More Words, Deeper Hole

It appears to that this is mostly the case; J+J's is carrying some roleplaying stuff, and seem willing to order in what they don't have, and they have a monstrously large selection of boardgames as well as CCGs and GW stuff. I think their approach is to dedicate as much floor space as they can to "the hot thing" and to carry a bit of everything else that people might want.

Thus, their RPG section amounts to three or four small shelves stocked mostly with D&D stuff.

I suspect that the true killer for the RPG local game shop is Chapters and Amazon. All the companies that have their product selling through the book trade (WotC, Green Ronin, White Wolf, Mongoose, heck, even Palladium) seem to be listed with Amazon and Chapters/Indigo, with most titles /deeply/ discounted. Some of the stuff is "ships right away" and some is "wait for a month or so", so as long as you're not wanting stuff /right now/, then I can see how local game stores would have lost big dollars to online purchasing.

What Canada needs is an RPGnet or Warehouse23 equivalent so that we Canucks can avoid the hassles of borders/duties and so on, for all the teenie label games that don't sell through the book trade (frex, Hero Games, not that they're so teenie, but you can't get their stuff through Amazon or Chapters).

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I will point out, though, that J&J's has significantly better prices than Chapters does - the v3.5 PHB, for instance, I got for a friend at just over $32 at J&J's; Chapters wanted over $42 for the same book, same day. In the name of full disclosure, I purchase a discount card at J&J's that gives me, I think, 15%; I get 10% all the time at Chapters, so the discount isn't the culprit.

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thebitterguy

Is that $42 at the brick n' mortar Chapters, or via the website? Because the webiste is an automatic 30% off, plus anotehr small amt for iRewards members.

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Indeed -- why anyone buys anything with a hard cover at a brick and mortar Chapters is beyond me.

My buying strategy is: for mass market paperbacks I mostly buy at the local independent booksellers, for hardcovers, I order online. The only time I buy stuff from a physical Chapters is when it's a British import mass-market paperback that my local independent doesn't seem able to get through the usual distribution channels they use. That doesn't happen very often.

I've found that, with RPG companies that sell through the book trade, it's almost always cheaper to purchase through Amazon or Chapters. Sometimes their discounts aren't quite as good as 30% and then the local store might be cheaper, but I seem to recall this has only happened once or twice in the past few years.

The only things I had been buying from Kevin have been non-book trade "odd" stuff that I couldn't get online. In the last six to eight months I gradually stopped buying stuff from Kevin because it took him longer and longer to get odd stuff in, if at all, and even when I specifically asked for it, his ability to remember and actually order the stuff was about 50% at best.

For the odd stuff now, I'll probably go back to ordering online from either Sentry Box or Le Valet (I've never had a problem with their service, thought I understand others haven't always been pleased 8)).

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rezendi.livejournal.com

What/where is J+J's? (I used to be a K-W resident, but that was a decade ago.)

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It's on Weber, just east of University (at least, it would be east of University if Weber were an east-west street). Across from the Wendy's, next door to one of the pool halls.

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Welcome to Waterloo County's Directional Confusion, which dates back to the settlement of the region by Mennonites who had set off to settle in Baja California.

Isn't J&Js more south of University than it is east?

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Yah - it probably is. But living in Kitchener, I long since decided that for my sanity, I'd think of Weber and King as actually having just east/west, only they call 'em something different in Waterloo. :) In fact, we live on the corner of Weber and our street.

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I'm not sure that Wendy's is there anymore, I think it became a Benny's or something.

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Naw, the Benny's is in the place where there have been a whole whack of roadhouse restaurants over the years - just a bit further down than the White Rose. Had lunch there just after Boxing Day, actually. :)

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I'm not in that area enough so I wasn't sure.

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metahacker.livejournal.com

GW sales in general this year have plummeted. Most seem to think it's a combination of LoTR cooling off, and them basically cutting off the small local retailers to focus on big GW-branded stores. This latter leads to fewer players, fewer points of sale, etc., etc. There's a lot of chatter about it on the fora, with the usual contradictory set of explanations that occurs whenever economics is discussed.

