GAME STORES · RETRO · TRADING CARDS · TABLETOP

You built the audience. Facebook decides who sees it.

You spent years getting people to follow your store. Then you post a release-day announcement — the exact thing they followed you for — and it reaches almost nobody, because a platform you don't own chose that. This isn't a posting problem and it isn't your fault. It's that your customer list lives in somebody else's building, and they charge rent in reach.

$499a monthWebsite + app · No build cost · We take 0% of your sales
Show me my store's app → What building it yourself costs
Your name on both app stores Reaches every customer, every time We never touch your sales

The actual math

Here's a real store's release-day post.

An independent game store near us, well run, genuinely loved — hundreds of five-star reviews. They posted a big new release on the day it launched. This is what happened.

4,800
PEOPLE FOLLOW THE STORE
→
3
REACTED TO THE POST
WHY IT HAPPENS

A follower is not a customer you can reach

Organic reach on a business page has been falling for a decade, and it keeps falling. You are not being punished and you didn't do anything wrong — the platform simply decides how many of your own followers get to see what you posted, and the answer keeps getting smaller. The only reliable way to reach them there now is to pay.

AND THE REST

Meanwhile it's doing the job of a website

Half the stores like this have their opening hours as the cover photo, because there's nowhere else to put them. No prices, no stock, no way to see if you've got a title before driving over, no way to sign up for tournament night that isn't somebody typing "in" under a post and hoping you counted.

What we're not going to tell you STRAIGHT

  • We're not promising you followers, virality or a spot at the top of Google. Nobody can.
  • An app doesn't make people want your store. They already do — that's why 4,800 of them followed it. This is about reaching the ones you already earned.
  • If you're not running events and you don't have a rewards program, buy this later. It works best when there's already something to put in it.

What we build

A website and a real app, both in your name.

Not a web page pretending to be an app. A real one, on the App Store and Google Play, published under your business's own developer accounts.

Your rewards program, in their pocket THE BIG ONE

  • Points balance on the screen, every time they open it
  • A pass in Apple and Google Wallet — no card to lose
  • They can see how close they are to the next reward

Punch cards and phone-number lookups fail for one reason: the customer forgets the program exists. A balance they can see, and a nudge when they're close, is a different machine entirely.

An assistant that knows your real stock READS YOUR SQUARE

  • "Do you have Ocarina of Time?" — answered from live inventory
  • Answers at 11pm when you're closed and asleep
  • Never invents stock you don't have

It reads what you already scan at the register. You change nothing about how you work — no new system, no double entry, no extra step at the counter.

Events that fill themselves AND THE WAITLIST

  • You post an event from your phone in under a minute — name, date, seats, entry
  • They claim a seat and get reminded the day before and an hour before
  • Someone drops, the next person on the waitlist is in automatically

You hold 16 chairs and 10 people turn up. The waitlist is the fix — it fills the empty seat without you chasing anyone, and every signup is a real name and number you own instead of a Facebook "interested."

You reach all of them, every time NO ALGORITHM

  • Push notifications, unlimited, straight to the lock screen
  • 1,000 texts a month for the ones who'd rather have those
  • New arrival, restock, event tonight, trade-in bonus weekend

This is the part that replaces the 3 reactions. Nothing filters a push notification. If 200 people want to know a Zelda cart came in, 200 people find out.

They buy without driving over YOUR SQUARE, 0% TO US

  • Buy in the app, pick up in store or have it shipped
  • Runs through your own Square account — the money is yours
  • Apple takes 0%. Google takes 0%. We take 0%. Physical goods are exempt from app-store commission — the only fee is Square's normal card rate, the same one you already pay at the counter.

This matters more than it sounds for a store near a base or a college — people move away and keep buying from the store they trust, if you let them.

Want lists and trade-in photos WHY THEY COME BACK

  • They tell you what they're hunting; you know before it hits the shelf
  • Somebody trades one in — you already know who to call
  • They photograph what they want to trade and get a rough range first

This is the feature regulars talk about. It turns a trade-in that used to sit in a case into a text that sells it the same afternoon.

Build vs rent

What this costs if you hire someone to build it.

Not a scare tactic — just the real range. An app like this is roughly 1,000 to 1,900 hours of work across design, two mobile platforms, a backend, the Square integration, the assistant, payments, and getting through Apple and Google review.

