Local store dropping reaper

[Pingo]

Is there some kind of a correlation between great stores and horrible websites?

 

The Compleat Strategist in New York City is one of those awesome, pilgrimage-worthy game shops. It's mighty cramped (ahhh, Manhattan), and has only a limited selection of minis and Reaper minis (although including what looks like all the Mouselings), but it has shelves to the rafters of games and game books, dice and accessories (plushy caltrops?), and a full rack of Reaper paints.

 

Its website is ... a work in progress. Charitably speaking.

[Paheej]

In general I have also found the correlation between great hobby stores and terrible websites.

 

The only exception I have found is Miniature Market which has a good website and decent hobby shop. Websites tend to be expensive if not developing in house - especially if you are going to integrate with your inventory management and logistics. The people who have the skills to do such things (website development with logistics/inventory interfacing) have high demand skillsets that command solid compensation - outside of the range of most hobby shops.

[Slendertroll]

In general I have also found the correlation between great hobby stores and terrible websites.

 

The only exception I have found is Miniature Market which has a good website and decent hobby shop. Websites tend to be expensive if not developing in house - especially if you are going to integrate with your inventory management and logistics. The people who have the skills to do such things (website development with logistics/inventory interfacing) have high demand skillsets that command solid compensation - outside of the range of most hobby shops.

And B&M overhead is an expensive investment for previously online-only stores. Works both ways, really.

[KacyCrawford]

Interesting. I've special ordered a whole handful of Reaper minis from one local game store with no issue recently, and another store has had no shortage of Reaper minis on their walls.

 

I wonder what the full story is here?

 

Where did you order?

[Adept Legacy]

About the FLGS / Website endevour...

 

I live next to a really big city. There used to be 7-10 Local game stores. I've met each owner, as I have gone through the motions of card game, table top, video game cycle at least six times in my life already... and yet, there were some that were tech savvy and some that were not. I have seen all but three of them dissapear in the last 8 years.

 

One was accused of seperating the boosterpacks by weight and removing the foil cards from Yu-gi-oh. Then someone caught the owner.

 

One couldn't keep enough cards in for magic the gathering. (No idea how this is possible)

 

One was a games workshop (and not one single person cried, since there was another one.)

 

And one, was a kind guy, who did everything a human could do to pull people into the store and his business still went under. Bad location I guess.

 

Sometimes sure, it's possible not to keep things in the store due to distribution, but isn't the easist way to stay in business is to know what your customers are looking for? Staying in the business means, knowing what your costs are, knowing what your customers are and staying on top of it. Maybe there is necessary evils of distribution, but maybe, if you want to stay in the game and you know a lot of people want reaper stuff, you give good old reaper a call, or look online for who else wants to be the middle man. There are tons of them. I think logic and reason really need to overshadow this. If it's something you want, you'll find them if it isn't in your store.

 

My stores don't carry what I would buy, so I don't shop there often. I don't begrudge them about it, I just shop somewhere else. It really is too bad that gone are the days when the thing I wanted was readily available in store. Though there is one local store that does a pretty good job and I buy stuff sometimes.

 

I think the biggest factor that stores are missing out on, is that they don't seem to encourage the reasons people should get excited about a thing. Proper marketing can make a world of difference. It's too bad that the days of companies coming to your city with games and fun events where people put stuff in your hands in the western provinces of Canada are now gone and far away. I feel like the kickstarter was essentially this. A company, branching out to me, in order to invigorate my interest in the company. (It totally worked by the way)

 

Wanna sell a tabletop game? Invite someone to play it.

Miniatures aren't selling in your store? Show them how to paint them, maybe showcase some in your store.

People aren't buying your cards? Well you're doomed there. I have no idea how to sell collectibles. (LOL)

 

Sometimes the best marketing is cheaply done. Don't blame a service. If your service sucks, get a new service. That is what I would do.

That being said. I gave up on my plan to run a game store, since in building my business proposal, I couldn't manage to find a store for reasonable rent in my no card games, no Warhammer business model... so YMMV.

 

Maybe I should get some phone numbers together and talk to this local game store. It feels like it would be silly to give up now.

