Avoiding Marginal

I blame the media for much of our economic troubles. The economy runs on consumer confidence, and the media has done a stellar job of absolutely destroying confidence in the run up to the election. Every anecdotal micro problem with the economy is magnified and reinforced by a legion of reporters and bloggers who can tell you how the presidential candidate they don't support is likely to make it worse. Forget making things better, this is all about despair. Those of us on the retail front line are hoping this subsides after the election next week. Oh yeah, and if you're a reporter, take a closer look at the retail front lines; this might be your next job with all the newspaper layoffs.

The truth is that many retailers won't be around next year, with some of the larger ones closing before Christmas, rather than taking their big profits in December and bowing out in January. This is a big company phenomena related mostly to credit. These companies were already in trouble and were probably unable to acquire the credit they needed to build up their inventories for the holidays. Small retailers like us don't have this problem, as we're a year round retail destination. We rely on the holiday season, which for us is about five weeks, to make a tidy profit for the year and to get us through a long, cold Winter. I expect this Winter to be especially cold, so I know any profits we make in December will be hoarded rather than used to pay off debt or expanding. That's just my little contribution towards screwing up the economy.

Despite talk of game stores being counter-cyclical, some are likely to go out of business. There is a culling taking place of the marginal game stores. Marginal tends to refer to those with poor planning and even poorer execution. However, with such retail pressure out there, who knows if there's marginal creep. What if the bar has been raised? What if my store is now marginal? What if these desperate retail times call for desperate measures? I think a lot of game store owners need to get off their well cushioned butts and promote themselves better this season. For some, this means promoting themselves for the first time. The key for me is to budget this. When I was a new, inexperienced store owner, it was easy to throw money at problems without any idea if the results were plausible. Advertising is the biggest black hole in business, if you aren't careful.

Having a budget is the first step. I reduced my advertising media budget for the holidays to fund my guerrilla marketing efforts. The second step is focusing on the short term. A lot of marketing is about building your customer base over time. You spend $50 to snag a new customer who might only spend $25 this month, but might spend $500 over his lifetime as your customer. This is a good, long term investment. In temporary downturns like these, we need short term investments. Marketing to existing customers should come first, especially if you haven't been doing it lately. They say you need about 9 impressions on a new prospect before they become your customer. Why not go with the guy whose already with you?

After marketing to the base, work on snagging the muggles, those holiday customers who wouldn't normally visit your store. Spending might be down for the holidays, but they will spend money. The goal is to capture as many of them as possible, even if it's a one-shot just to boost your December sales. It will be especially difficult this holiday season because they're looking for bargains, and there will be many and starting now. Those companies going out of business are not doing it quietly, they're having sales now, and although you're not competing directly with Mervyn's or Shoe Pavilion, dollars spent there are dollars that won't be spent with you.

To get muggles in the door without breaking the bank, you need cheap, inexpensive, guerrilla marketing, none of this $50 to get $25 crap, banking on the long term. Find cheap ways to snag easy dollars and stay on budget. Focus on something quick and easy they can understand. Emphasize the value your games provide over other forms of entertainment. If you've got a section of you store that you want to get rid of, bargain hunting is the new retail pastime; let them know and hit that discount as deeply as you can; you won't get a second chance. Finally, don't go nuts. Make a plan, stick with it, adjust as you go, work hard. Accept the plan. The plan is good. If it works, it works. If not, at least you tried. At least you avoided marginal.

Decline of Metal Minis

We're having a Reaper miniatures clearance sale for select models at 50% off. This is stuff that hasn't sold in a year or more; some in several years. I've also decided to stop carrying monsters. Monsters are a large part of the inventory but a tiny part of our sales. We're more than happy to special order models you want, usually with next day turnaround.

People just don't paint fantasy minis like they used to. We've seen a steady decline of around 20% each year since we opened, with sales less than half of where they were in 2005. Then again, our inventory has shrunk along the way, as I gave up on carrying the full line. I've been a little slow in reducing our Reaper inventory, mostly because as a fan, I couldn't imagine not having them. Other game stores made this move years ago and it wasn't like having the full line was giving us a competive advantage.

I think the decline is partly due to the decline of role-playing games (and the rise of WoW), which saw a similar decline over those years. With D&D 4 on the horizon, we held off on a larger Reaper reduction, in hopes of a mini painting revival that never came. The other reason for the decline of miniatures is the increased quality of pre-painted miniatures from Wizards of the Coast. With non-random packs coming out in future sets, this should accelerate that process. I know as my budget has shrunk and my time reduced, I'm always looking for the right pre-painted monster for my next game. I used to insist that every monster in my D&D campaign be a painted version of the exact creature. Not helping metal minis has been steady price increases over the years that make customers question the value of miniatures, especially monsters, which will ultimately be less useful and almost always cost more. The new Reaper line of lead based miniatures is due out soon, which should tackle some of the price issues.

Where metal miniatures do make sense is for characters. You're going to get a lot of hours of use out of a painted character model (unless you have a sadistic DM), but you'll need to be a dedicated long-time gamer to re-use that basilisk or medusa you spent hours painting. We'll continue to carry character models and bring in new ones as they're released (about once a month). We'll also continue to bring in other lines of character models for our "indie" miniature section. These tend to be more expensive, but if you're looking for something unusual for a RPG character, I think it's worth it.

