Behind the Counter III

Part 1: Murmurs

Before I begin the column today, I feel like I need to address something that I found out about last week. I went into the Stratagist and was told that "...New York called, they said that someone called them and told them I was writing bad things about the store." I was told that if an employee was writing bad things about the store than that employee "would no longer be an employee." So where should I begin, I suppose I need to start with the obvious. I hope that by telling people that the store is now clean and personable that I can combat the horrible reputation the Strategist has. For years on just about any website that mentioned our little retail store the words "grossly fat, and bad smelling" colored every post. Years of bad attitudes, dingy atmospheres and bad smells have been exorcised from our little shop and now Im proud to tell the whole world. Like I said, its shown in the rapid upswing in business both from our regulars and our walk ins.

Secondly I should point out that I know who's murmuring against me. New York knows too. If you weren't a child you'd work out your problems in person instead of sneaking behind everyone's back. That is all.

Part II: Retail Demographics

I suspect that if you examined any retail store in America (or at least the ones that require or have a minimum of supervision) you would find that there are 3 types of customers or archetypes inside. These archetypes are the Regular, the Walk-in and the Shiftless Layabout. I think the type of customers present at any given time have a lot to do with what I talked about in the first two articles, namely good employees and store appearance. If either of those two things are disagreeable one to two thirds of your customer base may evaporate.

Turning our attention to the Regular for a moment we discover several interesting things. Firstly, they are almost always male and aged 18-45 (though there is a fluctuation at the top end of the range), though certain gamer girls can also be Regulars. They have jobs, a steady income, and spend 50 dollars or more in the store about every 2 weeks. Typically they own a lot of games, and a lot of different types of games at that. The plus side for the Regular is that rain or shine you can count on them to spend cash. The down side is that they know what they want, and have a better knowledge of production schedules and product release information than the employees do. They are the most likely to get what they need online or from another store if they know you won't have it right away. They can also have strong opinions about games, and can run casual customers out of the store with an off-hand comment. Regulars aren't bothered as much by the store's appearance, but they do tend to react negatively to bad customer service and snide remarks from employees. An comment like "oh that company went out of business" or "that game sucks" might be the straw that makes a Regular forsake the store for good. While the money they bring in is consistent, it isn't enough on its own to make our margins. This is because there are fewer Regulars than Walk-ins. Regulars must be catered to, but sales staff shouldn't ignore Walk-ins or other customers because of them. Regulars can be summed up by something "Big E" (the one "brother" who fills in at the store) said: "I always thought I was a geek until I worked here. I mean, man...I have a long way to go."

The second type of customer is a walking cash cow, though getting them to part with their cash can be difficult. The Walk-in, which includes the subtype of "Call-in," isn't an easily analyzed group, mainly because it is more diverse. It includes women, in the form of mothers, grandmothers, and girlfriends. Couples are also typical Walk-ins. A lot of Walk-in traffic comes to the store for birthdays and holidays. Walk-in traffic also comes in on rainy days and nice days (for different reasons). For the most part, Walk-ins are idly curious and they don't have a lot of knowledge about the product. Walk-ins are greatly influenced by demos, positive staff, and a lot of hand holding. Walk-ins, like call-ins, have no store loyalty; they usually ask for a product by name and if its in, they buy it, if not, you never hear from them again. If they're just browsing, a negative store "vibe" can turn them off to the place so fast you can feel the air get chilly. Walk-ins often come into the store with a lot of dread and preconceived notions. For example, there was woman waiting at the store when I opened on Tuesday. She immediately asked me if we had the expansion for Settlers of Catan in, before I unlocked the door (I was waiting for the new key).

"Oh yeah," I replied enthusiastically "we do, its in the back in the Family Game Room."

There was an awkward silence for a moment. She peered through the window. We both stood there, nervous, waiting for the manager's husband to drop off the key so I could open up...when at last she broached the question I had been dreading.

"So, you sell a lot of witchy stuff don't you."

The occult.

Great, I thought. She's one of them. The ones who think RPGs are satanic. I just hoped she wouldn't preach to me.

"No, not really. We sell games, all kinds."

"But it says witch hunters on that thing."

"Oh that's a book for a tabletop war game. Its an army list, the army in it is dedicated to stamping out evil." Ha! I've got you now! Then she gave me the look.

"Whats a war game?"

My head hurt, I mean I was still cheerful, but ouch this is gonna be a long morning. I was going to launch into a description when I was rescued by the managers husband with the key. I showed her the Catan stuff, and made a pretty decent sale. But it illustrates a point: the Walk-in knows so little about game stores that it's difficult to know where to begin. If you go too fast or use too much jargon and lingo they just put the store in their "bad place to go" file and never come back. In addition, many have preconceived notions of certain types of games.

The Shiftless Layabout is the one kind of person you don't really want in the store. They aren't really customers and don't add much to the environment. In fact, they act more like furniture or low-lying mountains than customers. These are the people who hang out and don't buy anything. Stores have lots of these, from employee's friends to people who wish they worked in a game store, to people watching the employees out of vindictiveness to get one or more of them fired. This is the type of customer to worry about, and while I've made them sound bad, they really don't have to be. These people are in their hearts hobbyist and they generally love the store, so the easiest way to deal with them is to get them involved. My favorite way is to turn them into demo machines. That's right: if they are playing games then they act as a useful tool, and chances are they'll have a lot of fun doing it, too. See, the real reason that Layabouts hang out is that they want to be entertained. While this doesn't fit well with the purely commercial side of the game store, their enthusisasm is infectious, and in-store demos are a great way to interest both Walk-ins and Regulars. Plus, if they play in-store, chances are they'll start buying and become Regulars instead of lumps.

If you can't sway them that way, then you might have to kick them out, especially if they are negative or belligerent (there are a few Layabouts like this). Don't feel too bad—after all, it isn't your fault that they didn't want to engage. Above all the store is a place of commerce. That sounds cruel, but one bored and belligerent person can cut into sales faster than Pinnochio got eaten by that whale.

That's it for this week. I hope you like the series so far.

Discuss it in our forums.

Written by ElJeffe on May 04th, 2006