The market we deserve...

People are always shocked that I don't carry cribbage, or chess boards, or backgammon.

Here's the thing.

I tried.

For years.

And got nearly universal responses -- "These aren't the "KIND" of cribbage boards I'm looking for..." (chess, backgammon, whatever.)

If I carry three or four varieties, and I get almost always turned down, and these are the three or four varieties that are AVAILABLE to me, which I can afford to display, and people turn me down over and over again.

Too big...or too small.

Too cheap...or too expensive.

Generic....or themed.

I'll quit.

So people should save their surprise and disappointment.

( I have a theory that most people walk in with a chess set or a cribbage board already in mind -- probably the type they last played -- and the chances of me having that particular board is unlikely, and they chose to walk away and keep looking. I always wonder where they go...the answer, as I mention below, is probably the net.)

This is the future, folks. It's going to be online. Because people have pretty much quit supporting game and toy stores on a regular basis. The waterline keeps falling, so that specialty stores in the biggest cities may hang on, but the smaller towns are losing them.

Let me explain something.

A "FULL-SERVICE" specialty store, of any kind, needs to carry the whole gamut of stuff. But it also needs to be able to SELL the whole gamut of stuff. Not just the stuff that you can't find anywhere else -- not just the exceptional.

For instance, a game store might carry a full range of regular games -- chess, go, backgammon, cribbage. As well as the biggest mainstream sellers --such as Monopoly and Risk. And then the relatively obscure and/or specialty games,, and finally these days, Euro boardgames, etc.

Let's say it works out like this in a functional store. (Remember 20% of the games are going to sell 80% of the product.)

***These are made up numbers to illustrate a point. The basic emphasis is correct I believe.***

STOCK:
15% regular games.
60% mainstream games.
15% specialty games
10% euro boardgames.

SALES:
7% regular games.
80% mainstream games.
8% specialty games.
5% euro games.

So what happens? The mass market is selling the mainstream games for less than the specialty store can BUY them.

Gone, up to 80% of the most likely sales.

Gone -- the game store, along with it's cribbage boards, backgammon, specialty games.

Meanwhile, the mass market ruthlessly crunches it's numbers of sales and turnover and space, and decides not to carry anything but the mainstream games which represent most of their sales.

If the customer wants any of the 80% of the games that only make 20% of the profits, they are simply out of luck.

That's why nature created the internet, I guess.

The internet can pose a nice chess set on a glass table, light it attractively, and another and another. In truth, they're probably sitting in a dusty warehouse in boxes -- but on the net they are shiny and new and attractive.

With high rents, most games stores are going to have a hard time highlighting more than one or two sets. Especially if they don't sell all the well.

Just saying.

Of course, there are people who can make this work. But as a general rule of thumb, I think the mass market has succeeding in siphoning "Just Enough" of the easy sales to make it hard for the specialty retailers.

Ironically, I'm carrying very, very specialized games -- I can make Euro games work, because of certain peculiarities -- access, personal knowledge, easy stacking and displaying. But the biggest reason is that the mass market hasn't quite caught on yet.

I suspect they will, if Euro boardgames get much bigger. But until then, I can do them.

Chess sets? Not so much.