Would you shop at a comic store like this??

[3319comics]

I dont know if this makes a difference but will this model have more promise of success due to people indicating the auction house fees and long turn arounds for ship out. Also with fee bay and there fees and really shoot with what you get unless you buy consistenly from the same people.

 

Is thhere a sense of this forum, maybe others like it and the old time stores making a comeback with the availibilty to get quality product and more competitive pricing??

 

Not sure this is true or not just interested how this plays into it.?

[Dale Roberts]

Try crunching the numbers. What would you lay out for a hundred boxes of decent or better stock? Sounds like you'd want a minimum of $100,000 in stock. Now you need to buy shiny new boxes, new bags, dividers and such. Wall racks, display cases, carpeting, cash registar, security systems,computer, ect,ect, ad nauseum.

In a high profile area, your rent will be several thousand a month. Assuming you can get a 50% mark up on your books, you'll need sales in the $5000-$6,000 range just to cover your rent, let alone your salary, expenses and cost of replacing your inventory. If you want to make a living wage( $600 a week) plus have a little help around the shop, you are at $10,000 a month. Factor in advertising, telephone, cable, good will and you are at the $12,000 a month mark. Then you get into the mundane-accountants,taxes( self employment tax is double), business supplies, shrinkage,government licenses, electricity( air conditioning is essential), ad nauseum.

While you are running the store, you are not out getting new inventory, so will you pay finders fees to buyers or pay for staff to run the store while you shop?

Expecting nice collections to walk thru the door on a regular basis is not very

realistic.

 

I get collections offered to me almost every week. Most of the time it is not stuff that I want (low/mid grade) or copper/modern. I have no way to move this stuff now, but I would then. There are a ton of people wanting to sell collections. I could go buy 100 boxes tomorrow if I wanted.

 

Ricky, you have a store in a big city... How often are you offered collections, and how much more could you buy if you were really agressive about it?

[the blob]

"Expecting nice collections to walk thru the door on a regular basis is not very

realistic."

 

The key there is "nice".

 

A lot of collections will walk in the door, but I dunno if it would be enough to sustain that kind of store's needs. 50-150 new SA and BA books a week in a small hole in the wall type store that devotes 5% of its floor square footage to back issues is probably enough to keep the customers who care interested enough to check out the boxes, but it would seem a big store would need a lot more.

 

Then again, if you are not trying to buy for 10 cents and charge $5 and are willing to pay a buck for a book you'd mark at $4-$8, there are plenty of dealers willing to make bulkier deals to get rid of spare inventory. of course, this isn't going to get you your prime stuff.

[kidcolt]

As long as it has good (fair) prices, good selection (rare for LCS), competent staff (even more rare) and is clean, neat and tidy then I would love to shop there.

[MrBedrock]

Ricky, you have a store in a big city... How often are you offered collections, and how much more could you buy if you were really agressive about it?

We get offered stuff daily. A majority of the stuff we are offered are items we already have in stock. How many copies of early nineties books does anyone really need? Good quality back issue collections are being offered much less frequently than in the past.

[the blob]

Most of the time it is not stuff that I want (low/mid grade) or copper/modern. I have no way to move this stuff now, but I would then.

---------------------

 

you can package them in lots. but yeah, those don't move too well either. with that said, everything has a price point that people feel comfortable with. it's just a PITA to scan in 5 images for a $10 listing that you accept a best offer of $7 or $8 on and then you have to pack the darn things up! of course, you can't be paying much for this type of stuff if you're selling it for that much on ebay after fees, time, etc.

[HouseofComics.Com]

Good quality back issue collections are being offered much less frequently than in the past.

 

That's my sense of it too.

 

I can see the point of a comic book store deciding to differentiate itself by actually having quality back issues. You might get a few decent collections a year and help the bottom line.

 

I can see that if you're a decently thriving mail order business you could open a retail shop (is this what Nostalgia Zone does in Minnesota?) to showcase some of your stuff, get an extra revenue stream, and pick up more collections. It has the bonus of having your employees actually have something to do, the processing of back issues. Sorting, bagging, tagging, possibly even a little grading. They would only have to stop these tasks when customers actually walk through the doors.

 

But I don't see the full on back issue store. Shadroch really sets out the expense structure quite well. It will be interesting to see how it goes for the Bunkys. One would be offering cheap enteratainment (50 cent to $1) books in a recession and it's a great time to sign cheap leases. (One place a bit south of me is offering 12,000 feet in a dead mall for $4000 a month!) So maybe...

 

But I just see a successful store of this type being a little smaller. Most of the stock warehoused, only one employee plus the owner, mostly mail order, and instead of 100 boxes of copper etc., a rotating stock every two weeks.

 

Marc

[conditionfreak]

Not that it means anything other than one mans experience. But a friend of mine opened a store in the main location of business in our town. It was one of the best spots of our downtown area. They (husband and wife) were selling musical instruments and novelties. I offered to let them sell some comic books of mine, at one dollar each, and they could have 50% of all sales. I was just trying to help them out. I would be losing money big time. But I was hoping that their business would succeed.

