Monday, January 1, 2007

Going to crunch some numbers today, and do a year-end review tomorrow. I do know that our sales were up by 16% this year. But sales aren't profits, and there's the rub. Much of my profit is frozen in inventory, which was intentional, but I have to pay tax on that inventory and that's going to be brutal. The cost of success.

Meanwhile, I'm still struggling with idea of increasing my games. I've said for some time now that if I tried to bring in a new line of product, that my brain would explode. New books have been an easy reach for me, a natural fit. Games would be more of a stretch. Yet, if I can somehow shoehorn them into my store, it would be the final piece of the puzzle. As my wife says, "Your motto for years was, Diversify or Die."

I did one of those good/bad ledger things: listing all the good things about carrying games on one side of the page, and all the bad things on the other side. The bad things ran most of the page, the good things basically came down to two listings: (1) the potential sales that new games might generate, which COULD be considerable, and (2) the additionals sales of existing game inventory through synergy. The latter reason is actually probably more important, in that those numbers might actually pay for the gamble.

As you can see, I'm conflicted. One more night to sleep on it.

I think I've decided I can start at a comfortable and affordable level, and see what develops. I've learned to never dismiss the potential of any product lines; sometimes they can just take off for you. And risk is just inherent in any decision. If I hadn't made a couple of these leaps of faith over the years, I'd be long gone. On the other hand, if I hadn't made a couple other leaps of faith over the years, I'd have probably made more money. But, either way, you can't just not make the leap occasionally.

3 comments:

Hordekitten said...

Hey Duncan!

I think that with recent changes in the area adding a few more things to your game section would be great for business. You will probably get some increased sales from customers coming in to get game supplies, and then buying more than originally intended. I know I always do when TJ and I come and visit you.

Good Luck with everything and Happy New Year!!

*~*Kat*~*

Duncan McGeary said...

Krass,

I'm having a raging discussion on the Game Industry Forum over just that topic.

Warhammer people tend to believe that you have to go whole hog into Warhammer, including the demo's, game space, and tournaments.

But they also say the same thing about Magic, and I've managed to make that profitable without all the service aspects.

I'm really good at special ordering. I mean, if I say I'll order it, I usually order it within a day or two.

Duncan McGeary said...

Hey, Kat!

Like I told TJ, I've got some Deathmints you left....

It is important to remember that downtown Bend attracts an out of town trade, who might buy games from me even without all the other factors.

That's why we pay the big rents...