Wellington Game Shop

Wargame Supplies has closed. Herewith an attempt at a brain-dump of the huge volume of material that has come to light in thinking about opening a game shop in Wellington, and incorporates suggestions and ideas from discussions and emails with many folks (see Acknowledgements below).

Why have other Wellington shops failed? What can we learn?

• Owners lost interest in the day-to-day of the shop.
• Staff became stranded and unable to execute the good ideas and decisions they had.
• Lack of sufficient side-sales to supplement income.
• Lack of involvement in the local gaming communities and events.
• Poorly lit retail space.
• Poor foot traffic combined with a lack of marketing or outreach to potential buyers (who were mostly in the aforementioned communities and at the aforementioned events!).
• Lack of a system for tracking customer orders. I had Maharaja on order for nearly SEVEN YEARS before I finally gave up a few weeks ago and bought it on Mighty Ape (sorry Dave @ SB, you didn't have it in stock! :)
• Increased competition from online shops (see above!)
• Poor after hours access to be able to host events.

Location

There is a large, relatively cheap space at lot 211 Left Bank Arcade, off Cuba Street opposite the Bristol. It's next to Satay Kingdom (map). Wellington retail like most places seems to be a trade-off between foot traffic and lease price. A cheap venue with less traffic would probably be okay since customers would be more "regular" than the average high street shop.

Regardless, a good venue that can host events needs to be large. This precludes most high-street locations unless I win Lotto. Ideally it can be divided or partitioned into two areas, where the back-room can be used as an event space so as not to encroach on the retail space for other customers.

Decor

Second-hand curtains. As long as they're not tatty, and a nice plain colour without too much pattern, they are a very cheap way to make a large room look classy and hide a multitude of poor plasterwork and the like. Especially nice when combined with relatively cheap pendant lights and LED up-lights.

Supporting stock

Board games attract a fairly identifiable and particular audience - usually loyal, repeat buyers who have done their research on BGG, often like to build up collections, and don't mind plonking $50-150 on a good board game. But they are a high margin, low volume product. To survive in a Wellington retail context, a shop needs higher volume material to support its primary goal of board game sales. Here are some ideas.

Collectible Card Games

Such as Magic The Gathering, Pokemon, Yugioh, et al. I gather that the local Wellington MTG folks have to put up with a shop that treats them like second-class citizens, and does very little to support their events and tournaments, and even making sales can be problematic. This would be an easy win, since a FNM event (Friday Night Magic) can be supported and grown into something that can definitely help with the regular weekly income, since it involves sales of starter and booster packs, as well as accessories, slips, and so on.

Comics

I have little interest in comics, and Wellington already has at least two other comic shops. I gather they take up a lot of space for the volume and margin of sales generated... especially when board games are already taking up a lot of space.

Figurines

Boo! Way too much shelf space for way too little in sales. Also not interested.

Miniatures

Definitely. Increases nerd factor. But maybe not Warhammer stuff since they dictate margins and odd retail space conditions, and there's already another shop in town. But there is not a shop anywhere in the Wellington region that properly supports miniatures folks - Warmachine and Hordes from Privateer Press, Malifaux from Wyrd, and Infinity from Corvus Belli, as well as paints, accessories, mats and boards, scenery and so on. Some of these accessories could definitely be supplied from:

Train models

A very good friend of mine Bill Phillips runs Phillips' Models, who make excellent model railway kits, printable templates and casts, as well as supply scenery, historic prints, modelling paint, resin, and other accessories. Increases nerd factor.

Role Playing Games

Definitely! Manuals, books, modules and kits, and of course dice, as well as running and supporting sessions and events. Increases nerd factor.

Puzzles

Educational games and puzzles - those infuriating wooden cubes that come apart, and all that.

High-end arty chess sets and the like

There used to be a shop ages ago under the escalator to the Manners Street cinema that sold that stuff. Fancy and ludicrously expensive carved chess-sets. I have no data, but I rather suspect they sold a total of FA in any given year, and they took up a lot of space.

Gadgets

One interesting suggestion is basically all the clobber one can get from Think Geek since there isn't a shop like that in Wellington, quite apart from the sheer Awesome™ of being able to browse that catalogue in a shop!

Community hub

For a board game shop to succeed it has to be actively involved in the local communities it intends to serve. Non-exhaustively, this means:

• Making the shop as inviting and comfortable as possible, so that people ENJOY their experience.
• Hosting local gaming events and workshops.
• Supporting other local events - e.g. direct sponsorship, booth, discounted offers, vouchers, etc.
• Hosting game release and guest speaker events - like a bookshop runs book readings and signings.
• Supplying the peripheral stuff that people need. Boardgamers also want dice, card slips and counters. Modellers need paint and resin. These are the vital up-sale and side-sale opportunities.
• Reliably tracking and being really responsive and communicative with customer orders and back-orders.

Cafe

Just a coffee machine, microwave, and cabinet/warmer of muffins & savouries from a local bakery. A full-blown outfit with menu and kitchen is out of the question - too much work, competition, time sink, OSH compliance, tables & cutlery, etc. Rationale:

• Adds hospitality and welcoming atmosphere
• Provides additional leader sales
• Improves likelihood and quality of staff-customer interaction, and therefore
  • Improves customer browsing experience
  • Improves loyalty outcomes
• May increase sales likelihood due to longer/better browse
• Helps to decrease the nerd factor for the less nerdy folks :)

Acknowledgements

Let it be known - board gamers are an amazing, helpful and friendly bunch, none more so than the lovely folks I've come to know in Wellington while stewing on this problem, and the good folks I know through local groups and events. Thanks go out to the following people for their input, advice, suggestions and encouragement: Mike, Greg, Rob and Pete, Skyler, Andrew, Ceedee, Gene, Craig, Doug, Bear, Quinn, Daniel and Kelly, Bill, Paul, Gynn, Nasia, and more...