Purchasing a Videogame store: What would make you want to come to my place?

[quote name='bingbangboom']We hope to make it till Christmas, right now we are working on a deal with the landlord. We hope to earn back a chunk of that money with the holidays and are throwing a 40% off used games sale. Right now we are sitting on over $40k in used products and while we do ok, that is dollars we really need to bring in new games and hardware. We have done a few things to hopefully get the word out but we really feel that the holidays will be our strongest chance to let people know about us.[/QUOTE]

Why don't you put some of that used product on Amazon or Ebay. It will at the very least get some cash coming in.

Im still a bit confused on why you thought this would be a good idea in the first place, but that is for another time I guess. May I ask how much in the hole financially you put yourself in with this idea?

What exactly are you doing to let people know about you? Unless you find some miracle way to let mom's and grandma's know about your store, Im not quite sure what you are hoping for. They are going to be the bulk of the Holiday season. You are competing against Gamestop, Walmart, Best Buy, Amazon, Ebay etc... What exactly is your plan to get customers to your place. I don't want to sound negative but this whole process doesn't sound very well thought out.
 
Every play n trade i've been to closed down.. Good luck to you.
Considered console repair? RROD is a huge deal, it would be a way to supplement your profit. Might also want to do gaming cafe type deal/lan center. Keep people hanging out at the shop, and they are likely to spend money.
 
We will be suspending operations at our Play N Trade store this Sunday. It is unfortunate we have to do it right in the holiday season, but we are trying to be proactive and are currently looking for a new location. It has been a very long journey with this entire process but I would like to thank everyone that has read or commented on this thread. Hopefully this will just mean a new and fresh start with a more successful outcome in the months to come.
 
[quote name='bingbangboom']We will be suspending operations at our Play N Trade store this Sunday. It is unfortunate we have to do it right in the holiday season, but we are trying to be proactive and are currently looking for a new location. It has been a very long journey with this entire process but I would like to thank everyone that has read or commented on this thread. Hopefully this will just mean a new and fresh start with a more successful outcome in the months to come.[/QUOTE]

Damn, sorry to hear that. Was the lease just too expensive? Are you still going to be a Play N Trade if you reopen?
 
Thanks for the comments. The lease was too expensive for the lack of any foot traffic. We had hoped things would change for the holidays but based on our projections, it would not increase much and then would just drop for January.

We will still be Play N Trade and I am working with the area developer to get out of the lease and secure another partner. Getting an additional partner is really the only way to get additional capital to move the store. The AD has people that are interested in getting into the franchise but being more of a silent partner. The biggest hurdle was the location and the people involved at PNT now state that this location should have never been approved. The people that were involved in that process are long gone and they are trying to make good and have more successful stores. For a partner, it is a less expensive endeavor than buying a Play N Trade outright to go build one from scratch. We have fixtures, experience and inventory. The hope is to be up and running in a few months if things go to plan. We will see but we continue to remain hopeful.
 
Ouch dude....... years of time, money, and effort to have to close down after a few months..... somewhat shows that it's very difficult to compete with walmart and gamestop...... Live and learn...... I think the best thing to do is take your stuff online, that way you don't have to worry about fixed costs such as the physical store.......also, it's tough to earn money off of video game players, especially on this website since we are called " cheapassgamer" afterall
 
[quote name='bostonfrontier']Ouch dude....... years of time, money, and effort to have to close down after a few months..... somewhat shows that it's very difficult to compete with walmart and gamestop...... Live and learn...... I think the best thing to do is take your stuff online, that way you don't have to worry about fixed costs such as the physical store.......also, it's tough to earn money off of video game players, especially on this website since we are called " cheapassgamer" afterall[/QUOTE]

Yeah, it is a disappointment because we did put a ton of time and money into it and really got nothing in return. Was overall just very sad, I mean, what sucked really is telling the kids that you are closing. Some we got to say goodbye to, and it was pretty hard especially talking to the parents for some reason. I felt like I let them down most of all because the parents really understood that this thing was different and they all knew that it was hard on us. They knew that they wouldn't have another spot like this they could just walk to and hang out which sucks.

We have looked at online but I think it is just so hard to really handle that. The main thing with that sort of set up is shipping and depending on the game, that makes it hard. Used games is one thing, which I don't think many people buy online plus it would be harder to get those games quickly from trades. But for new games, for a smaller place like us, you really make no money off it. You sell a game for $59.99 plus shipping... when you buy the game for say $51.00 sometimes more or less. In addition then you are competing against Amazon which has crazy prizing on everything.