I think overall CCGs are fading as a market segment; and RPGs have never been a viable business model in and of themselves: your customers just don't need to buy enough *stuff*. My local retailer is moving more toward board-game-type stuff, which has a larger general market.

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I've not talked to Kevin about it, it has seemed like a bit of a shock to his customers (well the ones I've talked to). I know he has other money though.

I hear rumors of someone with a business license but no actual store who will, if you know him, order and deliver games to you at much lower prices than normal.

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I must say, I was not /shocked/. I've noticed that, for the past few months, Kevin just hasn't been restocking that much or getting anything other than mainstream stuff much.

I suspect that the "someone with a business license" is probably Eric Grower who used to run Yggdrasil, but I have not confirmed proof of that. I lost touch with Eric when his storefront closed, and I know that he was claiming to do this for a while, but that was a long time ago and the only person I know who took advantage of it hasn't done so for some time now.

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Perhaps I had not noticed as I do not play GW games, nor has there been anything of interest lately that has been released (or well nothing that was worth buying anyways).

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I should also like to add that if Eric (or someone else) /is/ in fact running an RPG shop without a storefront here in KW, I, for one, would like to know about it.

I'd prefer to move my "odd stuff" source closer to my front door than Calgary or Montreal, which is where the source is now that Kevin's closed his doors. Although J+J seems friendly and willing to order stuff I ask for, it's certainly not regularly stocked, and the guys there are not at all rolegamers, so they know next to nothing about RPG products (what's available, when it's expected to arrive, etc). Or at least that's how it seems.

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I believe it is Eric, but I can not confirm this as I've not dealt with the person nor do I have a way of contacting them (directly).

I wonder if Now and Then will be stocking more rpg stuff...

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I don't know if there are any others, but yes, Erik still takes orders and drops by with whatever comes in. I've been ordering all my RPG's through him since his store closed down. Prices are good and I was sorry to see his store go under so I'm doing what I can to support local business people.

I'm not sure how to put you in touch with him though as I don't want to post his email here without asking him. Try emailing me at cgordon.13 gmail dot com and I'll put you in touch with him.

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"I've not talked to Kevin about it, it has seemed like a bit of a shock to his customers (well the ones I've talked to). I know he has other money though."

I haven't spoken to him either but I know of a number of old stores where the owner had an epiphany along the lines that pretty much any other line of work would pay better per hour and involve fewer hours. Also that GW and maybe WOTC aside, most RPG companies are going to be run by guys that don't know what they are doing, because if they did, they'd be doing something had a better margin.

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Well Kevin's Mom came into some money a while back, I suspect that the store was one part hobby, one part pay minor bills. I also know that he wanted to spend more time with his kids.

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If I recall correctly, Gamer's Guild shut down when the owner decided it couldn't support him, his wife and his kid(s) while the people at Worldhouse just found better things to do than run a store.

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Yes well there were other things in there too. Kevin is a much better businessman than Lars, I know I worked there.

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Also I think GW games go in cycles. Not so much popularity but finding new people who need to buy $500-1000 worth of little metal and plastic figures on a yearly basis (logic dictates that eventually your current group of people will own all the figures they will need, or run out of money, or get annoyed with the way GW does business).

For Gamers Guild it was on the order of 3 years plus bad business plus compition.

For Nexus it has been 4 or 5 years, but with not much compition.

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I have more info on this now. It turns out that Kevin was running the store as a hobby. He is now not interested in putting the effort into running the store and is much more interested in playing poker for a living (it must be nice to have the money to spend time learning how to play poker well).

The store may be bought by Tom and Andy Moskalik (I'm positive that is spelled wrong), they need to talk to the bank about it (I'm sure they have the money as they are tradesmen working for Bud).

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Is this still the case? I know that Nexus had moved to the second floor of the building they were in... was this simply confusion because they were closing their street-level store, or are they really shutting down?

R.
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