I want to Open My Own Store and I have No Capital. Advice?

[Overly Serious]

Any advice? Should I just get a credit card and max it out to pay for the opening expenses like maintenance and inventory?

Don't do this. Keep your personal and business finances clearly separated. You should open a separate bank account for your business. If you are using your own money then you can transfer it into the new account as seed capital. If you were in the UK you would be looking to operate as a Sole Trader (by far the simplest way to start a business) or potentially a Limited Company (more hassle and you may need to pay an accountant but if you're smart and patient you could manage it yourself). I'm not sure what the US equivalents would be but the advantage of a Limited Company would be that any loans or lawsuits your business incurred, they'd be attributed to the company not you. However for your set up unless you're taking out a big loan to start the business you could just not bother with that to start. But keeping financials separate is strongly recommended in all circumstances. A business bank account is not expensive.

Proceed incrementally with your business. There's no reason you need to put this off until you have more capital. In fact, I'd advise you not to. Get a URL for your business - a professional domain name is cheap. Start building a presence - Facebook or whatever and make it clear you can order in games for people. This will get you some experience with how to deal with the game companies and let you dip your toe in the water. Worst case scenario the losses you'll be facing will be the cost of a few board games. Etc. What you don't want to be doing is renting a store and starting from nothing. Build your business in every way you can and then when you do find a home for it or have the capital to really get going, you're not starting from no presence and hoping - you're focusing on just setting up the physical presence. Hell, you can rent temporary rooms for gaming events. That should be fairly cheap. Take along a supply of snacks to sell. Again, worst case scenario you're out by $40 of snack food (which you can eat yourself over the next few months). If you can get this stuff off the ground as a local activity then again you are in the situation that you're not renting a place and hoping but renting a place because you need a home for your growing business.

Starting a business is like starting a fire. You don't go from nothing to a big roaring blaze of big logs. You get together some wood shavings and small kindling and you carefully get that growing. And every little flame helps. Once you have those small pieces going you can add the big logs ("rented store, ordering in bulk, etc.").

I don't know your personal circumstances but if you're not in danger of losing where you live or not being able to provide for kids or something, then now absolutely is the time to start working on this stuff. You don't want to start the business and deal with a hundred little things at once. Start doing those little things now - the business bank account, the Facebook page, the email address, your first time ordering games or comics from the manufacturer. Hell, look at what the costs for a stall are at your local market (if you have one) and if you can sink a couple of hundred novels into buying some stock (graphic novels, board games, whatever) without risk maybe a good way to get a feel for things and meet some people and introduce your name and Facebook page and get people aware and interested in an event. Get the small flames burning consistently then USE them to build to a point you can do the big fire.

It takes a long time to get a business going. Whether that's a shop, a restaurant, a service like plumbing. It takes time for word of mouth to spread, interest to grow, cash flow to build. You can start all of that now: Name, bank account, getting yourself known, small low-risk events or stock buying. Do these things. Don't use your credit card for this. Look into an actual small loan if you need to. You can find ones that defer the start of payback which is good because then you have a nice clear goal of "I must be making $80 a month profit by six months time" or similar. If it's small enough, and if you have family that might be able to stop you getting into a debt spiral over a $1,000 loan (whom you will pay back of course if they do have to bail you out!) then even better. But basically you should be able to take initial steps for less than $100 right now. Then you can dip your toe in the water for the more costly ideas progressively over the next few months (buying stock in the hopes you can sell it, renting a place for gaming nights, whatever).

Good luck. You can start now if you want to.

 

[TurdFondler]

A really good, solid business plan with clear milestones is absolutely necessary. You have to know when to pull the plug or realign a venture. If you're not hitting your sales goals by 4 months, it might make sense to just scuttle the business, sell what you can and pay down the loans so you're not stuck having to file for bankruptcy.
My biggest concern would be the overhead. Buying stock is one thing, but your reoccurring costs like rent and insurance are another. How much would you have to make a month to keep the lights on? What's the cheapest rent you can find? You'll need to spend money on the space you rent, even if its stupid shit like paint and shelves it still costs money. A brick and mortar store needs a shit ton of capital, you'll need enough to cover your stock, rental down payment and probably rent and loan interest for at least 6 months.