From my experience, we just didn't have enough money to keep it going ourselves. We were under capitalized from the beginning and didn't realize it till we were close to opening. This sort of thing can work, you just need a ton of money to make it happen. The business itself would need to change too because I don't think you can open a "Gamestop" and make money. You have to do a birthday center/repair center to really pull in some money.

Also the economy really sucks. This is something we really didn't plan on when we had opened or did our business plan so long ago. From what I have been hearing, it isn't doing too good still, even with holiday sales. It is good... but not great. This is the time of year that you need it to be great.
 
[quote name='bingbangboom']

We have looked at online but I think it is just so hard to really handle that. The main thing with that sort of set up is shipping and depending on the game, that makes it hard. Used games is one thing, which I don't think many people buy online plus it would be harder to get those games quickly from trades. But for new games, for a smaller place like us, you really make no money off it. You sell a game for $59.99 plus shipping... when you buy the game for say $51.00 sometimes more or less. In addition then you are competing against Amazon which has crazy prizing on everything.

From my experience, we just didn't have enough money to keep it going ourselves. We were under capitalized from the beginning and didn't realize it till we were close to opening. This sort of thing can work, you just need a ton of money to make it happen. The business itself would need to change too because I don't think you can open a "Gamestop" and make money. You have to do a birthday center/repair center to really pull in some money.
[/QUOTE]

If you are unwilling to try the online market, then you should never have opened your store. The days of a brick-and-mortar game store surviving simply via foot traffic are LONG gone. Also, you need to really utilize sales that occur from large entities to your advantage if you are going to have new games...and even then, your average Joe Customer is going to go to where they think of first, and at this point, this isn't your fledgling PnT.

The odds are always stacked against new franchise or independent stores. I opened my own a little over 3 years ago, and while we tend to run in the red to varying degrees, we are learning to evolve and try different avenues to find cash flow. You honestly have not given yourself enough time to really establish your store, and while you obviously spent money, have you truly invested all of yourself that you could in what you were doing? Heck, there are times when I honestly wonder how much more I could be doing for my own place. I love video games...but rarely have the chance to play them anymore, and when I do, there is a certain degree of guilt that I feel for not utilizing my time more effectively. I tend to live vicariously through the gamers who do frequent my store. :)

The economy is trying for everyone, but there are chances to make money. It surely was a factor in your decision to shutter your doors, but really, it sounds like you needed to be willing to adapt to the modern consumer a tad more. I wish you the best, and hopefully you can learn from the abbreviated experience you had and use that knowledge for future gains!
 
This one is easy: PRICE IS KING.

Sell your games for $5 less than Wal-Mart/Target/Amazon/BestBuy.

If you can somehow manage to do that, I will buy from you every single time.

And there are some really great other ideas here too!

EDIT: OOPS! Late to the party. Grand opening, Grand closing. Good luck relocating.
 
Sorry to hear it didn't work out.

A game store has the odds against it already with most people either buying online or from big box stores like Wal-mart, Best Buy, Gamestop etc. And there's just no way for a smaller store to make a profit trying to consistently beat prices of places like Amazon and Wal-Mart on new games.

Used games is the only chance, and all the know-nothings just go to Gamestop, and the more informed are going to be trading on Goozex or sites like these.

Add in the economy the past year+ and there was really not much chance of succeeding. Point being, it sucks balls but don't beat yourself up over it. Likely nothing you could have done would have succeeded in this economy.
 
[quote name='jesusjones']If you are unwilling to try the online market, then you should never have opened your store. The days of a brick-and-mortar game store surviving simply via foot traffic are LONG gone. Also, you need to really utilize sales that occur from large entities to your advantage if you are going to have new games...and even then, your average Joe Customer is going to go to where they think of first, and at this point, this isn't your fledgling PnT.

