Rook's Comics and Games

Rook’s is having an auction! I got this idea from a retailer in California named Gary Ray. He runs a very cool store and he has had a lot of success with his auctions. We are going to have this auction on May 2nd, the day after Free Comic Book Day. This is a Sunday so we can take over the store and not have too many people mad at us.
The way the auction works is thus:

1. People bring in items they wish to auction. We will have a “buy it now” phase followed by the auction portion. If you would like to sell your item for a fixed price than you fill out our auction form and indicate the price at which you would like to sell your item. If you would like to auction your item then when you fill out the form you can indicate what the starting bid will be.
2. Somebody buys your item. The person who bought your item will pay you in store credit. Basically, the purchaser will give us cash or store credit and we will then put that same amount onto your account.

The auction is as simple as that. Of course there will be a few more rules involved but that is the general idea. I think the auction is a really cool idea for several reasons. One, it helps us out. All of the cash generated by the auction turns into store credit. This keeps the money in the store which is why it is worth our time and effort to set up. Second, it should help out everyone in the community. This type of auction is basically an exchange among customers. You are able to get rid of something you don’t want and acquire something you do want. We are allowing people to use store credit earned earlier in the day to purchase others auctions later in the day. This way it is totally feasible for somebody to essentially trade items with no money leaving their pocket. I see this auction as win-win. It keeps money in the store which, as an owner, I like but it also allows customers to trade off items for something more valuable for them.

 The last couple of days I have been embroiled in a discussion about PDF sales and the current trends of the RPG industry.  What got me started on this was a blog post by Fred Hicks, a writer/publisher of RPGs.  He essentially said that for small publishers, it is almost always less profitable for publishers to make the effort to get a print book into Brick and Mortar retail stores.  I think that his reasoning and numbers are sound and so I agree with him.  This also coincided with a conversation on a Industry Forum on the same topic. 

There are a couple of topics I want to address with this.  The first is that I am working from the premise that B&M stores provide a vital and valuable service to the roleplaying community.  This is the first point that I would like some feedback on.  Do retail stores actually provide a valuable service?  Can you bypass B&M stores and use other social media to find players and setup games?  I would really like to hear feedback on this. 

 Rook’s held a Worldwake Pre-Release on Saturday and Sunday.  We had three events planned for the weekend.  On Saturday was a Worldwake sealed deck tournament.  Then after that we held a Worldwake draft.  Finally on Sunday we held another Worldwake sealed deck event.  This is the same format that we had for our very successful Zendikar Pre-Release event.

Starting next week, we are going to change the day that we send out the newsletter.  Now, as you probably all know, we send out our newsletter on Monday.  The two things that our newsletter primarily does is inform customers about events that are happening and to showcase some cool new products coming in.  As we are thinking about these two things, Sara and I realized that we don’t get new product in till Thursday or Friday and our main events primarily run

Rook's has a lot to look forward to in 2010. We just concluded a very good year and we wish to continue our successes. There are many changes we are considering but the main thing that we are going to focus on is taking care of our existing customers. In 2009 we tried being very friendly to walk in traffic. After looking at the numbers, I feel like our efforts towards walk in customers didn’t pay off. That is to say that we didn't garner as much sales as I would have liked compared to the cost of extra products necessary for this pursuit.

We have been having some problems with Battlefront Miniatures lately and it got me to thinking about our relationship with the manufactures of the games we sell. First off, some information about the game industry. Most prices in the game industry are determined by the Manufacturers Suggest Retail Price. This is where the price for a product is set by the manufacturer. Of course, I am allowed to sell something for more or less but it is very difficult. The price of the products is usually marked on the package and the manufactures also advertise the products at a certain price.

Last week I talked about some demographics data for the area surrounding Rook's. This week I want to compare that data to the demographics of a successful store in California. It is interesting to look at other businesses to see how their physical location might help or hurt their business. For Rook's, this is much more of a question of curiosity as I am not planning on any major changes of location. However, for a new business just starting, finding stores that are successful and trying to relate that to potential location demographics can be a great help.