With limited capital I'd focus on online sales of niche products and then have a popup stall at local cons and events.

 

[Mister Mint]

Hm. Well, I want to open a game shop that involves selling board games, tabletop games and cards. Part of the appeal is having a space for people to gather together and play, and holding monthly tournaments for them.

Unless you live in a particularly large city that can support it and isn't already saturated with competitors - don't do it. Even then, I wouldn't.

Without powerleveling too much, I speak from years of experience here.

There's plenty of competition. I can think of at least two other game shops in the area, but it's a pretty urban area. I don't believe any of the local shops have gone out of business even during the pandemic.

There we go. Unless you're in a huge metropolis, you're done. More than 2 of these stores aren't needed in most cities and if these stores didn't go under when covid hit then they already have a strong backing and clientele.

As for a hook or loyal clientele, the only unique thing I have to offer so far is that I do tarot readings

Honestly, opening up a little tarot booth or tarot hotline has a way higher likelihood of success. I looked into doing that after my game store closed.


Some bits of info for you:

If it's just you then you probably won't be open as much as other local stores so you'll have less customers willing to screw around with your possibly weird or short hours. You'll also have less events going on, which will be a turn-off. You're talking about monthly tournaments. Your customers want tournaments several times weekly. Friday Night Magic, Pokemon Saturdays, Yu-Gi-Oh Thursday, I don't know, Cardfight Vanguard Tuesdays? Your tournaments should be happening almost constantly.

The prices you get from your distributors for board/tabletop games will be roughly the same as the prices Amazon sells for either all the time or during frequent sales. The only thing you might make money on is the cards. You're just the place people go to get ideas on what to buy from Amazon for the rest. In fact, your clientele will be so autistic they'll even tell you that.

Even if you don't have 100 other competitors now, you could. People open up these kinds of stores in markets saturated with other stores just like them because they're passionate and autistic. My town has probably 3x more stores than it can feasibly support for this reason.

The companies you do business with are slowly trying to get away from you. Even Cards Against Humanity, who started up a distribution platform claiming to care about local game stores and independent game designers and promised to never sell to big box stores IMMEDIATELY sold out to Target and cut out the little guys once they didn't feel like supporting them anymore. You think you're going to do any better with Wizards of the fucking Coast?

Your goal of having just enough for food and rent is modest, but I can't stress enough how hard it is to ever sell enough product to just pay the rent, utilities, brick & mortar upkeep, marketing, stock replenishment, etc etc let alone your own food, rent, and minimal expenses on top of that.

If you want some advice on suppliers, events, tips & tricks or whatever, shoot me a message, I did this stuff for years so I'll point you in the right direction. Ultimately though, the best advice I can give is to walk away, the FLGS is dead.

 

[Don't Tread on Me]

Unless you live in a particularly large city that can support it and isn't already saturated with competitors - don't do it. Even then, I wouldn't.

Without powerleveling too much, I speak from years of experience here.


There we go. Unless you're in a huge metropolis, you're done. More than 2 of these stores aren't needed in most cities and if these stores didn't go under when covid hit then they already have a strong backing and clientele.


Honestly, opening up a little tarot booth or tarot hotline has a way higher likelihood of success. I looked into doing that after my game store closed.


Some bits of info for you:

If it's just you then you probably won't be open as much as other local stores so you'll have less customers willing to screw around with your possibly weird or short hours. You'll also have less events going on, which will be a turn-off. You're talking about monthly tournaments. Your customers want tournaments several times weekly. Friday Night Magic, Pokemon Saturdays, Yu-Gi-Oh Thursday, I don't know, Cardfight Vanguard Tuesdays? Your tournaments should be happening almost constantly.

