"Brick and Mortar Discounts ?" Topic

Being in MA, I have access to several local gamestores. I consider myself very lucky in this regard.

But I do have a complaint with the way my gamestores handle their business and the way they discount items. I will not name names, but I have a feeling if you been to these stores you may know who I am talking about.

Gamestore 1 used to be my main FLGS. It offers a 10% discount off all items in the store. To get this discount, you need to have an account and they keep track of your total. Every week or so they used to print off and mail reward certificates in $5 USD increments ($5, $10 USD, $15 USD…). This used to work great and kept me coming in the store.

Then weirdness set in. The person who would run the rewards was away and it wasnt happening for a couple months. I (and I am guessing others) had rewards that went higher than the system would allow and needed to be hand entered in, breaking the system even further. They finally got caught up with the rewards and issued the certificates out, but when they did, it placed me in the negative value for the certficates issued instead of zeroing out. After arguing with the owner that my points should be somewhere near 0 and not -XXXXX and needing to purchase over $1,000 USD just to get rewards again, he reset my count to 0. Instead of fixing the math, I think I am owed another $20 USD between when he issued the rewards and when I got reset to 0, but his attitude was that the rewards were a "bonus" and not "something owed".

They changed their system to one that is supposed to be more reliable and the reward is given at the register. BUT someone has to verify the rewards in the system MANUALLY.

Since this update, I have not recieved a reward gift certificate since, yet they keep telling me I should be getting one soon. This has been over 5 months now.

Gamestore 2 offers a $10 USD off the current total if you bring in receipts totalling $100 USD or more. This is annoying because I dont go to the store that often (its a far ride) and now I have to keep all my receipts?

Gamestore 3 gives you a card and punches the card for each gaming item you purchase. When you reach 10 items, you get one under some amount free. I forget what and again, its far away so I keep forgetting to bring the card with me.

Gamestore 4 offers a 20% discount off all boardgames and miniature games. The discount is given at the register at the moment of purchase. This is my prefered method, and once I found out this gamestore is now a gamestore and not a comic book/magic card store, I have been frequenting this one more and more. I have issues with the store itself and they only sell a couple lines, but the discount brings me in.

Does your LFGS offer discounts or rewards? How do they handle it?

Are rewards just an extra bonus or something owed/earned for being a good frequent customer?

A lot of the ones that I have been to did not discount. One did 10% for HMGS members, and the most recent did 10% for HMGS members OR you could get a punch card and get 20% off an item when the card was filled.

A discount is just a nice bonus. I have spent most of my money in stores that do not offer discounts.

My FLGS has a frequent buyer card. It's kept at the store, and for every full $10 USD spent you get a checkmark. When you reach $100 USD, you get a $10 USD gift certificate. The only caveat is that the checkmarks expire if you don't reach the $100 USD mark in six months, but that's not usually a problem!

I'll make a prediction. A brick and mortar store that regularly offers a 20% discount is either doing landmark business or will be going out of business as their operating expenses catch up with their receipts.

Discounts are nice, but due to tight margins, high rent, bad economy, and on and on they are definitely a bonus.

Frankly I'm never in the least put off if an FLGS has no discount I'm just happy if they got what I want at a nice price and they don't follow me around the damn place trying to sell me the newest hottest thing.

If a local place actually sold historical wargaming stuff I'd also be just happy to pay sticker price. With the cost of shipping to Canada from the US or Britain I usually spend more then the sticker, even if they offer a discount. If it gets caught by customs then I'm usually paying an extra 20 to 60 dollars.

There is one exception. I found a store about an hour away that sells Games Workshop for 10-30% off the MSRP. I make it a big purchase and its totally worth the gas to get there.

I don't expect discounts from a brick and mortar store but, when I am going to make a large purchase say 300$ plus I haggle. I usually am successful in getting discounts this way. But in all honesty I usually buy direct as I hate to get a partial order as "some" of the order is not available at the distributor and they seem to take forever to re-stock.

I'll make a prediction. A brick and mortar store that regularly offers a 20% discount is either doing landmark business or will be going out of business as their operating expenses catch up with their receipts.

Yes with only a 30-35% margin, maybe 40% depending on the deal from their distributor, they're hurting themselves badly.

Want to support your FLGS? Pay full price.

^^^ You can't buy most of your stuff from on-line discounters and then wonder why your FLGS went out of business.

