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.