Spray Gun: Stirred Not Shaken

I decided to start painting the Baneblade with the spray gun this evening. I figured it would be a snap, or a total nightmare, so it was my sole project. It went surprisingly well. I read the GW instructions on their website a few days before, so I knew to get two cans of propellant. The instructions that come with the spray gun are incomplete, so I advise watching the video or reading the instructions online.

As discussed online, the propellant gets cold as you use it, with a corresponding drop in pressure. You need to have a second bottle handy while the other one warms up. Sure enough, I was just finishing up the Baneblade when the second bottle began losing pressure. The first coat took about 15 minutes from beginning to end, compared to the 2-3 hours it would have taken with a brush. Clean up was simple with water. I used nearly a whole bottle of paint, so there wasn't much to pour back in the bottle.

Also, one minor issue: Be careful when attempting to mix the paint in the glass bottle. I recommend you stir it rather than shake it, as the bottle is not completely sealed when the cap is screwed on. I ended up getting paint on my shirt.

Primed and ready to go.

Our tools for today. Adeptus Battlegray will be my first coat, followed by camo masking, a coat of Mechrite Red and then Blood Red over that. Once the masking is removed, I'll go over the camo edges freehand with Codex Gray.

Unpacking the parts. I was glad I had read the online instructions, as the included ones don't even cover all the steps to assemble it.

Test painting on some cardboard. Although you can adjust the spray in a couple ways, I left it stock without any problems. My big question is how to use standard Citadel paints with this. The instructions online specify foundation paints. I'll probably try it straight out of the bottle first and then cut it with water, if necessary.

Ready to go.

This took no time at all. In fact, it was easier than priming the model with spray primer, as the spray gun went on more evenly. If you can use spray primer, you can use the spray gun. Another evening I'll work on the masking and the second coat.

Black List Red Parasites (politics)

I've been thinking about parasite states and politics. Parasite states are the ones that receive more federal funds than their citizens put up. For example, for every dollar that California puts in, we get $.81 back, which is a rip-off. Feeding at the trough, a state like North Dakota gets $2.03 back for the one dollar they put in. When will this conservative welfare end? Don't they have any self respect? Go get jobs (state taxes)!

Parasite states are mostly small states that have those pesky electoral votes that misrepresent them in the election. All but one of the top ten are "red" states, the "real" America according to Palin. Yet blue states feed them with federal dollars. I've been wondering if it makes sense to support these welfare Republicans with my money, usually in the form of making sales online. Cross referencing the current electoral map (slightly more generous than in past elections) with parasite states, we have the top 5:

• North Dakota (vehicle parts, tractors, wheat)
  
• Mississippi (vehicles, chemicals, electrical machinery)
  
• Alaska (oil, seafood, minerals) (no sales tax)
  
• West Virginia (plastics, coal, machinery)
  
• Montana (chemicals, machinery, ore) (no sales tax)
  

Of course, this won't change elections until the last person in each state leaves and turns off the lights. Even a population of 1 gets the full electoral vote count. I'm kidding about all this, by the way.

Toys for Tots

The marine corps has been a little busy over the last few years, which is why we're only now getting a Toys for Tots bin at the store. In some respects, we're continuing the area tradition that Games Unlimited started. If you want to donate, place a new, unwrapped toy (or kids game) in the bin. To show I'm not a completely shameless opportunist, if you buy said toy at our store, let us know it's for the bin and we'll give you 40% off.

Down is Up, Up is Down

Remember this graph I posted from August? The reason for all the miniature price increases? The prediction that much more of this will drive miniature companies out of business?

Tin is now trading at around $11,000/ton, a 21 month low. And you know what happened to that other key ingredient of miniature manufacturing, oil. See, there is a silver lining to all this. Just don't expect miniature prices to go down.

Paint Gun

I had one of those unproductive weekends coming off a couple weeks without my two days off in a row. I was binging on episodes of Jericho via my Netflix account, much to my wife's annoyance. As it was getting dark last night, I pulled out the Baneblade and primed it for later. I'm planning to try out the new Games Workshop paint gun. I spend many hours painting each tank with just base coats. I need at least three coats with my camo scheme, and that usually takes 3-4 hours with a brush.

The weekend wasn't entirely unproductive as I started workng on holiday marketing for the store. Most of my efforts were to stop being invisible. I usually let people come to me during the holidays, relying on the Yellow Pages and TV advertising. Now I need to reach out and grab them. I bought a replacement outdoor swinging sign to bring in more traffic. I contracted with a window painter to paint a festive holiday theme, kind of like The Hobbit does Christmas. Target and Sears had inexpensive lighted holiday displays which should draw the eye. I'm also planning a devious campaign of papering the parking lot with flyers on Black Friday and subsequent weekends (and subsequent parking lots). I'm looking for a bunch of people to work this project (it pays product or money), as it needs to be done mob style. I know some people hate window flyers, but they're very effective. It's not a time to be squeamish. I'm especially looking for a ring leader that can help organize and recruit.