First thoughts on webshops
As you probably know if you've been trying to start a business before or have talked to any entrepreneurs over the last couple of years.. it's really easy and cheap to start a webshop.
But that being said... I would never recommend you to start your own webshop because you want to sell one board game.

It's REALLY hard work to get your webshop to actually sell anything! You need to use hundreds of hours SEO-ing your webshop, setting up Ad-words, social marketing stuff, maintaining the webshop itself.... yea, I could continue on in this fashion.
 
My experience tells me to find a webshop that's already running smoothly - and get them to sell my board game. In that way I can focus on what's important and fun for me - creating new board games :)
 

Find a webshop
It's extremely easy to find relevant webshops for your board game - well, they want to be found and Google is your friend ;)

Many webshops are managed by only a couple of people which makes it much easier to get directly in touch with the person deciding what things they want to sell - in contrary to many stores where it can be days before you reach a person in charge (not to mention franchise which can be even worse).

Remember
Another benefit with webshops are that they usually don't need the same percentage of a sale as a regular store. The simple fact that they don't have an expensive rent / shop window makes a difference. In general it's easier to get a beneficial deal for both sides.
 

Webshops selling your board game
One of the key issues here (no matter who's going to sell you game) is that you need to be able to sell the game yourself. If you can't sell it - how are they supposed to be able to sell it?

It's all about presentation - also on the web :)
Pictures, short and easy to read text, product thoroughly described.
There are many other subjects regarding the webshop itself about security, payment and so on.. but that's for the webshop owners to decide. 

Help them - and learn...
Always check up on their sales, visits etc. and be curious about it - you might learn some nifty things in the process.
Help them out as much as possible!

• Supply them with pictures and text (plenty of it)
  
• Information them about when you expect delivery
• How are you going to deal with complaints and broken items.
• Blog about the webshop, write about it on forums and Facebook.
• Make a "test" purchase and see if the purchase experience can be improved.

Remember
To celebrate the first sale... and the second... and third... and...! :)

If you want to see my board game in a webshop: Startups - IGCwebshop
Happy gaming out there! :)

Today I'm going to talk about the sizes of board game boxes.

You might think that the box size doesn't matter as long as the pieces can fit inside. But if you don't have a buttomless wallet of money it does matter a great deal.

Let me go through the different aspects that's affected by your choice of box size.

1) Where will your board game be placed in the stores?
(a.k.a. "how many games of yours will be sold")

Getting the right spot on the shelves in a store can mean the difference between "being sold out" or "being overlooked".

You can compare it to Google Search results - it's all about being at the best spots where the most eyes look.

The example on the left is average store in Denmark. The frame indicate where you want your board game to stand. This was confirmed by the sales data I got from the store concerning some of the games (propably because I know the owners).

As you can also see on the picture - if your board game is too big or too difficult to handle it'll be place somewhere where it doesn't bother the setup (the floor or some high shelve where nobody can reach).

Measures
I measured some of the shelves in this store (they are standard equipment in most stores) and their average shelve height is about 28-30 cm. Which means that if you want to get a shelve spot your box shouldn't exceed 26-27 cm standing up.
 

2) Packaging / Postage - How much does it cost to wrap and send?
Make sure that you take this into consideration so you avoid having to pay 3 or 4 dollars more for a package/delivery than you have to just because the box you choose is 1 cm too wide on one side.

Remember that for every dollar you spend on a single game you have to charge between 2 or 3 dollars more for the game in the end. More expensive games are harder to sell.

3) Choosing standard boxes
We all want to create unique products and therefore it might be tempting to also create an unique box. But in small numbers this is at least ten times as costly as going with a standard box size.
For my first game - this meant I had to resize my board from 50 x 50 cm to 48 x 48 cm so it could fit into a 24 x 24 cm box. Not a big deal and in the beginning this is easy money to save.

Other lessons learn
Remember that the lid of the box has to enclose the entire box! If the lid is not deep enough the result is that the box will tilt over if place in a upright position... and you don't want to irritate your customers nor the shop keepers out there ;)

If you like me have a game with content almost 2 kg heavy - you need a strong box - test it and test it again, it must not fail!

Until next time - Happy gaming :)