How hard would it be to open your own wargaming/hobby store? Is it hard to become profitable...

How hard would it be to open your own wargaming/hobby store? Is it hard to become profitable? Do you need connections first?

Seems like a comfy job.

>How hard would it be to open your own wargaming/hobby store?
Not particularly.

>Is it hard to become profitable?
Very. Most of them barely tread water. It's a labor of love to keep one open.

>Do you need connections first?
You can probably find out from someone who's already running one who the best suppliers are, so I'd say no.

>Seems like a comfy job.
Do you really really really like working retail?

where do you live?

There are a lot of things to consider such as

>competition from other stores
>where your store is located and it's public visibility
>the size and cost of your rented space and what you can handle as a result (number of tables, amount of stock on display)
>whether or not you want to work in retail and deal with the public on a daily basis
>whether or not you want to deal with the stereotypes you see in GW stores in particular on a daily basis

Very difficult. Like so hard that unless you're using it as a front for some sort of criminal enterprise, you will probably lose money.

In the age of the internet, specialty retail for things other than clothing is pretty much obsolete. You're basically counting on people making impulse purchases at a higher price than they could pay online while they're hanging around in your store to play games.

MtG will absolutely be your main moneymaker. Be prepared to run a lot of events for it. Probably best to get rated as a Judge if you can.

Except for things like paint. For some reason paint, primer, sealant, etc has usually been cheaper at stores than online, even factoring tax.

Shipping for messy shit is usually expensive.

My friends opened up a game store three years ago, they are doing fine but they have certainly hit a plateau in the money they could be earning. The only reason they're as successful as they are is because they are in a good location and have little competition nearby, the other LGS' are a good 45 minute drive away.

Magic is their main money maker, with 40k being their second, board games are their third. They recently set up a table fee to use their tables in non-tournament events (because you pay for tournaments anyway) because they had folk who would NEVER buy anything, they would buy their board games off Amazon and bring them in to play all day. They were really worried this would alienate people but it really didn't, even the freeloaders agreed to pay the fee with no resistence whatsoever.

It's long days, you get a lot of time to paint minis or catch up on Netflix, but when it does get busy it's as stressful as retail can be. Overall they're still happy they did it but they admit they're not as profitable as they could be (for reference, they opened it up with pure capital, no loans, so take that into consideration because paying down a loan on top of property rent and inventory could be a losing battle.)

>not being a neckbeard Walter White, selling drugs out of the back of the store and minis out of the front
When someone comes to the register asking for "plastic SoB" they get an ounce of weed, etc.

Oh and one of the owners had prior relationships with product distributors from his experience selling on ebay (the reason they opened the store in the first place is that GW stopped selling to him unless he had a brick and mortar store, but he wanted a store anyway)

Both owners worked, along with me, at a game store several years, so they had experience in running a shop

It does not matter if someone gets loans to open a store. The reason those guys are plateauing is that they have no avenue of getting credit lines to grow their business, which is important. They have an amazing market to grow a big customer base.

t. finance/management student

There's two hobby shops in the area for me.

One only sells M:tG, comic books, and comic figurines and barely stays afloat constantly hosting pay to enter events and bumping up prices to make ends meet despite the fact that it is on a major road next to the highway

The other is basically a hoarders wet dream of build it yourself models and wargame figurines and stays open because the owner has a very succesful online business and basically everything that isn't a new release or wargame in the shop is from him buying up people unbuilt collections going through to make sure nothings damaged and vacuum sealing them.

Basically if you want to do well with hobby stores make an successful online business and open up a physical storefront for it with a corner for your personal related hobbies.

I went to visit my sister in Seattle and went to a combination pub gamestore that seemed to be doing pretty well. They catered more toward the specialty boardgaming crowd but had a pretty rad RPG section. I think they mostly make money on selling beer and cheesesticks to the crowd while using Veeky Forums things as a draw, which honestly might be the way to go in this day and age.

