A Tale of Two Paintball Stores

Let's take a look at how two stores in the same general region of each other operate - they are just two amongst a half dozen or so, but Store A and Store B are really quite different.

Operations

Store A has a clean, well-lit showroom and the place is always stocked with product.
Store B has a larger retail space but is kind of dirty and product is not always replaced rapidly.

Store A does repairs of guns but doesn't really have an in house gun tech - some markers go back to the factory for repair, but simple stuff is fixed in house. Customers are generally happy.

Store B does repairs and in fact used to be a great repair shop but has since dropped employees and has difficulty finding someone who can both fix paintball guns and show up to work regularly. Stuff gets fixed, sometimes, and sometimes it doesn't. Customers are sort of ok with it.

Store A is run by its owner with only occasional help from part-time employees.

Store B is run by the employees and the owner doesn't really have much to do at all with day-to-day operations and is out of touch with the entire industry and business.

Prices

Both stores carry the same line of paint.

Store A raised prices when the manufacturer raised prices - they pretty much have the highest prices in the area on paint and are competitive on other products. They will not cut deals except in very large quantities, and no haggling is appriciated.

Store B has the lowest prices on paint, and haggling is a daily occurence.

Margins

Store A runs almost 40% margins, Store B tries to run at 30% but will blow things out when necessary.

Sales

This is simple - store A brings in roughly twice as much gross sales as Store B, every month.

Results and the Future

Which of these two stores do you think is going to survive this coming year of paintball? That answer is simple too:











Neither one of them is going to survive. Paintball is doomed. Their only hopes for the future are that the other shops in the area go out of business before them so what little piece of pie is left can be divided up in fewer chunks.