IAMA store owner. I treated my players this week for the pre-Xmas FNM.

jimini-christmas knows what he's talking about. This sounds awesome and I bet the players were thrilled.

Comes out of the promotion budget. 3% of gross income allocated to advertising, giveaways, promotions, donations, etc., and thus my December budget is the largest of the year. I couldn't do this in, say, April.

I know if a shop around me was just giving out Fat Packs and FTVs, word would spread at the other shops and I'd be willing to drive out of my way to attend their events just to support someone that friendly.

Also, 'tis the season.

I'm guessing that because of their exceptionally large player base that they have very little competition, if any at all. Because of this they can almost guarantee that their players will stay with them (especially with holiday giveaways like that). So they have no issue doing this. Also it seems like they could make that few hundred dollars back easily with their events depending on how many they run a week.

Actual cost to me was right around $400. This wasn't even my largest promotional expense for the month (newspaper ads, donations to charity auctions, and Facebook post boosting, for three examples all cost me more). But I have a specific budget for promotions and advertising, and December's is the largest of the year.

I didn't want to turn this into an advertisement -- more as an example as to the kind of thing that can be done. Folks who reaaaaaally want to know can probably deduce it.

I don't like to talk too specifically about revenues.

We're a hybrid store, so we do both genre games and childrens' toys. As such, our demographic is different from most stores that do Magic. Our Magic demographic averages mid-20s, like most, but our in-store player base is a little different -- we have kids as young as 10 as well as several women in their 30s and 40s in addition to the archetypal players.

I only buy singles in collections, in order to amortize their value over a quantity and thus be less concerned about making my money back on individual items; rather, I can try to turn over my stock at an appropriate rate. I am also thus less affected by fluctuating prices in a volatile market.

I price by TCG average. Most Standard format cards over $3 go under the counter, the rest in binders. The best of the best from previous sets go under the counter or are stored securely.

Same one as you. ;-)

Not that hard if you actually budget for things like this. Consider it as an advertisement cost. Doesn't it make sense that a certain portion of money is put back in to the store to promote business? This is one of those things, a large event like that can keep people very loyal and supportive.

It's almost as if you can run a viable business and not be completely obsessed with the bottom line. Not to mention that such good will may actually increase long term profitability.

Proper budgeting and realizing what profitability actually entails. For example lets analyze this event and how it effects a store. The OP has stated the event cost around 400 dollars. Ok now lets analyze revenue streams and profit centers for the store. Well singles are a huge profit center as most stores give 50% card price when buying for in store credit, then we have boosters and other sealed pack sales, also merch sales which likely has a higher profit than sealed cards. Lets assume 25% across all categories for easy math. Now lets analyze what a loyal customer brings to the store every year. Say he spends around 10-20 dollars every time he/she comes in the in the store, and they come in to play 2-3 times a week either for tournament play or for some PUG's. So thats about 30(152)-45(153) dollars a week or 1500-2300 a year, now we said profit margin is 25% so per year thats 375-575 per regular customer in profits. So say this give away got one person to change from a casual to a regular customer, or got someone who was thinking of slowing down their magic play to keep it up, or got someone new excited about the game well then it payed for itself off one customer. Or say everyone involved was a loyal customer, and had no intention of slowing down, well even then it creates good will among your client base and brings more business in via that goodwill.

The real question is how can store owners not afford to put actual $$ into true promotional project such as this.

Edit: besides the 400$ cost i don't work in the industry so all numbers are out of my butt and should only be used for example purposes.

When a new LGS set up shop a block from college, I got them to give me a ton of free dice and tshirts, which I gave out to the D&D and magic clubs on campus. I gave them so much business.

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He's manipulating you into liking him (assuming OP is a he) right now, and it's working! ;)

The fastest turnover for singles is in the first few weeks after release. I open cases of cards to stock up, and then seldom open much again. I would never open another box of Dragon's Maze, for example, but I might open more RtR if I felt it was worthwhile.

I do want a good stock of every card from a new set, but I'm OK with selling out of individual cards as time goes on, in many instances. Unlike a shop with a major online presence or a huge local market, I can't guarantee that I will be able to buy a volatile card and then flip it before ther price drops. Of course, if I have a specific request for a card I will trade for or buy it.

IF you end up selling everything I'm pretty sure you make a decent profit. Also considering that the retail price of a box is slightly higher than what they pay for it.

And I'm imagining that, as a store, you want a decent stock of singles so people actually come around to browse your stock. If you don't crack boxes and wait for players to come to you, you'll be sitting on little to no cards from the new sets for a long time, right around the time when demand for the set in general would be highest.

I'm not sure if it's super profitable, but making profit is more than just seeing what you pay for something vs how much you sell it for. The fact that people can assume you have cards in stock and go to you to browse means they're also more likely to buy other things while they're there. At least, generally, when I go to a shop for magic cards, I won't leave empty-handed. Even if I don't find a specific card I want (or it's too expensive for my tastes) I'll walk away with something else. (This is not uncommon because people don't want their time spent to be a waste, so they can somewhat justify their time spent by buying something else they can use)

Or this is all a load of bull and I have no idea what I'm talking about. I wouldn't discount the possibility >_>