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WPN Premium
Golden Goblin Games became WPN Premium in July 2021, but what exactly does it mean?
There are 3 types of stores that sell Magic The Gathering in the world: non-WPN, WPN, and WPN Premium.
Non-WPN Stores
These stores are not part of the Wizards Play Network (WPN). They might not even have tables and chairs for people to play and cannot organize official MtG events.
Non-WPN stores do not have access to promo packs, Buy-a-Box cards or special products.
WPN Stores
These stores are part of the Wizards Play Network (WPN) and are listed on the Wizards of the Coast's store locator. They can organize official MtG events and tournaments that are also listed in the store locator.
WPN stores receive promo packs and Buy-a-Box cards from Wizards of the Coast to give away as prizes or sales incentives.
WPN Premium Stores
These stores have committed themselves to give the best customer experience and have gone through a rigorous process to be recognized as Premium by Wizards of the Coast. Becoming Premium involves doing renovations and improvements to meet all requirements of a quality checklist and undergo an inspection by secret shoppers. There is only a handful of WPN Premium stores in Thailand.
WPN Premium stores receive more promo cards and Buy-a-Box cards than WPN stores. They have access to exclusive products that normal WPN stores cannot get such as the foil version of Commander Black and the Secret Lair Drop Series. Premium stores are allowed to ship some products one week before the release date.
| Basic Products | Promo Cards | Official MTG Events | Exclusive Products | |
| Non-WPN | ✓ | |||
| WPN | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| WPN Premium | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
How We Became Premium
Early in 2021, another wave of Covid-19 struck Thailand. Golden Goblin Games became very quiet as customers stayed home, but we didn't despair and instead saw this period as an opportunity to improve our store. As we were searching for guidelines on how to serve our customers better, we stumbled upon the WPN Premium Quality Checklist from Wizards of the Coast. Trusting the advice of a company that is still successful after 25 years on the market was an easy choice.
Why follow only a few recommendations? Why not go all the way and fill the application form to become WPN Premium? We were already ticking many boxes on the list. Our work would get recognition and our customers would benefit from us getting access to some well sought-after Magic the Gathering products that normal stores cannot purchase. And so we embarked on the path to Premium.
The biggest hurdle was our floor. A nightmare story. We had a few loose tiles that customers could trip on, so we decided to replace the whole thing with a concrete floor. The floor ended up uneven. The workers came back to patch it and the new cement ended up a very different tone of grey. We covered the whole floor with black epoxy paint and the epoxy started to peel off only a few weeks later... In the end, we had to destroy the whole thing (again) to go back to a tiled floor.
The other improvements felt like a joy ride after this. We replaced our players' chairs with better ones, added a TV screen to display ads and match results during tournaments, installed signs on every single shelf, placed a big calendar of upcoming events on the wall. There was a lot more than that but suffice to say we kept in touch with our Retail Development Specialist at Wizards of the Coast and improved based on his feedback.
In July 2021, the Aesthetics Comittee approved our application and granted Golden Goblin Games the WPN Premium designation. We couldn't be more proud.
