So recently me and a few friends have been joking about opening a gaming store. We are beginning to get more and more serious about it now and our current plan is to include consoles (xbox one , ps4, Nintendo 64) along with MTG being the primary focus of the store. We have also talked about allowing people to bring in laptops and desktops and hosting LOL,wow arena, and HOS / Smite tournaments. Between the 4 of us we have a decent size magic collection and it's growing every day. Our current location we have a location in mind that is available. It is about a half a mile from a high school and middle school as well as a decent size mall. The store is also about
A 1/4 mile from a main freeway exit.
So recently me and a few friends have been joking about opening a gaming store. We are beginning to get more and more serious about it now and our current plan is to include consoles (xbox one , ps4, Nintendo 64) along with MTG being the primary focus of the store. We have also talked about allowing people to bring in laptops and desktops and hosting LOL,wow arena, and HOS / Smite tournaments. Between the 4 of us we have a decent size magic collection and it's growing every day. Our current location we have a location in mind that is available. It is about a half a mile from a high school and middle school as well as a decent size mall. The store is also about
A 1/4 mile from a main freeway exit.
Let me know what you think!!!!!
Do you have any previous experience with store ownership or is this just a "fun" idea?
To answer your question both me and one of my friends are currently going to schools majoring in business. We don't' have any experience owning our own business so to speak but we all have knowledge in retail we are just looking for some tips or helpful ideas. Maybe some stuff we should consider in the store or things people wish they had in the stores they visit???
To answer your question both me and one of my friends are currently going to schools majoring in business. We don't' have any experience owning our own business so to speak but we all have knowledge in retail we are just looking for some tips or helpful ideas. Maybe some stuff we should consider in the store or things people wish they had in the stores they visit???
Here are a couple random tips. I don't own a store, and never plan to.
1) Keep "your collection" and "the store's collection" separate. Don't be tempted to take something from the store for your own deck without actually buying it from the store.
2) Cleanliness is next to godliness. Our local store here was filthy. They closed (for undisclosed reasons) and now there's a new store in town in a different location. The owner keeps everything clean, and the difference is huge. Now it's a place that I actually would feel comfortable hanging out, or even taking my wife.
3) Be polite, outgoing, friendly, and social. You are the face of your store, until you hit it big and are able to hire a bunch of employees to do this. If you make a good impression, I'm likely to come back.
4) Stock the products that are appropriate to your area. This one's tough. You have to figure out what's played, and cater to that. Our local store has about one of each revised dual, four of each Zendikar fetch, and binders upon binders of Standard cards in stock. He's got a handful of Legacy staples, but nobody here plays Legacy, so it's more what he happened to have available. Modern and Standard are big here, so that's where the singles collection is skewed. You can help shape the demand by running particular formats, but don't go buying playsets of dual lands for stock if nobody has any interest (or capital).
5) Go over your local tax laws. Now do it again. And again. Being an employer is complicated. Being self-employed equally so.
6) Be absolutely, positively sure that you want to do this. Do the math and figure out what your break-even point is. How much do you have to manage in sales in order to stay open? At what point are you merely paying the electric bill with the profits? You'll want to pay yourselves, so figure out how much money you need to make (both gross and net) every month, in order to stay open and not starve (unless you're independently wealthy, in which case, just go for it).
7) Scope out the competition. Where are people in your area currently buying packs/singles? If they're getting packs at Walmart, that's great - you can probably afford to undercut them. Singles are harder, since eBay, TCGPlayer, and Puca are real things. Figure out something special that you can do to incentivize people to buy from you. Frequent shopper rewards, the Random Foil Box, something like that (A store I used to frequent had a huge box of random foils, mostly extra promo cards, and when you spent a certain amount you got to name a color and pull blindly from the box. If you guessed the color right, you got to go again.)