The odds are always stacked against new franchise or independent stores. I opened my own a little over 3 years ago, and while we tend to run in the red to varying degrees, we are learning to evolve and try different avenues to find cash flow. You honestly have not given yourself enough time to really establish your store, and while you obviously spent money, have you truly invested all of yourself that you could in what you were doing? Heck, there are times when I honestly wonder how much more I could be doing for my own place. I love video games...but rarely have the chance to play them anymore, and when I do, there is a certain degree of guilt that I feel for not utilizing my time more effectively. I tend to live vicariously through the gamers who do frequent my store. :)

The economy is trying for everyone, but there are chances to make money. It surely was a factor in your decision to shutter your doors, but really, it sounds like you needed to be willing to adapt to the modern consumer a tad more. I wish you the best, and hopefully you can learn from the abbreviated experience you had and use that knowledge for future gains![/QUOTE]

We were not authorized to sell games online per the franchise agreement. Again, what I know now to what I know then and what really crippled me initially was the franchise overall. If we had done this ourselves, we would have had that money to invest in the store and not suffered severe delays and go the location we had originally wanted.

It is hard to go back and pick and choose, but really I wonder what it would have been like if I had been completely independent. Can't really look back at it right now but we were there all the time. I rarely had the chance to play a new game because I was so busy with doing ordering, marketing, running the store. Again we did open in Feb, but we should have opened last year in the summertime, that didn't go according to plan.
 
Yeah, I was always curious bout the decision to go with the Play N Trade franchise.

Seems the restrictions would outweigh any benefits you get from slapping on a franchise name the vast majority of people have never heard of.
 
i was hoping to visit the store one day too. sad to see it go.

my 2 cents.

the rising business of gamestop is actually putting some of the smaller game stores out of business. when you have 2 or 3 gamestops at the mall you really outta do something they're not doing.

one thing i noticed though living in nyc (14 years) is that alot of the indie stores do offer something that the big chains dont. whether its small electronics or cell phones (the boost mobile cards are big here) or even repair services. believe it or not, the repair services do work. until a gamestop opens around the corner #-o

i know everything was said and done in this thread.. but i do hope you get a better place that has alot of foot traffic and a slightly better overhead. start small again and become big. if a gamestop around the corner is threatening your business, use the ever so popular glitter gun and magazine rack trick. good luck.
 
[quote name='bingbangboom']We were not authorized to sell games online per the franchise agreement. Again, what I know now to what I know then and what really crippled me initially was the franchise overall. If we had done this ourselves, we would have had that money to invest in the store and not suffered severe delays and go the location we had originally wanted.[/QUOTE]


But - you can "buy" the games yourself and then sell them online. The owners of one of the stores near me did that to get around corporates policy (at least on stuff they knew could never be sold properly in a B&M store).

It's sad to hear your store wasn't doing so hot. My one question:

Did you price all your items as suggested by corporate's POS, or did you reprice merchandise to eBay/Amazon prices?

The one PnT store near me that went out of business priced to eBay on most of their stuff. And you can not do that in a B&M store. I'll tell you why: eBay is a market of millions of customers. At any given point in time there is probably only 1 or 2 people willing to pay X amount for rare game Y. A B&M store is a market of 100+ customers. A 2:1,000,000 ratio is NOT going to transfer to a market of 100. You need to price to at least 20 - 30% under eBay on all items.

Two other stores in my area will be going out of business soon due to horrible pricing. The two stores that make it a point to obey the POS' pricing are actually two of the most successful franchises in the US (Cary, NC and Garner, NC).

From what I've heard, though, PnT corporate really likes to fuck its franchise owners over. The store that closed down had a laundry list of complaints about corporate and they were all really legitimate concerns.

If you heed my word about pricing and can attract decent foot traffic (or find a way around not being able to sell online), you will be successful on your next try.

Just remember 20 - 30% below eBay, minimum. If you price any higher than 20% below eBay you will begin to see inventory hemorrhaging. Also, don't buy the corporate BS about "new products are where the money is." The money is in used products. Run weekly deals to attract more used trade ins at your store and only order enough new products to meet demand unless it is an overwhelmingly popular game.

Also, now that I just read the entirety of what I initially quoted. You have the exact same complaint as the owners of the closed store in my area. Corporate would not let them open their store where they had originally wanted it to be. Seems like corporate really needs to stop forcing locations on franchise owners.
 
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I wouldn't feel to down on yourself, there have been plenty of failures and thats part of being an entrepreneur. If anything you should feel good you took the risk.

You now need to find it in yourself to keep going so what one store didn't work out who says you need corporate? The only plus when dealing with a franchise is they have a "proven" method to success. But in the world of games I don't think this really matters keep your head up and good luck.

Take a look at this quote its from the movie Blow

"Sometimes you're flush and sometimes you're bust, and when you're up, it's never as good as it seems, and when you're down, you never think you'll be up again, but life goes on."-Blow
 
There is 1 play n trade in Kansas City and it sucks. WHy? THey charge the same prices as the gamestop the next plaza over but have none of the selection.
 
