yeah,

I was at a FLGS yesterday I was chasing wave 1 and 2 Expansions for a friend, and asked about wave 3.

The member of staff laughed, They are thinking of cancelling support / not stocking x-wing as they are sick of slipping dates and the empty handed distributors. They feel that stocking this game has resulted in more disappointed customers, than satisfied customers.

They have only ever had a small handful of expansions and they are always gone within a hour or so! They currently only have stock of the core set, I can see how this would frustrate customers.

They acknowledge that the demand is there but FFG Can't/Won't provide the stock.

Despite having tons of wave 1, 2 and 3 stock at GenCon!

I agree every wave so far UK customers have to sit and twiddle their thumbs for months fighting for expansions... FFG really needs to get stock to the UK before the game dies before it's had a chance!

Panic...

I could see their frustration but if they stop selling X-wing, others still will and will gladly pick up their business. As a store, shelve space is important. Better to have a product that sells and not take up space rather than something that sits on the shelf for months collecting dust.

They could also think outside the box a bit. I've seen that x-wing sells hot in some locales and not so much in others. One of our LGS here has restocked so many times over and over, even when everyone else was crying they could get nothing. He obtained his stock from other stores who were not moving x-wing. Even better was that some of these transactions were for trade of stuff he had collecting dust. Best one I recall was he cleared out another store of all their x-wing in exchange for pokemon!

It happens here in America too, though normally after a few shipments more and more pieces start to stay on the shelves.

Also at Gencon alone, they sold out of plenty of items there, and that was just a single convention. You can imagine if one convention sells out of say TIE Bombers, the how difficult it could be to stock an entire country. Try to find other places that would stock the game, see if the managers would do that.

I would find it impossible to believe that they simply "wouldn't stock Europe."

I never realized the stock issue until I spoke with my friend who owns his own store. Usually he would get in the full run of a wave, and then have to scrounge around at other Distributors in order to restock. This led to a very haphhazard restock on his shelf. He never considered dropping the game though. The stuff flew off the shelves in droves, and still does as far as I can tell.

I think your store might be making a bad move dropping the product, but it is their call. As it was stated earlier, there are others that will pick up the slack.

I can see how keeping something in stock can be frustrating, especially when you have customers who leave unhappy because they couldn't buy what they were looking for.

But on the other hand, having a product that sells out as fast as you put it on the shelfs seems like a great thing for most retailers.

Sounds like a case of angst, laziness and immaturity on the store owners part. I wonder if he was this reactionary to the limited supply of Modern Masters for M:TG? or other products of little supply.

If it was easy to stock and make customers happy - then why doesn't everyone have a successful gaming store?

Yes, it's a stupid idea to stock items with high demand, obviously your FLGS would be better off getting stock of things that no-one wants to buy. Then they can stock the shelves without any worry that those annoying customers will come along and buy things ruining the display and forcing them to order more stuff off their distributors.

Maybe they should keep the front door locked to ensure customers can't get in, just to ensure no accidental sales can be made?

Yeah,

Maybe you ignored the bit where they acknowledged demand is there?

Obviously this stuff is easy to sell its starwars.

I think it's that they want happy customers and would prefer to sell stuff that they can actually stock!

He made the point of selling a new customer the one or two core sets and then Leaving them stranded without expansions...

Then have to apologise to the customer every time they visit the store for recommending a 'incomplete' system.

Most games in store are well stocked why not push customers towards those and have happy customers.

Panic...

Maybe they should just tell the customers that the game is flying off the shelves faster than they get shipments in, and that it may take a long time before they're able to get a full set. Maybe they should point them to online stores that have them in stock more, or how about stores nearby that carry X-wing.

It honestly sounds like they just don't want to let there customers know upfront what's happening with the game, or else there would be far fewer unhappy customers. So what if a few people are disappointed? They aren't disappointed with the store, they're disappointed with FFG. At least, they would be if FLGS would explain the situation to them.

Surely a customer who's annoyed because he wants to give you money but has to wait a bit is better than a customer who wants to give someone else money and has to wait a bit?

I think the sheer hassle of getting stock is probably what annoys him. Always having to rearrange shelves and what not to avoid wasting space where Xwing is meant to go, then re-arranging again when it comes when you weren't expecting it.

If the guy is annoyed about rearranging shelves in order to make money, he should not be in business.

Most FLGS fail because they completely lack any sort of business model or business sense. They are game hobbyists, who think that all that is necessary for success is some space with stuff on the shelves. What successful businesses consider opportunities or simply doing business, game store owners often view as interruptions in their game time. That store should be offering alternatives (a house set of X-Wing for example to play in store) to keep interest up while making daily sales (fountain drinks, living card game, etc.) to the customers.

I took over a failing game store some years ago with my business partner, and he has turned a profitless mess into a functional business. The reason for that is that he is a businessman first and foremost, and a gamer when he is not trying to make a living.

There could be any number of reasons for this. A certain UK company that went bankrupt earlier this years was saying similar things about quite a few lines. But the real reason couldn't get certain lines in was due to the distributors not being willing to give them credit.

I can see the store owner's point to an extent. Sure X-wing is popular and stock sells, but maybe it suits the business better to create a MtG player who they can supply with cra.. cards, than an X-wing player who will go to the internet for their plastic fix, and probably not come back.

Exactly. You know what the internet does that an FLGS cannot? Sell stuff really cheap. You know what they can't do? Have that extra Y-Wing on the shelf for the guy who just has to try his new list right now. It cannot provide a place to play in order to get that guy all excited, and it cannot give him a fountain drink to enjoy while he plays.

Brick and mortar stores lose when they try to compete with internet stores on price, they win when they compete on service and convenience.

my first though when reading this was great, more for the rest of us.

Not all brick and mortars lose out in the pricing war with the internet. My LGS discounts everything for some of customers, more of a discount than I can get online too. We buy in quantity