brick and mortar questions

[Ensis Ferrae]

To preface everything here: this is NOT a 'hai guyz iz starting a store, wut does i do?' Thread.

My time in the army is nearly up, and so the wife keeps hounding me on work after i'm out, blah blah blah.

Being a gamer, i'd thought it would be cool to run a shop (who hasnt really?). But earlier this year, my 'main' game gave me the straw that broke the camels' back as it were. I used to play 40k, but with the model price hikes and then the new rule book being 75 bucks retail we decided to walk away and play more of our alternate games.

Ultimately, my question here is, do you think that if you created a gaming store, but didn't carry GW, could you survive? My own thought here, is that one key to a shop, is gaming space, so i wouldnt mind folks playing GW games, i just wouldnt be carrying the products.

[Sliver Chocobo]

40K sell very well

Even if don't like it, stock it

[Triblayne]

I think it depends on the customers you end up having and what they want from your store. I've seen stores not carry GW and do fine, but I've also seen a store go from carrying GW, getting fed up with them and getting rid of all their products, but then go back to selling them a couple years later because they had to due to customer demand.

Gamers are a fickle lot, and ultimately you have to cater to their needs, or they'll go somewhere else.

[pigi314159]

It depends on what you define as "gaming." If you are including TCGs/Board Games you can absolutely survive without minis of any sort. My FLGS has carried WFB/40k/Arcane Legions/Hero Clix and most of the time they just sit. The owner has phased all of them out, but will special order if you ask.

The question is what is the market. For some reason my part of down is devoid of minis gamers. 30 minutes south, and you have a GW store and no less than 3 stores that sell minis. So the store that is in my part of town (my FLGS) does not even bother to dabble into that market because it's largely saturated and the geography makes the draw near impossible.

[Forar]

I'd say you'd have to factor in what your customers want. If you only sell locally and the local GW playerbase is negligable, obviously it's not a big deal, but if it's a massive scene you'd be potentially throwing away good money not offering them what they want.

And it's not just about the GW stuff either. That one draw will bring in customers, friends of customers who are browsing and playing pick up games (assuming you have free play space available), potentially tournaments if the scene is large enough, and even if you're not interested in the latest book/releases, don't ignore the knowledge base you already have based on your familiarity with the games/product lines.

As an example, Malifaux isn't exactly huge here in Toronto. Best my crew can tell, we have one fairly well stocked shop (not great, but it's a selection alright) and one place with a handful of box sets and loose blisters. In a population of millions, there's effectively one store to buy from. If the local WHF/WH40K scenes were like that, I'd say go for it. If they're popular enough to potentially make up a sizable portion of your customers, I'd likely bite the bullet and just stock what you know will sell.

As a business and not a charity, you should totally stand by your principles, but at the same time if you're looking to make a living at this, I think you'd be handicapping yourself not to stock those lines unless there were other business impact related reasons (and while I don't play any GWS games, I've heard horror stories from my friends about dealing with them and their often draconian policies).

[Ensis Ferrae]

As a business and not a charity, you should totally stand by your principles, but at the same time if you're looking to make a living at this, I think you'd be handicapping yourself not to stock those lines unless there were other business impact related reasons (and while I don't play any GWS games, I've heard horror stories from my friends about dealing with them and their often draconian policies).

I have a couple of friends who have worked in an LGS and have said largely the same thing about dealing with GW. I haven't talked enough with some of the local shops in my area to figure out if it'd be similar with other companies.

One idea just struck me though.. since some cities and towns can be 'saturated' with game stores who carry predominately games and the like, what if you opened a gaming store who's predominate shelf stocked item was terrain kits? Obviously to qualify as a gaming store you'd need some gaming stuff (minis, rpg books, cards etc.), table space and the things we commonly associate with an lgs. But if you diminish stock in those items (but make clear you can order if asked), and instead carried a larger selection of terrain kits, supplies for scratch building or even ready to use terrain, would the place hold up? It's a unique idea (imo) because almost everywhere i've been the main complaint among gamers is a lack of quality terrain to game on.

[Forar]

Terrain seems like a fairly niche product within an already niche field.

While I know some people go to extreme lengths to buy, build and otherwise utilize terrain, unlike lines of figures/games (which often expand on a monthly or yearly basis), eventually you can hit a point where there's minimal need to buy more. And while a game will generally lead to each person collecting a given set/faction/crew/whatever, one set of terrain can fill in for several (if not a dozen+) players.

I know there are web sites that specialize in terrain sales, but it seems like a high space consuming, questionable sale item.

If anything, I find terrain to be the thing that my friendly groups will build up last. One can make do with self-built items, random assorted boxes or even pastry (if one battle report is any indicator...)

[nilus]

Sell what your players want. GW does pay the bills for a lot of stores but I know more then a couple game stores who keep there lights on and employees fed by selling CCGs. Others do it by selling board games.

Find out what your people want and sell that first, then use what ever you have left to carry what you love.

It may mean you have a big Board game and CCG store with a small Malifaux section but it beats not having a store at all.