The Play n Trade area closed down about the beginning of November. They were in a mall location with a GameStop near them. I wish you luck in your endevors and hope things work out for you!
 
Thanks for the comments.

Honestly, not sure how much we are out on. We are still working on that process and trying to see if we can either get a partner or just sell everything. It was a huge undertaking for me and wish I could go back and reverse things with what I know now, but no time machine.

As far as our pricing, new was standard, you know how that is, but we did mark down games, $5-10 off if I felt it hasn't sold or there would be a price drop soon anyway.

We had a multiple of sales including Buy 2 Get 1 Free, buy 1, get 1 50% off and even did a 40% off on used games. Again, this doesn't really matter unless the foot traffic was there. We also checked our pricing to gauge odds and ends, you know the retro stuff. We did repairs and even revamped Corporate's repair pricing because it was all over the place. I was on a team to help look into improve it but never really got anywhere with it.

Truth is that I was way too young for something like this, I mean at the time i was like 23 or 24 when I first heard about it. Thought I knew everything and I don't. It has been a humbling experience for me and part of me really wants to continue and give it another shot and another part of me wants to move on and just work somewhere where I don't have to worry about all this mess. In reality, it is just money and money comes and money goes, even though it was a large chunk. I am still fairly young so, hopefully that helps I guess.
 
binbangboom, i've been following the thread for some time now. I'm sorry to hear of your story, but I'm sure you'll be back on your feet again soon.

Thanks for sharing your story. I was once interested in starting a Playntrade, but decided against it when I just couldn't get the numbers to add up. I'm sure glad I didn't. In fact, in CA they suspended franchise selling because of legal issues stemming from owner complaints. Many of the stores have closed in California, and the owners that I talked to did not seem to happy with their investments. Like you mentioned, hardly any $ is made on new games and the "model" is based on used game sales. Very difficult it seems with the expensive overhead costs of keeping up a store, and losing a cut to the franchise owner.

Did you guys end up closing down, or did you find a new place?
 
-Don't sell used games $5 cheaper than a new one :p
-Discount cards are great, when they don't cost $15
-DON'T be an annoying salesman.

I wish you all the best!
 
1. Good sales
2. Better trade in the competitiion
3. Better prices on used games
4. Having old school games/systems
5. Tourneys/events/etc
6. Game systems hooked up in store for sure to try out games.
 
Hey Bing, I spent the majority of yesterday reading the entire thread. All 54 pages of it.
Saddened me that the store didn't make it but I'm curious as to where you ended up now.
Did you open up a new store? What'd you do with the inventory? Did you pay off the debt yet?

This entire thread was really insightful for me. Gained new ideas to use in the future and learned from the mistakes that were made here.

My bf has a videogame store in the Bronx. It's been there for quite a while now I think like 3 years? I'm not sure really. Its a small little independent store and everyone in the neighborhood goes there. There's a gamestop across the parkway (15 minute walk I think?) but no one goes there cause they don't like the walk and gamestop rips people off. It's also awesome that he knows a lot of people all over nyc that are willing to do the 1 hour commute to his store too.

I want to give a go at opening an indie store if I ever raise my credit enough to get approved for a loan and I want to help improve his (I have mad ideas now thanks to this thread). I think it'd work out for me in nyc (aside from the lease) if I decided to branch off on my own because its mostly independent stores out there anyway. I want it to be something like videogamesnewyork but cleaner and a tad more organized lol. God I love that store. Even though I know most of the things in it are overpriced but I love being surrounded by so many retro games... stacks and stacks and stacks of games. We always come out with something.

Anyway, I hope things worked out well for you after your long and tedious adventure [=


P.S. thanks to this thread, I found CAG and am very very happy I did =D don't know why I haven't found this place sooner cause I'm a post fiend.
 
Hi everyone, been a very long time since my last post. It has been a challenging road and still on it but the good news is that we did just sign a new lease for a better location. Hopefully we have taken our bumps and will use this opportunity to its fullest. I was very sad and upset the way we left but sometimes you have to do what you have to do and in the end we think it will be worth it. The new location has more traffic, better tenants and to my knowledge no Gamestop anywhere. It is also a college town with tons of young people which makes marketing much easier.

Thanks to those who have read all these pages, I really didn't think it would turn out like this in the beginning but this isn't the end. I will continue to talk about what we have been doing and answering some of the questions...

