Thriving Local: Reliving Your Childhood at LGS Electronics

ST. CLOUD -- With just under a decade in their current location in East St. Cloud, LGS Electronics in up next in our Thriving Local series.

Josh Nelson is the owner of LGS. He says he's been in this electronics game since his days of sipping juice boxes in the cafeteria.

"I was trading my fruit snacks on the playground for Pokemon cards, opened up an eBay store under my mom's name and started selling them on the internet. So I've been doing this for as long as I can remember."

As he got older the business switched from a side gig to a full-time career.

"We started out with some of my original crew. Myself and Anthony actually started buying and selling video games and toys out of our apartment. Our apartment got so full to the point that we just said we need to open up a store."

LGS specializes in video games, toys, cell phones, repairs and other electronics. Nelson says you'll definitely have a flashback to your past when you first come in the store.

"You're going to see toys and video games from when you were a kid whether you're in your 20s, your 30s, your 40s. You're going to see your childhood in here and then you're going to see an expert staff that knows all of what you need to know about your electronics. Whether you need to get something fixed, whether you're looking to buy a new phone or you're looking to sell your phone and get some value out of it. We have an expert staff that's been dealing with that stuff for years."

To survive in a market that's heavily based online, LGS has to be creative with their services and competitive with their prices.

"For the majority of what I do sell, we are priced at what you would find it online for. It's not like the 90s business where you'd buy something, double the price and put it on the shelf and everybody bought it. It is a lot more competitive, that's why we sell so many different things, I have some many different products that I can make a little bit of money on instead of having one core set of products that I need to make a lot of money on. So when I compete with online, I'm selling that online price. We have an online store as well and an eBay market. A lot of our stuff is priced at the online prices and they are the same price here in the store."

Moving toward the future, the business has been incorporating more game nights and events at the store. Nelson says this inspires people to come together and have some fun. Having these events is also helping support their retail side.

"We're still a retail store but as retail is going more an more online we're trying to make up for that by doing more events and getting more people in the store, more things they can do while in the store."

LGS Electronics is at 44 14th Ave NE in St. Cloud, right off of Highway 23 on the east side. It first opened in its current spot in 2011.

If you have a suggestion for a business that's thriving locally here in central Minnesota, let us know! Email chrissy@wjon.com