War and Pieces CLOSED?

Per Sandy's Facebook page.....

"Rumor has it that Joey couldn't pay the electric bill and closed War & Pieces for good today. No warning, no nothing. Omar picked up the comics from UPS and they're sitting on a table at the shop."



i called the store and there was no answer.

Jebus, is like South Florida climate not healthy for gaming stores !!!

Joel will endure. So don't worry.

Are you sure he is closed for good? What is the source?

I know someone who may be able to give us more information.

JerryB

Nakia is working at Tate's and Florida Supercon Mike just posted a promotion for Tate's comics.

There are rumors of unpaid phone bills and bounced Sales tax checks.

Doesn't look good.

I hope there's at least a sale or something.

I remember when Alpha & Omega went, they also just closed up shop overnight.

I talk to Tony a AT-43 player that goes to War & Pieces frequently and he was totally surprise. He called some friends who have Joey's cell and he was not answering calls.

I hope this is temporary.

Vycem, Alpha & Omega and Dragon's Liar was no surprise. It was not question of if, but, when would the store closed. With War and Pieces I saw a lot of activity, plenty of stock and it look well run/manager. May be I was wrong, but I was only there once. I heard a lot good things about the store.

JerryB

From what I remember, Sandy left unceremoniously and with bad blood between her and Joey. I would take a Facebook post with a grain of salt until someone puts up a "closing sale" sign in the window.

Sandy worked in a big comics and game store in Orlando. That is where she met Joey. They moved South to Miami (where his family lives) and opened W&P together. IMO Sandy had all the business knowledge and Joey was the gamer.

When the relationship went south, so did the business partnership.

I THINK he bought her out with cash from his parents and product (comics).

Since then, Joey has been running the place with Omar as his store manager. They moved to a bigger bay at the corner of the mall they are in. It's a nice big space, but the higher rent may have done him in.

What a blow to the folks who live up there.. especially the WM and Hordes community.... if it's true.

W&P was the strongest supporter of Warmachine and AT-43, I thought the was a pretty good niche to be in.

I believe each (to help stay in business) should carry a line of product that no one else has or supports as much.

Joel it would be FOW and board games.

W&P Warmachine and AT-43

Tates ...

It's official, War & Pieces is closed for the foreseeable future, at least that what the sign says on the door of the store.

I understand that Joey is working on options to re-open, but of course it is to soon to know how that will turn out.

I have heard several reasons as to why the store closed. I believe the major reason was due to customers making purchases on the internet hoping other players would support the store.

JerryB

They closed because they didn't make enough money.

In today's business world, you need to be ready to discount your product to comepete with todays online retail world. If your business model relys on full retail pricing - you will fail. Consumers are too educated, informed, and self serving (and rightfully so IMO).

You also better have a sweeeeeet deal on your retail space and some ideas of how to generate a recurring revenue stream.

Knowing both original owners, the partner that understood these things left in back in February. The one that thought it was "cool to own a comic store" was left.

Commercial rents in Miami must kill a lot of stores, and don't help in getting a large space that has room for gaming.

I've seen stores in North Florida where the gaming space is as big as the store itself.

Shadow, brick and mortar business can not compete with a warehouse with no customer support (outside of orders) and price intventory dollars over cost. With less rent, little employees, and all the other cost that stores have there is noway you can compare the cost to run each. So this may be an end to store front gaming.

I don't know the War & Pieces as well as you proable do, but I see a dramtic trend. Granted Alpha/Omega; Dragon's Liar were poorly run, but there have been other stores that have closed that seem to being doing things right (Past,Present,Future). I could be wrong on all accounts.

JerryB

Good time to buy a Battleboard

Its been said time and time again, you gotta incorporate Online sales with Store sales, a LOT of people buy online because of the convenience of it. With so few stores in south florida a lot of people just dont have the time to drive x-amount of miles to a store and see if they have what they are looking for.