 

I placed in their store, 12 boxes of 80's, 90's and newer stuff. No duplicates, all approximately 9.2/9.4 or better stuff. Each and every book bagged and boarded in mylar. They looked like a nice personal collection someone could easily prize for their own. For one dollar each. Stuff like McFarland Spider-man #1 through 20, and each color of the #1's. Stuff like early Wolverines, early Punishers. early Web of Spidermans, early Peter Parker Spec. and even a few lesser grade silver age books.

 

Long story short. They went out of business within four months. They did sell some musical instruments and did sell some novelties. But they did not sell even one comic book. Their overhead was too much for them to handle, and the economy hit hard (they picked the wrong time to give it a go). They tried their best with radio advertising and such. But it just didn't go.

 

Point of this story is that they did not sell one comic book. Because of the other items they were selling, they did draw kids and young adults into the store, but none showed an interest in the books.

 

So, if you are located in an area of 2 million people and have 500 customers, then that translates to 250 in an area of 1 million. Further down it translates into an area of 100 thousand having maybe what? a few or less? Can a business continue to exist with a base of a few customers? Yes. If they are selling yachts.

 

From the buyers point of view, I am always amazed that comic book stores ever make it. They rarely have what you are looking for (but admittedly, since you are there, you buy something), unless it is fresh and new this week. They also have high prices on most items and I buy their good stuff only on the Thanksgiving day sales, or other such sales. Some are just filthy, and the bags are also. They way we customers go through the boxes, just makes the books go down in grade constantly. They were priced when they were nice, but they ain't nice anymore because so many have fingered through them and "pushed" them back down into the boxes after pulling this one and that one up to check it out better. Heck, several of the stores I have checked out, had their back issues not even boarded. Just bagged.

 

Nah. As much as I would love the product. I would not do a comic book shop. There has to be better business to go into.

 

But, if that is what one knows and wants to do. Good luck to all who try. One word of caution though. If you ain't in one of the biggest locations and do not have new stuff and exotic stuff (statues, t-shirt, etc), I seriously doubt it will make you anything other than low income, and eventually a move to another job. What are you going to do, when your worker/s take home two copies of your best stuff everyday they work? Are you going to be there all of the time? Are you going to go through each and every book at the end of each night? Employee theft is rampant unless it is you and your spouse doing everything. Girls give books away to cute guys. Guys give books away to friends. etc. etc.

[fc]

i have mentioned this to local comic stores around me. i would be interested in renting

comics to read.

 

pretend i could go into a comic store and ask for the last 10 detectives, 10 iron man, or

what not and pay 5 bucks for 3 days to read them.

 

i know the idea is out there a bit but it would work out really well for me because i have

no interest in paying cover price times 10 to read them. And after I am done reading them

I have no interest in storing them for the rest of my life. Off hand I do not even know people

to give them too or sell them for any reasonable amount.

 

[comicwiz]

The concepts are strong, but where I see the greatest potential for retail is with in-person dealings, and real-time verification to overcome the slip-ups which can occur online with grading, misrepresentation, etc. With the last point, I think this pretty much sums up most people's reasons for attending a convention.

 

As is, the current consignment model with most of the large online sites requires mail-in prior to an event auction, or post-sale. While shipping can be an easy way to stimulate sales, there are shipping costs in addition to listing fees, and there will always be a segment of the collector base which feels uneasy about shipping high-value books. There is also a significant reliance on CGC graded books, leaving the raw, high-grade comic market relatively untapped.

 

With retail, leaving a book with a shop on consignment gives off a similar air of apprehension, and while consignments can satisfy cycling in new in-store product, you usually only develop enough business this way until the stock of a single collector dries out, with little to work with in terms of developing a consistent flow of new consignments.

 

One idea to overcome these two limitations is to do the following. Set-up an electronic (online) catalogue. This online catalogue can be browsed via an Internet address (ie. www.ourstore.com ), as well as through an island kiosk located right in the store. With the significant drop in hardware costs these days, an Internet powered kiosk could be set-up relatively cheap and easy.

 

Where this fits in on the consignment side is to set-up one or two self-scanning stations in the store. These stations primary objective is to allow collectors the quick and simple mechanism of listing their books to appear in the online catalogue. A staff member of the store could help novices or folks not familiar with catalogue listing conventions, and the store could advertise a competitive 5-10% consignment fee for anyone listing their books through their store. What would be key here is with new or high-value consignments, listings would be performed under the supervision and/or left pending until one of the store owners can approve the listing is accurate, scans are clean, etc.

 

This does two fundamental things. Removes shipping reluctance on high-value books and costs to ship to the consignor. It frees up books that would otherwise be tucked away in people's homes with no desire to sell, establishing a more inviting method of commerce that overcomes the uneasiness of leaving a valuable book in a shops glass showcase. The second is constant flow of new product, and the folks who are going to see this benefit the most are those who walk into the store, who have already been through all the back issue bins before, seen the wall books, seen the books in the showcase, and can now surf either at the store while socializing, or choose to do it from home.

