My Own Pirate Radio

Last weekend Katrin and I visited with friends Saul, Kristen, Aaron and Kim in Richmond, Virginia. We’re all friends from Seattle, originally, so between the six of us we had a great west-coast-goes-east-coast reunion.

In between amazing meals (Kuba Kuba, Mama Zu’s, Cafe Gutenberg shown here, and Kristen and Saul’s home cookin’) we explored the city, and on Saturday in Carytown Saul and I stumbled across One-Eyed Jacques, a cool little gaming store. They bill themselves as “The Finest Game Store in Richmond, Virginia”, and from the vast selection of board games, miniatures and puzzles, it’s easy to see why.

I asked the manager what it’s like running her small mom-’n-pop shop, and she kindly spent a few minutes sharing with us. To wit:

* Competition has heated up radically in the past few years due to the combination of search engines (she specifically cited Google and Froogle), eBay, and online discounters who offer products at cost + a few dollars. Due in part to this trend, over 1000 gaming shops closed doors in the US last year. (I don’t know how many opened.)
* Discounters typically maintain virtual storefronts and drop-ship merchandise direct from the warehouse (which, in many cases, is their garage) to customers’ homes.
* One-Eyed Jacques has both a physical presence (the bricks, on Cary street in Richmond) and an online presence (the clicks, via eBay). On eBay they host 200-300 auctions a week. Happy customers, too: 11862 of 11908 visitors left positive feedback.
* The store is a local legend: it’s been successful for more than 20 years, and the bulk of the clientele are repeat customers. No advertising; new customers find them through word of mouth.

So how does she stave off the barbarians at the gates? Three steps to success:

1. Service. They focus on excellent service and back this up with deep knowledge of games, the market as a whole, and their customers. (As if on cue, a father and his son walked in right after she said this. The manager greeted them, asked the boy whether he was still playing War Hammer, and asked about a specific item he bought last time he was in the store. She then turned to us and explained that this kid - now about 7 years old - had been coming into the store with his dad since he was a toddler, and his dad had been visting for years prior to that.)

2. Immediacy. The gratification of merchandise in hand often wins out over waiting for a shipment. And she didn’t say it explicitly, but since a lot of the goods they sell are miniatures it’s surely more reassuring and entertaining to actually see them before buying.

3. Responsiveness. She listens extremely carefully to what her customers have to say. The decisions on what and how much to stock are based on gamers’ requests. More often than not the store learns this way about new games before they’re even announced.

It was a fun chat, and great to see a business succeeding by treating its customers right. I wish them luck.

Richmond pics here

P.S. Judging by the placement of the Dungeons and Dragons stuff on the far back wall, D&D is now selling to old farts only. Which includes me: I remember many a night as a teenaged nerdling, hanging out at my cousin Joe’s place, and getting my butt kicked by orcs. Ah, the formative years.