Think Geek, a pop-culture haven for nerds, hits S.F.
ThinkGeek opens at GameStop with toys, collectibles to delight of fans
Marcus Boddy took a long, slow look around San Francisco’s new ThinkGeek store, examining the different types of Flash T-shirts as though they were varietals of fine wine.
Boddy came in wearing his regular red Flash shirt with a yellow lightning bolt signifying the comic book and movie hero, but his gaze lingered first over one that reversed those colors, then a camouflage version.
“The fact that I can find Flashrelated stuff is awesome,” the Richmond resident said on his first visit to the Market Street outlet. The store is filled with all manner of apparel, toys, props and other collectibles for pop-culture geeks like “I’m just taking my time, making a mental wish list so I know what to come back for,” Boddy said.
The store is California’s first physical version of the formerly online-only ThinkGeek.com, which Texas video game retail chain GameStop bought in 2015 for $140 million. GameStop converted the bottom floor of its downtown flaghimself.
ship into a ThinkGeek store, which fans filled for a grand opening last week.
“The ‘Star Wars’ waffle maker sold out,” said store manager Matt Martinez. So did a $300 metal “Captain America” shield.
“Fingerlings, they go on your finger like little puppets, we can’t keep those in stock” he said. “It’s insane.”
The website started in 1999 and became a popular one-stop shop for fans who proudly want to represent their popculture favorites, whether it’s “Star Trek” or “Star Wars,” “Harry Potter” or “Game of Thrones,” or “The Legend of Zelda” or “Pokémon.”
But in the past two years, GameStop — in line with other online retailers that, like Amazon, are turning to traditional retail stores — has opened 37 stand-alone ThinkGeek outlets throughout the country. The San Francisco store is one of two half GameStop, half ThinkGeek hybrid shops. The other is in New York City.
The irony is that GameStop closed 140 game stores last year and plans to close 130 more this year, due to declining sales of physical video games as customers shift to downloads of digital games, according to a report from Bloomberg Intelligence. About 15 percent of the chain’s revenue last year came from a division that includes ThinkGeek collectibles.
With digital retailers like Amazon eating away at sales, a specialty retailer like GameStop must diversify what it sells, said game industry analyst Joost van Dreunen, CEO and co-founder of SuperData Research.
“With the exception of used-games sales, GameStop is pretty vulnerable to Amazon’s ability to offer the same games at a lower price,” he said. “The services it can provide with ThinkGeek are a clear differentiator. But here, the margins are relatively low.”
However, ThinkGeek stores also attract a more diverse audience than GameStop, said Steve Wilson, the chain’s district manager. About 55 percent of ThinkGeek customers are women, the reverse of GameStop customers. “And they’re not buying gifts for guys, they’re buying for themselves,” he said.
Although the store offers a smaller portion of the items available online, it still delivers an overwhelming array of TV, movie, video game and comic book paraphernalia. For example, there’s the Hobbit Smaug incense burner, the Captain America backpack, the “Halo” covenant energy sword, the Gryffindor House Crest, the “Bob’s Burgers” Monopoly set and an R2D2 desk lamp.
And for those looking for a Halloween costume, if money is no object, there’s an $800 Darth Vader costume, which is still cheaper than the $1,100 Kylo Ren outfit.
Customers can order an item that’s not in stores online, but have it delivered to the store, he said. And if they can’t find it in the store, the store can place the order online and ship it to their homes, Wilson said.
Yet even with the wider selection online, Wilson said customers still want to “touch and feel the products,” whether it was Thor’s hammer, Jon Snow’s long cross sword or Lucille the bat from “Walking Dead.”
“For us, it’s about creating that emotional connection,” he said. “The products we sell are purely for people’s joy and fun. Nobody wakes up and says, ‘I need to buy a Darth Vader toaster today.’ ”