GOB Retail/Distribution Store Overview
Eero Tuovinen:
Ha ha, that's excellent stuff. I can't wait to see how that plays out. I'm sure there'll be lots of indie folks who'll find your model of retail much more doable than the traditional sort. Be sure to keep us posted on your progress and the sort of product lineup you're gathering for the first store - I wouldn't mind seeing my own games in there if the type of stuff you'll retail seems a logical fit.
The vertical integration and synergy advantages here seem pretty considerable. Do you have some sort of local marketing plan thought out? Is this store supposed to be a shopping destination, or will you try to attract walk-ins? What sort of image will you sell for the average gamer? Somehow it seems to me that "we sell marginal stuff you haven't heard of!" will need to be honed somewhat to make it something that the majority of hobbyists will get excited about.
guildofblades:
>>Be sure to keep us posted on your progress and the sort of product lineup you're gathering for the first store - I wouldn't mind seeing my own games in there if the type of stuff you'll retail seems a logical fit.<<
Well, game wise, for stuff we have under the Retail and/or Wholesale program, you'll begin to see that stuff going up onto our e-commerce site over the next month. For your game Zombie Cinema, the challenge would be your unique packaging. I know we can POD print elements of the game, obviously, but we would have to work out a means for us to to get ahold of or replicate the rest.
One other approach we're taking to retailing is, we're not categorizing product by product type or genre. If we carry enough of a single company's products, then that company will be getting its own section with its own branded signage above that section. Where we just have a couple products from a company, it'll get inventoried in our general new product section, which will be loosely categorized by game format (ala, RPGs, Card Games, Board Games, etc). Where possible, we're going to focus on individual brands and selecting enterprising small press companies to champion in doing so.
>>The vertical integration and synergy advantages here seem pretty considerable. Do you have some sort of local marketing plan thought out?<<
Extensively.
>> Is this store supposed to be a shopping destination, or will you try to attract walk-ins?<<
Well, we are currently trying to cut through all the red tape to get ourselves into one of the "downtown" locations in our small city's downtown area. Its in a medium rent district, being the downtown area of an otherwise fairly quiet town. Casual game sales will benefit from our location (as will many GOB games as more general audiences have always been our primary target), but the big reason for this location is the copy and print aspects of the store. Of the downtown locations we are looking at, we'll be squarely in the middle of many other smallish downtown businesses and just two blocks from the high school and middle school. Smaller businesses and students are high potential customers for our copy and printing business, as larger businesses and chains tend to have most of their marketing materials and printed goods printed en mass by corporate and sent to them (ala, no need for us). That students just happens to be ideal for both the copy and print and for the games is, of course, ideal.
>> What sort of image will you sell for the average gamer? Somehow it seems to me that "we sell marginal stuff you haven't heard of!" will need to be honed somewhat to make it something that the majority of hobbyists will get excited about.<<
Well, if we market the stuff as "marginal" that's sure to rub off on the consumers. But really, we're after the type of gamers that is open to more than just Magic and D&D. And non gamers or folks who've maybe just played Magic, D&D, A&A or Risk casually, where we can introduce a whole lot more to them. An awful lot of true hobbyist are fairly open to trying new games and if happen to be able to show them a whole lot of cool new games they've hardly heard or or never heard of, then that works for them. The folks who walk in the door ONLY looking for the newest D&D official WOTC book or similar top tier product is, frankly, not someone I am likely to be able to bind long term as an exclusive customer. They would buy from me if it was convenient or cheap or on impulse, but I would be just as likely to lose many of said customers if another store opened down the street offering discounts or other perks. Its just not the ideal kind of customer for the long term for us. Not that we won't "try" and serve those customers to, only I'll a whole lot of that stuff in stock for them and will have to lean on special ordering for them. Sort of the inverse of other game stores, who stock that stuff and then try and special order the small press stuff. Only difference is where small press stuff is down right nearly impossible to special order for a retailer, the newest D&D book is not. For the old school RPGers, there is the cool little fact that if they buy any of the 1000+ old 1st and 2nd edition PDFs available through the One Bookshelf download sites, we'll be able to print and bind it for them.
