How The Adventure Begins Simplifies Retail Operations with Forte
Walk into The Adventure Begins and you'll quickly realize it's much more than a retail store. One customer may be browsing the latest comic books while another is shopping for trading cards, a group is upstairs competing in a tournament, and sports fans are checking out memorabilia across the bridge at The Adventure Stadium. Add in special events, a growing 3D printing makerspace, and a constant flow of customers, and it's easy to see why staying organized is just as important as making the sale.
With so much happening every day, the team needed an easier way to keep managers connected, monitor business performance, and stay on top of daily operations. That's where Forte has become part of their routine.
One Place for Daily Operations
Every shift generates information that's important to the next one. Sales numbers, operational notes, reminders, and follow-up items all need to be shared, but nobody wants to spend time digging through emails or notebooks to find them.
Forte's Manager Log has become the team's central communication hub. Managers record daily updates, capture sales performance, and can instantly compare results to prior periods without leaving the page. Seeing year-over-year performance alongside daily notes helps add context to the numbers and makes it easier to spot trends as they're happening.
Recurring posts also save time by automatically creating routine reminders and standard operating procedures.
Reporting That Helps Managers Make Better Decisions
Having data is one thing. Being able to use it is another.
The Adventure Begins relies on Forte's sales, invoice and product mix reporting to quickly understand what's happening across the business without sorting through multiple systems.
One report the team especially values is Forte's Inventory Velocity Report, which highlights how products are moving and helps identify what's selling, what's slowing down, and where new opportunities may exist.
"COGS Sale Velocity reports are a godsend."
— Kolton Coats, General Manager, The Adventure Begins
The team also uses labor, forecasting, and check count reports to review performance from week to week and month to month. Having those insights readily available makes it easier to plan ahead and make informed decisions without spending hours pulling together information.
A Better Way to Start the Day
Before the store opens, owners and managers receive Forte's Daily Recap Email — a quick snapshot of the previous day's performance.
Rather than logging into several reports, they can review sales, labor, key performance metrics, Manager Log activity, and any operational issues that need attention in just a few minutes. It's a simple way to stay connected to what's happening across the business, whether they're opening the store, planning the week ahead, or managing operations remotely.
Supporting a Business Built Around Community
The Adventure Begins has created something special—a place where people come together over games, comics, sports, and shared interests. Behind the scenes, keeping an operation like that running smoothly requires clear communication and the ability to make decisions based on accurate information.
That's exactly where Forte fits in. By bringing together a digital Manager Log, retail reporting, sales analytics, labor reporting, forecasting, and daily business insights, Forte helps the team spend less time tracking down information and more time doing what they do best: creating a place where customers want to return again and again.