Beware franchising a Play N Trade

[CRTGAMER]

The only PlaynTrade in my county is still there. As a nationwide franchise dedicated Retro Store, sadly the store is always empty.

http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopi ... 41#p567541

Even the try before you buy does not bring in the customers, an empty dark room!

[oxymoron]

So would you be better off opening up your own indie store?

[SpoonyBard]

The franchise fee is $30,000. That's a lot of money that could be better spent on inventory and advertising in my opinion.

As a customer I don't care if i'm shopping at Play 'N trade or Billy Bob Billiamsons Game Emporium and Welding Service - if they've got games and i'm aware of its existence i'm walking in every time i'm in the area.

I may be in the minority in this of course, but i've never felt that a franchise name has been that important. If anything, i'm more likely to visit the non-franchise store simply because I don't know what i'm getting.

So i'd say yes, an indie store would probably be a much more viable route.

[Jamisonia]

I knew of one Play N Trade. That store was awful. They had mostly sports games, stack and stacks of them. They would charge at least $35 if the game had the name Mario on it. I actually found games they had bought at the thrift store down the street. Thats fine and all, but they didn't even bother taking the thrift stores $2 price tag off the game before they put on their $35 tag.

The store closed, sold all their stock to eStarland. Now eStarland is a nice retro game store.

[Nemoide]

Oxymoron, it might be a good idea to just start a thread about getting into the retail business if that's something you're considering.
I know a successful chain of game stores in Buffalo called Oogie Games got their start at flea markets, then opened up a dedicated store, then branched into multiple locations. I imagine that this is a good way to do it, since you can get an idea of how the nuts & bolts retail business works with video games and there's considerably less risk involved with renting space at a flea market.

Oddly enough, there's a Play 'n' Trade across the street from one of their locations and it's been in business for at least three years.

But remember indie game stores aren't exactly a thriving sector of the economy!

[ExedExes]

We had a PNT across the road from a GameStop circa 2007; guess which one survived

[KDub]

We've had a couple in the area. One hilariously was a Gamestop which became a Play N Trade then after a short existence became a Gamestop again.

[CRTGAMER]

We've had a couple in the area. One hilariously was a Gamestop which became a Play N Trade then after a short existence became a Gamestop again.

Probably went like this:

1. Buy out EB, convert to Gamestop.
2. Sell off Gamestop locations that were too close due to buyout of EB.
3. Realize PlaynTrade bought out one of the stores.
4. Buy it back, convert back to Gamestop.

I still have a few locations in my area where you can walk across the street to find another Gamestop. Location over saturation bad as Starbucks.

[Jmustang1968]

The houston Galleria mall has 2 Gamestops. On on the first and 3rd floors.

In San Antonio there are 2 Gamestops in the same shopping center corner of a highway intersection aboit 1/4 mile from each other.

[oxymoron]

The franchise fee is $30,000. That's a lot of money that could be better spent on inventory and advertising in my opinion.

As a customer I don't care if i'm shopping at Play 'N trade or Billy Bob Billiamsons Game Emporium and Welding Service - if they've got games and i'm aware of its existence i'm walking in every time i'm in the area.

I may be in the minority in this of course, but i've never felt that a franchise name has been that important. If anything, i'm more likely to visit the non-franchise store simply because I don't know what i'm getting.

So i'd say yes, an indie store would probably be a much more viable route.

But there's a reason that people open franchises instead of indie places. For one, they already have a customer base.