Be an accountant, or hire an accountant to handle your taxes. A good percentage of small businesses fail simply because the taxes or licensing were done improperly.

Also, if you're thinking of having a hang out area of some sort, consider setting up some sort of soup/sandwich counter. Everybody eats. You can profit off that.

Just think! You could move beyond a simple game store to become a game store/lounge/food place!

Whatever you do, be sure to take the lessons learned from The Gord. The Gord is to be loved. Love the Gord. Fear the Gord. Learn from the Gord.

Jumplion:
Whatever you do, be sure to take the lessons learned from The Gord. The Gord is to be loved. Love the Gord. Fear the Gord. Learn from the Gord.

The basic lesson here is not to rent out games. You only end up with life of misery.

And be careful with the hang out area as parents may use it as a free day care service. Maybe you should put an age limit or something?

Hmm i would suggest rather than starting out fully as a game store you do something more affordable. Just get a small store front, and take orders for custom built PCs. Those are easily profitable and if you're experienced you can build a PC in an hour or less.

This brings another user base into your store. People who want custom PCs build for them are the kind of peeps who know what they want, they just dont know or dont want to do it themselves. AKA Well to do. Sell them their PCs at a 50 - 100 bucks profit and you'll still be earning quite a bit as long as you get some word out.
These people are also most likely gamers. Which means you're essentially doing advertising work for your gaming portion of the shop. And Vice versa.

Oh and dont do this alone. Good help is really hard to find. Get a friend or two and you guys can start it up together. One guy in the back building PCs, another guy handling the store front and another guy handling the shipments etc.

Much like operating any business with a lot of comparable competition you have to find something to distinguish yourself from the competition.

You have heard some suggestions here:

Including a variety of media types is one I would be careful about that though, "de-specializing" gives your store a wider range of potential customers, but it makes it less likely that hobbiest will readily consider your store in their game purchasing i.e. you are making a store that appeals to mom and dads of gamers as opposed to gamers themselves.

having a classic gaming specialty is not a bad specialty niche, offering old systems such as Atari, NES, Sega, etc. and the games that come with them would be interesting and acquiring the merchandise would be fairly easy and inexpensive, you could see if Angry Video Game Nerd would film a show there, (you could likely get a lot of video game industry media interest in a store like that) but it is a very niche group and you potentially limit your income because of it. If you went with an idea like that, creating an online ordering service and maybe including things like classic arcade cabinets for sale and traditional quarter play would help with the income.

Being a "game store" that sells D&D and warhammer miniatures alongside the video games would be an interesting spin, you could use store space to hold gaming tournaments and presentations that may help with income and store notoriety.

Specializing in new games only, you could... crap, I don't even know... most game stores follow a pretty standard formula. Selling used games might be a requirement anymore, all game dealers do it (gamespot's business model is based on it).

The important thing is research: location, competition, area demographics... You will need to take out a loan to set up a store like this and no bank is going to lend you the money unless you have all this research lined up to prove you can make that money back. I would recommend a mall space, it ensures no armed robbery (but you face a slight increase in shoplifting).

A business is always a dance with expenses and income, give and takes, what you are trying to do is maximize the income to expense ratio (i.e. if it costs more but will make you more money it is worth it) and deciding which customers you will give up to get more of another kind (i.e. give up the mom and dad customer to get the classic gamer fanatics... or something)

Just make sure you can set yourself apart if a gamestop opens across the street a week later. Do make sure to use them as a pricing benchmark though.

take a look at this link
www.syberscream.com
it is the web site of a store that is basically doing the samething as your planning on.
its been doing pretty damn good buisness for about the past 5 years. and this is in a town of maybe 4000. but its a lot of fun and you should take your example from it.

oh and it has xbox 360s (5 of them) a couple wiis and about ten computers that are regularily updated with new games. and also have a couple of old faves.

Don't be like Gamestop
Take what Gamestop did, and run with it in the opposite direction.

