What does everyone think of this idea?

[Nintendo Penguin]

How about a video game store, like Funcoland or Gamestop, but it only specializes in old stuff. Atari, NES, Coleco.... and so on. There are no stores like this in my area, and I do think there is a market for it. Does anyone else agree or disagree? I am curious because three friends and I are considering doing it.

 

 

Thanks!

[Alex]

As long as your meat and potatoes is the new stuff, you could certainly have a classics section that gets better treatment than the chains. But I doubt it could be the focus of your store from a financial standpoint. Not enough volume. But I'd love to see more "classics friendly" stores.

[KAZ]

This is what happened to the guy who has a store called: Cedar Collectibles...it is near The Mall of America in Minnesota.

 

He said he opened JUST last December 2001.

 

He started out very small, I mean VERY small.

 

People just started coming in and selling him their games, and then he just slightly jacked up the price or something, and began getting a profit.

 

Word of mouth, and this place seems awesome now.

Don't go too high on overhead right away...or I'm sure you'll get burned fast. Unless you can get a loan or something.

 

The loan officer might laugh you out of the room tho, depending on their generation

[Nintendo Penguin]

We don't have a very scientific business plan. (not one business major among us actually!) Anyway, where I live there is a downtown area with lots of anique shops and stuff. There is an awesome Vintage arcade with a vacant store right next to it. The rent is pretty cheap all things considered. The place is kinda small, but thats life. The four of us were thinking of pooling our money together and giving it a try. No one would be out more then $2500-$3000, and we could start out by using some of our personal collections as inventory. This is more than a pipe dream, we have spoken to the landlord and are inquiring about a business license. Nothing is definate, but it looks good so far. Hopefully, we could be in business by the end of the year.

[Cassidy Nolen]

I got a lot of goodies you could sell there, drop me a line. You know, you could also put a Pac Man machine in your store for sale too. Would not hurt to set a few games up there for quarter play, either. Most vendors in your area would be glad to set the location with games for sale, you pay them their price and add 100 bucks. Meanwhile, you are splitting the profits until they sell.

 

Cassidy

[fmctm1sw]

Nothing ventured, nothing gained dude. Go for it. But like alex said, I don't know if you could exclusively sell atari 2600 carts at profit. You'll get the casual shopper who will pay $2 or $3 for combat but hardly anyone "wise" to the classic game scene. The trouble I see with folks now is this: They poke ebay.com into their web browser. Then they see an atari 2600 with 30 or so carts sell for $100 or so dollars. They don't realize not every cart is worth the same and think their 2600 with 3 or 4 combats is worth that. It's frustrating, I've tried the buy low sell high thing. But try it, if you can't sell them, sell something else!

[fmctm1sw]

Nothing ventured, nothing gained dude. Go for it. But like alex said, I don't know if you could exclusively sell atari 2600 carts at profit. You'll get the casual shopper who will pay $2 or $3 for combat but hardly anyone "wise" to the classic game scene. The trouble I see with folks now is this: They poke ebay.com into their web browser. Then they see an atari 2600 with 30 or so carts sell for $100 or so dollars. They don't realize not every cart is worth the same and think their 2600 with 3 or 4 combats is worth that. It's frustrating, I've tried the buy low sell high thing. But try it, if you can't sell them, sell something else!

[sdstuff64]

I wish there was a place like that around me.I have to pray that yard sales have something,and they usually don't,or then go to ebay.A store like that would be sweet.

[bangles66]

Hey kaz, I'll have to check that store out at some point.

My wife and I want to make the trek to the mall of america someday.

I have a independant game store near me and they have all types of stuff, but they do know what stuff is worth so I'm not gonna find a waterworld of $1.00. but it's nice to have a place to go when I want something becasue they probably have it.

[jsoper]

Last time I went into 4jays (Antioch California) they had the modern games on display and the classic stuff more out of sight. However it used to be the other way around. Maybe there's just too many modern games around these days.

[eric_ruck]

I always thought a better idea would be a mall kiosk around the holiday shopping season, starting in October, selling vintage systems and games as a sort of impulse/lark for holiday shoppers. You could probably get a decent markup doing that.

 

E

[Trade-N-Games]

I thought this post was very interesting. I just opened up a video game store in St Louis MO called Trade-N-Games. I have been selling classic games for a couple of years now and collecting for a long time. You have to have all the New Stuff PS2, X-BOX and so on to get people in but then the other half of my store is Vintage stuff. So far so good but only time will tell. I have all of my collection of the old system boxes on 1 wall and everyone loves to remember what they had and then they ask if i have the stuff for sale and i try to say yes or i can find it for them. I will be at JagFest in the next few week to promote the store. I will have over 200 very very good Atari games and tons of other stuff to WoW the people.Need more info call my store 636-349-3113 Jason

[Nintendo Penguin]

Wow! I am so glad someone who owns a video game store actually posted a message. Can anyone who owns a game store (or has worked at one.) offer us any advice? There isn't really anyone locally I can ask, as all we have around here a big chain stores like gamestop and babbages.

 

 

Thnaks!

[Gunstar]

Great idea! I hope to do something similiar someday, although I would have new stuff too, but intend to have a LOT of classic stuff. Although I was also thinking about expanding the idea into a "media" store and have everything from modern/classic cgames&consoles to records, tapes, cd's and dvd's, maybe even go with new&used books too! Of course the ONLY hardware I'd stock is Consoles&accessories, not old record players or stereos...

I'd look for other's old inventory they want to sell, one of you should be doing swap meets and garage sales and such while others are running the store, also online auctions and walk-in sales. You can get the stuff for dirt cheap many times, and mark it up for a substancial profit, while keeping the price low enough to honor the consumer and undercut E-bay and other online markets. I'd get a web page and online ordering too! That's probably how I'll start, but I want to have an actual store eventually.