Those WTF Moments
It has been an odd week:
- Finding a case of old White Dwarf magazines in the office marked "labels." Complete with Games Workshop invoice sitting on top. Luckily this was the issue with the space marine and ork model, so it still has value.
- Throwing away three dozen peanut butter cracker packs after the salmonella outbreak. Then having to instruct staff to do their best to prevent customers from eating them out of the trash, because you know they will.
- Discovering after 15 months that I'm supposed to pay for garbage service. $850 saved by free loading off my neighbors, but whoops!
- Realizing that the RPGA printing is going through a toner cartridge, and half a ream of paper a month. Luckily we charge a small fee that's supposed to cover this.
- Figuring out that someone was trying to get away with a check scam in the store, but only after getting in a bit too deep, including expressing my concerns (getting angry) before they scurried off. Where did I put my beat stick?
- Having a day in which the returns equaled the sales; mostly first timers intimidated by their holiday board game purchases.
Are you going to post camera footage of the suspect? I want to see if they had a nervous look on their face. Maybe you could share the image with the other shops in the area.
ReplyDeleteIf not, you can at least show Mike or Andre who to look out for.
How is the trash service issue going to affect monthly sales goals?
Usi
Trash will now be sold to customers...
ReplyDeleteI saved $70 on my monthly phone bill. You may recall my crowing about that. That pretty much covers my garbage service.
ReplyDeleteAs for selling trash to customers, I'm not going to touch that one. ;)
I can just see some of your customers dumpster diving for cookies. Make a great video for the web.
ReplyDeleteI called today and was told you don't accept used board games anymore. Why is that?? Did something change?
ReplyDeleteUsed board games and miniatures may be sold at the quarterly auctions.
ReplyDeleteThe next auction is February 8th, and we will begin accepting items on the 1st.
There is a "buy it now" price option for those auctioning off items.
The reason that the store usually only takes RPGs and Books for the used section is that it's hard for the staff, and customers, to inventory everything to ensure that the games are complete.
Hope that helps.
-Joe
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ReplyDeleteI seem to recall the store being very specific about accepting any used game, not just RPGs. That was one of the main reasons I visited the store in fact. I consider it a huge value add and am disappointed BDG has gone this route.
ReplyDeleteThanks Joe (I'm on vacation)....
ReplyDeleteI could make a lot of loose policies in the old store because it was just me and we had about half the traffic. Everything could be an exception. Now I've got staff (we're always under-staffed), 50% longer hours, twice the customer traffic and we need processes to handle things like used purchase, or else the place breaks down quickly. Most problems you see in the store are bad process.
Used RPGs are easy to value, while used board games need intensive study to verify the game is intact. I've bought board games in the past missing just a couple of cardboard chits and the game value goes from $20 to worthless instantly, plus it annoys our customers if something is missing, and it tends to be our best customers who want such games. I've had to dump arm fulls of board games in the trash at the last store after I rushed an estimate of their value (plus it was this sweet 90 year old lady).
The quarterly auctions cover a lot of the issues with how to turn around used items. We have them more often than any other Bay Area game store. In fact, I consider it our biggest customer appreciation event, as we practically give games away that could be sold online for about 20-40% more. It borders on stupid that we do this. It's also a great way to get rid of those games you don't want and they're frequent enough that it's not a long wait between them.
I can't imagine why any store would throw away used games, complete or not! You can sell them as parts-only games!! There are those of us who collect used games specifically for that reason. One of the reasons I used to come to BDG frequently was the chance to encounter used board games. Lucky for me there is another excellent store closer to where I live that carries a well stocked and very large selection of totally random used board games. They don't seem to have any problems with that aspect.
ReplyDeleteAfter you try to give them away and strip them of useful parts, sometimes you're left with trash.
ReplyDeleteI stopped in the store today and noticed you had some used board games available for sale that weren't there last time I was in. So, do you accept used board games for sale/credit or not??
ReplyDelete