blazingbob

Here is my take on Megacon this year. Not a very good buying show. There wasn't a lot of inventory raw or slabbed that I needed which is really sad. I did my numbers by end of day friday. This was great because there was no internet for 6 hours on saturday. It was so bad that you couldn't make a phone call out. Texts to Informa were returned with that they were working with the internet provider to sort things out. Lost 2 cash/trade deals and multiple cc sales because I couldn't find out values and couldn't get a connection to run my cc purchases. This was not just me, multiple vendors were complaining about no service. AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, it didn't matter. A major venue/promoter that oversells the show should be SMART enough to realize that internet capacity will/could be overloaded and prepare for this. Gouging vendors $80/day for wi-fi that doesn't work doesn't exactly endure yourself to the people buying booths. Your vendors should be a priority. For what you charge for a booth you might want to throw it in if needed at a reduced rate. It also helps to make sure that it works. Comic dealers should be setup in one area. Throwing dealers all over the room basically causes some dealers to get lost in the shuffle. It is not that hard to draw a box on a floor plan. I basically had two artists on either side of me. Not comic artists, artists I would see at a arts and craft show. In addition it seems that the promotor/owner of Informa still can't let go of competing with other shows. Booking the same weekend as C2E2 will just show that Megacon is not the show that I will be setting up at.

I'm still waiting for the Official grading guide to be published. Being that I paid for advertising I'm assuming that I will see one. Then again I paid for advertising for a pedigree book that never saw the light of day.

I can make a lot of recommendations on who should go

Until the "comic collection" shows up in a bank account it is all financial speculation on what it can fund. My business inventory may be worth millions but that doesn't mean I can sell it all for that.

Not a problem, nothing like a good "folk tale" for me to discuss at shows.

Buy a boat and go fishing. I did that last year. Besides, now it is Captain Bob as I'm traveling through the bays chasing stripers, sea bass and fluke. Who needs FF #1, X-Men #1's.

Follow that up with a selfie with the dealer that is your new "friend". Until he runs out of books that you can make money on.

Listen, I will discount at a show but lets be clear. 15% is a bit of a stretch. Really depends on my cost into, if it isn't consignment or if it is in a deal I've gotten all my money out of. Add on top of that how you intend to pay for the item. Throw in a cc or paypal and there goes another 3%. Buying slabs are not like buying raws. Margins are thinner so if you think I can drive a truck through my margins on slabs people are sadly mistaken. I've said before, the guys making the most money are shipping companies, CCS, CGC, paypal, cc processors etc. Bob

Roy was still under the hood working on cars singing "I can't drive 55"

So the first part of your negotiating plan to buy this book was to convince the dealer it was over graded and best a 9.2. Then buy it at the 9.2 price. And this dealer is supposed to believe that you are a good grader without ever seeing examples of how you grade? If you've never done business with the seller how do judge their grading skill? By their CGC inventory? By their raw inventory? How exactly is that building a dealer/customer relationship?

I'm sorry but you are contradicting yourself all over the place. Your words " I made an offer that was within 15% of the GPA price he had listed as I thought the book was at best a 9.0-9.2 given the visible defects" If he accepted you would have bought the over graded book.

Hell no, We are comic book price assassins. We go for the jugular, leave the dealer bleeding, leave him enough profit to afford the next McDonald's happy meal, post the trophy buy on instagram where the likes come poring in on the new trophy piece you got for a "steal". Flip it, make more then the dealer and then come back next time looking for the next "kill".

Ok, but why buy an overgraded copy?

"Also the 9.6 GPA price he had the book at was an outlier price as there were 3 other 9.6 sales within 30 days that were significantly less" So this dealer knew that you the buyer was not using the last GPA sale but the other 3? He also knew that because you felt it was over graded he should discount it 15%? I've been doing comic cons for a very long time and I still don't know this the first time I meet a buyer. They could be a last GPA guy, a 90 or 12 month buyer. They could be a OSPG type buyer. Comic cons really haven't changed much, what has changed is the expectations that buyers and sellers have from both sides of the table. Unfortunately it is still a "Us versus them" mentality.

What confuses me about this post is that you made an offer on a "soft" 9.6. Normally when somebody starts criticizing the slab grade I'm wondering what point they are trying to make. Unless I know you or have done business with you the situation is now a confrontation, not a negotiation. You the buyer are putting me in the situation to "diss" the book I am selling. As a seller of CGC books for a very long time I really can't go over every book they grade to determine did they get it right. When a person criticizes a book CGC graded or a raw book graded by me I wonder then why are you interested in it? There are always people out there that are ballistic in their grading. There are those that seem to feel that if I agree with them I'll sell it for the price they want to pay. In this case the seller did not nor did he want to state if he thought it was over graded. CGC has made some mistakes on 9.6's that I know I can't sell because of the defects. They go back. I lose money. Maybe this dealer just assumes that CGC doesn't make mistakes and will sell the book even though the grade doesn't match what the book should look like.

Buying was good, selling was good. Comic buying traffic was good. Thought there was more material on the floor then at past shows.

Yawn, Quoting Chris Rock "I ain't talking about it until I get paid"

I'm not sure what the issue is with maximizing the use of Convention time by offering a "interactive" experience with your online base. My website is working while I'm at a show, instagram as well as emails are constantly poring in as I'm at a show. If I had the time, the staff or the energy to conduct onsite sales while at shows I would. I think it is a strong use of your employee base to online sell items that were just picked up or acquired at the show. Business is all about cash flow so frankly it is more productive having the staff creating income versus sitting around doing nothing if there is no one to help. Imagine if you knew before you got to a show what the retailers had? Or what they had just picked up? There are so many ways to improve the comic con experience.

Inner well rubbing on inside of outer well

Per PM taking the TOS #39 CGC 5.0

Book was sold

www.youmarriedher.com

I have mediated transactions with buyers/sellers before. www.highgradecomics.com

Great Vineyard on the side of the Volcano.

Doubt it