[Inarah]

 

 

One couldn't keep enough cards in for magic the gathering. (No idea how this is possible)

 

At the height of the MtG craze WotC had a policy of artificial scarcity. If a store ordered ten cases of cards they got sent two. In order to get enough cards to meet demand many stores were ordering *way* over what they could pay for. Well, eventually things slowed down and the bill for all those hundreds of cases of cards came due.... A lot of card shops folded up because they couldn't pay for what they'd ordered, and the distributor or WotC shut them off. Shop owners who didn't want to get in over their head got stuck not being able to get enough product when demand was highest.

[Doug Sundseth]

 

 

 

One couldn't keep enough cards in for magic the gathering. (No idea how this is possible)

 

At the height of the MtG craze WotC had a policy of artificial scarcity. If a store ordered ten cases of cards they got sent two. In order to get enough cards to meet demand many stores were ordering *way* over what they could pay for. Well, eventually things slowed down and the bill for all those hundreds of cases of cards came due.... A lot of card shops folded up because they couldn't pay for what they'd ordered, and the distributor or WotC shut them off. Shop owners who didn't want to get in over their head got stuck not being able to get enough product when demand was highest.

 

 

Mostly the scarcity wasn't artificial. There were very few companies that had the right cardstock. (Magic cards use a special multi-layer card stock with an opaque middle layer.) And really only one company that had the right dies for cutting the cards to size. WotC used Cartamundi in Belgium for all their printing and was bottle-necked at the printer and constrained by international shipping. The early popularity of the game was a big surprise and the logistics were a huge problem. (Sound familiar? )

 

Wizards responded to the shortage by prioritizing their early customers over later adopters (both retailers and distributors).

 

The biggest ordering problems came from stores and distributors assuming that CCGs as a category were all going to be hugely popular rather than just M:tG. And to start with they were somewhat correct, because everyone was trying to find other games that were as compelling as Magic. When the crash hit, it was mostly those other games that crashed and left stores and distributors with pallet upon pallet of dead stock (and tied-up capital). In many ways, this was indistinguishable from other fads (see Pogs, for instance) and had similar results for stores that didn't manage their stock correctly.

[kaosweaver]

 

I love gaming stores but it's long been an issue with them that many are badly run by people who are more interested in the hobby, not in running a business.

 

Lol - this is exactly what I've told me son who's planning on opening a store (with my money). I've been drilling this in to him - you are a business that happens to sell games, not a hobby that happens to be a business.

[kaosweaver]

Is there some kind of a correlation between great stores and horrible websites?

 

 

 

Not really, I'm shocked people don't treat their websites like people used to treat their yellow page ad (dating myself here) but back when I ran a shop (Computers, in the 90's) - we spent something like $12,000 a year for an ad in the yellow pages large enough to be seen. It was a detailed process with layouts and proofs, it was critical to get right because it was one of the core ways people found you back then. Websites should have replaced this, the difference being, I suppose, is anyone can claim they can do a website whereas the yellow pages was limited to the single provider. Now, I create websites for a living and I'm really good at it but I know it is darn near impossible to get people to spend money on a website. Not that people have to hire the best or even a top tier development company - however, if you're going to put out a website, it is a permanent 24x7 marketing advertisement tool, even if you go really simple, you should still hire professionals to make it happen. A good website is often the difference between who I'll spend money on and who I won't. And I don't mean "good" like I would do them (I'm very good at what I do, and I cost it too) - I mean designed adequately enough with a reasonably pleasing layout and no stupid crap on the page and absolutely no automatic sounds on a page load (I do give bands a minor break on this one since they are selling music and all). With a little leg work from a client, a few minor design elements and such, most people can put up a reasonable brochure site for a few hundred, under $1k for sure. IT would contain all of the critical needed data (product lines, pictures of shop, CONTACT INFORMATION (swear I wanna kill people who "design sites" and leave this off), map/directions, etc) - can't even get people to spend that when I'm practically giving away my time. Cash is king for small businesses.

[Nocturne]

One couldn't keep enough cards in for magic the gathering. (No idea how this is possible)

 

Someone accused our local store of removing the rares from Magic boosters (they wern't). He and two of his friends raised the issue by screaming at the owners wife when she was in the store on her own.

The next time they came back the owner held the door open for them and shut and locked it once the first one was through, who didn't notice until his friends started banging on the window. It was politely suggested he not come back to that store.

[Crusoe the Painter]

In the Seattle area, when I moved there in 2004, nearly all game stores I found near me had died, all the ones listed as Reaper distribs, were dead.

