Business Advice

[trollboy]

I'm looking into starting a game and comics shop here locally and want to see if there's any good write-ups and resources.  I've a list of venders of course, and some general small business odds and ends, just wondering if anyone could throw me a bone on actuall game store stuffs.

[Adam]

I think your first stop should be going to forum.rpg.net and searching for every post that Chris Aylott has ever written. You may spend an afternoon reading them, but do so - taking notes as you do - and then go to Chris with the list of questions that you're sure to have. Chris has a wealth of knowledge about running a successful gaming store, and he's always happy to share it.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Starting up a game store! Welcome to a whole world of pain and fun.

So, where's the store going to be, and what do you see as its primary focus? What kind of customer experience are you hoping to promote? I'd like to know more about your situation in order to help.

You should consider contacting Wayne O'Neill, who is the point man for the Game Industry Forum (GIF) begun by D.P. "Vern" Vernazarro. These are people you should learn about and learn from, and that forum is possibly the most useful contact/info outlet for game retailing in existence.

Wayne's email is gameforum@hotmail.com, and he can answer any questions about the GIF.

Best,
Ron

[trollboy]

Starting up a game store! Welcome to a whole world of pain and fun.

So I've heard ;-)

So, where's the store going to be, and what do you see as its primary focus? What kind of customer experience are you hoping to promote? I'd like to know more about your situation in order to help.

Its gunna be in NW Ohio, other closest store is 45min away (2 towns each about 45min away with multple stores).  I wanna focus on horror [chaosium, ww, etc] and mini-gaming[WarHammer, Heroclix]] (while stocking the standard wotc stuff) and comics [aiming more at smaller independant comics, rather than the name brand stuff you can get at the mall bookstore].     I'd like to see a stock of 3-4 overweight bearded over-oppinionated customers that practically live at the store and buy nothing.  I'd like to have a game or two running at all times in the back.  I was planning to have volunteer GM's that get to keep what they GM (for example, if they gm a d&d module, they get to keep the module, I figure its a handy way for experienced gamers to get free shite and make the gaming experience more rich.)  Our town used to have a comic store, but the place was a dump, it was over priced, and the owner was a prick (a former teacher of mine actually).  I know a number of gamers here, and our local private liberal arts college actually has a official gaming group.  I figure the main reason there's not MORE gamers in my town is the horrid 45min drive.  

As far as store locations go, there's a few small business buildings for sale down town.  These are the standard old business buildings, store on the bottom floor, with 2 floors of apartments above.  I figured I could move into one of the apartments m'self to eliminate that cost, and rent out the rest to help supplement mortgage costs.

Right now, my IRL (in real life) job is as a disgruntled web developer, so I know I can make a woop-ass e-commerce front end to tie into a proprietary POS/Accounting system, thus automating everything.

You should consider contacting Wayne O'Neill, who is the point man for the Game Industry Forum (GIF) begun by D.P. "Vern" Vernazarro. These are people you should learn about and learn from, and that forum is possibly the most useful contact/info outlet for game retailing in existence..

Wayne's email is gameforum@hotmail.com, and he can answer any questions about the GIF..

Thanks, I will, anything special I should ask him or say when I mail him??

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Well, I guess you should introduce yourself and explain what you've done so far and what you plan to do next. He'll let you know who's eligible to participate. I don't know how far you've gone in setting up the business, but he can tell you when you're "far enough;" I'm not a moderator on that forum so I don't know.

One person and store you might check out is Marcus King, who runs Titan Games in Michigan, which seems to have set up a successful combination of strong website-commerce and local-retail commerce. He's an interesting guy, very active on the GIF, and at the least you check out his site and so forth to see how one person has done is successfully. Another, similar business is run by James at the Travelling Mage, in Gainesville, FL.

Best,
Ron

[trollboy]

What's the url for this GIF?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi,

It's at the Delphi Forums but it's a closed forum - you need to get registered first, and to do that you'll have to communicate with Wayne and Vern.

Best,
Ron

[trollboy]

mailed him.. he said no go, its only for EXISTING business types, not neophytes such as m'self.   Oh well..  I'm becoming farely enlightened reaing everyone of Chris Aylott's posts on rpg.net like a crazed stalker

[trollboy]

I think your first stop should be going to forum.rpg.net and searching for every post that Chris Aylott has ever written. You may spend an afternoon reading them, but do so - taking notes as you do - and then go to Chris with the list of questions that you're sure to have. Chris has a wealth of knowledge about running a successful gaming store, and he's always happy to share it.

This Chris guy is great, thanks for the tip, its now been a couple evenings, and I say its great for the entertainment value alone!!

[Alex Knapik]

The details are fuzzy to me now, but if you join GAMA you can purchase a retailer's handbook (not sure what it's called). I haven't seen it myself, but from what I understand it's basically a how-to book on most aspects of starting and running a gaming retail store. Get the email address of GAMA's retail chairperson from www.gama.org and ask him/her more about it.