[Musings of a Game Store Owner] Ack!

For the past few weeks, I've been answering questions from readers (thanks SnaleKing and Bushcraft!). I've also been talking about things that "work" for FLGS type places- in business parlance, these things are called "best practices".

What they are in reality is tips one guy found, tried and discovered that they worked. So the dude tells his buddy, and these things work for the buddy. The buddy passes these tips on to another store operator, who finds the ideas have merit and so on.

Despite any ideas to the contrary, FLGS owners and operators are usually very friendly and willing to share ideas with each other. I know pretty much every owner of a FLGS in the state at least by name, and some are pretty close friends. I'm friendly with quite a few owners outside my area- either by email or Facebook. We try to do right by each other, while still making money as much as possible. For the most part, there's very little animosity or serious contentiousness. (There are some notable exceptions, but those people are jerks all around. It has nothing to do with owning a store.)

Don't be that person!

There comes a time when a store operator has to decide to break from the pack and do something outside of the best practices his friends and colleagues have passed on. Sometimes, you have to take a risk.

That's what we are about to do at the Gopher. I talked in the past about possibly expanding, and every time we looked before, something wasn't quite right. Either the space was too junky, or too nice; or the space was great but the location was terrible, or the location was fabulous and the space was ridiculously overpriced. In short, we never found the right mix for us and our needs. 

That changed very recently. We were approached by our current landlord (who is absolutely awesome in every way) recently because a space in our complex was coming open. He knew we were looking for a bigger space, so he wanted to see if we were interested in the opportunity to move. It took us less than 10 seconds to reply- absolutely YES. 

The new space is in the same complex we are in. We won't have to change our marquis sign. We won't have to get a truck to haul stuff. We won't have to change very much in terms of our address - one number will change, and we will have a different suite number. Our customers will continue to have TONS of free parking. We will continue to be easily accessible by the nearby highway exit (literally two stop lights north of us), and we will still offer great bus access. We will actually be closer to the bus drop off- a huge plus in many regards, as customers have to cross our ENORMOUS parking lot currently, but with the new location they will almost be dropped off at our door. We will continue to have the same fantastic landlord. Our space will be larger and will allow us to offer more product lines, more seating and more events. 

The long awaited "open play" tables will be a reality! At the moment there are many nights where every table is full due to league or tournament play, and we desperately want to change that. So we told the landlord yes. We signed the lease and initially gave ourselves a full month to move to the new space. 

And then we changed our minds. 

We are moving into our new space effective April 1, and it is NOT a joke.

We're also doing it with 24 hours from the close at the old location and the open at the new one. (HINT: THIS IS NOT A BEST PRACTICE.)

Better hope you can make that!

TheDude and I looked over all the things that need to be done, and most of it is administrative. I've already changed phone and trash, insurance and gotten a press release written. Power, water and post office will be later this week. TheDude has started the process of transferring the distributor accounts, new business cards, letting the bank know and has worked out a nice deal with the current tenant to purchase some helpful fixtures. 

I'm arranging the moving crew- yet again, it is made up of awesome customers who are more like family than people that buy stuff from us. The people that we hawk shiny things to are so excited to buy stuff from us, they are taking time out of their lives on a holiday weekend (yeah, Easter Sunday is when we are doing a lot of moving stuff) and helping us for FREE. 

A move of any sort is usually something you announce MONTHS in advance. Most often, you want some lead time to train your customers about the change and why it's a plus. When we made the announcement, our customers quite literally applauded- and offers of help and congratulations started rolling in faster than we could reply. 

We're beyond thrilled, but equally terrified. Our continual attitude of not really ever being ready for the changes upcoming has suited us well in this situation, and we're doing our best not to freak out, and trust that everything will get done in time. 

ACK.