 

Its started swinging back the other way again. There are finally some good stores in Seattle and other areas.

 

Card Kingdom opened a game store in Ballard, its pretty awesome.

 

Ray Gun Games on Cap Hill is pretty neat, but tiny, and mostly board games.

 

Mugu Games in everett started in a tiny little shop, and now has moved to a large space next to the Everett Harbor Freight. Decent rpg seletion, and a good selection of Warmachine and Warhammer with a little reaper thrown in. Lots of terrain and tables. Not just a MtG store.

 

Some of the old game shops in 2004 that survived from the last downturn are dire though. Musty games, few figures, etc. There is (was?) one in Green Lake that was terrible.

[Dadcubed]

I think it's fair to say that MTG keeps many shops doors opens and the rest of the hobby is now on the side lines from a revenue point of view.

 

If I was going to run a store (I've considered doing so):

 

Have space to run the big magic tournaments

Have lots of MTG cards always

Have a sales assistant demoing and helping people builds decks etc etc

 

The off shoot of this is that:

 

The space for the tournaments could be used for Roleplaying and wargaming when it wasn't tournament time

I could put anything I liked on the shelves hobby wise and cater for the less available stuff in the UK

 

But I do think that GW stuff is on the wain. The cash cow is MTG IMO.

[Dr.Bedlam]

Most of the GOOD game stores I know of are mom and pop type affairs, or run by young businessmen/gamer types, doin' what they love.

There's nothing wrong with this. But one or two or three people running a retail establishment are going to be rather busy, and are unlikely to have a lot of time to invest in creating a decent web page and updating it to the standards the geekosphere demands. And as a rule, they're marginal enough that paying a web designer and/or webmonkey a decent enough wage to make it worthwhile simply isn't feasible. I know a couple places that have all they can do to keep the tournament schedules updated on a weekly basis.

[MonkeySloth]

 

One couldn't keep enough cards in for magic the gathering. (No idea how this is possible)

 

Someone accused our local store of removing the rares from Magic boosters (they wern't). He and two of his friends raised the issue by screaming at the owners wife when she was in the store on her own.

The next time they came back the owner held the door open for them and shut and locked it once the first one was through, who didn't notice until his friends started banging on the window. It was politely suggested he not come back to that store.

 

 

One of the store owner's wife that I know probably would have beat them up for that behavior.

 

There are always some people that no matter what a store does will find a reason to either be personally insulted by something that never happened or someone wasn't aware that happened. There's one guy out here that moves from store to store every 3-4 months because some employee said or did something that offended him. Once he goes through them all he starts over again.

[Club]

 

 

The thing is, distributors lie*. They have always lied. I firmly believe that they will always lie until they're out of business. Specifically, it is SOP for distributors to say that they can't get stock from manufacturers because the manufacturer is out of stock. They say this when they're on a credit hold, because they haven't paid the mfr for the stock already delivered. They say this when they under order and run out. They say this when they don't know who the mfr is. And they say this when they don't like the manufacturer.

 

QFT.

 

It's not just distributors - stores will do it to - like when they haven't paid their distributor.

 

I see it in my own industry. It comes down to "Let's blame the other guy" and it's a mentality that's killing this country. Customers who need service from us (a manufacturer) will lie that their distributor won't give them service, when the real reason is they own their distributor money. Or distributors will lie to their customers and say that they can't get a part because we're out of stock on them - and the real reason is the distributor is on credit hold with us or the parts guy at the distributor doesn't want to do the research on what part they actually need.

 

 

Basically, anytime you have a middle man, you have the opportunity for people to lie.

 

 

 

OK, I can buy the quite real possibility that that's the problem. Fact remains, the store I started this thread about hasn't had -any- of the new bones in stock, and hasn't been able to get bones into the store this year at all. There's a knight, a spider, and two bugbears on the wall, with around twenty pegs waiting for refill.

 

Maybe it's the distro, maybe it's Reaper lagging behind demand, maybe it's just the fact that he really should have got one of the retailer pledges. Appologies to anyone offended by how I started this topic, I don't want him to reduce his reaper wall-space. It's where I do my reaper shopping, in order to support the play-tables he has, and he's also the only remaining place to stock more than a handful of RPG books in the area.