Saskatoon game shop sees sales ‘skyrocket’ during Christmas season

The return to in-person shopping this holiday season means many local shops are experiencing a huge flood of business.

Allan Schnell and Darren Holoboff, owners of Dragon’s Den Games in Saskatoon, said they’ve been overwhelmed by the number of shoppers this holiday season.

“It’s a madhouse,” Schnell said. “Everybody wants to come out and shop.”

This year everybody wants to shop local and do so in person, he said. It’s led to a lot of people coming through the doors.

On Saturday — the last weekend before Christmas — Schnell said there were 40 to 50 people inside their small shop at any given time.

“It was hard to move around the store,” he said.

Shoppers inside the store were happy to be back, perusing the shelves for last-minute gifts for friends and family.

Ben Dunning was checking out the board games, and said they might not all end up as gifts.

“I’m trying to be selfless, but there’s an enormous amount of temptation,” he said.

“It’s great that this is behind us,” Dunning said of COVID-19, adding he’s happy to be shopping in person this Christmas.

Michelle Loeffler was at the store with her son, shopping for gifts for his brother and girlfriend.

She commented that there’s always a great selection of games at Dragon’s Den, something that bodes well for her family, who all love to sit down around a game.

While she said it still feels a bit odd to be back to shopping in stores, she said she’s slowly getting used to it again.

It’s not uncommon to see shoppers still wearing masks this holiday season, according to Schnell.
“When they come in, they’re just happy,” he remarked, saying many customers take some time to chat about how long it’s been since they last connected, share a few stories, and catch up on each other’s families.

Schnell said games are extremely popular gifts at Christmas, and it’s by far their store’s busiest season.

Allan Schnell and Darren Holoboff, owners of Dragon’s Den Games, have been overwhelmed with shoppers this holiday season. (Libby Giesbrecht/650 CKOM)

“I had to upgrade the old shoes (and) get some inserts, because the feet are getting a little sore from running around,” he said with a laugh.

“There are literally people I see once a year on their annual shopping spree,” he said, adding some will try to treat the store as a one-stop shop for every person on their list.

It’s the season when regular customers can disappear from the shop, however.

“This is where we meet their parents,” Schnell said with another laugh.

He explained that many of the store’s regulars won’t shop there at Christmas because so many of the games or other items they want are on their wish lists.

“Usually around December you see that they stop buying stuff for themselves and all their family comes in,” Schnell said.

Schnell and Holoboff have played detective a few times, connecting family members to the faces they see most often in their store throughout the year.

The store does have an online catalogue that is busy throughout December and into January, but in-person shopping in particular has “skyrocketed” for the store in the months since COVID restrictions have been removed.

That’s because shopping in person gives customers the ability to ask questions and have them answered immediately, Schnell said.

As for the best-selling games, Schnell said Wingspan is topping shopping lists again this year. Social games like Wavelength or Ready Set Bet, a sports betting game, are also piquing customer interest.

While classics like The Game of Life or Connect Four aren’t generating tons of interest at Christmas, Schnell said chess has been popular ever since the launch of the Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit.

A chess group meets regularly at the shop every Thursday night. It’s on hiatus for the holidays, Schnell said, but will return in the new year.

Schnell doesn’t expect to see his shifts return to normal until mid-January, either. He said that once the Christmas rush dies down, game fanatics will return to check out the new games hitting the shelves as part of their January stock.

Personally, Schnell said he’s is looking forward to the release of Frosthaven, a spinoff of the game Gloomhaven.

“It took us a year to play through the whole game,” Schnell said.