April 1995: Trading Cards



Around this time is when Electronics Boutique started aggressively changing to a game store. The productivity section shrank to a few core items to make room for more games. The company, without directly saying so, was targeting the 16-29 year-old male demographic heavily. Part of this strategy included the addition of trading cards. Magic the Gathering was gaining popularity among the computer-RPG-nerd-type. Elbo capitalized on that by carrying this hot new card game. I was skeptical but proven wrong. We sold an unbelievable amount of these cards, entire boxes at a time.

This unfortunately made Elbo overestimate their ability to sell cards. Soon we were carrying a wide range of sports cards. These didn't go over well at all. The main buyer of sports cards is not a hardcore gamer, if one at all. They stop at an Elbo occasionally and do most of their card shopping at comic book stores. We also started selling Pogs. I didn't know then and I don't know now what one was supposed to do with a Pog. They were a frequent target of employee scorn and a very poor seller. These two product lines offset the success of the gaming cards. Trading cards were eventually dropped from the lineup.

Early in 1995 we had a visit from then CEO J.J. Firestone (no idea if he's related to the founder of the tire company). We had about a week's notice and cleaned the store up until it was in mint condition. The visit itself was a minor letdown. He walked around for about 5-10 minutes while talking with our regional manager. He also said hello to our store manager but didn't talk much. Our manager was visibly disappointed by the visit, expecting the CEO to be a little more enthusiastic. Mr. Firestone had a great mind for the retail industry. Under his watch the company experienced it's greatest period of growth. Going out and visiting the field wasn't really his forte.

I guess I can't talk about early 1995 without mentioning Microsoft Bob. At the same time, how much more can I add? This Windows enhancement received a lot of hype from Microsoft. They gave us the impression that this was going to revolutionize Windows, making it so easy that even a brain-dead monkey could use it. However, the packaging made it look so childish that no self-respecting person would touch it. Indeed, we received about 20 copies and sold 1-2. A couple of months later we were sent a note from home office to immediately return all copies of it. Not markdown, not return 75% of them when we got around to it, but return them all at once. Not a whole lot more to say about it.