Webshops and selling board games online

Hey there guys,

Today I'll talk a bit about webshops and selling board games online.
I'm lucky to finally have my first board game in a webshop! So that's a great feeling :)

You can find my board game Startups - in the Independent Game Creators' webshop.

I hope these simple steps can help you towards your first online sales....
 

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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.
 

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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! :)

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