In my last post about sales, I just counted the number of receipts we rung up. It occurred to me that didn’t show the difference between buying a Slim Jim or buying Planet Steam. Using the same data, I whipped this up, which shows when we were given the most money.
Today we have Betrayal at House on the Hill, Jerusalem, a restock of Scars of Mirrodin and Invasion from Outer Space (written by the guys that brought us Last Night on Earth).
After arriving late, I wondered, how many sales would I miss if I was closed for an hour?
My POS system tells me sales for a particular hour, or a particular day, but what I wanted was sales per hour per day. So, I spent way to much time today creating a graph.
For the last 91 days, this is when we sold stuff (I subtracted sales to myself, or sales I do on the web). Saturdays are the only day we open at 10, so the small lump there is 1.3% of sales which we do before noon on Saturday. This Sunday was unusual in that we opened before noon for the Magic Pre-release, so the morning 1.4% of sales won’t be there most reports.
Friday at 6 is when the Magic Tournament buy in starts, so the 8.2% of all sales during that hour includes the board game and miniature game guys leaving while the Magic group buys in.
Yesterday, I called UPS to give them a piece of my mind. Once again a driver had arrived before our posted hours to deliver a package, and left a note saying “I’ll try tomorrow”. Corporate policy dictates that they attempt to deliver during my posted hours, so the driver should have tried again yesterday without me calling.
This morning was a different story. I was a bit late getting up and getting moving. I opened the store at 12:05. I actually saw the UPS driver pull away as I rolled into the parking lot.
Now I have to yell at myself as loud as I yelled at the UPS guy yesterday.
That should be enough to see if anyone cares about our new puzzle section.
Well, the Township and my new landlord are still engaged in a regulatory dance. There is an increasing chance I will stay here for Christmas then move first thing next year. Our new address will someday be 357 Easton Rd, Glenside PA 19038.
After talking with successful retailers, I have decided to end the punch card system after the move. It doesn’t track easily and throws off the books. I will be trying to figure out how to implement a loyalty system that balances rewards while allowing the store to make a profit.
On the upside, Friday we had 28 players buy into the Magic Release event, our highest headcount ever. Saturday night continues to attract new board game players. If there is a specific game you have wanted to play, tell me a week in advance. I will include it in the newsletter.
Meanwhile, I decided to expand my offerings a little bit while doing a large restock. There is now a small puzzle section, and a selection of LEGO games. If they do well over Christmas, I will expand the selections, if not, I will let them sell off and call it a failed experiment.
Speaking of failed experiments, we have a section of heavily marked down items – including all of the Arcane Legions. Stop in and see if there is a bargain for you.
Have you noticed that we are on Facebook?
This week
How much stuff did we get?
The plan was simple. Let the stock level go down, move the store, then do a massive restock. Since the move was delayed, the restock and expansion happened now.
On Monday, I took a trip over to O’Doodle’s which have “Unplugged Fun”. The store is very much oriented toward young kids. Now I have a place to send people for the younger set’s toys including rockets.
