Hitting the Highs

Yesterday was our best normal sales day ever, missing our best sales day by about $20. I was reading a New York Times article entitled The Scramble for Downtown Dollars, and I had to smile, as the article talked about how in tough times some stores have had to get clever, promoting themselves with events! It made me realize that game stores may be well positioned to ride out a downturn.

The event model has been an evolving survival mechanism for game stores for years. Describing this as a survival mechanism might seem cynical, but few game store owners would provide such space if it wasn't economically essential. Yesterday's sales were beat out by our October Ding & Dent auction day. I can find similarly high sales days related to Magic pre-release events, convention sales days, and our anniversary parties. We need these gimmicks and tricks for survival in good times. Relying on them in bad times is natural. The game stores that can't promote themselves beyond the counter are the ones most likely to fail.

Here's an updated board game list. You can begin to see that the Chronicle games (in blue) are playing an increasingly important role in our holiday sales:

1. Wasabi!
2. Dominion
3. Settlers of Catan Rev.
4. Qwirkle
5. Battlestar Galactica Boardgame
6. Monty Python Fluxx
7. Witch's Brew
8. Carcassonne
9. Ticket to Ride
10. Ticket to Ride Europe
11. Wits & Wagers
12. Blokus
13. Fluxx
    
14. Killer Bunnies Blue SD
15. Munchkin
16. Five Crowns
17. Munchkin Quest Boardgame
18. Power Grid
19. Quiddler
20. Settlers of Catan 5-6 Player