I have often said to other retailers, get out from behind your counter, and interact with your customers. If you are not selling enough to stay in business, then go to your customers, inform them of your location, create more customers, do whatever it takes. And, if you are not being successful, work an additional 10 hours a week for the next month, and repeat until you are successful.

Taking a bit of my own advice, I go to conventions - most recently Origins Game Convention in Columbus, Ohio. Buckeye country is not my favorite place to be, being from Michigan. Not that I am a Michigan Football Fan, mind you - my favorite team is Notre Dame - but, going to Columbus means I am in enemy territory.

But, Origins is worth the trip, and again this year we did well. Sales were down just a bit (about 3% from the previous year) but, nothing to sneeze at.

However - between Origins and GenCon is the Silver Leaf Renaissance Faire - a hometown favorite here in Battle Creek. The RenFaire is a big event for a relatively small town, and we decided last year to attend if we could get in. And, with a little luck and perseverance, we got our spot. So, out to buy a pavilion (the faire is, of course, outdoors) and costumes (the faire requires all vendors to be dressed in period cloting), and the merchandise - renny stuff, like pirate themed or Renaissance themed games, etc. This was expensive and time consuming. And, of course, the 4 weekends after Origins, with one weekend open then GenCon makes this 7 week period a very Busy one!!

So, going into weekend 3, how are we doing? Well, we had fun. Sales have not been good, there is just no other way to say it - we have not covered the cost of our space, let alone the pavilion, the merchandise, the labor hours, and cost of the costumes, etc.

But, we have handed out 1000 flyers about our store. If that translates into even a 50 new customers, it will be well worth the effort. I hope.

This comes to mind because I have heard recently from various retailers that business is down at their stores, and things are problematic in the game industry. And, I wonder how many shop owners are active in their community: going to the faires, Chamber of Commerce meetings, street fests, etc. Here in Battle Creek, we have the balloon festival, taste of Battle Creek, the RenFaire and the Calhoun County Fair. Next year, I plan to attend each one, and promote our shop to those attending those events - afterall, it is those kinds of people, folks with spending money, and who enjoy a good time, that are my primary customer base - I just gotta get them into the store.

A couple other things:

The rumor of my demise has been greatly exaggerated, and I am still in business. True, we sold TitanGames.com, but we are still operating on eBay as Titan-Games (my daughter's business, actually), and online as 3FREEgames.com and are working on our new site: TheGamePirate.com (please annunciate the M when you say that, lol). But, all during Origins I had people coming up to me and saying "Oh, I heard you went out of business" - and nothing could be further from the truth.

Since eBay offers such good venue for sales online, we sold our other website, and that is all the changes really mean.

We are still buying and selling all new games from publishers. Still operating our retail store, selling games, movies, music, video games, even coins - and doing well. We are also still buying all used games from collectors, gamers, and even from other stores - buying store liquidations, publisher liquidations, etc. In fact, we are selling more games, not less.

So, if you were thinking of contacting us about selling some games to us, please do!

Well, that's it for this week. If you have suggestions for next month's column please email me with those suggestions!

TitanGamesInc@aol.com

Thanks everyone,

Marcus King

Titan Games
637 Capital Ave SW
Battle Creek, MI 4901