Opening a Game Shop

[solarwolf]

Me and a Buddy are looking to open a new game shop. It will probably be a minimum of three years before the store opens. (we are both currently serving in the Army and Airforce). We are looking for communities that are in need of a Game shop or in need of a better one.

We are both LOVE Warhammer (fantasy and 40k) and we grew up on the game. We have several ideas for the "better game-shop" and just need a real location to try and hone in on.

Any Suggestions would be greatly appreciated ^_^

edit: forgot to mention, US

Also, I wasn't sure where to post this. If this is the wrong thread I'm sorry.

[gcsmith]

well if it takes 3 years, Ill wait till im in uni, b4 i say which city :) unless ur us based then I cant help. UK and proud :)

[Daemonette666]

You forgot to mention a couple things. Firstly what country are you in? Secondly, if you decide to get the plan up and running, are you willing to move to a location that has a customer base large enough to support a new gaming store?

The local gaming store that opened up just a few months ago around the corner from my place, has being going well. The Secret is that it is a coimplete table top, board and card gaming store. There are no computer games, but they stock everything from a small ammount of jigsaws, the Gw Warhammer miniature game range, Hoards and Warmachine, through to Magic the Gathering, D&D, Zombie board games and Warhammer Invasion, Death watch, and so on.

Matt the owner is an ex- GW staff member, and has 8 gaming tables for anyone to play on. He holds regular events has a calender which he usually tries to keep to, and he will soon be having a small coffee shop built in the store. It is quite large - bigger than a Battle Bunker store.

Do not forget to diversify, check out what wargames are popular in your area, and try to support them, not just the GW games. Oh and take the time to learn the other games if you can. Matt has even been painting Roman and Gaul armies, some napoleonic battalions, and some WWII things for Flames of War.

Planning is the key, and it sounds like you might be heading in the right direction here. Good luck with it all, we need more wargaming shops around.

As I said supply us more info on your preferred location/area and likelyhood of relocating far afield.

[Chris Copeland]

Since you and your buddy are in the Army and the Air Force at least one of you should be familiar with San Antonio, Texas. San Antonio has a few good game shops but none on the Northeast side of town. That means everyone in the Universal City/Converse area (or farther out communities such as New Braunfels) have to drive to the far side of San Antonio to game.

It seems to me that a gameshop of the Northeast side of San Antonio would be perferct: SA has several military bases (and there are a lot of gamers in uniform), the population of the entire I35 corridor is growing rapidly, and the greater San Antonio area hasn't been hit as hard by the economic downturn as many other communities.

There is already a vibrant gaming community in SA. The Alamo GTs that are held here annually are well attended and respected. Lastly, San Antonio is just a nice place to live.

So there ya go, troops: get a good plan in place and set up shop in Northeast SA!

Cheers. Chris

PS You might want to stock comic books as well. It seems that comic books help shops around here get through leaner times when leaner times roll around (and it will happen from time to time).

Edit: spelling

[solarwolf]

yea, sorry, forgot to mention that We'll be in the US. We certainly are willing to move to a community. I would prefer to stay out of California (at least Southern California). We have several spots that we are looking at.

We also have several plans and ideas (forgive me if I don't mention them here, I think it's just good business to keep your plans quiet until you open) It's fair to say though, we would be aiming to please the gaming community. But we are really looking at pretty much everywhere where we think there would be a good community.

Thank you so much for the advice though, We'll look into San Antonio. I don't think we'll probably finalize on a place for another year or two. Like I said, we are both in the Military and still have ~2 years left (I get out before he does) and then we're looking at taking ~ 1 year to get settled in to wherever we end up deciding and getting all the plans ready to open.

Also if you could give some places where we should DEFINITELY not open or not even to consider, that would help us narrow our search.

Much Thanks ^_^

edit: Also, things that you wish Gameshops did better or had or things you see Gameshops do poorly.

[Nungunz]

Heheh, sweet idea. A few buddies of mine are doing something similar, but instead are going into business designing war/miniature gaming terrain based out of the Minneapolis area.

A good thing to do would probably go to several game stores across the country of different sizes and retail selection to see what is popular and maybe have some examples on how to structure the business. Capital restricts what you can do as well of course.

Personally my favorite place I have ever been to (and I've live east coast and in the midwest) is the Fantasy Flight Games Event Center. Granted, the company is huge and has many years under it's belt, but the atmosphere and selection the best I have every seen in any game store so far:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_npm.asp?eidm=13

That is about half of the room and the stock has nearly tripled since that picture was taken (it's been around less than a year). A lot of the tables are loaded with gaming boards with various terrain and themes, you can check their schedule for events for each day.

Check them out on facebook as well, lots of more recent images there.


I can list a couple more stores that would be good to go visit as well, but right now I just don't have the time to write it out. How big a store are you looking at and what is the general range for the amount of capital you want to put in?

I wish you guys luck!