CollectorFest - Calgary

A super big congrats to Jeff and Heather for 10 years of ownership of Video Game Trader! They've managed to consolidate 3 stores into 1, and make it Calgary and Western Canada's premier video game store! They've managed to cultivate, grow, and support the immense video game community in the city, and have been supporting events all over town, like CollectorFest! They've been Day One supporters, and we are eternally grateful to them! Support local small businesses! ^_^

It’s our Anniversary!

Warning, long post…

Today marks 10 YEARS since our purchase of Video Game Trader. That’s an impressive milestone for any business, not to mention taking over a business with nearly 25 years behind it. The negotiations for the purchase of VGT were difficult and long. It took 3 years to finalize the deal. The takeover and transition was equally hard due to the previous owners need for complete secrecy. One day it was the old regime with the bad reputation the next it was us, starry eyed and overwhelmed with the job of turning it into the retail experience we knew it could be. We went in with big ideas and a simple creed… Treat people fairly and don’t be a jerk.

It took two years to clean up the grime, fix the pricing, learn how to operate the stores relatively efficiently, and to start implementing larger changes that would pull the store away from poor practices and systems that were largely unchanged from the 90’s. We modernized with an up to date point of sale and inventory control system, connectivity across our stores, and data tracking to make good decisions to constantly propel the store forward. We wanted to be successful in our venture, but always kept true to our vision of a customer first, nostalgic, in-store retail experience that captured all the magical parts of the glory days of the video store era.

The road was long, with many twists and turns which we navigated as they came. The reputation started to turn around from one of the worst reviewed stores in the city to one of the best in the country. This was thanks to tireless community engagement and our desire to be the best in-store experience around. Through this we weathered a recession while starting work to expand to a new, bigger and better location that would finally embody our vision of what VGT should be. It was a big gamble that could potentially put us out of business.

At the end of 2018 we started to build our new store. We opened it February of 2019. The new location, located in the Deep South of Calgary, brought problems we hadn’t considered. The wildest of which was almost nobody knew we even existed, with our other two stores being very North-centric. We had to start building up our customer base like we were a brand new business, and not the legacy store of over 25 years that we were.

Then came 2020. With the global pandemic we faced challenges that the previous owners, and many other businesses, had never even dreamed of. It forced us to navigate challenges quickly, make changes to our operation daily, and hustle harder than we ever had to keep from going under. Covid brought us changes that strengthened us, like the consolidation of all 3 locations into the one huge one and the launch of our website (which is forever a work in progress).

Years later and we have become a very different store than the ones we bought a decade ago. We continue to try and improve. We increase our inventory to have the largest selection around, provide the best customer service in the industry, and forever try to remain a cool, nostalgic, customer first experience.

We hope to serve Calgary for many more years to come, and greatly appreciate all the support from fellow Calgarians, our out of town customers, and everyone who shops from far and away on our website. We love you all and we wouldn’t be able to provide the excellence in service and selection, a big beautiful store to browse, and a pretty okay internet page without you.

We are reminded upon this reflection of some of the negativity surrounding our purchase of VGT so many years ago. I beleive someone on Reddit said if we were stupid enough to buy the business they had a bridge to sell us? Well, we’re still here. You still got that bridge? Maybe we’ll look at it… for in store credit.

Hey Collectors! The CollectorFest Crew would like to give all of you a quick PSA to support your Local Game Store! With the exponential increase in popularity of Pokemon, Magic, One Piece, Riftbound, and other trading card games, there's been an unfortunate string of break-ins over the past few months! :(

These local stores are run by some of the most passionate and caring people around, and give the community a fun, exciting, safe, and wonderful place to gather to enjoy this hobby. These incidents, caused by a few bad apples, can greatly affect these stores' ability to operate, yet they are resilient as ever and keep staying open for the community!