All businesses have a brand. It's either built by design or by default. If yours is the latter you are probably going to run into issues with the Brand Recognition portion of the WPN process.
Here are some tips and examples of what makes solid FLGS brand recognition for your game store so you can ace that part of the review.
How To Build Your Game Store's Brand
Making your logo more prominent is a great place to start, since your logo is probably the most tangible and obvious brand asset you've got. Add your logo to in store signage and promotional materials, use it as a watermark in graphics, and generally make sure that customers see the logo multiple times when they visit.
But FLGS brand recognition goes way beyond the logo.
The logo is just a seed. Colors, fonts, spacing and lines all contribute to the overall feel of your business and those elements of your logo should bleed out into the physical space of your location and marketing efforts.
Create a color pallet based on your primary color and use those colors as an accent and paint them on shelves or walls, put it on the table legs, find chairs and tablecloths that fit that pallet. If your store has section signage, use the same fonts and sizes across the board. Custom artwork is another opportunity to emphasize the color scheme and reinforce the color pallet of your store.
One of the challenges that game stores face is the variety of the products they sell. Branding is an aesthetic, it's as much art as anything since so much of it happens conceptually in the mind of the customer (or WPN rep) looking at your business.
Warhammer 40k has a distinct branding and aesthetic.
Magic has a distinct branding and aesthetic.
Each board game publisher has it's own distinct art style and feel.
Every product brings something to the table, many of which pull in very opposing directions and a game store's branding can get lost in the noise.
If you want to ace branding, you need to be consistent. You don't want to be "just a retail business" that sells games, which is where most game stores start out. Having a mishmash of furniture and fixtures is not going to create a cohesive look and feel.
To use a game analogy, a powerful brand is like having a complete set of a legendary unique armor. When it all clicks together, you get big bonuses on reputation, perception, and trust.
Branding requires a plan and an idea of what you're trying to say. Your business needs to elicit a strong, defined perception every time someone walks in or interacts with you online.
A good place to start is to ask yourself what you want a customer to feel when they think of your business or walk into your location or come to your website.
If your business was a piece of art (it kind of is), then what is trying to say?
Another thing to note is that quality is not your brand, it's a component, but it doesn't define your business. It's one axis that your business is measured upon and there are some minimum standards, especially with the WPN, which I'm sure others will tell you, but it's not everything.
Things like laminated signage, covered garbage containers, and non-folding tables all contribute to your business' brand and are necessary to gain a Premium designation. But it needs to be more fleshed out.
A "high quality" retail store with nothing else going for it is like a Dungeons and Dragons character with no backstory. It works, and you can play the game just fine, but there's nothing really to roleplay.
Your business needs to tell a story and your brand is the canvas. If you want some examples of branding done well, check out some of the graphics below, but you could also just go to your local Starbucks, Apple store, or chain restaurant and take some notes.
