Where Should the Next DP Videogames Store Be?

[digitalpress]

I would suggest this though instaed of going out of state to open another one
work on your area branch out in NJ open two or three more this will save you on the travel expense from going to one store out of state to your main store.
after the stores in your area start doing good, then branch out of state and then you can travel set up a store. then if get 3 or more out of state start looking for district mananger to run a chain in the area. my .02 cents

Here's the thing. NJ isn't THAT big. If I opened a store in NJ it would compete with my current store, which of course would suck. I have one other limiting factor, my pal Nick owns a store in south Jersey. That means that northern/eastern PA and south Jersey are off limits. However, New York, particularly Manhattan, is another matter entirely. I'm nearby and there are all kinds of social factors involved, making it a pretty likely target.

[Fighter17]

I work for a Real Estate office in Palm Coast, FL.

So Joe if you're interested I can give you their contact number.

But I recommonded doing research on Flagler County, FL first.

We have tons of new buildings opening up fast over here!

[udisi]

Let me tell you a little secret. Being NEAR GameStop, EB, GameCrazy... that's a GOOD thing! A great deal of my business is generated via reference from the local retail chains. You see, I provide something to their customers that they cannot - which not only gives them an "out" but also makes them look pretty smart without actually creating conflict of interest. You'd think these places would be great enemies, but they are in fact great alliances.

So if anyone else is thinking along those routes please consider that - it is absolute truth. I'd rather be in the center of a cluster of such stores than be far apart from any one of them.

If you wanna be near GameStop/EB you should come near me.... We have 4 Gamestops within 5 miles of me, and the area isn't really that big 20,000-40,000 people. It's pretty much just upper-middle class housing and commerce as far as the eye can see.

[dylan0228]

Jefferson, Wisconsin!

[Dan Iacovelli]

Here's the thing. NJ isn't THAT big. If I opened a store in NJ it would compete with my current store, which of course would suck. I have one other limiting factor, my pal Nick owns a store in south Jersey. That means that northern/eastern PA and south Jersey are off limits. However, New York, particularly Manhattan, is another matter entirely. I'm nearby and there are all kinds of social factors involved, making it a pretty likely target.

one question: why don't you want by your friends shop?
nothing wrong with competition. grocery stores do it.
over here theres about one Dominick's to each Jewel (ie I work at Dominicks
in westchester,il about two blocks a way theres a jewel)
and while I'm at where I work we have a slew of fast food places and they
are right next to each other: it start with taco bell, then KFC,then BK and ends with Mickey D's then inside the strip mall there a Subway and local pizza and hot dog place.
we also have a Dunken donoughts(inside dominicks we have a starbucks)
and evena chinese take out and boheumin restruant.
Down the road from there is an Arbys,pandea bread, panchero's mexican,
and a Bunno beef.
I do understand you don't too close to the friends store, but if you have about 2 or 3 miles away from that I won't see a problem with that.
think of your travel expenses first before you go out of state.

[digitalpress]

one question: why don't you want by your friends shop?

...snip...

I do understand you don't too close to the friends store, but if you have about 2 or 3 miles away from that I won't see a problem with that.

Dan...

With all due respect, it's clear you don't understand this business or even what a friendly business relationship might be. 2-3 miles apart isn't friendly competition when you're in a niche market, it's outright warfare. I don't see the big chains as competition for many reasons: they don't stock what I stock, they don't have a LAN center, they don't do repairs... but these are ALL things that my friend has, and he's less than 5 miles away. Think about it. Then, put IL out of your head for good.

[ROBOTNIK666]

Put one in Evanston, Illinois. Kids here need to learn that good graphics don't make a good game!

[boatofcar]

While I'd love to follow the trend of "put one where I live," I think from a practical perspective putting a store in the DC metro area is a great idea. While business real estate in the Arlington/Alexandria VA or Rockville MD area is getting more expensive, there is a lot of room for expansion, which keeps the prices from getting too insane. From a location in the DC area, you'll get customers from these major cities/suburbs, all which have a TON of cash to throw around:

Richmond
Arlington
Alexandria
Pittsburgh
DC
Rockville
Silver Spring
Baltimore
Plus a ton of the suburbs around Baltimore I don't know about.

Combine this with:

You're well within a day's drive of Jersey yet not so close that the two stores will compete.

From what I've heard from the small business groups I used to work with when I was with Apple, Maryland is very small-business friendly.

You'll fill a void left by Starland, which was a great store that suffered from poor management.