8) Figure out how to handle buying collections. If you're a store, people will try to sell you collections. How much can you afford to do that? How much do you offer such that you get cards that you don't necessarily need, but you maintain goodwill, and occasionally you get cards that you do need? Some stores will just have a few names of customers that they'll call and say "Come buy this guy's collection"; some will say "Give us a day or so to look through and we'll make you an offer"; some will just say "Oh, that's about this many cards, here's $5 per thousand." Or whatever. The point is to have a plan and a budget.
Hope that was somewhat helpful. Sort of a brain dump on a Friday afternoon. Sorry for rambling.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Along with many mods, I've moved shop over to MTGNexus. Come check us out!
Thanks for replying keep throwing any tips or ideas my way!!!
I like the idea of the random foul box something we were thinking of doing is similar but just a 50 cent box where we can keep older cards not in standard or so to allow people to dog through. If they happen to find a decent card worth over 50 cents grays to them. Just an idea to keep people coming in the door.
As we'll we have talked About having different sale days throughout the week. Such as booster sales like 4 for $12 or something similar and something like a case day here all out case cards are discounted.
We have also thought about doing package deals selling boosters with deck boxes or play mats/dice.
Thanks for replying keep throwing any tips or ideas my way!!!
I like the idea of the random foul box something we were thinking of doing is similar but just a 50 cent box where we can keep older cards not in standard or so to allow people to dog through. If they happen to find a decent card worth over 50 cents grays to them. Just an idea to keep people coming in the door.
Not to rain on your ideas, but every store has that.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Along with many mods, I've moved shop over to MTGNexus. Come check us out!
The most important thing is to be properly capitalized. Not just to buy the product and set up costs but months of expenses. Most new businesses lose money for the first few years. If you are not properly capitalized you will be one of the ones that doesn't make it.
All good advice so far. The most important thing I can add is to make sure you have your business structured correctly before you open. I opened as a Sole Proprietor, got reamed on federal taxes due to an unexpected first year's large profit and then had to restructure while doing business. It was an expensive lesson that almost killed us first year. We are now a LLC. I guess what I'm saying is, do your research and structure accordingly before you open your doors.
I know that most shops do bundle deals and sale days I was using that as an example. Thanks got the advice on business structure I'll definitely take those Ito account.
how much is the rent? remember your overhead. just because you can qualify for buying magic products at ~1/2 price and what? a case of six booster box a week per current expansion directly from wizards, doesn't mean that you'll make money. sure they will sell, but the profit margin is razor thin. your profit will come from singles, and you need an endless source of singles.
let's say your booster box price is $72, and if you sell it for 90$ = 18$ gross profit per box
7 cases a week (m15,theroes,ktk block)x 6 boxes per case = 42 boxes a week directly from wizard.
42 box x 18$ = 756$ gross a week.
it isn't a lot after accounting for your overhead. and of course you need to line up a second distributor, because one case a week per expansion just isn't enough. a second distributor will charge slightly more than wizards.
it sounds like fun and games (pun intended, but i really make much more at my job, so i don't mind paying retail for mtg products), running a store is hard work! and you'll end up working more than 40 hours a week if you want to succeed.
now... if you're open to some sort of idea on "retail space sharing" maybe.... that'd work.
Not super relevant, but box prices with shipping are typically 76-80 now (based on quantity and distributor). They were 74.50 before the recent hike from WotC.
I honestly don't see how the stores that are selling them for 90 make money. You typically pay a percent or two for credit cards fees (75%+ of box sales typically), which means you're netting around $10, not factoring in the infinite costs of doing business. That's simply not enough margin without selling a truly insane amount of boxes.
Cheers
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
A 1/4 mile from a main freeway exit.
Let me know what you think!!!!!
Do you have any previous experience with store ownership or is this just a "fun" idea?
WGURBLands!WGURB
WGUInfectWGU
Legacy Lands Primer
Top 8 SCG Oakland 2014
Helpdesk
My Cube on CubeTutor
To answer your question both me and one of my friends are currently going to schools majoring in business. We don't' have any experience owning our own business so to speak but we all have knowledge in retail we are just looking for some tips or helpful ideas. Maybe some stuff we should consider in the store or things people wish they had in the stores they visit???