The prices you get from your distributors for board/tabletop games will be roughly the same as the prices Amazon sells for either all the time or during frequent sales. The only thing you might make money on is the cards. You're just the place people go to get ideas on what to buy from Amazon for the rest. In fact, your clientele will be so autistic they'll even tell you that.

Even if you don't have 100 other competitors now, you could. People open up these kinds of stores in markets saturated with other stores just like them because they're passionate and autistic. My town has probably 3x more stores than it can feasibly support for this reason.

The companies you do business with are slowly trying to get away from you. Even Cards Against Humanity, who started up a distribution platform claiming to care about local game stores and independent game designers and promised to never sell to big box stores IMMEDIATELY sold out to Target and cut out the little guys once they didn't feel like supporting them anymore. You think you're going to do any better with Wizards of the fucking Coast?

Your goal of having just enough for food and rent is modest, but I can't stress enough how hard it is to ever sell enough product to just pay the rent, utilities, brick & mortar upkeep, marketing, stock replenishment, etc etc let alone your own food, rent, and minimal expenses on top of that.

If you want some advice on suppliers, events, tips & tricks or whatever, shoot me a message, I did this stuff for years so I'll point you in the right direction. Ultimately though, the best advice I can give is to walk away, the FLGS is dead.

I'll take your advice. If you think the area is saturated, I wont do it.

 

[Mister Mint]

I'll take your advice. If you think the area is saturated, I wont do it.

I'd say unless the population in your city is 200000 or more, 2 stores is the limit unless you're doing something wildly different.

 

[Don't Tread on Me]

I'd say unless the population in your city is 200000 or more, 2 stores is the limit unless you're doing something wildly different.

Without PLing too much, the population of my area is near or greater than 1 million.

 

[Mister Mint]

Without PLing too much, the population of my area is near or greater than 1 million.

oh. Well then you probably have more wiggle room as far as competitors then. Maybe do some recon, go play at an existing store and see if you can weasel some info out of the players on how much they spend or just look around and see how busy it is.
The rest still stands though, it's unfortunately a dying business.

 

[TurdFondler]

The only hobby store in my area that's opened in the last few years is one that operates mostly online, has a small bit of space in an industrial building and imports shit that you literally cannot get unless you speak Japanese. Unless you've got either an incredible line on goods and can undercut everyone or sell stuff no one else can get, I wouldn't bother.

 

[Kendall Motor Oil]

You can get a resin 3D printer and print miniatures for people.You can try to advertise at the current card shops. They can send you the 3D file to print so you can avoid getting caught in IP issues. You can tell them were to look, though. There are so many tabletop 3D files online.

 

[Shadfan666xxx000]

Lol, just make some NFTS and sell them. I'll probably make my rent money selling a fancy triangle over and over again.

 

[TurdFondler]

You can get a resin 3D printer and print miniatures for people.You can try to advertise at the current card shops. They can send you the 3D file to print so you can avoid getting caught in IP issues. You can tell them were to look, though. There are so many tabletop 3D files online.

Terrain, DM screens and ttrpg boards might be a niche to look into

 

[TheTrumanShow]

Likely not gonna happen. Try renting a strawberry wagon/local specialty thing and aim for a recreational area newly built or that does not have such a thing yet. Seasonal work can make some money. Or get involved in the festival business and selling food in them. Or places like burning man, what ever. At least for someone with low capital.

Alright, that makes sense, so if I specialize more I can be successful with organizing and providing a space for gamers, I would just need to eat a lot of upfront cost and work hard to advertise and get people in the door as soon as possible.

Don't people already have those kind of spaces, and they are free or membership based?
Maybe you can get a local business grant or get support from the local government culture department or what ever? Create a non-profit and look for grants?

Also mixing board game café with tarot reading just seems like "this is my personal space here, come and enjoy it if youre like me". Nobody would invest in this. Im still confused at if your focus is a community space with boardgames that sells some boardgames but is more of a service provider or if your place is a shop with some hangout space.

