You bought three stores, but you didn't mention where. One thing I have noticed that helps is location. Are your stores located conventiently for people to find (main drag, near shopping malls, etc.)? Bigger cities of course you will have more competition. If you are located near other vg stores, there is good and bad. Usually I will scope all (including the local mom/pop shops) for the best deal. But you might find it better to move to an area that doesn't have a vg store in the area. Example, EB Games, Gamestop, Best Buy, etc. are all located in larger metropolitans. Now since VG is increasing, you might want to move those stores to the outlining areas with lower population and is a drive to get to the larger stores. Example, I live in the sticks in Wisconsin, we have a local grocery store that over charges for everything, but they do very well because it is a 30 minutes drive to get to a major grocery store. The owner just built a HUGE house which I am guessing from the profits. Our town wouldn't be big enough to have a video game store since we are about 1000 for population. But maybe something under 10,000 would be pretty good. Best Buy, EB/Gamestop, other chains usually won't even touch those places. You might have a Wal-mart, but they don't deal with used.
Next, on Best Buy, they have announced they will start dealing with used games. This will take a bite out of that area also. This just leans you towards getting out of larger areas again. Less competition, the better for you.
Corey
Slashdot Mirror
You bought three stores, but you didn't mention where. One thing I have noticed that helps is location. Are your stores located conventiently for people to find (main drag, near shopping malls, etc.)? Bigger cities of course you will have more competition. If you are located near other vg stores, there is good and bad. Usually I will scope all (including the local mom/pop shops) for the best deal. But you might find it better to move to an area that doesn't have a vg store in the area. Example, EB Games, Gamestop, Best Buy, etc. are all located in larger metropolitans. Now since VG is increasing, you might want to move those stores to the outlining areas with lower population and is a drive to get to the larger stores. Example, I live in the sticks in Wisconsin, we have a local grocery store that over charges for everything, but they do very well because it is a 30 minutes drive to get to a major grocery store. The owner just built a HUGE house which I am guessing from the profits. Our town wouldn't be big enough to have a video game store since we are about 1000 for population. But maybe something under 10,000 would be pretty good. Best Buy, EB/Gamestop, other chains usually won't even touch those places. You might have a Wal-mart, but they don't deal with used. Next, on Best Buy, they have announced they will start dealing with used games. This will take a bite out of that area also. This just leans you towards getting out of larger areas again. Less competition, the better for you. Corey