Here are a couple random tips. I don't own a store, and never plan to.
1) Keep "your collection" and "the store's collection" separate. Don't be tempted to take something from the store for your own deck without actually buying it from the store.
2) Cleanliness is next to godliness. Our local store here was filthy. They closed (for undisclosed reasons) and now there's a new store in town in a different location. The owner keeps everything clean, and the difference is huge. Now it's a place that I actually would feel comfortable hanging out, or even taking my wife.
3) Be polite, outgoing, friendly, and social. You are the face of your store, until you hit it big and are able to hire a bunch of employees to do this. If you make a good impression, I'm likely to come back.
4) Stock the products that are appropriate to your area. This one's tough. You have to figure out what's played, and cater to that. Our local store has about one of each revised dual, four of each Zendikar fetch, and binders upon binders of Standard cards in stock. He's got a handful of Legacy staples, but nobody here plays Legacy, so it's more what he happened to have available. Modern and Standard are big here, so that's where the singles collection is skewed. You can help shape the demand by running particular formats, but don't go buying playsets of dual lands for stock if nobody has any interest (or capital).
5) Go over your local tax laws. Now do it again. And again. Being an employer is complicated. Being self-employed equally so.
6) Be absolutely, positively sure that you want to do this. Do the math and figure out what your break-even point is. How much do you have to manage in sales in order to stay open? At what point are you merely paying the electric bill with the profits? You'll want to pay yourselves, so figure out how much money you need to make (both gross and net) every month, in order to stay open and not starve (unless you're independently wealthy, in which case, just go for it).
7) Scope out the competition. Where are people in your area currently buying packs/singles? If they're getting packs at Walmart, that's great - you can probably afford to undercut them. Singles are harder, since eBay, TCGPlayer, and Puca are real things. Figure out something special that you can do to incentivize people to buy from you. Frequent shopper rewards, the Random Foil Box, something like that (A store I used to frequent had a huge box of random foils, mostly extra promo cards, and when you spent a certain amount you got to name a color and pull blindly from the box. If you guessed the color right, you got to go again.)
8) Figure out how to handle buying collections. If you're a store, people will try to sell you collections. How much can you afford to do that? How much do you offer such that you get cards that you don't necessarily need, but you maintain goodwill, and occasionally you get cards that you do need? Some stores will just have a few names of customers that they'll call and say "Come buy this guy's collection"; some will say "Give us a day or so to look through and we'll make you an offer"; some will just say "Oh, that's about this many cards, here's $5 per thousand." Or whatever. The point is to have a plan and a budget.
Hope that was somewhat helpful. Sort of a brain dump on a Friday afternoon. Sorry for rambling.
I like the idea of the random foul box something we were thinking of doing is similar but just a 50 cent box where we can keep older cards not in standard or so to allow people to dog through. If they happen to find a decent card worth over 50 cents grays to them. Just an idea to keep people coming in the door.
We have also thought about doing package deals selling boosters with deck boxes or play mats/dice.
Not to rain on your ideas, but every store has that.
let's say your booster box price is $72, and if you sell it for 90$ = 18$ gross profit per box
7 cases a week (m15,theroes,ktk block)x 6 boxes per case = 42 boxes a week directly from wizard.
42 box x 18$ = 756$ gross a week.
it isn't a lot after accounting for your overhead. and of course you need to line up a second distributor, because one case a week per expansion just isn't enough. a second distributor will charge slightly more than wizards.
it sounds like fun and games (pun intended, but i really make much more at my job, so i don't mind paying retail for mtg products), running a store is hard work! and you'll end up working more than 40 hours a week if you want to succeed.
now... if you're open to some sort of idea on "retail space sharing" maybe.... that'd work.
check out these videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BEhoyA4ZLk
I honestly don't see how the stores that are selling them for 90 make money. You typically pay a percent or two for credit cards fees (75%+ of box sales typically), which means you're netting around $10, not factoring in the infinite costs of doing business. That's simply not enough margin without selling a truly insane amount of boxes.
Cheers