Sell Hardcore and casual games
Sell PCgames
Sell accesories
sell new and used.
Sell the classics sell things like DOOM, Monkey Island, Grim Fandago, Mario Brothers, etc., etc. if you can.

Have you thought of a specialty store?

You can take old broken down crap like Atari's and MS-DOS games and put a huge mark-up on them, especially if you set up anywhere near a liberal arts school.

If your going to start a store that sells pc hardware try and buy Damaged lots. This may not make sense but I know a couple of guys who have built a very succesful business out of this.

A damaged lot is like a pallet of 1500 hard drives that someone has put a forklift through the side of. You may get the whole thing for $1000 and if your lucky only 5 or 6 drives will be broken it then leaves you with 1400 ish drives worth $90 a piece to sell.

Or if your going to open a game store a place with a really good trade in deal would be good. There is a place near me where they trade second hand games for $10 basically you give them a game and you can pick from their trade in shelf of games for $10 ($5 for older stuff)This is actually a good concept as each time a game comes in or goes out they make a profit and never have to spend money on secondhand stock.

TheTygerfire:

[Gavo]:
Ok, where are you, firstly?

Northeast OH

Yeah, you're not from there, no one is...

Wait... You're from NEO? Whereabouts exactly if I may ask? I'm in Twinsburg, about 25 minutes south of Cleveland.

TheTygerfire:
Basically my goal at this stage in my life is to get one successful gaming store open, before I'm 30 if I want to be adventurous (I'm 19, FYI, so it's not at all unreasonable). I was wondering if anyone here had ideas or concerns that your store experiences left you with to share

What I Do Know:
-I'm not rushing into this, I know it's a big chunk of money to start a business at all, let alone a store where most of the stock is ungodly expensive, and if I'm taking people's old game then I'll be even more in the hole to start

-I'm finding a Gamestop-less area, preferably low crime >_> that has a large residential and corporate area near it. It'll be hard but I know that such a place exists.

-The prices will be competitive but not basement put-my-ass-out-of-business low. They might be what Gamestop would charge if you got the 10% off from the card, or more than likely an average of a few used game store's references.

-Have systems linked up in a back area for people to just come in and dick around on for a while, and possibly even sell drinks and snacks to make some extra money off of it. (Yes I will have cleaning products <_<)

-No bugging people to buy magazines or other things like that, I do that to 6-700 people at my current job anyway.

I know the store won't be near you unless you live in my area, but still the advice is much appreciated.

I have a store near me that does it just like you want to. It works great and is a heaven for gamers!

My best advice would be to have youre stuff well organized, have the store wide open without aisles(maybe just racks on the floor, the rest of the stuff on the walls). The back test room is a good idea, just make sure that you advertise it well. If you can find a location near another big non-gaming store like Wal-mart or Superstore you will really crank up your business.
You wont have to bug people about buying magazines, but you should still sell them...plus the snacks and drinks are a good plan.

Above all, DONT SELL OUT TO BIG CORPORATIONS. It may seem glamorous, and the money could be better, but they really just want your soul.

TheTygerfire:

[Gavo]:
Ok, where are you, firstly?

Northeast OH

Yeah, you're not from there, no one is...

Im in ohio... dude, try pataskala.

If you're going to have people other than yourself working in the store (I assume you will, if you manage to get this thing off the ground), make sure your employees actually know games.

Probably 75% of GameStop employees have no knowledge or interest about video games at all.

Buy a bunch of somewhat good computers and offer to use your business as a place for people to host LAN parties. LAN parties are popular right now and are a lot of fun.

First, as noted, discs are going the way of the cartridge, never mind that the cartridge is making a sort of comeback in the form of flash memory. By the time you're 30, nobody will be buying physical copies of games for then-current consoles.
But in the meantime, they'll still be a reasonable profit line.

Second, don't confuse what you love, or what's great, or whatever's critically lauded, with what your customers want to buy. Though it may pain, if the vast majority of players in your area are sports gamers, you might not want to order too many copies of Brutal Legend.