I'll always try to support the FLGS. It's not always easy (I'm actually trading old boardgames we don't play to feed the FOW habit I've developed....), but I try.

But here's an interesting dichotomy. People won't drive to the store, but will drive to play....?

Would a nice big store, with lots of playing space change that?

Luis, true you have to drive a lot, but with so many stores going out of business this is part of the reason, few stores, few options.

I call ahead, of course this is no assuance that the staff (usaully a kid, cheap wages) does not care or know about the stores inventory. And its hard to keep a complete inventory. A web store can easily do what's called a "drop ship". That's where they call the manufacture and have them ship direct from the factory, fuck all I need is a website and may be a phone.

Nice big stores, cost nice big rent that website don't have to pay and therefore websites can have much, much, much lower prices.

Hey let them all go out business, end of discussion. Just don't complain when they do.

JerryB

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090903/us_time/08599191991600;_ylt=Al9ISNKHDyeY2CTgT9z6nUWCfNdF

This was published in "TIMES" magazine. It's a good barometer of the condition in south Florida, or Florida in general. You guys know how everyone is bitching about the economy being bad? Well the truly ugly stuff hasn't really taken hold in south Florida yet. Don't get me wrong it's bad, but we still have it better than other places that have been suffering the effects for much longer than us. Remember that our "gaming" is a luxury. The first thing to go when the wallet get's thin are luxuries.
As far as gaming stores coming and going, there are a number of reasons why. Alternate Dimensions failed to adjust to the times. He was still selling anime for it's "underground" price when best buy and others were selling the same vids, if not better, for cheaper. That's just one of the reason's..... Leaving kids in charge of stores is also piss-poor management. Not that AD did it, but many others have; lord knows those stores fell prey to theft and poor customer service.
At this juncture, just support your LGS in any reasonable way you can and pray for the best.

Heh, i remember Lizards on Ice, all he had were kids taking care of the store. The smount of stuff that was stolen was astronomical.

I actually know a guy who worked at Lizards. He gave me a bunch of crap customers left lying about and told me how by the end they were getting paid in merchandise.

Damn just heard about it, away at Dragoncon in Atlanta now so totally missed this. Sad news, was the only close game store for us in Pembroke Pines. Only place that had open space and let you play anything you want even if the store didn't support it.

Though as many of us have locally said, we aren't all that surprised. We were surprised the store was still open though it looked like things were getting better for W&P. They had quite a few subscribers for comic books who walk in and put down 100 bucks almost each week, but I know that comics aren't big profit makers... neither is gaming. As had already been discussed on this board before in the store opening topic, the profit margins on gaming products (and majority of niche hobby material) is very small so you gotta sell a ton. Store lost lot of it's support though when Sandy left, she was the main person who did all the stores marketing, got the store in the newspaper, did internet work for the store, and pushed for promotions and sales. The store didn't even have a website anymore when she left.

Still with Uncharted Seas, AT-43, and even Hordes/WM, lot of people were not buying from the shop, yet would constantly have new figs. Online sales!

Online sales to go along with a store can be helpful, but the problem is competition, how do you compete with warstore? miniature market? Cool stuff Inc? Popular collections? So many cheap vendors who offer free shipping as well..... and to do online sales also requires money. Ebay is a good option, I think something Dragons Lair did later in it's life. They would take product that was old and not selling and liquidate it on ebay..... thats good, more stores need to do this.... too many stores have stacks of product collecting dust. If its not gonna sell.... PUT IT ON SALE, at least make something off of it. Better to get some money out of it than nothing at all.

Local shops would benefit more by doing price matching with online shops if they want to keep local customer base playing. One of the reasons I think Joel has stayed in business even though everyone trashes on the store and him, is because hes willing to offer good discounts on product to keep people buying in store than running online.

IMO you need to match the discount your competitiors offer. It's better to sell something at 25% profit then hold out for 45% profit and sell nothing.

W&P probably lost many sales to Joel because most people will drive 30 minutes to save $.