The joys and sorrows of selling board games!
By Sarah Atherton
I’ve just got back from Shrewsbury Folk Festival (SFF) where I have been working as a trader selling board games and puzzles from my stall for four days.
It’s been a blast! I love SFF for many reasons and because I do well at SFF when I come home, I immediately start thinking about other similar events where I can trade as Get Your Game On Ltd.
But the thing is, it’s really hard to sustain a business when you are a small, independent retailer who trades as a pop-up and before I go to SFF I always tell myself (and my family) ‘this might be the last time I do a festival’ and ‘maybe I need to stop being a board game retailer’ etc.
Can you see how confused I am!!??
It’s an ongoing dilemma for me so I decided to write a blog about the joys and sorrows of selling board games at events in order to put my thoughts down on paper and share the highs and lows of being a small trader with my readers!
So first of all the:
Challenges or Lows…
A lot of board games are expensive to buy, can only be bought from one or the other distributor, may need to be bought as part of a bigger ‘minimum spend’ order and there really isn’t a lot of profit in selling them. If I wanted to make money as a market trader I would sell coffee where the mark up is huge (think 30p to make a cup of coffee and up to £4.50 when selling it!!)
Some events are really expensive to trade at - and I’m not talking trade shows or Glastonbury here - I have paid £90 for an afternoon in a school hall, £80 for a pitch at a Christmas market and £60 to attend a school fete! Out of the three mentioned, only the Christmas market was worth it, I lost money at both of the others (and have lost a lot of money at poorly attended, badly marketed events - but you live and learn and you don’t go back to these kind of events if you can help it!) P.s. SFF is really good value for money and lots of the smaller festivals are too!
Some markets also require a permit from the local council to trade at them - and the cost of some permits have gone up threefold since the pandemic when I started trading!
Markets are often great events in themselves and some people attend them just to be there and soak up the atmosphere, not necessarily to buy anything. This is fine but as a trader it’s also good to have customers too of course! Fortunately I am not affected by the ‘too many trader's selling the same thing’ curse. If you sell candles or brownies at markets, it’s often bad luck when the market manager decides to have half a dozen of the same thing on the market.
The weather can be a pain as it’s unpredictable and I could go on about trying to keep my gazebo from flying away in high winds but all market traders know the risks associated with the British weather and should come prepared so it’s not really anything to moan about to be honest!
It’s really tiring and if you want to enjoy the festival too, you need to sleep well and find ways of saving your energy! As I camped on site at SFF this year, I now realise I need a mattress that doesn’t deflate every night, a warm hat and some extra blankets! Fortunately, this is a quick fix!
So enough moaning, what about the joys?
Well! Where to start? There are so many highs of selling board games at markets and particularly at festivals. I LOVE being at Shrewsbury Folk Festival and some of the markets I attend are also AWESOME too!
The Joys or Highs:
I love finding the right game for people. I genuinely love board games and it makes me really happy to introduce people to games they haven’t heard of and to find the right game for a family, a child, a gamer, an individual, a group of friends, two or more kids of different ages, a history buff, someone who love maps or trains or animals, a tactical thinker…the list is endless! And being on a stall is the best way to talk to people face to face and make recommendations - even if it’s something I don’t sell.
I love being busy and I’m good at talking and making connections so this is an ideal job for me tbh!
It’s great to meet other traders. I go to SFF because a childhood friend has a stall there and told me about trading at SFF (she is part of Fair And Fabulous from Newcastle Emlyn) and I enjoy spending time with her, her business partner and her family and meeting other traders too.
When I do four days in a row it’s like having an actual shop - I don’t have to put up and take down the gazebo every day and I camp right behind it. I would love to have an actual shop. I can’t afford this right now, but SFF is the closest I get to the ‘shop’ experience.
I meet the nicest people! Now, don’t get me wrong - there is occasionally someone who will ask you to explain the rules of all the board games on the stall and then tell you they don’t like board games (!) or an unsupervised or bored child who has no interest in games but decides to grab them all and sadly sometimes damages them!
But 99% of the people I meet on the stall are just lovely. They chat about games they like, they make recommendations, they might buy something too and in return I love helping them out in some way. For example, at SFF I met a teacher who is thinking of setting up a board game club so I told her to contact me and I will gladly send her all my lesson plans for the board game club I ran. I also like returning customers who come and chat with me (like Les and his wife and his son who bought games from me last year and gave me some good recommendations of games I should stock).
I like promoting small independent board game designers and because I am a stall and not a shop with masses of games to choose from, I can really make their games stand out and increase their reach and sales!
I also like telling people where their nearest FLBGS is, if I don’t sell what they are looking for AND I love telling people who say that they don’t have anyone to play big board games with, where they can find board game conventions and groups near them!
I’m really good at selling board games on my stall. I feel really proud of myself and what I’ve achieved when I come home!
So you see my dilemma! There’s not a lot of money in selling board games and retail is a risky business not helped by politics and the cost of living BUT it is so JOYFUL to sell board games on my stall that I don’t really want to stop entirely.
The solution?
I need to be more selective in what I sell (I can’t sell it all and need to trade more with distributors and publishers who offer the most favourable terms and conditions AND are the nicest people (there are some truly wonderful people in this industry and I will always want to sell their games!).
And I need to be more selective in where I sell my games - I can’t afford big pitch fees unless I’m pretty sure that footfall is good, the event is well publicised and there will be people attending who like playing board games or buying them as gifts for other people who like playing board games!
So what does the future hold? Well, for now I think I’m sticking rather than twisting but you might see me less occasionally and with more niche stock.
Plus there’s always the website - but the blog about selling online can wait for another day tbh - and it will always be my preference to meet you, chat to you and find the game that is right for you!
So, until the next time Get Your Gamers!
Sarah from GYGOL x