Being a game center owner the only way you make money is not going to be your computers or your consoles. You will need to sell other things to supplement your income and in some instances surpass the income you generate from your computers and consoles. What I’m talking about is candy, energy drinks, and gaming paraphernalia.
When it comes to energy drinks everybody says to get Bawls. Well in my neck of the woods which is the Midwest it is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain bawls distributors. What I did find performed well in my area is monster energy drinks. The price point on the drinks are better than what bawls will give you. Monster’s brand recognition is more popular then just the gaming crowd also. You will also want to supply cokes at your game center. Starting out as an early game center owner your first response would be to go get a distributor. This is not necessarily the best way to do it. I found that going to Costco or Sam’s Club and buying in bulk led me to greater profits. Yes, it required me to do a little bit more work but the end result was higher profit per drinks sold
Costco and Sam’s Club are also excellent places to purchase your candy and your chips. You don’t want your hungry gamers to go somewhere else and purchase food from someone else so why not provide them with the bare essentials at their fingertips. These revenue drivers will be exponentiall when you have lock ins and tournaments. The only precaution I suggest is making sure that your area does not require health inspection to sell food. And ideally it’s not a good idea to get into selling prepared foods because you will definitely have to have a health inspection if you go this route.
If you have any questions on how to obtain distributors from candy companies energy drink suppliers or gaming paraphernalia feel free to comment and ask I’ll be more than happy to provide you with the information.
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Do you just use Sam’s Club or Costco for your snacks and such or do you usually end up getting nearly all your concessions from there? If not what do you usually contact a distributor for, just energy drinks?
Oh, how do you find good distributors? I was thinking of using Costco, but the more money I save the better, no?
Thanks
We’ve been using Sam’s Club. Which limits us as far as energy drinks go but they have plenty of Monster/Red bull/Rockstar. Augusta is getting a Costco soon and hopefully that will drive prices down and make the selection better.
From what I understand unless you move it by the pallet the Sam’s Club or Costco prices are that different from the distributor if you can even get the local distributor reps to call you back.
It seems to me that as long as we abide by inspectors’ rules, prepared food has a lot of revenue potential. What’s the big drawback there?
The only draw back is that most locations require a decent amount specific equipment and health inspections. More than we were willing to try to deal with on our first new business.
If/When we open our next (21 and up) establishment we plan to serve alcohol and some food. But only after learning the LAN center ropes on our first attempt.
Did any of you ever restrict outside drinks and food from your centers or were you pretty lax on that?
No outside food or drinks were allowed. Unless the center as a whole was doing a food order. Would have really dug into my vending profit.