I have limited knowledge of these places but the boardgame/gaming cafés I know of had huge capital investments and are mostly bars or cafés appealing to nerds but where the nerding is secondary. The ones that aren´t are non-profit or have someone with a very good hook into a specific community.

The shops that sell the stuff have been in it since before the dawn of the internet, or at least it feels like it. They tend to sell but also buy and trade, have large inventories and look really impressive even for someone like me who isnt interested that much.



Overly Serious had some good advice at the level where you should pay him royalty.
The only thing I might disagree with (but I dont know enough to dip into this really) is that you could possibly compete as a rando-mini store online selling boardgames that are available on the market in general. Agian youd have to have a hook in with a creator, artist, community to start that way, IMO.

 

[JaneThough]

There's plenty of competition. I can think of at least two other game shops in the area, but it's a pretty urban area. I don't believe any of the local shops have gone out of business even during the pandemic.

As for a hook or loyal clientele, the only unique thing I have to offer so far is that I do tarot readings, which I think might help me appeal to the female audience a bit more than the average game shop since that's very similar to astrology.

"I am going to open a store and the only demographic research I have done is on the chans"

 

[Manul Otocolobus]

Flea markets have already been picked over decades ago. The next frontier is the dead.
The local retro games store around here does a brisk trade in rare games pulled out of estates. Stuff owned by people who died, or left their childhood junk in their parents' attic and then the parents died. They've got a whole rack of Nintendo magazines from the same doomed soul

Until I read down further I thought you were seriously advocating grave robbing.

 

[Kosher Dill]

Until I read down further I thought you were seriously advocating grave robbing.

That's known to be a bad idea, the pyramid of Tutankhansoomer is riddled with traps. (and yes, they're gay.)

 

[libRT]

The problem with getting a loan to start a business during high inflation is that your business will not just have to survive but also thrive. you're picking a venture that will be one of the first that people decide to cut spending on when costs do increase. Thinking that just because the value of goods rise during inflation, it'll be easier to pay off is dumb, the people who you want to part your money with will be more frugal especially on products/services that are not necessary.
You want a brick and mortar store, during covid times, thinking this is the end of covid (lol yeah sure). Even without covid, brick and mortar stores were suffering. Maybe if it doubled as a bar/cafe or providing necessary goods/services alongside but that will push cost/price up.
Somehow you're gonna have to be able to compete with online stores even though you're not shifting nearly as much stock.

TL;DR A brick and mortar games shop is a retarded idea even without covid. Doubly so with a loan during high inflation. I doubt you'll get accepted for a loan you require, Your business plan might give them a chuckle though.

 

[murdered meat bag]

do you have wholesalers lined up? do you know their inventory levels?

 

[Overly Serious]

@Mister Mint sounds like he has some very relevant experience and good advice. You should listen to him OP. But, and this is my own opinion, you should not necessarily stop. For one, there's a big difference between gambling your livelihood and bankruptcy and risking something you can afford to lose. So @libRT is correct about taking out a loan and having to stay on top of it at a time when people may be cutting back on luxury spending. But lets assume you have followed my advice and you've done preliminary work in setting up the business legally, email address, facebook, etc. All low-cost stuff. Now two scenarios. (a) you take out a loan of $500 to buy boardgame or graphic novel inventory or such. (b) you take out $20,000 loan to pay rent on a new store for six months. I'm fairly confident libRT's advice is more leaning towards assuming the latter scenario (and is therefore very good advice) rather than the former. Because the former is a situation where you should be able to recover from a $500 loss It's an affordable risk. To build a business you usually have to take affordable risks (unless you have the luxury of some guaranteed income stream and are starting the business to take advantage of that). The trick is to work iteratively.

Also note another important difference between the two scenarios. Buying in a small stock provides you with assets. You may lose money but hopefully it wont be all of it even it you have to sell at a slight loss. But the store rent provides you no way to recoup the money - it's not an asset.

