Largest Store in Sunny Sin City Weighs in on What’s Blazing Hot in Games, Merch, and More
This vibe check is courtesy of Little Shop of Magic in Las Vegas, NV. Little Shop of Magic is owned by John Coviello, a long-standing member of the GAMA retail community as well as a WPN Premier Gold Tier Store and Games Workshop Partner store. The store was established in 1994, and is primarily dedicated to tabletop gaming.
This store has a huge selection of Games Workshop miniatures, TCGs, and TCG accessories. Their board game and RPG stock is also significant (in general, this store seems to carry about everything games related); it also has large in-store play space to host organized play events. ICv2 has featured Little Shop of Magic in “Explore the Store” articles in the past (see “Explore the Store“).
Little Shop of Magic Current Vibe
Location: 7265 Arroyo Crossing Pkwy #115
Las Vegas, NV 89113
Store Specialities: Miniatures and TCGs.
Little Shop of Magic’s Current Hotness: In the games space, certain miniatures accessories and paints are hot, which include Vallejo True Metals, new colors in the Turbo Dork line, and texture pastes and flocking from Huge Miniatures. My Little Pony TCG, Lairs, and Frontier Scum RPG are all also doing well. Additionally, Coviello added a note about hot merch in the store: “It’s not new, and it’s not really a game, but NeeDohs are absolute fire right now. Similar to some TCGs, we must impose limits and announce drops as the orders we placed months ago finally start trickling in.”
Games That Are Growing Playgroups: CookieRun, Disney Lorcana, Pokemon TCG, and Star Wars Unlimited. The store also still has a Blood Bowl league going.
Buying Mood of Customer Base: Positive and upbeat, despite “talk of gloom and doom in the economy.” There are also a couple external factors influencing the customer behavior at the store:
- The Gig Economy. TCG and toy sales are experiencing “insane demand” generated by individuals buying product to rip, flip, or invest in these products to create a personal revenue stream.
- Publisher Behavior. Publishers are utilizing more DTC routes to sell to exclusively to consumers while demanding LGS run more in-store event; “Market expansion appears to compensate for this broken social contract between publishers and retailers, but time will tell the long-term ramifications for our industry if we face stagnation or a downturn.”
Pick Hits for Q2 into Q3: The shop is banking on HellScape and Cyberpunk TCG making some waves upon launch. On the miniatures side, the store’s customers are looking forward to Warhammer 40,000 11E products. Coviello also included a note about Starcraft Miniatures Game: “We had high hopes for the StarCraft miniatures game, but the combination of low margins and an exclusive DTC window caused us to reconsider and scale back our original order.”
Additional Commentary: “Despite the advances and money pouring in (to the games industry) over the past decade, we still lag behind others in standardization, information sharing, technology and cooperation between the different arms of our industry. We’re on the right path, but there are miles left to cover on the road ahead.” – John Coviello, Owner of Little Shop of Magic.
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Source: ICV2