Taking out loans to grow your business only works if you actually have an under-served potential customer base to expand into.

Fucktons of startups fail because they take out loans to expand, only to discover that the market was already saturated or nearly saturated. Their debt-financed expansion does not provide an adequate increase in revenue to service the debt and they eventually go bankrupt.

That works if you're going to expand into multiple locations, but you have a finite demographic in your area so if you're not expanding that's all you can tap into. A game store is a niche market, and not every game store wants to or have the space to expand into wider audiences like toys and RC models or traditional poker supplies, etc. etc.

I appreciate your study, I really do, and I think that advice works well for other types of businesses but lines of credit won't help in this case. Buying inventory isn't the problem, in fact buying too much product (read: games that don't sell) is what kills most game stores.

This exactly, kids! Now remember, don't stock your shelves with Age of Smegmar or you'll regret it!

Haven't asked this question:

What do you guys think of the benefits between opening your own generic hobby store, or signing with GW and opening up a Warhammer licensed store (as an example) instead?

Would be curious to know if anyone has any info on that.

Yeah, talking to the owner of my LGS, he does make by far the most money from MtG, but he used to make almost as much from Yu-Gi-Oh.
Used to because YGO brought in all sorts of autists who broke things and children who blatantly stole shit right in front of employees and their parents that he had to stop carrying it and ban it from the store.
He said it was a 6-figure hit to his sales, but also a >70% decrease in theft of other product.
Which is another thing OP should be aware of.
Some things bring in money, but also bring in undesirable crowds. You have to be ready to make those business decisions to cut a profitable product line if the crowds it draws are hurting the rest of the store.

Also, be sure to hire people who are interested in keeping the story fucking clean.
There are three LGSs near me.
I only really go to one. It has the lowest stock for miniatures, but it's by far the cleanest and more neatly organized and the employees are knowledgeable and attentive.
The other to are owned by the same jackass who makes money from cards, but still has an incredible stock of minis. Especially old, out of print Warhammer Fantasy and 40k kits.
But the stores are filthy, product is stacked all over the fucking floor, you have to step over un-opened boxes of new shipments as you move around, the lighting is dim and dull and the floors are vacuumed once in a blue moon.
Oh, and the old Warhammer kits? WAY overpriced. The owner is a packrat who thinks in terms of collectors selling their shit on Ebay, rather than a retailer running a store. He's got a whole box of more than 30 Rhinos from the 90s that he has marked at $65 each. He's got an army box of Orks from the early 90s when they were still labels "Space Orks." He wants $275 for it. And he says his prices are way too low.
If he was selling it on Ebay, sure he can get those kinds of prices. But that shit has literally been sitting in his stores for 20+ years and it's not going anywhere until he learns how to deal with them like a retailer: sell it for clearance and write off any losses on your taxes.
Which he's probably done every year for the past 20 years anyway, so he's just a greedy fuck.

>Age of Smegma

It's really not a viable option in modern day.

Reasons:

1. Purchases of gaming hobby related products in-store are rare and low. All of it is online.

2. Few surviving shops exist, the ones that do survive by owning their own building and not having to worry about rent, or survive by an extensive online store.

3. Even the largest cities will likely only have one or two. I live in Los Angeles and it only has two major hobby stores. They are relatively small and can only afford to employ two individuals.

>generic hobby store
You mean generic tabletop games store?
You'll be carrying GW product regardless. 40k is still a big money maker in all markets.
Or do you mean generic hobbies including RC airplanes and cars as well as plastic models like plains, trains automobiles and battleships?
Or a generic arts and crafts store like Micheal's?
Because signing on as a GW store would be a death knell. All 5 GW stores that used to be within 40 miles of me have closed down.

Holy shit this would be my dream shop, food, drinks, alcohol on tap and games. I think i’ll Check what I can do about doing a degree in management/finance

well I meant the difference between the store name

Games Workshop or Bob's Toys, you know?

