No products in the cart.
Weekly Store Update: 13 November
We have quite a few things to catch you up on - including our monthly giveaway and Black Friday plans. Things are definitely changing. There have also been quite a few new games and restocks added - some of them are hard to find, so make sure you check those out. After all is said and done, it's been a fairly good week and we're looking forward to things slowly getting back to normal!
INTRO
Welcome to our weekly newsletter! For our new readers I'm Eric, and Wendy and I run Stone Valley Games. This newsletter is our way to share both local and world-wide gaming news of interest that popped up last week. It also provides our subscribers, both local and remote, some information on the going's on around here so everyone feels like part of the action. At the bottom of this newsletter we show you the restocks, new items, and preorders added to the store last week. It's not too difficult to navigate, so let's get to it!
STORE OPERATIONS UPDATE
I'm just going to say that recovery from my recent hip replacement surgery has been progressing much slower than I anticipated. I had all these plans and aspirations, but realization is quickly setting in that they just aren't going to materialize without jeopardizing my healing process - so, some changes.
First, we're going to skip this month's giveaway. We figure it's easier to have two winners in December than try to wedge one in here.
Second, we're going to postpone our Black Friday / Small Business Saturday / Cyber Monday sale until later in the year. This is a tough one for us, as we usually do our best financial catch-up during this sales event. However, based on where I'm at physically, I know the chances of being able to support at full steam without further damaging myself is about nil. What we're going to do instead is hold a Year End sale sometime in late December. It's not ideal, but we will still put out a good showing and there will be deals to be had.
Third, we're going to keep the storefront closed for the entirety of November. This isn't as impactful to day-to-day operations though, as we still have curbside pickup and our online orders have remained strong due to our part timers helping in those areas.
It's almost mid-month now, so I figured it'd be good to get this update to you in order to build expectation management with both you and us. I'd also like to personally send out thanks to everyone who's messaged us, sent us notes, and wished us well thru this process. I really do appreciate it!
REVIEWS AND MORE
The hard-working board game enthusiasts have more to share. First, it's Jason with Meeple, Myself and I with a written review for Circadians: First Light, check out his review here. Interestingly, we've also just added the game to the store, and you'll see it in the new items down at the bottom of the newsletter. Personally, I'm glad they made a second edition - In my opinion, it flew under the radar and deserved more recognition the first time around.
Then our friends at Bored Online, Board Offline kicked out a lot of great content in October. Here's a listing, each title is also a link to the video:
See, I wasn't kidding - that's a lot of great gaming content! Check out those top 20 solo games and see how their likes align with yours. Always a great conversation! I don't know about you, but I like getting to know a reviewer and how my likes / dislikes align with theirs. I also like reviews based on plenty of playtime and not just a play or two. You can see by the quality of these videos there's a lot of attention and care taken in production. There are so many games out there, it is channels like this that really help narrow things down.
CTHULHU SINKS BACK INTO THE ABYSS
It's interesting how things work. I had been very close to adding a few additional product lines to the shop. I've even spoken about it in this very newsletter. However, one thing I have had a lot of lately is time. Time to really think about things and how to position ourselves. At this point, based on how small our store is and how much product we already have, we're just not in a place to stand up something completely new.
Of course I'm talking about the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game. I had everything I needed to get that one started, even help from friends of the store, but I recently realized that it would be at least ten books to get on the bottom rung of interest, and then having to keep up with the new releases. It's a lot. While I love the game personally, it's just not in the cards for now.
That's the ebb and tide of the business though. After thinking it thru and discussing it at length with Wendy, I actually feel a bit better having made this decision for now...and I think that's the most telling sign.
CALLING IT A DAY
That's about all I can do for this week. With all of the catch-up I needed to do it took quite a while to get all the products in here, but at least it's a real newsletter this week! Hopefully things continue to improve, and I'll have even more great info for you next week. Until then, listed below are the Restocks, New Items, and Preorders added to the shop over the last few weeks. You can click on the item to learn more, and many of the products have review and gameplay videos so you can see the game in action. If you're visiting our page and you'd like to keep up with our giveaways, sales, new products, and articles like this one just create an account here. Once created you will be subscribed to our newsletter and become enrolled in our loyalty system, instantly earning 50 Stones that you can use on your very first order. A Stone? One Stone is equivalent to One Cent. That doesn't sound like much, but you earn 2 Stones for every dollar spent and 5 for each product review, so though it may seem small, those savings add up fast! Redeem your Stones upon checkout, and they can save you up to 10% off your cart total. Loyalty Matters!
I like the idea of a year end sale! Folks will have gotten money for the holidays and can buy themselves some gifts. Maybe roll with the “treat yourself” theme!