As some of you may have read, my wife, my crew, and I have been debating on which direction to take TITAN GAMES in the coming years. We have found that "games" are becoming more of a commodity in the retail environment - meaning that if you (the "you" being the consumer, not necessarily "you the reader") want a given item, and you don't need to browse or be sold on that game, why pay retail? More and more we find that our retail store sustains itself on products OTHER than games. And, at the same time, we find that our online retail store (TitanGames.com) sells a fair amount of merchandise at full retail - but mostly in trades, and to people who live overseas or otherwise have no retail store near them.

We have been thinking of going toward the discount model - where we sell online at 30% off, and chase those frugal (cheap?) customers who are primarily only interested in price, and savings.

Well, after much debate and discussion, we have decided not to go that route, and instead are concentrating our efforts to our core strengths: selection in the retail store, good packing and shipping for online orders, the ability to pay cash for collections of any size, and a diverse product selection.

We are going to move our store. Currently, we have about 2000 square feet of retail space - but that counts space "behind the counter" too. Our move will take us to a 4500 square feet facility that will be about 4290 worth of browsing retail space, and very little "behind the counter" space. Additionally, we will have our packing area separate from our offices, and our warehouse space will be consolidated to one large (5500 square feet) warehouse style space. This is a huge improvement for us, for many reasons.

1. Currently our packing area and office space for our online and telephone sales area are shared - the packing station is less than 4 feet from people on the phone trying to take orders, which makes things very LOUD if you are trying to hear someone give you their credit card number, or give you their order. Having our packing area separate from our offices will make things more quiet, and more productive.
2. Nearly tripling our retail floor space will allow us to delve further into "non games" merchandise. Plastic Model Kits, Rock Tumblers, Coin Collection Supplies, Puzzles - and other merchandise of a hobby-nature - as well as displaying our DVDs and CDs better, and more attractively will really pay dividends.
3. We will finally have space for carrying nice chess sets, swords, statuary and other high-ticket items will make our store, overall, more attractive.

In addition to our new retail store, we are placing a new emphasis on our online sales. We have started our new 3FREEGAMES.com site where we will continue to do liquidations and sales of different types.

It is an exciting, if nervous, time at Titan Games. We are looking forward to the coming year, and the challenges our move will bring.

And, for any retailer out there who might be looking to re-fixture their store, we have just bought a TON of good fixtures from several "Going Out Of Business" sales in our area - January is always the month for finding incredible deals at such liquidations.

So, we are early in our move. We have just selected the building and came to a tentative agreement on rent, bought several truckloads of fixtures, and are ready to start moving inventory.

In the coming months I will update you on our progress. Today I am hanging drywall on the framing in our new location, and having a boiler technician come down and do several tests on the boiler heating system.

See you all soon...