For folks walking into our store for copy and print services, our plan is to have a mix set of game product from electronic games, rpgs, card games, board games, miniatures, etc and stuff like our custom art merchandise from which to sell them on. Besides our gaming tables, there will be 2 to 3 permanent demo tables set up, ready to showcase a game to someone new at a moments notice. For existing gamers, well, we'll have a healthy amount of in store game space, we'll have the PDF download store front (OBS affiliate site) and cool ability to print their goodies. I know that without a doubt it'll be impossible to please them all. Some might actually get offended by the overall lack of dedicated shelf space for games like D&D or Magic. But this goes back to what I said earlier. Our little cottage industry isn't so cottage anymore. Huge tracks of games are now sold through the mass markets. Its impossible for a small store to service it all. All a retailer can do is stake out the slice they are best suited to serve best. I'm simply choosing not to stake my business on product where I have to compete heads up with Walmart on. If Walmart thusly gets the bulk of the business on those goods, then that is perfectly ok with me. Like most other retailers, I'll pick up the scraps from the Walmart table on those products and simply be thankful that my business has such a wealth of other quality games to introduce people to. Even if our store needs to have a plan to be a bit more proactive in how we shelf, inventory, advertise and sell those products so they can get the kind of attention they need to not be "marginal" in our store.
Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Retail Group - http://www.guildofblades.com/retailgroup.php
Guild of Blades Publishing Group - http://www.guildofblades.com
1483 Online - http://www.1483online.com
Eero Tuovinen:
Quote from: guildofblades on August 21, 2008, 08:57:10 PM
For the old school RPGers, there is the cool little fact that if they buy any of the 1000+ old 1st and 2nd edition PDFs available through the One Bookshelf download sites, we'll be able to print and bind it for them.
Ah, now THAT is a killer application of your production arrangement. Heck, if I had something like that here, I'd go browse me some old out-of-print rpg stuff right now.
Just saying.
guildofblades:
The thing is, I can only print a single copy for a customer only after they buy the PDF (assuming the WOTC PDFs don't specifically prohibit the customer from having it printed in the document licensing). I can't print them up in advance to shelf or resell. Even buying the PDF ourselves, we would not have that right, as PDF rights to print are almost always for personal use only. So we can only provide the printing and binding service for someone else's PDF that they themselves bought.
That said, yeah, it is pretty cool. There are 6000+ (maybe more like 8000+) digital products available in the OBS catalogues. PDFs have grown immensely as a product format in recent years. They will only grow more powerful as a piece of the overall industry. If other retailers don't start figuring out how to get a piece of that pie, in short order they'll find themselves physically unable to sell over half the gaming material on the market today.
Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Retail Group - http://www.guildofblades.com/retailgroup.php
Guild of Blades Publishing Group - http://www.guildofblades.com
1483 Online - http://www.1483online.com
Eero Tuovinen:
Yes, that is the situation now. But prove your store concept, and I think you'll find no problem in negotiating special arrangements with the pdf purveyors of your choice. It's just a matter of workflow to make the user interface of your POD pdf store seamless from the customer viewpoint while simultaneously respecting the rights and work of the webstore backend that provides the data.
And meanwhile, I don't think it'd be exactly illegal for you to buy and print some choice samples yourself strictly for preview purposes - at least under the Finnish law you could easily showcase whatever you want, whether you own the copyright to it or not.
Regardless, it looks like you might be getting a leg up on the new electronic industry - I remember that we speculated about something like this here at the Forge a couple of years ago, but of course you can't realize a sensible in-store pdf printing system without full POD ability, which is unfeasible for a traditional game store. Ideally you'll manage to brand yourself as the first choice destination for gamers who need to get their stuff printed, whether they buy the product in the store or bring it in with them. The branding would probably have something to do with how you understand the needs of the gamer better than a generic copy shop, I imagine.
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