Rolling for Initiative is a weekly column by Scott Thorne, PhD, owner of Castle Perilous Games & Books in Carbondale, Illinois and instructor in marketing at Southeast Missouri State University. This week, Thorne reports on holiday sales to date and looks at second bites of the apple on hot games.
Hobby game stores generally reported increased sales for both Thanksgiving weekend and November as a whole (see “Black Friday 2024 and D&D Controversy Continues”), with overall better numbers than retail as a whole (see “Black Friday Sales Up Over Last Year”).
After last month’s sales increase of 25% here, December’s current sales increase of 5% seems a bit paltry, but I have heard reports of stores seeing sales increases of 25% to 28% over December month to day sales for 2023. Our sales for the last Saturday before Christmas, which is the first or second busiest shopping day of the year (see “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like…”) were up 20% over the same Saturday in 2023, which makes me think the next few days should see quite strong sales.
One thing I have noticed in our store, and other retailers have commented on, is that a “second bite of the apple” often is not a good idea. What this describes is a situation in which a hot game that generated a lot of interest and ranks high on Board Game Geek’s “The Hotness” list arrives. If a store put in pre-orders with either the publisher or distributor, the store gets it in stock. Customers swarm all over the arrived stock, figuratively grabbing it out of staff hands before they can even put it on the shelf. The store sells out in a matter of days. “Wow, sales were great on ….” thinks the store buyer, and puts in a reorder. Unfortunately. Many other stores have had the same experience and idea and do the same thing. Out of stocks everywhere. So what does the store buyer do? Why, puts in a back order, of course, for the same quantity or maybe even a larger number. Unfortunately, getting a game back in stock, once it sells out, can take weeks or even months and, by the time the store gets it back in, demand has waned as customer interest moves onto something else.
Stores saw this during the Pokémon TCG boom earlier this decade. For a few years, stores could not get enough Pokémon, increasing orders and opening accounts with new distributors, hoping to get enough product to satisfy consumer demand. Then, as the Scarlet and Violet set proved less desired, reorders kept rolling in, leaving stores with lots of unsold booster boxes.
Our store had a “second bite of the apple” experience with Blood on the Clocktower. We had several enquiries for it in 2023 and early 2024 so got it in, sold out and got a restock months later, all of which is still sitting on the shelf. Similarly, Wingspan did quite well for us on initial release and the first expansion did well, so we stocked up on the second and third, which have moved very slowly.
This makes me very worried about reordering Warhammer 40,000 Pariah Nexus Mission Decks. We could not keep them in stock when they first released, and our second reorder sold out as well. Should we put in a large re-order if they come back into stock or order cautiously?
Happy Holidays and may your sales increases be double digit!
Comments? Send them to castleperilousgames@gmail.com
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.
Source: ICV2
