I know that they are "supposed to" but I know that they dont because as of now they can get away with it.
 

That might be his reason, but that's awfully stupid of him saying that. Tax evasion is tax evasion.

Haha, oh nice, I missed that you were also from Nebraska. We probably know a lot of the same people. 

Yep, good ole Ryno... mismanaging Gamers into the ground. haha.

Every game store in my area is long gone. Some do pop open once in a while and they hardly ever last a year. The only consistency is flea market resellers.

I see some very interesting points being made in the thread however : how many brick-and-mortar stores have a proper online front? I'll tell you: not many. I'm often shopping around for uncommon stuff so I have to really broaden my searches and I can't even begin to count how many businesses I find online that are both active via a website and social media, but that just don't have an online store. What's even the point?

I'm no business owner, but you can bet your multicolor gaming asses I'd have an eBay store listed on my website and facebook/IG/twitter accounts. It makes no sense not to. Especially when I see "collector stores"'s websites. Like, yeah, get all your people together to play Magic and what not, they might buy figurines and packs while they're around, but you need to be selling as much as possible even when not many people come in on regular days. No?

My local brick and mortar has been surviving off of the local junkies stolen trade in for a few years now.

I'm not even kidding. It could be an anomaly but this guys customer service is pretty course. I've witnessed some pretty shady sales. I feel like the place takes advantage of strict no return policies to sell items that are barely holding on for dear life, repaired by someone who thought they knew what they were doing, or just straight up selling stuff that doesn't work and had never been tested. I know I've boight at least 5-10 nes games that we're obviously never even looked at. Just priced and put on the shelf for sale.

Anyway back to my crack head theory. The area is crawling with meth heads. And almost every time I go in there I see it. Im not trying to judge btw ive struggled with addiction. The store is always getting those lots and I know he pays out next to nothing. I friend of mine use to work there.

Just this week suikoden 2 in there. jewel case is wrecked but the papers and disc are clean. That's just one example. Wacky races. Contra force.... he gets good stuff. I say "I know you made a come up on this" and he just grins ear to ear.

The store is a MESS! Shit everywhere. Consoles,games,movies, accessories... everything. The quality of product is shit too! Like clean up that jewel case for the suikoden. Nope. Dirty carts. Scratched discs. Manuals missing pages.

It has amazed me for about 3 years now the place is still there.

My general area within 15 minutes from me only has 3 retro gaming stores and 1 of them I know is barely making it. It's just like what Mr. Wunderful said high rent. Other factors like you mentioned dealing with online. I hear people who come into these stores all the time "oh I can get it online for cheaper." I also believe that the demand in games especially retro games has declined. People locally aren't really looking for retro anymore and if they are they are looking to pay a very cheap price. This has also translated to online as well as the market place like Ebay has declined. Stuff is been selling for less than what it has a year ago and it's just going to get worse. In fact retro stuff that was selling back a year ago may not be even selling now. People mentioned not paying taxes for online sales. That will change in the near further. It's going to be required that people online pay sale tax no matter where you live not just in state transactions.

Just have to offer decent trade in credit, trade with locals etc.

Yeah, I only ever frequent Game Dude with any regularity. Is that Game Portal in Burbank any good?

 

I wish it was that easy...

Depends on what you are looking for. It has a small selection of NES, SNES, Genesis stuff but has a decent amount of Gamecube & PS2 stuff. They don't sell any newer stuff. There is also Game Realm in Burbank as well.
 

We had a store open near by where I live. I can't say for how long it will be open considering its always empty when I drive by. Last store that I remember closing near me was a play n trade. They never had a lot of good stuff, nobody ever traded in cool stuff. I bought a lot of games for a good price there. And I was there for the liquidation because they had some good stuff left including a display case for cheap.

Here in Vegas I noticed that the stores now lack new inventory and are much slower then before.

I just got back into collecting and I decided to hit up the old stores I would frequent. I believe people have other avenues when it comes to selling their games. With apps like Mercari, offer up and letgo and gamestores giving either crap store credit or very little cash people selling would rather go those other avenues. This also makes collectors or resellers not go to game stores.

Exactly. Also, states are cracking down on this and are starting to enforce online taxes on more larger outlets. Most states have already started doing this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/cu...

If you're not hitting the PayPal (or whatever processors) limit for getting a 1099, then you're probably fine. Otherwise, you'll most likely just get hit with a penalty fee and a fine from your state for not reporting and paying your sales tax on time.

I think local video game stores are declining too. My local game stores' stock doesn't move and they don't get much new stuff in. In addition, one of the owners has indicated nobody buys handheld games anymore because they have tablets. It's gotten to the point where I'm considering cashing out whatever game store credit I have while I still can. You never know when your local store will move or go out of business, as has happened to others here recently.

Game x change keeps opening up stores everywhere. I dont know how. They suck balls and changed all their prices to sky high back during the price boom. Have yet to adjust down. Cant find good deals on practically anything. Its just pointless to go

Another thing that has to help is your store is by far the cleanest and most professional looking one around. Hope you all can keep it going
 

Great article. Sent you a PM about possibly buying out part of my disc based collection. 

There's a joint in Phoenix/metro called Fallout Games that just opened a new location, really close to me. So that's some good growth, considering there's maybe 7 places I could drive to on my lunch break if I ate in the car. That includes places that also do books/music/movies. All East Valley locations, I don't even know what's open in Phoenix proper.

Our entire (massive, 5x the size of Nebraska) province has about that same number :/ 

Somehow I never noticed you were in Phoenix. Im flying down for a concert in November, might need some game haunt recommendations

Is the concert at ASU? The closer you are to Tempe, the better your haul will be.
 

Comerica

I'll see what I can find

Ah I saw an ad for the show you're going to:


 

One just opened up 4 days ago here.