Behind the Cardboard

It's always great to be able to talk shop with Mason from CNA Games! He has such a very steady finger on the pulse of the entire trading card, collectible, and hobby industry, from moving with the tides of old games, incoming new games, other kinds of products, as well as the wealth of new tools hitting the marketplace of ideas. Down-to-earth tactical in one breath, and high altitude philosophical in the next, speaking with Mason is really like getting a front-line report from the trenches of dealing with cardboard!Check him out at https://cnagames.comYou can find more about CardCastle at: https://ccstl.co/tbkAnd be sure to have a look at me at: https://tcgbulkkings.com

Had a lovely conversation with Rob Tierney, general manager of Good Games North America, which is of course the NA chapter of Good Games, the largest chain of card and hobby stores in Australia. Rob has been in the hobby business for a very long time, even running Organized Play in the Asia/Pacific region and Premier Play in the US for Wizards of the Coast. A very high altitude perspective of the industry, and a genuinely nice guy! Enjoy!Check out CardCastle here: https://ccstl.co/tbkYou can find TCG Bulk Kings here: https://tcgbulkkings.com/Shop or franchise with Good Games NA: https://www.goodgamesna.com/

Gosh, we're really launching this?!Hi, I'm Chase, and I run TCG Bulk Kings, which operates as an online-only trading card and accessory reselling business, as well as somewhat of a media company producing content around running such a business. I am interested in learning more about the retail side of the market, about how people just like you and me are running local card/game stores, collectibles stores, reselling stores, &c., and what the differences and similarities are compared to my online only modelIn this firstest of episodes, I interview Steve Johnson, owner/operator of E4 Cards and More, in Bend, OR. (Check out their website here: https://e4cards.com/ ) We talk about a whole lot of different things, from maintaining and developing a community that will continue to shop at your store, to inventory management in an ecosystem with imperfect tools and multiple hundreds of thousands of unique SKUs you have to be ready to keep track of. All in all, a great conversation I feel like, and it's a great jumping off point to really start to find out what's Behind the Cardboard!Note: forgive the mild imperfections in the audio quality. I feel like every podcast has to mention this in the notes of its first episode lol, as we all have the same learning curve to get through.