2009 in review

So, our 2009 in review blog post has gone up.  Lots of information there, mostly discussing how things went for us last year.

One thing we brushed across in that summary was the decision to not open a retail store for the next few years, if ever.  It's taken me a long time to come to that decision, mostly because when we launched Starlit Citadel, a game store was always the end-goal.

However, many things have changed since we launched the store and I've finally had to face up to that.  Since Alison is no longer taking an active role in the company and she had all the retail experience, launching a store would mean I'd have to learn all of that on-the-job so to speak.  And having read extensively, and considered what that would involve, I've realised I just don't have hte skills or frankly, the character to run a game store.  Heck, I can't even keep my apartment clean and free of junk - how do I expect to do the same for my business?

In addition, my skill set has always been on the back-end of things - marketing, purchasing, logistics and IT.  I can do customer service and I'm not a bad salesperson, but it's not what thrills me.  And since this is my full-time job, I might as well do what thrills me.

Not to mention that in the 3 years since we started, Vancouver has literally doubled the number of game stores in town.  Many of the locations we thought would make great spots are already taken, and frankly, being well managed.  Since the only thing we could bring to the retail environment is low prices (and even then, in some cases, not that much lower); I don't see a reason to do so.

It's still a tough call, but I think it's the right one.