Hi there folks, this is Matt, the owner of Just Games coming at you with a little update on what’s happening with our store and community during this shutdown. It has now been a little over a month since the NYS On Pause Orders closed non-essential businesses, including ours. Here is what we know today:
Our business is now permitted to resume contactless delivery.
Some of you have already taken advantage of our Delivery service – $10 brings almost all our product to your door. We are working to build a live inventory that can coordinate both your membership rewards and show you what we have in stock up to the minute! This will take some time, and we don’t anticipate it being ready for rollout for a few weeks yet. Meanwhile, you can place special orders and backorders at our temporary webstore located at JustGamesRoc.com/Shop
Please bear in mind that many MANY publishers and distributors are also closed, or are being closed and then reopened, based on their home states. This means our supply chain is extremely disrupted – we estimated as much as 70% of the game industry is unable to function right now. That’s huge. So we’re working with who we can, where we can. What that means for YOU is that orders may take 5-10 days to deliver, but they may take a bit longer if there is an “unforseen” disruption – please contact shop administration at sales@justgamesroc.com if you have any questions. I literally have one job right now – working with you folks to keep our communities healthy and entertained while we’re all staying at home.
Regular delivery days are currently Tuesday and Thursday.
We are not permitted to open the storefront to the public, in any capacity, until at least May 15, but possibly longer.
This means absolutely no customers inside the store, and no curbside pickup services, under any circumstances. The fine for this is $1000 per infraction, for the customer and the business. We apologize, but this is not optional; it is a government order. We will inform you via email and Facebook as soon as anything changes. We’re sorry for the inconvenience this causes.
We expect Curbside Pickup to be the next thing we are permitted to do
At this stage, we do not believe we will be able to allow customers in the store for some time beyond whenever our current restrictions are eased. If you’ve played Pandemic, you know the most important thing in this situation is controlling the spread – and we’re proud to do our bit. However, this is a hardship, and we appreciate your support while we work to prepare our inventory for Curbside pickup. The good news is, when this happens, we expect to have a system where you can browse our inventory from your car in the parking lot OR at home.
This is a big, big, BIG undertaking, requiring an estimated 500 work hours to complete. It’s not just the inventory (which is of course challenging, to say the least) it’s the software and member rewards integration. We want all your accounts functional across all platforms, and that’s going to take time. We appreciate your patience and support while we work on this (and for those of you ordering yesterday when I broke our website for over an hour – extra special thanks for your patience!). We’ll have more news on that in the short-ish term.
Magic Ikoria prerelease is still happening, but it will be at home
We know this is a disappointment to many. However, we do not realistically expect that we will be permitted to host in store events for some time, and the NYS On Pause orders currently extend to May 15, interrupting any opportunity for an in-store prerelease. So, plan for this. You will need to buy a pre-release kit in advance. Didn’t do it already? There’s still time. As long as you purchase at least one play at home kit before May 13, we should still be able to deliver it in time for the May 15 online / at home prerelease events. These kits come with promos, packs, prizes, the whole deal! The only difference is you’ll be playing with family in your home, or some friends we help you meet over Discord.
We’re keeping a rolling list of board game releases that we are 99.9% confident will deliver. You can order those here
A lot of publishers got caught with product in distribution, or leaving the printer, or otherwise “on the way” when the pandemic shutdowns started happening. These folks are on the hook for these releases, but that ALSO means there are some new releases coming out. Here’s what we know, publisher by publisher:
First, all events are postponed for all publishers until further notice.
- Wizards of the Coast: Has delayed Ikoria and Jump Start by roughly one month. Commander 2020 is going to be in short supply, because half of the order never left the printer. D&D likely delayed, but no news yet.
- Asmodee: Fantasy Flight, ZMan, Days of Wonder, and many more. They are delivering out of ONE overworked warehouse in Georgia. All new releases have been postponed until further notice.
- Games Workshop: Closed worldwide until further notice, no new releases shipping, but some “pandemic minis” are available for preorder that will be delivered Q3
- Reaper: Operational, shipping.
- Indie RPGs: Fully operational distribution chain, shipping.
- Pokemon: On time, and delivering.
- The Army Painter: converting their paint manufacturing to making hand-sanitizer. Super cool.
Those are probably the big ones. A lot of the one-person operations are still shipping, mostly by merit of being one-person operations.
You can place preorders online here https://www.justgamesrochester.com/product-category/preorders/board-game-preorders/