Third, diversify, but go with what you know, and go with things that aren't readily available in your area. Books are generally a nonstarter, but comics may well be movable, depending on your customer base, and if there's a comic shop in your area. Tabletop games are a better fit, unless you already have a Friendly Local Game Shop in your area, but RPGs may well be too niche to offer. With Wizkids pocketmodel games, and the bigger name clix licenses, you're also competing with your local Toys R Us and Target, but they don't carry Warhammer, either. Also consider small electronics, especially media players from Archos, Sansa, and Creative. Everybody carries iPods and Zunes, some some carry Creative and Sansa, almost nobody carries Archos, at least in the retail games sphere. Your customers may appreciate the convenience of being able to pick up a small MP3 player as well as a game at the same time. And don't forget tee shirts. Remember, go with what you know, what nobody else is offering, and what your customers want.

Fourth, retro and used gear. Be clever here. If somebody is buying a Wii, have a Gamecube controller+memory card+GC game bundle ready for the upsell. Bundle titles in a franchise together, such as the PoP trilogy, and start pushing it just prior to the release date of the new title.

Fifth, accessories. Most of the other retail game establishments offer only one manufacturer's line of accessories. You can make your offerings stand out. Also, with just in time ordering, you can vastly undercut those Other Shops on things like cables and memory cards, especially if you've already got advance warnings on christmas lists. If you know that you're selling three PSPs for christmas, order memory cards, or even microSD cards+adapters.

Sixth, and most counter-intuitive, package reception. Now sure, it enables your customers to rder products from your competitors, but it means you still get a cut of the action, without incurring inventory costs, or dealing with minimum orders from your distributors. It also means you have customers walking into your shop fairly regularly. Also, if you see that your customers are placing a lot of orders with Play-Asia, you may find it worthwhile to start dealing with them directly. Here you're competing with the local UPS stores and other PO Box services as far as pricing goes.

Remember, the people walking into your shop want to give you their money. Don't fight them for it. Make it easy, enjoyable, and convenient, and they'll come back to give you more money.

TheTygerfire:
Basically my goal at this stage in my life is to get one successful gaming store open, before I'm 30 if I want to be adventurous (I'm 19, FYI, so it's not at all unreasonable). I was wondering if anyone here had ideas or concerns that your store experiences left you with to share

What I Do Know:
-I'm not rushing into this, I know it's a big chunk of money to start a business at all, let alone a store where most of the stock is ungodly expensive, and if I'm taking people's old game then I'll be even more in the hole to start

-I'm finding a Gamestop-less area, preferably low crime >_> that has a large residential and corporate area near it. It'll be hard but I know that such a place exists.

-The prices will be competitive but not basement put-my-ass-out-of-business low. They might be what Gamestop would charge if you got the 10% off from the card, or more than likely an average of a few used game store's references.

-Have systems linked up in a back area for people to just come in and dick around on for a while, and possibly even sell drinks and snacks to make some extra money off of it. (Yes I will have cleaning products <_<)

-No bugging people to buy magazines or other things like that, I do that to 6-700 people at my current job anyway.

I know the store won't be near you unless you live in my area, but still the advice is much appreciated.

That's funny, because I had an idea just like yours (sprang out of boredom), and my business plan sounds JUST LIKE YOURS!

Haha. We must be twin brothers seperated at birth!

Give or take seven years. Don't worry, it's unlikely that I'll open up a game store. At this point, I want to work in video game design.

My cousin works at a store where they have over a hundred gaming systems, from PCs to Xbox 360s, and the store charges its customers for time. They come in, create a store account, then pay for the amount of time that they want on the machines. In that time, they can try out any game on any system, but are only allowed to have one game checked out at a time. This would be a very good idea for a video game store, since it would give gamers a chance to try out the games before they buy them and have a place to go and hang out to play games on systems they don't own. If you want, I could talk to my cousin and try to hook you up with more details. They might even be looking to open a new branch of their store in your area.