That's why despite Mr Mint evidently knowing a whole Hell of a lot more about this market than I do, I think you may have drawn the wrong conclusion from it (and not necessarily what he intended you to draw). Look at ways you can build up a presence and get the business side of things all understood and out of the way. Be open to partnering. libRT mentioned about gaming cafes - that's again pushing you into the bigger loan/bigger risk category but maybe there's a local cafe already there that would be open to you partnering with them for regular game nights if they're not normally open late, or putting up a bookshelf of games that can be used for a fee or give the cafe a cut of sales. I love the ideas @Neigh and @TurdFondler had about 3D printing or terrain. My point is that you need to develop a businessman mindset and that's all about seeking opportunities.

Mindset #1: "I have this one big idea and I will invest heavily in it." << Big risk. Quite probably fail.
Mindset #2: "There's an opportunity. Here's another one. This idea might work. That's worth a try at least." << Smaller risk. Likely get a mix of successes and failures.

If you were a bong and of a certain generation, I'd give you a role model of:

But I don't think you're either so this will mean nothing to you. Point is you need to approach building a business like climbing rock face - look for as many handholds and crevices as possible, choose the most promising and if you're over-extending yourself be mindful of risk. Opportunistic. Every small success will teach you things and provide you contacts. You mentioned tarot readings - throw them in there.

Two more role models that you will have heard of:

Remember, when Johnny only had one student and had already rented out the dojo space and then started wandering around town handing out flyers? Johnny was an idiot. Don't copy that. But Johnny also learned from his mistakes and was persistent. Do be like that. Johnny is a badass.

Finally, Joker - another businessman.



Joker sets fire to his money. Don't copy that. But Joker also knows how to negotiate - do be like that. Be very clear that you're in business. That doesn't mean being unfriendly. And it doesn't mean you can never do a favour for someone. And it doesn't mean you can't do some kind of free event / publicity if you want to. But as a general rule, "never do it for free" is very valuable advice. People's expectations that you'll just run off that 3D model at cost for them, that they don't need to pay for the club, or whatever can and will sink you. Gaming circles are especially prone to moochers. You love what you do but it's okay to be in it for the money, too.

 

[Stoneheart]

The prices you get from your distributors for board/tabletop games will be roughly the same as the prices Amazon sells for either all the time or during frequent sales. The only thing you might make money on is the cards. You're just the place people go to get ideas on what to buy from Amazon for the rest. In fact, your clientele will be so autistic they'll even tell you that.

Boardgames have a good margin, unlike Cards.
the cards are sold on the internet for cheap and one of the biggest Seller is a youtuber thats pretty open with his costs and prices, there is no money to make and even rudy makes his money from selling old boxes(hoarding them needs alot of capital) and his patreon fees.

only yugioh people buy in shops, they are mostly lower class with some brain damage and every single one of them got scammed on the net by some sellers.

The companies you do business with are slowly trying to get away from you. Even Cards Against Humanity, who started up a distribution platform claiming to care about local game stores and independent game designers and promised to never sell to big box stores IMMEDIATELY sold out to Target and cut out the little guys once they didn't feel like supporting them anymore. You think you're going to do any better with Wizards of the fucking Coast?

what big box store is willing to pick up any more special boardgames?

you're picking a venture that will be one of the first that people decide to cut spending on when costs do increase.

The Target audience for boardgames is people in their late 20s or above with much disposable income and no kids..

You can get a resin 3D printer and print miniatures for people.You can try to advertise at the current card shops. They can send you the 3D file to print so you can avoid getting caught in IP issues. You can tell them were to look, though. There are so many tabletop 3D files online.

building your business on using 200$ equipment for the easy part of make the models is not a good idea.

 

[Doc Cassidy]

Your best bet would be to open a game store but use it as a front to sell shitty drugs and child porn. People that play tabletop games love shitty drugs and child porn so it will be a rousing success and you'll be rich in no time.