If they are not making most of their money off of collectable card games and having tournaments for those collectable games, how are they staying in business? The place our local boardgame group meets twice a month is always having tournaments. Talk about business going through the roof. Be there when a new set comes out. They are standing in line with cash in hand to buy boxes not individual packs.. Then after seeing what cards they got, they get back in line.

I want to know this 20% place

My 'local' game store is also my gaming venue. I'm very glad it's around. I don't expect a discount from them. They do have the occasional sale and are very good about letting me know.

Sunshine games in Miami always gave 20% as well. Very strange as it wasn't advertised anywhere, you just found out when you got to the register. Strange business plan.
Game stores who think they must discount to survive are on the wrong track I think. They still cant compete with online traders. Most game stores suffer from total lack of service while te staff talk to friends or play indepth games ignoring the customers. A game store should also be a meeting point for gamers, with newcomers welcomed and easy game set ups on display.

Hmmm… You've got four gamestores in driving distance? Sounds pretty nice. I believe there is one in my state.

but his attitude was that the rewards were a "bonus" and not "something owed".

Sounds about right, that's my attitude as a consumer.

I suppose you have to figure out which store you want to still be there when you go shopping. The one's you don't frequent eventually won't be there. I also suspect, as Cyrus above, that the 20% discount everything store will have a hard time managing.

An FLGS trying to.compete on price alone won't last long. You need to service the hell out of your customers and take care of them. It also helps a lot if you offer gaming experiences and a place to play. Carrying or being able to get unique lines and products that others don't or won't sell can also be a contributing factor to success.

My FLGS offers a discount at the cash register, but I don't base my buying decision on the discount. If I want the figures/item, I buy them. Any discount beyond list price is a bonus.

I never had an FLGS discount anything in their brick and mortar store – they would at cons, etc., but not in their store.

One of my local stores offers a discount if you preorder something, and a larger discount if you prepay for said preorder.

My FLGS tends to be sround 20% off products from the "big" manufacturers like GW or Battlefront (apart from Finecast which apparently doesn't allow for much discount). Other products are usually 10/15% off, but if you're ordering stuff he doesn't usually hold in stock the discount can be even higher. He is, however based quite close to Wayland, so really needs to compete on price!

The one that used to be local did the "punch your card" deal and the card lasted a year. It wasn't something I expected but it did push me to buy there first. They went away due to other issues though.

"but his attitude was that the rewards were a "bonus" and not "something owed"."

Sounds about right, that's my attitude as a consumer.

Considering most of those points came from a "Double your points" weekend… yeah, I believe I am owed.

Basically, if you go into a store (any store) expecting a coupon because they have been advertising a coupon, and the coupon is a lie, I am pretty sure that is fraud.

Our FLGS closed a couple of years ago due to lack of sales. He did everything right, offered discounts, sold online etc…
But the final straw came for him when he discovered that locals would rather take a three hour round trip to the nearest GW and pay full price rather than walk down the street and get a 10% discount!
Sometimes people make a fuss over losing FLGS but when customers act like that they have no right to complain.

Everything mentioned in this thread made me build my store model vastly different. I'm just the business manager and still run CorSec full time for the most part but I did build the plan for this store. (I get free rent :) ) We have limited stock. We are about 50-60% below were I want to be for stock lebel but we have been open for like 18 days. We don't do magic or GW. We have 54 comfy chairs and a big open environment. It's clean and inviting. Gamers are bringing wives and children in. Gamers I have known for years and who never bring their kids to the other stores.

I wrote off all the retail sales income from my gamers. We are concentrating on conversion, events, and snacks. We run demos constantly and have hard schedules for our events. X-wing is the first Friday of every month no matter what.

Our largest income is from snacks right now. We designed it to have a heavy conversion rate but we don't have the non-gamer crowd coming through yet. That will change soon. We will be doing remote demos anywhere they will let us. Not selling but just introducing people to the hobby.

For that reason, we have no regular discount. We do offer tournament day discounts to try and increase our sales during those events. We also offer 15% to anyone who runs a demo if they buy that day. (considering extending that to a week) That ups the conversion rate a bit more. We are an event location more then a retail store. We are open till 11pm every night.

We don't carry many historical games so most TMPers would not like to buy at my store. We do carry Bolt Action and are building a Saga community. We will support anyone who builds a community but my stock is designed to move. I don't leave stuff on the shelf for months. It gets discounted heavily or painted and tossed on ebay. However, Bobe's hobby house is down the road so go buy your stuff there and then come down to us and set up your games to play :)

I am considering some sort of loyalty program but still working out those details.