can do this anymore if you have a direct account with Games Workshop, as their most recent terms do not allow the sale of GW products without the official GW packaging (which is why The Warstore got out of the bits business).

Good luck man! The store looks pretty nice and will look much better when fixed up. I only wish we had more local stores near me. All I got is the last battle bunker in the united states.

 Shadowseer_Kim wrote:
We have a bit of both a town over. a store that does board games and mostly table top. then they sell role playing and card stuff. then we have a store that deals entirely with MTG. and maybe a couple odd board games sometimes.

So I know either could succeed. I just don't know how I feel about keeping binders and binders and binders full of singles. I am thinking to avoid it in the start at least. and maybe grow into it later.

But even then, is it worth the trouble?

It is, and it isn't hard if you know somebody that is experienced with the game/scene, have a folder for each set (start with whatever the latest set is for your store) and then a folder for any REALLY rare stuff that you buy or sell over time (old or rare cards). Both the stores in my City pretty much survive on MTG players. Its incredibly lucrative and if you can foster some regulars then your set. Make sure to run FNM's and events for Set Releases and Game-days.

I have made the contacts with the local Pepsico distributor. They will bring me a cooler for drinks, and a snack rack for candy and frito lay products. Then they will come by and stock it on a regular basis for me. Hurray!!!

Today I am getting a carpet installation quote, then buying carpet, primer, paint, and materials for building our 4 gaming tables which will be 4'x8'. We anticipate having one table built by end of the day.

By sometime this upcoming week, we should have a store facebook page where I will continue to update the progress, and post pictures etc. I will post a link in this thread for those are interested in following the project from now through opening and beyond.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 darefsky wrote:
Also if you have the cash flow. I recommend buying up players unwanted armies. You can get them cheap for store credit (hence making it even cheaper) and it takes it off the market for other players that should be buying from you.

I don't think you can do this anymore if you have a direct account with Games Workshop, as their most recent terms do not allow the sale of GW products without the official GW packaging (which is why The Warstore got out of the bits business).

Nope, reselling used products ins't illegal nor could GW enforce a policy of not allowing you to do it. There is a huge lawsuit about it heading to the supreme court right now, but so far the large corporations have pretty much lost in every court up to this point (trying to make people get permission to resell products already purchased and trying to get a percentage ect).....

Not to derail the thread, Good luck, looks like the start of a great store.

Seconding the game store articles series at rpg.net.

 Bobaram wrote:

We always had people who wanted to just use a book, or borrow an item over and over. It's ok to browse, but when you handle the stuff it damages it, and no one wants to buy a codex with jacked up pages.

This is why you have a store copy with a sticker on it and leave the rest mint.

--Chris
www.chrisvalera.com

Dun Dun Dun.........

For those of you interested in tracking our progress, here is the new facebook page that will be regularly updated.

https://www.facebook.com/castleofgames

Thank you everyone!

Don't forge the liability insurance (among other types)!

I'm assuming you signe dthe lease already; but did it have a sub-let or assignment clause in it? How about rent specifications and timelines? Any shared usage/community area managmeent clauses?