...but if you really want to, I wouldn't object to a store down the street from me in VA Beach, either

[exit]

Down here there was a CD traders that lasted awhile in this one spot, they sold everything from CDs and Records to Atari games and PS2 games. The store shut down a few years ago tho, mainly because of internal problems (they ended up losing this guy Mike, who was the main factor of the stores success), but a store like this would probably do wonders there. There are schools close to the area and it's in between some restaurants and other misc stores.

[Dan Iacovelli]

Dan...

With all due respect, it's clear you don't understand this business or even what a friendly business relationship might be. 2-3 miles apart isn't friendly competition when you're in a niche market, it's outright warfare. I don't see the big chains as competition for many reasons: they don't stock what I stock, they don't have a LAN center, they don't do repairs... but these are ALL things that my friend has, and he's less than 5 miles away. Think about it. Then, put IL out of your head for good.

ouch, just some freindly advice(hope you don't get this way when we meet at CGE in vegas)
ok, that I understand that you got business relation with him,ie the no compete clause like ted turner got when he left the wrestling business,
ok no problem, can I ask you this: where do you want another store to be?
it shouldn't be up to us, because your going to hear a bunch people(me included) say put one by house or city or state.
this is your business not ours say you listen to one of us, and that store fails
who loses the money, not us but you.
what you do is first do some research on some good areas "YOU" think will work, then you think about your expeses(travel, since you might want to check on your stores from time to time, cost to run the store, supply and demand ...) if all that come out good then you go for the location.
you said you like to have it NY,Manhatten area, then check out the location
check the cost of rental units if you can afford it,and all expenses are low enough to actually do it then give it a shot.
in summary expand locally,where it only cost you a few gallons of gas for travel, after that store makes a profit,then consider opening up others out of state(NY is out of state for you but it's close to you, when I say out of state
I mean like ohio or something like that, or you can go out further in ny area if you want and just makea local chain)

[LAGO]

I'm not the best with markets and such but I would suggest keeping the store within a 2 hour driving area for a couple of reasons. The main one being travel expense. You want the store far enough away from your first to not undercut business but putting it to far out and you're going to eat up a lot of money by driving to the store and gas. Well ok that was one reason but it sounds solid.

[Greg2600]

I would go where the money is, i.e. more affluent places, that also has parking. I also wouldn't stray too far from your homebase with just 2 stores.

[Muscelli]

everything you mentioned so far is great as far as blue bell or one of the surrounding areas is concerned. Montgomereyville and lansdale are both very close by (each that have their fair shares of gamestops). There is no indie game store close by unless you count game tapes unlimited which is somewhat far from bluebell and is just a flea market vendor.

There are many families in the areas close by like lansdale, audubon, and worcester. Not to mention the main line folks. Household incomes for all these communities are close to or above 100k (besides audubon), so I am sure you would have repeat customers fairly. But it is a nice community, which is FILLED with families. I have no doubt there would be plenty of customers willing to buy from the DP store.

Renting out a space in a shopping center is fairly cheap as well. Id take a look at what the town has to offer

[Kitsune Sniper]

Calexico, California. Yes, DreamTR already said that you should avoid California. But here's a reason why you should open a store here:

Snowbirds. And Canadians in general.

Calexico has a very large fluctuating population. We get a lot of visitors during the winter months because our climate is relatively tame in comparison to the north. We get thousands upon thousands of visiting Canadians (who we call Snowbirds)

The only available game stores are the following:
Gamestop (which is run by a total jerk)
Wal-Mart
Toys'R'Us
Tavio's (which is run by an idiot who likes to reseal games and try to pass them off as new)
Random Asian and Mexican-owned stores (who sell you Greatest Hits titles at a $30, minimum, and GBA pirate games at $50).

The location is excellent - the city is right next to the border with Mexicali. The city's inhabitants like to cross the border, buy games, then smuggle them back into Mexico (rather than pay those insane Mexican import / sales taxes). Also, Calexico is close to San Diego and Arizona. You could get lots of people from there to come to your store.

We've got tons of young folks going to school here. There's a huge college population in Mexicali, but not so much in Calexico (again, I bring up the smugglers ;p)

I'd work for ya. But I'm biased. ;P

Hell, I tried.

