Looking For a Reason to Visit a Card Store

As a kid, I loved going to a card store. I went to several and never really had a favorite, but I had a choice depending on where the parents were driving around that day.  

You'd beg to stop at one so you could get a pack of cards, look for a few singles and get back in the car before your mom's Buick started embarrassing you with that annoying car horn.

Fast forward too many years to count and what reason does a kid have to visit a hobby card store?

What can you get a hobby store that you can't at Target, Walmart, eBay, Freedom Cardboard, Sports Card Forum and Beckett.

I've blogged several times here, here, here, and here about ways for card shops to capture the passion of card collectors.

Unfortunately, I'm not seeing a change.

Why Care About Foursquare?

I'm new to the foursquare adventure, but I'm really into it.

I've only been working with it a few weeks. If you're new to foursquare, it's a pretty cool application that gets loaded on to your smart phone. It allows you to tell your friends where you are (or you can choose not to) and awards badges, titles and points as you check-in to different locations via your phone. Your friends/followers can get notified of your doings via Twitter, facebook or friends on foursquare.

So far, it seems there are 3 basic types of foursquare users:
1 - Those that use it as a game. You get points for "checking in" to locations and receive different badges based on where you've checked in an how many times. Think of it as XBox 360 achievement points. A couple of great blogs dedicated to this are: the 4Square Badges Blog and the About Foursquare blog.

2 - Those that use it to see where friends are and hang out. When you check in to a location (which is simply launching the app from your phone when you get to the bookstore, bar, mall, etc, and select 'check in) you can choose to notify your friends on foursquare, twitter and/or facebook. The application will tweet or send a facebook wall posting saying where you are. If you're following me on twitter you'll see that I'm a huge Dunkin Donuts coffee fan!

3 - Marketing professionals should love this application. As a marketer, your biggest challenge isn't always getting new customers, but it's getting repeat customers and turning them from customers into evangelists. Recently, companies are offering discounts to people who have 5+ check-ins at the American Eagle store, or Ann Taylor in NY is offering 25% discounts to mayors (those who check-in the most in a 60-day span).

What does this mean for the sports card/collectible hobby? It means card store owners need to embrace this new mobile marketing faster than they started to embrace social media. Card stores are perfect for this... you can reward returning customers and allow them to tell their friends when they are at the store.

I blogged about how sports card stores can, and should embrace this a few months ago. They should launch incentives for % off packs and boxes. Becoming the "mayor" of a location is a huge badge and a sports card store could offer the mayor a framed photo in the store, 1/2 price for a box, special discounts, etc. Signing up on foursquare > businesses, they'll send you some free window clings like the image in this blog post.

I think the National Sports Collectors Convention in Baltimore should use this for their next show. Here's a great article about using foursquare at a convention to bring people together and get everyone to check out the booths. 

There are some other mobile marketing 'check-in' applications like gowalla, but I haven't tried it yet. If you have a smart phone, give foursquare a try. If have a smart phone and you're on twitter, then dive right in. If you own a business or market for one, get listed and add foursquare to your next campaign.

More Foursquare Marketing for Card Shops

Card shops need to embrace social media marketing. Yesterday that was YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and even Flickr. Today, location based tools like Foursquare are the next component to the marketing plan.

A few weeks ago I blogged that Sports Cards Stores Need Foursquare. Today, I have another example of how this can work in a card shop.

Sports Authority stores are now offering $10 for mayors of their stores. This is rewarding frequent visitors, providing an incentive for the mayors to buy more, providing an incentive for those close to a mayor status to keep visiting and incorporating the social element by letting everyone see this carrot.

A card store can easily apply this same promotion.

More information on the Foursquare promotion with Sports Authority stores is here.

Sports Cards Stores Need Foursquare

Foursquare is an awesome mobile application that allows you to notify your friends of where you are, what you are doing, and awards badges, titles and points on the way. Your friends/followers can get notified of your doings via Twitter.

I think it would be a great social gathering tool for card stores. If I knew when my friends were going to the card stores to open some packs or video a box break, I'd head over there to hang out, see what they get and join in on the fun. The only problem today - I can't find any card stores on it!

Millions of users are signing up to Foursquare every month. Our hobby sports cards stores need to be on Foursquare.

Businesses use Foursquare to create incentives for returning customers. It would be great to launch incentives for % off packs and boxes. Becoming the "mayor" of a location is a huge badge and a sports card store could offer the mayor a framed photo in the store, 1/2 price for a box, special discounts, etc. Some more business ideas are here.

Foursquare isn't the final solution to bring more collectors in the store, but it should be part of a campaign to bring customers back.

Card Store Closed on Sundays

I'm trying to understand this. My local card store is open from 12pm - 6pm Mondays through Fridays. On Saturday, it's open from 1pm - 6pm and on Sunday's it's closed. Who are they open for?

Who are these hours for?
Most of us work Monday through Friday and struggle to get home before 6:00pm each night. Collectors in school often times have work or athletics after class. Unless you are a stay-at-home parent or are home-schooled, you really don't have a time to reach the card store during the week which leaves you with a five-hour window on Saturday.

Why not have Sunday football events?
Bring in some pizza, chips, and beverages. If you're watching the local team on TV (Browns for example), run a contest where whomever gets the most Browns players gets 25% off the next box or a free pack or something. If you're worried about the cost, off-set it by taking a $2 entry fee. The idea is to bring traffic into the store and have a good time.

I like card stores and I'd like them to be a gathering place to talk about the hobby, sports and have fun. Seeing my local store open for 5 hours on the weekend is a bummer.