R.I.P. Liongames.com

Liongames.com was an online game retailer that specialize in selling new and used games. I bought from them once, early in their online existence, and felt completely satisfied in their level of customer service. They've recently halted their online site even though the decision was made sometime last year. Here's an email from the owner Tony in case you've never shopped with them. It's insightful and warm, surprising to come from someone having to put an end to a dream.

Hello Luis,

I wanted to inform everyone that I will be closing the website. This decision was made well over a year ago but I had too many orders on file at the time and I didn’t want people to think that I was running away with their money. GTA4 kept getting pushed forward and ended up getting released late April of 2008. I let the site limp along so people wouldn’t worry about getting their product. Every single customer that paid me for an order got filled. I refunded a few customers for orders that I received this week. Not a single person will have a financial loss due to me closing the website.

I started Liongames in December 2006. My goal was to produce a nice place for gamers to purchase games for the 360, Wii and PS3. I wanted to sell new and used games at great prices. I figured by selling new games at cost and even at $8.00 per copy loss I would attract enough people to the website to buy used games. I viewed the loss on new games as an advertising expense to get the site going. I needed to sell about 100 used games a week at a $10 profit. In turn I would reinvest at least 50% of that money back into discounts on new games. The problem was I never got remotely close to selling 100 used games a week, therefore I couldn’t continue to sell new games at a loss.
I then tried the Roaring Discount Card which would allow members to buy games at my cost for a $25.00 upfront fee. My theory there was if I could sell enough cards I would build in a $25.00 profit per year for each customer and my customers would then be able to buy all the games they wanted at my cost. Once again I was hoping to sell at least 1000 of these cards and only sold a few handfuls.

After that promotion I realized the site wouldn’t ever get to the point of making money and I needed to spend my time on different projects in my life. 2008 also turned out to be a year where family members needed some of mine and my wife’s time due to health reasons. That also meant less time to devote to the website that was not performing.

Another difficult task for me was keeping up the changes on the website. The street date for games change very often. The used game values changed daily, and this fact made it nearly impossible for me to keep up with the trade in values. I did end up overpaying for a number of used games.

Another problem I faced was the fact that I couldn’t get my games on street date. There were a few exceptions where I did get my games before street date. The gaming studios were afraid to ship retailers like myself games early because they were afraid of street date violations. Instead they ship the games early to mass merchants who regularly broke street date. That was kind of ironic to me. Basically my distributor didn’t get most of the games until street date, and I was a 2 day ship from him. At the beginning I considered never touching the product and letting my distributor just ship everything from their warehouse. The problem was that if the product wasn’t shipped UPS, which was very expensive, then it would take to long for my customers to get the games. I learned early that it was better for me to get the games two days after street date and mail them myself, then it was to drop ship everything 2 days earlier. That created a lot of extra work, but this way my customers were able to get the games pretty quickly, especially if they chose priority mail.

These were just a few of the problems that I faced trying to run a good and efficient website.

In the end, even though I lost money, and I pretty proud and happy with the way Liongames turned out. I felt I offered customers great deals as well as unmatched customer service. My used games were second to none. I was tough with trade ins, so my customers got used games in fantastic condition. The other thing I did which was no one else did was to let my customers know the exact condition of the game before they made the purchase. My customer knew if the game was scratched, or missing the directions, or box upfront. That is just one example of how strongly I felt about making Liongames the best place to buy games on the net. I felt I accomplished that hands down in 2007. My customers were able to buy Halo 3, Bioshock for $39.99 and GTA4 for only $42.99. The deals were so good I had to work hard to convince people they were real. I had a lot of fun doing this. I posted on many message boards and communicated and met a ton of nice people.

Liongames made not have made money but I really did enjoy meeting the people from all across the country. I met so many nice people who helped talk me up. I had a few very loyal customers who I hoped enjoyed working with me as much I as enjoyed working with them. I want to thank each and every one of my customers who put faith in me and my website. Your confidence and trust meant a lot to me. I can surely rest comfortably when thinking about Liongames because it was fun and successful in many ways. I was touched by many people over the course of a few years, and hopefully I was able to make a small impression on a few on you. I plan on keeping my customers email addresses in case I ever venture into another web project of any kind. The Liongames website will go off the net within a few weeks. This means I won’t have access to the email addresses either. If anyone needs to get a hold of me for any reason after a few weeks you may do so at my regular email address which is also my paypal address of mrlucky200abc@yahoo.com Please feel free to contact me.

I would also like to make clear that the current economy had nothing to do with the website closing. I would say it is just a very tough business model to make work. I have no regrets and I am happy that I gave it a shot. For that it was a positive part of my life and hopefully a positive part of my customers lives. Until our paths cross again, I would like to ask everyone one final time to pick someone in your life and do something nice for them this week. It will surely bring you Joy. Have a great day everyone!

With true appreciation,
Tony

See you Tony, good luck with future ventures.