New Trend at Comic Conventions???

[Timmay]

That being said, there are plenty of show dealers who know how to price and grade as well, and the prices are more than fair.

 

definitely

[rjpb]

I haven't gone to cons in years, but I will confess that no matter what price the dealer started at I would almost always try to haggle down ( the exception being if the price was already so low, I was afraid someone else would scoop in while I dickered). Though what percentage I would counter with often depended on how the book was priced to begin with. Sometimes I'd walk away if I couldn't get the price down to what I thought was fair, and with other boks that were harder to find and reasonably priced I might buckle and pay full price if no discount were forthcoming. I don't think I ever squeezed more than a 10% discount out of Harley Yee.

[999ghosts]

Real story when I had my comic book store

 

As I am in Belgium I have to convert the $, include the cost of import and so on. I tried to get the new comics out on a fair price. A costumer asked about the discount I gave. I didn't give any as I priced them what they should go for. Another shop did give 10 to 20%. I told him I know, but he is 40% more expensive to begin with. He said, it's nice to get 20% discount and walked away....

 

Most people see the discount and most people buy there. I had to put my prices up and then offer a discount too. Like this I still would get the price I wanted for it in the first place, but costumers where now happy because I gave discounts. That's how discounts work! Because people want them, dealers need to put the price up. If you don't give discount people buy elsewhere, even if they are more expensive. And yes, maybe most people on this board will not, but there are more buyers and collectors out there not on boards as there are on the boards

 

What is never discussed here however is the fact that a dealer needs to flip many books before he can make some profit. They need to pay the tables at the con, the transport, the people working for them.

 

Not sure how the profit margin is in the US, but here it should be about 30% on the article. So for every $100 you get to keep $30 to pay rent, staff, stock, convention tables, etc and then still (hope to) have something to life from... So I understand why dealers start to overprice their books, it's the only way they'll be left with something afterwards when everybody asks for 50% off...

 

So next time you try to get an even better discount think about the future of the dealer's shop.

 

Just my 2 cent (in short)

[the blob]

most people are really bad with numbers and can't figure this stuff out in their heads. my wife is getting a frigging phd in a scienctific field (where she has to crunch tons of numbers and run all sorts of statistics!) from an ivy league school and even then she has trouble comparison shopping and remembering what prices are on things we buy all the time and what 20% off of something is, etc. it is hard for someone who is quick with numbers in their head to understand how some otherwise smart people are just no good at understanding stuff like this.

[the blob]

Not sure how the profit margin is in the US, but here it should be about 30% on the article. So for every $100 you get to keep $30 to pay rent, staff, stock, convention tables, etc and then still (hope to) have something to life from... So I understand why dealers start to overprice their books, it's the only way they'll be left with something afterwards when everybody asks for 50% off...

---------

 

30% isn't a profit margin if out of that you need to pay your expenses

 

your profit is what you keep after all those business costs (as well as the cost of inventory) is paid off

 

sounds like you are dealing with razor thin profit margins. i hope you do a huge business.

[RustyStaple]

I think the experiences listed have more to do with retail in general. As a consumer we have been bombarded with endless 25 - 75% off advertising for years just to get our attention.

 

 

[jbud73]

It's funny, I was halping a friend who owned a shop with his tables at a Javitz show back in the midish 90s. He had made his SA and GA 25% off the marked price. The marked price (from his store) was usually 75-90% of OPG.

 

Some guy who had just got [back?] into collecting comes up to the table and asks why we're only 25% off when they table across the way was 50% off. And he pointed to some Dell Four color he had bought across the way at the table, which my friend also had a copy of. I showed him that the one he bought was in much worse shape than the one on my friend's table and the 50% off of $40 he paid ($20) wasn't nearly as good a deal as 25% off of $25 (under $20) for a book in much better shape. I either educated this guy or really ticked him off about collecting/buying from dealers. He didn't look too happy about vastly overpaying. I guess he had been under the impression that all dealers grade the same, follow the guide the same way and that their sticker prices were uniform and just have different discounts.

