Retail

[Darkends]

Hello,
My wife and I are starting to do some research on starting a LAN center,  One of the ideas we had was a retail aspect of it in regards to actually selling and bringing in games to sell as well as the lan portion of the business.  Has any one tried this and how well did it work out and if you have thought about it what was the deterrent for not doing it? 

[RsteeleAUG]

For me it was the limited mark up. The distributors that I have had contact with sell games around $10 under retail. If you don't purchase a certain volume they charge shipping, which in turn eats up most if not all of the $10 per game.

Now used games are a bit easier and I do buy and sell and trade ins for store credit alot. Store credit works well because everything we have is already marked up so we get a sometimes $40-$50 game for closer to $20 or  $25 in trade.

I do the same thing with consoles if I can get a broken PS3 or 360 fairly cheap I'll repair what ever the problem may be and resell it.

I know others sell games and do well, but in our area we just don't see any way to compete with 5 Gamestops, 5 Wal marts, Kmart, 3 Targets, Sam's club and Costco. Play n Trade went out of business here about 2 months ago and so did Blockbuster recently. Kiosk's killed Blockbuster and the others I listed before killed the Play n Trade. I actually saw one of the owners of Play N trade purchase games from Kmart.

[Darkends]

Okay good info to know.  We also discussed and figured as well since things seem to be going digital that maybey we will just stick with the LAN Center only. 

[needsLITHIUM]

also, if you have tech know-how, building custom computers (and/or doing repairs) can be quite profitable, depending on the area you are planning to open your store in.  Right next to a best buy, in Boca Raton, FL, there is a little tech (that is not a LAN center) shop that makes a killing, just by undercutting the outrageous prices at the 'big store'.  And since they have very few employees, they make more per transaction than the best buy does while charging less (they also see modest traffic).  Just food for thought, as the IT industry is growing rampant...

[RsteeleAUG]

Best buy is closing 400 big box stores in the near future. I hope they get to keep theirs at that location.

[needsLITHIUM]

wow!  Best Buy CLOSING locations??

I wonder if it was due to over growth, like with starbucks?? Or, maybe CompUSA and little shops are finally making some leeway...

Or, perhaps people just finally figured out the 9/10 they were getting ripped off lol. 

I have seen BB beat other stores in prices for TV's, Consoles, CD's, Games, etc., but I have yet to see them offer competitive IT or PC part solutions...

Hopefully that doesn't hurt the over all market, and instead leaves a gap for other businesses to fill...

Competition is good for business and customers alike

[Crazyhowie]

Best Buy plans to open up smaller more mobile-oriented retail stores in lieu of the big box retail stores. Basically, they're seeing that the kids these days love their android and iDevices and their eyes are spinning $$$ symbols. iPads, other tablets, and the like take up a lot less footprint for selling than big ole TV's and appliances.

[needsLITHIUM]

I have seen a few of these in malls...