shadroch

Thriving. Had a nice triangle of sales- New comics( 45% margin), old comics ( much better markup) and Dungeons and Dragons( 50% markup on returnable merchandise). Also did two monthly conventions on Long Island and twice a year in Manhattan. I'd take twenty five or so long boxes to each Manhattan show and blow out whatever was left to Koch-Dolgorf-Koch, as I didn't have a basement or big back room for storage. Each was roughly 30% of total sales. I also took a $1,000 advance from a guy that put a video game and an candy machine in the shop. Rent was $300 and included heat. I was supposed to put the electricity in my name but somehow never got around to it. Drove a fourteen year old Mercury and shared a $450 apartment with a good friend and whomever he was hooking up with that week. I also supplemented my income bouncing, bartending, doing an odd security gig or driving cars to Florida for snowbirds. Kept my expenses low and proved the concept could work. After a year, I needed more space and started to reel in some investors to open what I hoped would be my dream shop.

What kind of music, or lack of music do you like when you enter a comic shop? Ever shopped more because of the music? Ever avoided a store because they played music you hate? Background music or juke box level, as far as volume goes?

Without a doubt. Cost of opening a shop in the 90s was ten times that of the early 80s. I recently found an old invoice from Crown Comics from 1984. My weekly new comics for the week was $114. In 1993 My X-Men bill alone would have been more than that.

I don't get it. What becomes of the book that gets voted off?

That's what I did. Not sure what the next step was to be, so I rented a very small store on a short term lease, bought my friends brother's collection for $300, borrowed two thousand and went for it. Used a Champagne box for a cash register, had my sister paint a sign, found an old wooden ping pong table that became the back issue department and a used greeting card rack for new issues. Bought a correspondence course on opening a small business and went from there. Made lots of mistakes, learned from some of them, learned how to make new mistakes, got really lucky when Seagate accidently gave me a rather large credit I didn't deserve, but was told it was easier for them to let it go then to fix it. Got lucky again when my poster guy-who gave me stuff on consignment , went broke and sold me his entire inventory for $200 and I resold it the next day for $600. Doesn't sound like much now but that turned out to be the first $500 I was able to pull out of the business to target growth. A year later I had outgrown the shop and sold it for $3500, to a guy who also agreed to invest in my next shop,

So, in your infinite wisdom, at what age does a man get a free pass? Would you be okay with one of your daughters friends grandpa squeezing her ? You are cool with 93? How about 85? Does simply qualifying for Medicaid work? Is pawing at a young boy as acceptable as pawing a young girl?

I keep many CGC books in Comic Drawer Magazine Boxes and stack them three high. No issues whatsoever.

Mutilating puppies again?

Putting together NM runs of most Image books is easy peasy. Try putting together a 6.0 run. Not so easy.

He had hundreds of long boxes. Must have had sixty in the back issue section that took up well over half the floor space generated a couple hundred dollars a month. Back room was full, as well. He was cash poor, and needed about $7000 to get the store going. Newsstand Magazine Distribution took $1000 deposit, as did a paperback deal. $1500 would have got him a jobber account for plastic models and toys. Another $1,000 for bags, boxes and supplies. A blowout sale would have raised capital and created space, modernizing a store that showed its age.

Might get a 5.0, but a nice 4.5 in any case.

He certainly belongs in it.

Sometime in the early 2000s, a friend of a friend had a money losing shop. I agreed to spend two weeks working with him to try and blow out some inventory, and help him get a handle on ordering new books. It was incredibly frustrating, as the entire market had changed tremendously in the ten years since I'd run a shop. One thing I saw was how the back issue market had shrunk so badly. In his shop,back issues took up half the space but generated ten percent of sales. Sadly, he cared more about all the money tied up in the books than the fact he was using so much space inefficiently. One suggestion was to blow out most of the back stock, reduce the footprint they possessed and use the money to bring in new lines. Not only did he shoot down down every suggestion, he ended up stiffing me on three days work. He claimed two weeks meant fourteen days of work, not the eleven I performed. About six months later, he tried to sell the shop to my friend but it fell through when what was supposed to be a courtesy call to the landlord revealed the was several months delinquent on rent and owed Common Area Maintenance fees adding up to almost another $1,000.00. Store closed suddenly,and people got screwed on deposits and consignment.

I drove cross country with three short boxes worth well over 50K in the car. Took them into the hotel every night. My biggest fear was stopping to eat, but I kept meals simple and had my dog in the car. Rest of my stuff went by bonded movers. Should have sent these that way too, but was worried.

Yes, but those are major media outlets for people under the age of forty. Most of them don't read newspapers.

It was featured on Amazon,and the USA Today website.

I live in Paradise. I lived in Paradise. I will live in Paradise. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me, wherever I go.

Seems like the OP costs himself tens of thousands of dollars taping his books. But Rich is the .

I'd say by around 1997, most of the weaker, badly run stores had closed.

When Marvel comics were .50 cents, my cost was about .27 a pop. An independent published comic was $1.50, with my cost being .77 cents. In the next few years, shipping costs shifted to distributors so my margins were almost always fifty percent. When Marvel switched to self distributing, margins dropped across the board. Most smaller stores saw their margins drop over ten percent, and ended up having to pay for shipping again. Marvel also flooded the market with product and forced shops to buy inferior books in order to get the popular lines. I was managing a shop in Puerto Rico when Marvel did this and overnight, our shipping cost went from near zero to over a thousand dollars a month. We ended up dropping a few smaller lines as they just weren't viable to sell at cover. A few books, we couldn't sell at cover and had to put them immediately into back issue status at a premium. Staff cuts were made, to the point that the owner had his kids coming in after school to bag comics, and serious thought was given to adding a surcharge on every new book. Instead we went with raising most back issues by a quarter,which lowered sales a bit. The shop was more of a vanity project for the owner and when profits were lowered, he decided to shut down. It was almost ten years before a comic shop opened to replace it.

I believe it's pronounced "lawnguylind" clown.

It was when Comic Value Monthly started outselling X-Men that the warning lights went off!

Opened my shop in 84. By 1985, comic distributors were bending over backwards for new accounts. Free delivery to my door , a day earlier than I used to be able to pickup my books , saving a three hour roundtrip. New comics were cheap enough that one could afford some mistakes, and back issues sold at a premium. Next few years were great. Summer of Batman and the Black and White Explosion. I made out like a bandit when Comics Unlimited, Seagate, Crown and Glenwood went under, as I owed them thousands of dollars and I also was able to pick their carcasses at liquidation sales. Marvel was paying half of my advertising, as well as giving me racks, a store sign and a cash register, as well as footing my travel expenses to San Diego. By 1991, everything had changed.

You need to set your sights higher. If you can avoid buying an Action 1 for a week or so, you'll be set for awhile.