 

 

 

Conventions in a microcosm ...

 

Go to cons ....

Figure out that only 2-3 dealers grade and price accurately ....

Buy from those dealers at the con ...

Keep buying from aforementioned dealers after the con ... (important step as sometimes ppl stray with hype from over price it, discount i,t dealers).

Stop buying at Cons ... (Just arrange to pick up already purchased books from the 2-3 good dealers in the room)

Start drinking with your comic geek buddies at the con (add extra Liver capacity if Borock is there)

 

Rinse repeat Donut Dan

 

 

[lscomics]

I agree with most of the comments thus far. I'd rather have strictly graded books where dealers offered only a very modest discount (or no discount) rather than inflated grades and prices.

 

+1

[999ghosts]

Not sure how the profit margin is in the US, but here it should be about 30% on the article. So for every $100 you get to keep $30 to pay rent, staff, stock, convention tables, etc and then still (hope to) have something to life from... So I understand why dealers start to overprice their books, it's the only way they'll be left with something afterwards when everybody asks for 50% off...

---------

 

30% isn't a profit margin if out of that you need to pay your expenses

 

your profit is what you keep after all those business costs (as well as the cost of inventory) is paid off

 

sounds like you are dealing with razor thin profit margins. i hope you do a huge business.

 

OK, I used the wrong wording. 30% is the profit on the article before all the other costs go off. I could show you my link to my store and 2 links to other Europe stores. Same price, bought from same wholesaler. That's what margins are for these articles over here. If I would ask more I would not sell. (they would go to the other shops).

[the blob]

i wasn't trying to bust your hump, a lot of people think of "profit" as Sale price of the item minus cost of the item when for a retail business there are oh so many other expenses to factor in. folks get enraged if a dealer is only willing to pay 25% of OPG for an item they might put up on the wall for 100% of OPG. But chaces are they will actually sell the item (if at all) for 50-75% of OPG and that is before they have to pay the rent, the electric bill, insurance, labor, etc. etc. etc. Heck, selling on ebay the "overhead" between ebay and paypal fees is going to run close to 10% (if not more) as well.

 

we've had discussions here about wholesale vs. retail, but it seems that here comic shops generally pay 50% of retail price for their items when bought new from the wholesale distributor, including shipping, etc. if they do a decent enough volume, but that's just an approximation. I guess the extra 20% you pay is the extra cost of shipping to europe, currency fluctuations, etc.

[999ghosts]

i wasn't trying to bust your hump, a lot of people think of "profit" as Sale price of the item minus cost of the item when for a retail business there are oh so many other expenses to factor in. folks get enraged if a dealer is only willing to pay 25% of OPG for an item they might put up on the wall for 100% of OPG. But chaces are they will actually sell the item (if at all) for 50-75% of OPG and that is before they have to pay the rent, the electric bill, insurance, labor, etc. etc. etc. Heck, selling on ebay the "overhead" between ebay and paypal fees is going to run close to 10% (if not more) as well.

 

we've had discussions here about wholesale vs. retail, but it seems that here comic shops generally pay 50% of retail price for their items when bought new from the wholesale distributor, including shipping, etc. if they do a decent enough volume, but that's just an approximation. I guess the extra 20% you pay is the extra cost of shipping to europe, currency fluctuations, etc.

 

Could not have explained it better.

 

Other story from my experience about people thinking dealers make tons of money. I had people in who think I should be happy with a 10% profit.... I had people in who wanted to sell some of their stuff in my store but where angry I wanted 30% of the sale price... Got people in who wanted to sell me stuff and wanted full listed guide price...

 

Oh, don't worry about my hump, doesn't get bust easy (thumbs u

[shadroch]

The days of most shops getting their product at 50% off including shipping are long, long gone.

[the blob]

what is it now, 55% of retail (not including shipping?)? at one point wasn't it 45% of retail (not including shipping), but you get all those extra variants now!

