Support your local business.

Now I'm all for this. This is a biggy in the Role-Playing Game supply stores. Good gaming stores are harder and harder to find since it is far easier to get what you need on Ebay, Amazon, and online retailers in general. The more people order from the gaming companies directly, the less gaming stores are able to continue.

But this Christmas I've started wondering if it is the fault of the consumer that we go to the online retailers and not to the store. I'm starting to think that maybe it's the stores themselves that are driving the nails into their own coffins and making us go to the online retailers out of frustration.

Case in point. There is a very local store to us. These folks are 15 minutes away from our house and within walking distance to my work. Can't be much more convenient than that right? Except that every thing I've ordered, they lose.

Let me clarify. They order it and they get in, but they lose the piece of paper that says who ordered it and what their contact information is. And since they can't figure out who ordered it, it gets put on the shelves for sale.

Guess what happens to them then. I'll give you a hint. It rhymes with "it gets sold to someone else".

So when we get there to ask where our order is, we get "Oh Right! That was you guys who ordered the last copy of Munchkin Bites 2: Pants Macabre that our distributer has and will not be able to get until February when they get the next batch from Steve Jackson Games' printers."

To which we reply "Why yes, that was us. Where is it?"

"We didn't have your contact information and so we accidentally sold it out from under you...sorry."

This happened to us three times. As Queen Victoria (one of our more frumpy queens - Eddie Izzard) is famous for saying "We are not amused."

Ok, so this guy is out. Well there is another store that is a bit of a haul up the road from us, but still day-trippable and we can do it on a circuit of Ikea, them, and Nightdreams and then head on home. Normally they have been nothing but awesome to us. Until now.

We wanted to order stuff for AFTER Christmas. No rush, no hurry, no screaming wobblers if it doesn't get to us until after the New Year. We wanted...

The two Munchkin Christmas expansions (Nope, they're out of print)
The Red Dragon Inn? (Company gone out of business)
Pass me the Brain? (Out of print)
Killer Bunnies Purple expansion? (Sorry out of print)

By this point we were starting to feel like John Cleese in the "Cheese Shop" Sketch.

So by the time we've asked about the 8th item we give it up.

When we check it out, the only one that we honestly can not get at all is the Red Dragon since they seem to have gone tits-up as a business entity. Hopefully someone else will come along and buy their games up. It's likely, SJGames is great for picking up games from defunct companies and re-printing them under their name. Lord of the Fries and Pass me the Brain were originally made by Cheapass Games until they folded and were picked up by SJGames. They actually sell better under their care.

The rest of the games could be found on Ebay, Amazon, and the respective websites of the makers of the games.

So with this store's "Can't be arsed" attitude, we now have a bad taste in our mouth about buying from the only local guys.

As much as I wanted to support you, you didn't want to support your customers. And with this attitude, you have the gall to piss, bitch and moan over how we're killing your business by shopping from the manufacturers of the games directly?

Well maybe if you actually remembered the lessons of customer service you would actually still have customers to service.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some ordering to do.