 

Might seem difficult to comprehend or map out at certain shops given space constraints, but technology can be scaled-down to suit the most challenged ergonomic spaces. Speaking from personal experience, the appeal of visiting a shop drops as soon as you've run through their books, and I think its a consignment model, if done right, that can tap into the do-it-yourself collector base that has had enough with eBay, and just doesn't have the savvy to set-up their own online store. IMHO, its worth a try for some of the more established comic shop retailers.

[Prince Namor]

Chuck, I like this post. Where do you live?

 

Your story about your friend with the store in the small college town reminds me that the ones who have been selling during the good times have often built up enough capital, customers, and inventory to weather the coming years. And your comment about him paying his expenses just from his sales on Wednesday shows that it's the guaranteed instant profit on a lot of the weekly shipment that keeps stores going. Despite the huge Diamond bill.

 

 

 

I'd love the idea, believe me, no one here has any decent SA/BA for sale. I have to wait on the 9-

12 area shows a year to buy it LIVE. I just don't think it'd work

 

I'm in the St. Louis, MO area.

And yeah, you're right on the point that the guys who've weathered the storm know that the consistency of weekly sales on new stuff is what has kept them around.

I think we as collectors sometimes just dream of the idea of being able to walk in a store and flip through bins of multiple grades/issues/prices on gold/silver age titles at what WE consider a fair price. Where anytime we're in the market for a ASM 86, we have a nice selection of grades to choose from.

Nice idea, but far too niche of a market.

[rodan57]

Personally, I don't attend conventions or go to comic book stores anymore. The convenience of online shopping is too great, and the detriments of in person shopping (stress headaches, the stench, the time and rarely finding anything to buy) make me never want to do that again.

 

Interesting how preferences differ huh? While I do agree that the convenience of online shopping is appealing, I would never willingly give up the option of going to cons and stores to actually buy books in person. Nothing like it, imo.

 

Amen.

[sckao]

Personally, I don't attend conventions or go to comic book stores anymore. The convenience of online shopping is too great, and the detriments of in person shopping (stress headaches, the stench, the time and rarely finding anything to buy) make me never want to do that again.

 

Interesting how preferences differ huh? While I do agree that the convenience of online shopping is appealing, I would never willingly give up the option of going to cons and stores to actually buy books in person. Nothing like it, imo.

 

Amen.

 

There's something to be said for both obviously. Once you've spent 1k+ on hotel, travel, and food to get to San Diego for 5 days (not counting vacation time) or some other large comic con that's not local, some people might think that it was $1k they could have better spent on a comic book.

 

(Conventions are a great way to meet up with other board members though. (thumbs u )

 

 

 

 

[TupennyConan]

I love stench.

[Not*Sure*]

My store only carried back issues..no one was buying new comics anyway.

[fraxs-migration]

Dale,

Sounds like everyone likes the idea but not sure if it will survive.

In the high point of the 90s, I was living in NYC and visited tons of shops regularly.

I would say 90% of those shops are closed now.

 

The ones that are open, seem to sell everything but comics; trading cards, action figures, shirts, & other collectable junk. I remember walking into Dragon's Den (which has moved a few times since then and closed a few locations) and they had a wall dedicated to paintball guns....

 

Not to be discouraging, but unless you got a place with rent so ridiculiously cheap, it's prolly not gonna work, especially in this current market and economy.

 

You will probably spend your day listed items you have online, selling the majority of them on there. Thus defeating the point of having a brick & mortar storefront. Like most comic book stores do now.

 

Similarly, I've worked in retail for the past decade. Currently I work at a musical instrument store. The majority of the stuff we sell is new merhandise. It's our bread and butter. It would be great if we could make a living off just selling vintage instruments because there's usually a bigger profit margin and higher ticket sales. But, even though we are in a city, doesn't mean anyone around here even wants it. Most of our vintage stuff sells online and even those sales have tapered off.

 

 

 

[slym2none]

My store only carried back issues..no one was buying new comics anyway.

 

That's how almost all the stores around me are now.

 

Nice av, geisha girl!!!

 

 

 

-slym

[shadroch]

In addition to the other expenses I laid out, one must have health insurance and workmans comp. A decent family plan will set you back $2,000 a month in NY State.

[Not*Sure*]

My store only carried back issues..no one was buying new comics anyway.

 

That's how almost all the stores around me are now.

 

Nice av, geisha girl!!!

 

 

 

-slym

 

lovely 50's Hawaiian dress..my ode to chav dressing ladies

[the blob]

Point of this story is that they did not sell one comic book. Because of the other items they were selling, they did draw kids and young adults into the store, but none showed an interest in the books.

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I sold about a short box of drek at my last neighborhood garage sale. I would hope your friends had more foot traffic in 4 months than i did in 5 hours, but maybe not (the neighborhood garage sale is pretty well advertised). in theory i had them at $1 each, but in reality, I was knocking it down for anyone buying 10 or more comics. i am tempted to set up a table at an area flea market held in front of a local school to see how that works. as far as i can tell, they don't charge rent. of course, colleagues in the legal profession may see me out there selling comics and maybe I'd have some splaining to do.