Still in debt, but thanks to my area developer we are working out a plan how to figure that out and got additional investors to reopen. We hope to open the new store in a few months and hopefully we won't have the same struggles we originally had when we opened the first time. Again, this is not really a get rich quick type of thing... it is pretty much pay off the bills and get out of the hole we got in. We are smarter, all of us including Play N Trade so that helps.
 
I wish you the best bing! This has been a great thread to read. I think that if you open a store in a college town you will do VERY well. I remember my Freshman year here at the U of A (AZ), we had a small store in our student union called RePlay Entertainment. They were run through the bookstore and was a great place to buy games, music, and movies. Unfortunately, the bookstore did not support them very well and they ended up closing my Sophomore year. I was pretty sad since I was a frequent customer there. The bookstore ended up taking over their stock and are now selling games for ridiculous prices! (No one should pay $60 for the Orange Box when it is $19.99 everywhere else)

I guess the point of that story was that independently owned stores that take care of their customers and are easily accessible for college students can become gold mines! I'm sure you will do well in any case with your new knowledge. I wish you the best!
 
[quote name='kburns10']I wish you the best bing! This has been a great thread to read. I think that if you open a store in a college town you will do VERY well. I remember my Freshman year here at the U of A (AZ), we had a small store in our student union called RePlay Entertainment. They were run through the bookstore and was a great place to buy games, music, and movies. Unfortunately, the bookstore did not support them very well and they ended up closing my Sophomore year. I was pretty sad since I was a frequent customer there. The bookstore ended up taking over their stock and are now selling games for ridiculous prices! (No one should pay $60 for the Orange Box when it is $19.99 everywhere else)

I guess the point of that story was that independently owned stores that take care of their customers and are easily accessible for college students can become gold mines! I'm sure you will do well in any case with your new knowledge. I wish you the best![/QUOTE]

Thanks for the comments :)

It is a college town but it isn't... sort of weird. We are in a big plaza but it is a few blocks away so hopefully not too far for that traffic. They said they don't really get much of the college kids in the area but also don't think that there is a reason to, hopefully we can change that.
 
[quote name='bingbangboom']Hi everyone, been a very long time since my last post. It has been a challenging road and still on it but the good news is that we did just sign a new lease for a better location. Hopefully we have taken our bumps and will use this opportunity to its fullest. I was very sad and upset the way we left but sometimes you have to do what you have to do and in the end we think it will be worth it. The new location has more traffic, better tenants and to my knowledge no Gamestop anywhere. It is also a college town with tons of young people which makes marketing much easier.

Thanks to those who have read all these pages, I really didn't think it would turn out like this in the beginning but this isn't the end. I will continue to talk about what we have been doing and answering some of the questions...

Still in debt, but thanks to my area developer we are working out a plan how to figure that out and got additional investors to reopen. We hope to open the new store in a few months and hopefully we won't have the same struggles we originally had when we opened the first time. Again, this is not really a get rich quick type of thing... it is pretty much pay off the bills and get out of the hole we got in. We are smarter, all of us including Play N Trade so that helps.[/QUOTE]

Not to be a downer, but you need to get out RIGHT NOW before the damage becomes worse. Obviously bankruptcy is an option, but there is a reason that we don't see Play N Trade threads on this website. If you want to get out of debt, sell the rest of your inventory online without any overhead and pay off whatever you can. I am telling you right now you are making a bad decision trying to do the same thing over again in a different location. If u try it again I hope I am wrong, but honestly in my opinion the same thing is going to happen again.
 
[quote name='schuerm26']Not to be a downer, but you need to get out RIGHT NOW before the damage becomes worse. Obviously bankruptcy is an option, but there is a reason that we don't see Play N Trade threads on this website. If you want to get out of debt, sell the rest of your inventory online without any overhead and pay off whatever you can. I am telling you right now you are making a bad decision trying to do the same thing over again in a different location. If u try it again I hope I am wrong, but honestly in my opinion the same thing is going to happen again.[/QUOTE]

I understand where you are coming from but you don't exactly know the entire situation and truthfully, this is the best outcome. The thing many people have to realize is that "Play N Trade" is still mainly a local videogame store. I am being realistic about the Play N Trade brand and I can't really do much about that and nationally, it is out of my hands. They are doing some different things to create a better web presence including a new website with online ordering which would really help with websites such as this. I really don't hope for the same outcome but without all the facts and full explanation, this is the best option available.
 
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