FLGS Advice?

Hey, elegan/tg/entlemen!

I’m fucking mad right now and I need some advice.

I’ll greentext for an attempt at brevity:

>I’m a manager of an FLGS in a decent-sized town
>We’ve been open for over a decade, but I’ve been manager for about six months
>Hear rumors that a comic/card shop is opening across town
>Decide to check it out
>It’s a literal goddamned house in one of the shittiest neighborhoods in town
>I go in and it’s one tiny room with four tables and a counter
>They have approximately 20 cards under the counter that constitute their “high-end” stuff
>I talk to the owner a little bit
>He said he started the business with $5,000 and “a prayer to God”
>I talk to him a little longer and he’s just really awkward
>Leave and vow to never return

Fast-forward to two months later:
>Decide to check the business’ Facebook page
>Dozens of five-star reviews
>99 percent of them are high school kids
>Remaining one percent is high school kids’ parents
>”It’s like a big family here”
>”Best store in this part of the state”
>We sell MTG packs: Three for $10
>Post it on Facebook that we’ve lowered our prices
>Literally ONE FUCKING HOUR LATER, the owner of the other shop says he’s lowering his prices to Three for $9.99
>Goddamned high schoolers start hooting about “best prices in the city”
>mfw

What the fuck do we do?

Do we get into a price-slashing war?

I’m new to this management thing and the owner only put me in this position because I’m good at sales and customer service.

I wasn’t worried at first, to be honest, but somehow he’s surviving and I can’t figure out how.

Our regulars say his store sucks monkey nuts, but high schoolers flock to this place.

>tl;dr New FLGS in town; Wat do?

Please, no frogposting on Veeky Forums.
An infinite number of images to choose from, and you choose a dumb frog meme?

I'm sorry, user. I just grabbed the first "angry" image I could.

I don't know what to tell you.
When something similar happened over here my answer was sabotage.

What did you do, user?

Did you burn that motherfucker down?

I gave some teens free stuff to damage his ads and give bad reviews.
They don't lie when they call it plastic crack.
It's was a store loyalty reward, as far as anyone else knows.

Host more events. If their store is really that tiny then they cant compete with you in that regard. Make use of that competitive advantage.

Let his store be a den of shitty high school kids and poor quality.

If your store can survive, start building a reputation on the quality of your community and products. Eventually people will realize how crappy his store is, despite his prices and the high school kids.

Do stuff that he can't. Run bigger events than he can, and get better product than he can. He's got steam now, but he's not gonna be able to last in the format he has going.

Besides, once some of the high school kids start to graduate high school, they'll go to your shop so that they're not surrounded by high school kids anymore.

Play the long game, user.

Not that guy. But what we did around here was to make an MTG event every other day at the shop and make sure you outstock the retards. Unless the retards are financially backed (and it doesn't sound like they are) they'll starve before you do.

Getting bodies into the store is the most important thing. So run 5 dolla modern mondays, 5 dolla Legacy Wednesdays, your regular FNM and saturday standard/frontier. Maybe add a thursday night EDH league or something.

The highschoolers like the bum-fuck "store" probably because they don't know what they're doing. Create an environment that encourages them to either buy your stuff or otherwise come in. If you're not going to crush some stoner mom/pop shit then make sure they act like a feeder to your events.

I would personally go say hi, and offer to cross merchandise with them to create larger events. Since they do not have the room to host such things, they're at your mercy. Show them mercy, then steal all their customers once the footpath increases at your store as a result.

Stores can and usually coexist in peace.
Looking at your greentexting and posting frog shits, you're the one with the shit store and a shit attitude.

That's just not true. He should swallow them like they're goldfish.

Crush them OP. And be less of a faggot about it.

>>It’s a literal goddamned house in one of the shittiest neighborhoods in town
I don't know too much about real estate, but is that not a zoning issue?

So he sells comics and cards.
And he can operate at lower prices because of rent and lack of employees.
Is your shop also only selling cards?
Or do you have multiple income streams?
Miniatures/Cards/Boardgames/Books/T-Shirts/..
Can you host events?
Can you host pay-to-enter tournaments with shitty prizes?
Are you envious of your competitor because he is better than you?
Is your livelihood depending on selling YuGiOh/MtG and other shitty products?

Remember that people don't buy stuff at brick and mortar stores because the prices are good, they buy them there because it's convenient and they like hanging out there. You're not selling product, you're selling an experience. Make your experience second to none and you'll do okay.

Also, the other guy is totally shilling people to rate him up on Facebook. Those dozens of reviews are probably every single customer he has and possibly some he doesn't. That might not be strictly kosher but what are you going to do about it?

Not necessarily, some areas can be zoned for business and residence. That's why you see a lot of like, law offices and massage parlors that are just refurbished houses in cheap areas.

Try to play up the fact that his store is in such a shitty area. Hire some homeless and black "thugs" to just loiter around it all day, people won't want to go there anymore after a few weeks of being asked for change and solicited for drugs every time they go in.

Oh man if I could get my drugs the same place I play my traditional games I'd be so happy.

Does he sell older stuff? There's a store I really like, but occasionally I still go to the other one because they have what I recall being a majority of magic sets, while my regular place only has whatever's in standard.

Still might be worth have a word with your city planning office, check his paperwork is in order

Fuck off, frogposter.

I don't know about OP's city, but here the mixed residential/commercial zoning areas are pretty strict about what kinds of businesses can go in -- basically it has to be offices or daycare. No retail.

What if you talked this over with the owner of the store you work at before doing anything rash?

Target different markets. Differentiate.

His shop is attracting highschool CCG players? Target the RPG/Wargame community, as well as the other big-but-not-popular-with-kids CCGs like L5R. Don't completely write off MtG, but since it sounds like the other guy does mostly CCG stuff for local kids, provide the alternatives.

Part of why so many fast food joints can stay afloat in spite of selling mostly the same crap is differentiation in their target markets. High-school kids have only so much discretionary income, even with the McJobs they might have...

Also, possibly point the absolute worst sperglords to the other place as sort of sabotage for them, cleaning up for you.

>frog posting
>manager of a brick and mortar store
>getting upset over Facebook likes
>comes to Veeky Forums for business advice
Sounds true and not made up at all.

You'll have to give more details if you want advice that is relevant to your situation. Is this other store threatening your revenue stream, taking away pre-existing customers, and potentially risking you going out of business; or is it just bringing all the high school normalfags out of the woodworks who you never dealt with in the first place, and you're just pissed such a shitty operation is doing well? If it's the latter, let them be the tard pen and enjoy the fact they keep that crowd from your store that's now free to specialize in more mature hobbies and clientele. If the former, I think the best advice so far ITT is to call the zoning department on them, such a crapshack operation probably isn't legit. Heck, the IRS might even have reason to have a word with them. If they really are fully up to code, as has also been said here use your greater resources to out-compete them with non-stop events until they drain their coffers trying to keep up. Have free pizza and Dew for the little shits if you really want to take them away from the MTG crackhouse. Just realise you might have to deal with all the underage autism even after the other guy folds, you'd be summoning a dangerous beast into your realm.

Running a store out of a residential property violates WPN standards. Just report and they can't run sanctioned events anymore.

Neat

Find out if the building is zoned for commercial activity. if it's not, well, you win.