Friday, July 11, 2014

Top Ten Essentials for a Game Store

I watched an interesting interview called "The Top Ten Essentials for a Game Store," featuring Tom Vasel and others and it led me to think: What am I doing right, what am I planning to do, and what do I need to work on? A lot of the things they talk about are things I'm already doing okay at, but their list was intriguing because of the coverage their list tended to have. About 10% of stores they interact with do the things they requested of stores.

Some of the things mentioned were: Keep your store clean, including bathrooms, and without clutter. Have staff that are friendly, informed, and interested in repeat customers. Run a well lit space with areas for playing games and enough room to shop. All of these are basic things that any store should be interested in, so it isn't surprising to see them as the critical steps for a game store to follow. It's more interesting that most game stores do not follow these small steps of running a business because they're generally run more as clubs, playspace for like-minded people, or just a hangout. It's something for me to never lose sight of: That I run a store at the end of the day and everything else is secondary and a benefit to it.

Things I'm planning to do:

  • Star Mats for X-Wing nights, so that all our tables look professional and ready to play on instead of just bare wood. 
  • Beer & Wine license, so that people can hang out and drink while they play instead of leaving to a local bar. 
  • Better lighting by the windows at night.
  • A computer interface to browse Magic cards and our prices. 
Things I'm working on:
  • Preorders arriving in a timely manner. This has a lot to do with budgets and some to do with diligence of talking to distributors and getting things set aside. I think this will slowly resolve itself as it has gotten better every month since I opened. 
  • More diverse food options. Some different snacks and drinks being regularly in stock will help and getting some feedback on what people want me to carry may resolve a bit of that as well. 
  • Bigger events. Making our weekends a destination is getting there, but as I continue to reach out to the community with beer & game nights this might eventually get sorted out.
What am I doing right? 
  • The store is clean! It's well lit, fairly accessible at all times to any corner of the store to find what you're looking for and still avoid running into tables or other customers. 
  • When I preorder a product for people, I try to guarantee (if it's out) that I will get it in before 30 days are up. Usually it takes less than 14 days, but it's critical to me to be the kind of store people can trust to preorder product through and know that it's coming in. 
  • Consistency in hours and events. Every night is different, but the crowds that come in to play on those nights know they will have space to play and meet other folks. Priority space goes to the night scheduled, which resolves disagreements in having space to play normally. I post hours and show up during them and try not to stay afterhours too often, so as to keep people used to the closing time. 
  • I try to stay up to date on new releases, informed about what games are like other games, and do my best to engage with regulars even though they may play games I do not know how to play. 
When it comes to finding the areas I'm weakest in, there's always going to be a blindspot, but knowing how to critically understand what you're missing going forward is something to keep an eye on. I hope that the areas I'm planning and working on get resolved and replaced by a pile of new things that I need to improve upon, since there should always be a way to work towards a tighter run ship. 

Sunday, July 6, 2014

Behind the Quarter

Well, this is how it begins.

This blog is for others to learn from my mistakes and for me to keep track of mine. Running a game store full time is a lot of work: accounting, inventory, pre-orders in a reasonable amount of time, new releases, customer service and event scheduling. There is no area of the store that is unimportant, but as I've only been open 10 months, there's still downtime and ways to improve.

So far Monday-Friday is full every night with people enjoying their particular brand of board game, card game and RPG. It is arguably a success as far as events go. Getting the weekends rolling will happen slowly, but so far getting more games on Saturdays and appealing more to the Olde Town crowd during the mornings is step 1 and 2. A lot of stores take a day off a week or open super late, but it seems like the best bet is to always be available as a store to the local community so as to be relied upon to be open and available for last second purchases. Events work and help us feel less like a store pushing product and more of a place you support to find like-minded nerds.

 On the other hand, being a store means marketing, and finding ways to tell people you are here is key. I've read a lot of advice from other stores over the past few months and I think the way to not spam the world is to be interesting. Post once a day on Facebook so as to stay active and up to date, but not become a thing people want to "hide" from their walls. Post 3 times a day in Twitter, about anything at all really, and see what sticks. With enough followers it could eventually become the event feed for the store or at least create an open dialog with folks about games in general. This is more of a reminder to myself, again, so that I don't let up.

It's so easy to lay back and think: Things are going at a good speed, just let it work itself out. The thing with owning a business is that it must be your passion. I intend to be a personal shopper for any person off the street or for regulars that have been with me from the beginning. I want people to find a game they really enjoy, not just grab one because I said it's good and want a sale. I read something from Black Diamond Games  that struck home with me awhile back: Whenever someone enters the store, part of me lights up to help that person, because I'm genuinely shocked and pleased that someone chose to enter the store and inquire about the things I love.

I am a very stoic man and anyone will tell you they've never seen me excited. At the end of the day, that is just there to temper my world from being too one-way-or-the-other. I feel it is a strength and a weakness, being able to handle stress more easily and not to make rash decisions, though I also never appear super enthused so retail is an odd environment. Thankfully the low-key retail space of a game store means I don't have to be pushy, loud, or overly-attached to work well.

So what is all this? What will this blog be, seeing as it's not a big AQ related blog about new games and the like? It's game theory, store theory, and business from a casual novice who wants to bring transparency to a career that is traditionally impossible to do long-term.