 Hire a developerWith us
Design and build the app$75,000 – $143,000Included
The website$4,000 – $15,000Included
Square inventory integrationPart of the aboveIncluded
Getting through app reviewBilled hourlyWe handle it
Servers, database, AI, texts$80 – $310/moIncluded
Keeping it alive — iOS and Android break things twice a year$800 – $1,600/moIncluded
Apple Developer Program$99/yr$99/yr — paid by you, in your name
Google Play$25 once$25 once — paid by you, in your name
Up front$79,000 – $158,000$0
Every month after$880 – $1,910$499

The part people miss READ THIS ONE

Even if someone handed you the finished app for free, keeping it working costs more per month than renting the whole thing from us. Apple and Google push breaking changes every year. An app nobody maintains stops working within about eighteen months, and then you've spent eighty thousand dollars on something that won't open.

At $499 a month, a $100,000 build is nearly seventeen years of renting — and that's before you pay a single month of maintenance on it.

What you own either way NO LOCK-IN

  • The Apple and Google developer accounts — in your business's name
  • The app listing, the reviews, the downloads
  • Your Square account and every dollar through it
  • Your customer list, your rewards balances, your domain
  • All of it exportable any time, including on your way out

We build and run it. You own it. If you leave, the app stays yours and the accounts were always yours.

The honest bar

What it has to earn to be worth it.

We're not going to promise you a return. Here's the number it has to beat — decide for yourself whether that's realistic in your store.

37

extra pre-owned sales a month

At a typical blended margin, $499 needs to bring in about $1,400 in additional sales. That's roughly one extra used game a day. If putting your rewards program in 4,800 pockets and filling your event nights can't do that, don't buy it.

Or just the event nights ONE NIGHT A WEEK

  • A weekly event going from 12 players to 20
  • 8 more seats at $10 = about $346 a month in entry
  • Plus what those 8 people buy while they're standing in your store

On reasonable assumptions that one change covers the entire monthly fee by itself. We can't promise your events will fill — but we can make sure everyone who'd want to come actually hears about it, which right now they don't.

Pricing

$499 a month. Nothing up front.

No build cost, no setup fee, and we never take a percentage of anything you sell.

Everything above, and we run all of it ONE PRICE

  • The website, designed and built for you
  • A real iPhone and Android app, published under your own developer accounts
  • Your rewards program in the phone, with an Apple and Google Wallet pass
  • The assistant, reading your live Square inventory
  • Event signups, reminders and the automatic waitlist
  • Unlimited push notifications
  • 1,000 texts a month
  • Buy online through your own Square — we take 0%
  • Hosting, security, backups, and we handle Apple and Google

Texts over 1,000 in a month are 2¢ each — that's our cost plus a little, not a profit center, and almost nobody hits it. You pay Apple $99 a year and Google $25 once, directly, in your business's name, because those accounts are yours. That's the entire cost. There is nothing else.

Questions

The things you're actually thinking

Nobody's going to download a game store's app.
Some won't, and that's fine — the website serves them. But the people who come to your tournament nights and trade games in every month absolutely will, because it holds their points, their want list and their seat. You don't need 4,800 downloads. You need the 300 regulars who spend the most, and those are exactly the ones who'll take it.
I already have a rewards program.
Good — that's the hard part and you've done it. The problem with every counter-based program is that the customer forgets they're in it. This puts the balance on their phone and tells them when they're close to a reward. Same program, in a place they actually look.
Will this work with my POS?
If you're on Square, yes — we read your catalog and stock levels directly and you change nothing about how you ring people up. Lightspeed and Shopify also work. If you're on something else or you track stock on paper, tell us and we'll say honestly whether the stock-checking part can work for you before you sign anything.
How long until it's live?
The website is quick. The app is slower and it's mostly Apple and Google, not us — enrolling your business in their developer programs and getting through review usually takes four to six weeks. Text messaging needs carrier registration on top of that, which is another one to three weeks. Nothing goes live until you've approved it.
What do I actually have to do?
Enroll in the Apple and Google developer programs with us, in your business's name. Give us read access to your Square. Tell your regulars it exists — a sign at the counter and a card in the bag does most of it. After that you post events when you feel like it and send the occasional notification. Everything else is ours.
Do you take a cut of my sales?
No. Not of online orders, not of in-store sales, not of anything. The money runs through your Square account and lands in your bank. $499 a month is the whole amount you pay us.
What if I cancel?
The developer accounts, the app listing, your Square, your customer list and your domain were always yours and they stay yours. We hand over your content and stop billing. Nothing is held hostage.
Can you get me to the top of Google?
No, and anybody promising that is lying. What we do is build a fast site search engines can read, keep your Google listing accurate, and put something new on it regularly. That helps. It isn't a guarantee and we won't pretend it is.

Want to see your store's version?

Tell us about the shop and we'll build a mockup with your actual inventory in it, free, so you can hold it before you decide anything.

Goes to jp@ainovations.net. Prefer email? Email us directly.