Turns, Turns, Turns

Here's a quick look at how our store sells board game. At the moment, we have about 750 board games, a number that grows to around 1,000 during the holidays. This does not include card games.

Our turn rate, the average number of times we sell a board game is a respectable 3.4. What does that include?

49% of our board games sell a single copy in a year. These games are brought in, linger a bit, and are often bought by that one person we had in mind. They're not re-ordered. Imagine that. Half of everything we order is a one shot.

Another 15% sell two copies and share the same fate. They under-perform and are dropped. Sometimes we make an exception if a game is so iconic that it's pretty much guaranteed to sell two copies a year for eternity. 

So right off the bat, 64%, nearly two thirds of our board games, under perform. But we are undaunted.

34% of our board games meet our minimum standard of three turns or more. Some barely squeak by, while others do extremely well. 

90% of our board games, including the strong performers, sell less than eight turns. This is an important number to keep in mind, because eight is around the number of turns that the big box stores would like to see with their board games. In other words, the absence of a local game store like ours means that your choice of board games is reduced by 90%. Target and Wal-Mart cannot abide slow sellers, which is something to remember if you're a board game publisher and you think you've cut yourself a good deal with these folks. For how long? How long can you keep your turns up? 

The top 2% of our games sell 20 or more copies a year, with the top 6% selling 10 or more copies a year. So to ask a retailer to carry 10 copies of your board game assumes a pretty high performance standard. Settlers of Catan, our best seller, sells 68 copies a year, twice as many as our number two seller, Risk Legacy.