Ironically, Age of Sigmar sells fairly well at thir store. Not as good as 40k for sure, and I think a good chunk of buyers are just buying neat minis for RPGs, but it sells a lot better than some of the other mini games they gave a try.

Weirdly KoW doesn't sell at all, they suspect the players who play it are just buying them online

You're better off being your own store.
That way, when 40k sales lag, you'll still have MtG and X-Wing to hold you up.

>Even the largest cities will likely only have one or two.
That may be because city rent is expensive as fuck. I live in OC and there's around 5-6 hobby stores within a 30 minute drive. 2 are GW.

Well the two that aren't GW are shit out of luck .

(Any of them any good? Hobby stores these days are usually overpriced and understocked)

Around me, I have 2 game stores in my (small)city, 2 in neighboring cities and twice that number generic hobby stores.
And all the GW stores that were in the area closed long ago.

One of the GW stores is pretty big and has good customer service, other is tiny and kinda sucks. There's a a hobby store on Brookhurst that has a pretty large selection of just about everything, but I think you have to join a club to play there.

>go to local shop to buy some plastic sisters
>neckbeard fuck snorts at me, says to come out the back
>hands me an ounce of weed
>costs $8000 because of packaging, shipping, conversion rates and convict taxes,
>getting real sick of your shit games workshop

How would a FLGS expand though?

>Seems like a comfy job.
Trust me, you only think this because it isn't your job. You aren't the one who has to deal with autist politics. You aren't the one who has to bend over backwards for companies that are competing for your retail space and offering you concessions or refusing your business if you do or do not do x. You will have to deal with shitty accoutants trying to rip you off, unless you can do it, or you have a good trustworthy friend that can do it. You will have to endlessly fill out tax returns and reports. You will have to deal with shrinkage unless you are extremely lucky with your local autists or niggers. You will need to constantly take stock of your shit. You will need to pay someone for a stockkeeping system or make one yourself, which will take time. You will need to have a tilling system. You will need to keep stock of your patrons so that you don't miss table/club fees since this will be the bulk of your revenue. You will need to run tournaments or let other players run their own and this will be logistically nightmarish because of all the other shit you have to do. You will need to manage various mandated insurances (and ones that are not required but a no-brainer). You will need to deal with your landlord unless you have serious financial backing, and he might be a huge wanker because you aren't a "real" business and he wanted the space occupied by a proper bluechip startup, solicitors/lawyer firm or call center but instead he's got smelly autists to-ing and fro-ing from the crappy 1970s office space he thinks is amazing. You will need to deal with regular inspections from representatives of various government organisations. Retailers might send mystery shoppers to you so that they can tell if you're properly selling their shit for them. You'll have to deal with shitty delivery companies turning up whenever the fuck they want and not delivering the correct shit or delivering broken shit.

Or you might be fine.

>You will need to deal with your landlord unless you have serious financial backing, and he might be a huge wanker because you aren't a "real" business and he wanted the space occupied by a proper bluechip startup, solicitors/lawyer firm or call center but instead he's got smelly autists to-ing and fro-ing from the crappy 1970s office space he thinks is amazing

Why are landlords so retarded and delusional? Like wanting a bluechip or gilt-edged business to occupy your non-premium space?

I've had my favorite restaurant close down because their lease expired and the mall increased their rent. Guess what, the place has been empty for near a year, you already fucking lost more money than the increase in rent would have given you.

Because they have probably owned the building for decades, when the building was still state-of-the-art and the height of architectural fashion at the time, thus attracting some heavy hitters. But because the architectural fashion at the time left absolutely no room for graceful ageing (especially with regards to weathering), the companies fucked right off when the sparkly steel and glass towers started sprouting in the mid 90s. The landlord simply refused to accept that his hovel got left behind by the inexorable march of time and progress.

seems a bit of an pessimistic outlook