Sharpening the Sword is a regular column by retailer John Riley of Grasshopper's Comics, a 1300 square foot comic and games store in
Last column I wrote about the need for professionalism at the retail level. Again, that's not to say that there aren't a large number of very professional retailers out there (I know I'm preaching to the choir), but rather to say that our level of professionalism as a group still needs to continue to rise. Unless we make the retail tier as a whole a viable, attractive outlet we will eventually be unable to properly support manufacturers who will either continue to look to the mass market or will simply go away. I had planned on moving back into practical applications with this week's article, but since that article went to press there have been some interesting developments.
Unfortunately, as if to prove my point, we lost both a game manufacturer and a comic book publisher since then. Neither were new, fly by night companies. Not having knowledge of their internal operations, I can't say why they ceased operations, but I have to believe that their failure was due at least partly by the retail market no longer being large enough to support them.
The more interesting development for me in the past two weeks was the release of Games Workshop's Annual Report. We can all rant and argue that GW's policies for the past few years haven't been retailer or fan friendly. And over the past few years I've been very frustrated as GW has first implemented and then quickly eliminated a number of programs aimed at working with retailers. However, I'm also aware of many of the problems that they've had when dealing with the retail tier.
Let's say on average GW had 800 independent retail accounts over the past year. If we take the 80/20 rule into account that would mean that 80% of independent sales would be coming from about 160 stores, while the other 640 stores combined are only accounting for 20%. Like any company, GW has to make a decision about what's the best use of its resources and since GW has options other than independent retailers, they have the right to put those resources to work in their own stores or in partnerships with the mass market if they choose to.
Now I'm not here to argue the validity of GW's operating policies, but rather to return to the point about the perceived level of professionalism at the retail tier.
Last week a friend of mine forwarded me a link to a gaming forum where fans were discussing GW's annual report. Apparently in Tom Kirby's 'Preamble' to GW's annual report on their website he made this statement regarding the decline of game stores in the
'Most of these small owner-manager hobby stores have thrived over the last 20 years or so on role play games, collectible card games (CCGs) and niche merchandise from fantasy movie imagery. Role play games and movie merchandise are in decline; CCGs can now be bought in mass market outlets which hurts hobby store sales. Many of these stores carry our products very successfully, but they are not enough to support the whole store. Many of these stores are run as lifestyle enterprises rather than as for profit businesses; when times get hard they sometimes respond slowly and weakly which can be, and has been in many cases, disastrous.'
At first I almost ignored this thread, because honestly I get tired of hearing people just blindly bash the company. Bashing GW has become a hobby for some people and we have more important things to do with our time. As a retailer you can choose to sell it or not, and as a fan you can choose to play it or not. Pretty simple.
But as I read through the thread I got something I wasn't expecting at all. Instead of hordes of loyal fans 'blindly supporting the retail tier against the impersonal GW juggernaut', the fans were pretty much in agreement that the retail tier generally lacks professionalism. The thread continued with numerous horror stories from customers who were disappointed by the behavior of independent retailers and the quality of their stores and their service. The general feeling seemed to be that these retailers were really just glorified gamers, not really business people.
I bring this up because these are our customers, and when the fans stop defending us there's obviously truth in the statement. Right now comics are riding high, and that's great. But like Kirby said in the statement above, stores that survived the soft part of the comics sales cycle on CCGs and other products that now are in the mass market won't have that opportunity again should comics slide a bit.
I'd rather not spend the time on negative things like this but I thought that it was important to point out.
Next week we get back on track looking at Signal Theory and how it applies to comic shops.