[Garry Silljo]

I second that. Pittsburgh, that way its half way between the chicago area and your current store

Pittsburgh has a lot of competition from other chains. "The Exchange" has multiple stores in and around the city, and "Cash and Culture" is another that services classic gamers. Joe surely could compete. Both of these chains aren't exclusively for gamers but also deal in movies, cds, action figures and more. On an interesting side note, when people trade games into "The Exchange", they use this site's online rarity guide to make their offers.

My suggestion is obviously biased, but here in Washington Pa it would be great. We have EB and CD Warehouse for used games, but only in the current gen. There is no shop here to trade or buy carts. The EB in McMurray used to before EB stopped doing that and a lot of people here in Washington made a special trip there because the nearest place after that would be 40 minutes to an hour from Washington as opposed to 20 from McMurray. A lot of new stores have been opening here and we've a burst of economic activity, but nothing in this genre. The need certainly exist here.

[j_factor]

If you're seriously considering the West Coast, the whole stretch north of Hollywood and south of Seattle is basically void of good used game stores. Off the top of my head, I would suggest Sunnyvale, located in between San Francisco and San Jose. It's the city where Atari was founded and the first Pong machine was operated, and it doesn't have a classic game store anywhere near it.

[DreamTR]

udisi: Joe can't open one out there, TRade N Games is already within the area, and he already provides everything that the DP store provides.

Dan I: Joe is right, I have not "opened" my own store yet, but I plan to do so with a flea market first and building up the inventory, but my point is, I would NEVER EVER open a game store near where personal friends are. You have to understand if my buddy spent 20K to open a store, then I come along and take half his business in the vicinity, he could lose everything he has or go under?

Selling in an area where there IS a GameStop/EB as long as it's not IN a mall (I know people say the mall drives in traffic, but if you boost in rent and the fact that most indie stores are never in a good place when there is a GS/EB in the same mall, you are better off in the outskirts doing exactly what Joe said, providing customers with something they can NOT receive at EB.

I plan on having various arcade fighting games and steal the arcade market, Tennessee has a 35,000 student college in the middle of the state and NOTHING TO DO AT NIGHT. Hello????? DDR anyone? LAN Center, Anime, Action Figures, Classic Games, Game/System Repairs, video game clothing....GameStop and EB are basically free advertising for your store nearby, half the time their employees will come and REFER customers to your store.


jfactor: uh....I can think of at least 20 game stores I have been to (with classics) on the West Coast. What part of the state are you searching? Game Dude, Alameda Game Exchange, 4Jays, Game World Exchange, A&J Games, and at least 5 others I went to in the NoCal area...

[Mianrtcv]

I can tell you Flushing, New York in Queens. There is a great amount of foot traffic and public transportation. There is even parking for the most part. There are many different businesses and to tell the truth not really any place I can think of that sells games aside from a chain like fye or something. It has a diverse population. There are a good amount of gamers in the borough. There are many schools that use Flushing as a transportation hub. As well as your 20-40 yr old demographic in commute from school or work. Not to mention I can get there easily. Yes, I'm selfish.

[MrRoboto19XX]

The Central MD/Baltimore area would be intresting (and incredibly convenient for me), you have 3-4 moderate-sized schools there, as well as a good number of Ebgamestops. There is a small independant chain around here called Power Gamer, they deal mainly in current imports, but have a decent chunk of classic games as well. In my opinion, they would be the guys to beat; they have a reputation as the only place to buy the afforementioned games, and they're not pushy on reserves, subs, etc. Their main problem is their staff consists of a bunch of elite gamer types that either like you or are annoyed by you.

So in recap,

Pros of the Central MD store:

Lots of big name competition/refrences
The Suburbs of DC/Balto have some affluent potential customers
Relatively easy commute if need be
Decent locations available
Indie chain has the product, but not the service

Cons
Locations can be pricey
Indie chain already present
Word of mouth marketing may be a bit tougher


Hope that helps a bit, and best of luck.

[Dan Iacovelli]

Dan I: Joe is right, I have not "opened" my own store yet, but I plan to do so with a flea market first and building up the inventory, but my point is, I would NEVER EVER open a game store near where personal friends are. You have to understand if my buddy spent 20K to open a store, then I come along and take half his business in the vicinity, he could lose everything he has or go under?.

I've already posted that I under stood why he wouldn't go by friends store and open there. and again, Isay the choice should be joe's and not up to people like us. do you think Dominick Dimato(the man who started the Dominicks food store in IL) got his 120 store chain going by asking local customers where they think the next store should be. no he did research
went to local neighborhoods,check out the territory and brought the right locations.