new store ideas

Economics forum

Posted on Dec. 3, 2017, 8:31 p.m. by UrbanGirlScout

Hi everyone, i am going working in a small area in a friends video game/movie resale store to sell mtg cards. I started by sorting the cards for the business owner(somewhere in the neighborhood of 50,000 so afar with about 20,000 to go). At this point there is certainly enough cards of all value EXCEPT the big money display case singles. We have a lot of good binder material, but lacking in those eye popping rares.

With that in mind i come here looking for some help and advice. the stock of cards that are not going to be used we are going to sell to an online outlet and reinvest that into booster boxes and other mtg sealed product.

how can we aside from opening a bunch of packs or waiting for someone to walk in/post online they want to sell something premium to grow our display case of singles? or is this a matter of grinding it out and building the collection as stated above?

just want to make sure i am looking at this from all angles.

additionally what are some ideas you would suggest to generate foot traffic for a store just getting started into mtg selling. we are not DCI sanctioned but are not against hosting tournaments for fun.

JANKYARD_DOG says... #2

Becoming DCI sanctioned may lure players who would sell/trade their valuable for store credit perhaps? Advertise as much as you can, store front, word of mouth, flyer in the local paper...

December 3, 2017 8:49 p.m.

Boza says... #3

You need to judge how you are position vs the market.

1/ How big is the MTG market in the place you are in?
2/ How is the competition?
3/ Is there a place for a MTG store in the market or is it saturated already?
4/ Not being DCI sanctioned sucks since the most popular formats are DCI sanctioned and I do not think you can run drafts, which is the best way to push MTG products.
5/ Run some non-sanctioned tournaments once you have a few regulars. Pauper, 2v2 Commander, Canadian Highlander, Junk Rare drafts, Un-seet constructed, whatever you feel will be msot attractive. Focus on that casual crowd that likes to brew. They will have a use for 50k crappy non-expensive cards.

December 4, 2017 5:14 a.m.

Servo_Token says... #4

Just buy up a bunch of things that look good in a case. If this means cracking packs, crack packs. If it means buying collections, buy collections. If it means using your personal collection, do that. You need to sink a whole bunch of money into a store to make it successful. If you aren't willing to buy packs to crack so that you have display case inventory, I don't think that you're ready to be running this sort of business yet. The market for MTG stores in general gets more and more narrow every day because everyone and their grandmother wants to open one up. You need to be willing to go the extra 5 miles to get ahead of the competition. Don't try to cut corners. Don't try to short sale your customers. You need to pretend that you're a big dog like star city even though you know you're not. Do what the successful people do.

To answer your question, just crack packs in my opinion. It's the easiest and one of the most reliably efficient ways of getting an inventory that people are looking for. Don't waste your premium inventory on online sales, leave that to the bigger dudes who can afford to do that.

December 4, 2017 2:41 p.m.

UrbanGirlScout says... #5

The area has one store that has mixed reviews. I have had more negative than positive experience there but more of that is based on the staff.

I have a few ideas that I always thought card stores should try with bulk. In addition we r going to build pauper decks and cubes.

I was not aware of the not being able to draft if you are not sanctioned? We plan to do so after a bit if focus on the inventory and store.

The store itself is a resale toys, movies, video games, and other stuff like that so the obvious hope is the foot traffic will help get things rolling.

December 4, 2017 10:50 p.m.

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