 

how do the mail order guys do 40% off for file customers with those margins? (or is it not 40% off anymore?)

[bronze_rules]

I would think that the high end back issue auctioneers are making a MINT. Why? Because they need only sell a few very high end items (tens of thousands of $) to make up for all the high volume low margin stuff.

 

And the past few years with the ridiculous 10X+ premiums on high grade should have been a boon for back issue online/offline auctioneers, as shuffling of those coveted super margin items became far more frequent than historical norm.

 

As a dealer getting the walk ins, I highly doubt a dealer is going to offer 9X on what they perceive as a 10X key, most likely they will offer somewhere close to 80% guide (complete guess on my part), with the idea that they are going to rake in multiples of that amount (and perhaps a little pressing to maximize profit). For the more savvy collectors that insist on consignment, even if the take is only 20-30%, considering the amount is ridiculously priced (10X+) that's still some great profits, which would likely overshadow most of the store's profits.

 

Not saying anything is wrong or immoral about this, I just think that being an auctioneer in recent times can't be all that bad, profit wise, considering the multiple X margins on ultra high end and high $ items these past few years.

 

Hope I don't ruffle any feathers here, just some (purely) speculative thoughts.

Obviously I can't speak for dealers, but if I'm way off, please advise.

 

[the blob]

So little of this high end stuff exists much less is going to walk in the door (that's why it's high end...it isn't easy to find!) of a given retailer that it's more like a once a year bonus if it actually does. one LCS I go to is pretty much happy to buy anything that walks in, and if you're talking about decent stuff he isn't going to throw in the 50 cent box, he is actually not that stingy. but seriously, i don't know if I have EVER seen him with a genuine NM SA book. yes, some NM BA walks in the door, but not SA. He gets some nice stuff occasionally, but when you take a close look it's not better than 9.2 and usually more like 9.0. so there's no 10X premium. my old LCS would also buy whatever came in and it was pretty much the same deal, rarely ever getting a NM SA book. and this is in NYC, where there are a lot of comic hoards and comic collectors.

 

SA 9.8s sell at absurd premiums because they barely exist when you look at the big picture.

 

Sure, dealers selling off high grade inventory that they socked away 10-20-30 years ago are another story. They have great profit margins.

[the blob]

I would think that the high end back issue auctioneers are making a MINT. Why? Because they need only sell a few very high end items (tens of thousands of $) to make up for all the high volume low margin stuff.

-----------

 

Who would these be? Sure, Heritage. Comiclink, etc. make a nice profit because they don't lay down the money for books!

 

Metropolis does well because they are sort of the go to guys for some of this stuff. But don't kid yourself, while they might be marking stuff up 3-5X what they paid, they have A LOT of money tied up in inventory and for much of it, the turnover is low.

 

Sure, when Harley Yee manages to sell one of his raw 9.8s I'm sure his profit is tremendous, but he's another guy who has a huge amount of money socked away in inventory, a lot of it slow to turn over (in part because it's so expensive). I'm sure the guy makes a good living, why shouldn't he, he's a known name in the [albeit niche] industry and has been around a long time. He also busts his hump most of the year running around the convention circuit, which can't be cheap.

[the blob]

Something like 80% of the comic shops have gone under in the last 10-15 years and it's not like these are boom times now. If it was so easy to wait for all those high end high grade books to walk in the door and pay 10% of FMV for them, a lot fewer of these guys would have gone under. It isn't all because they are the Simpsons "Comic Guy" and emit foul odors and have no social skills and scare away customers.

[bronze_rules]

I think that seeing the proliferation of high end items for sale on auctions might be misleading, since they tend to keep a lot of sales on the site after the transaction.

 

I guess I get the impression that much of the bronze UHG (including pressed) with 5k+ price tags, is much more prevalent than one would expect.

 

Again, nothing morally wrong with this. I just threw it in to the conversation, as I heard some commenting that the margins were razor thin and dealers can barely survive let alone be rolling in profits (and I do know a few good ones that went belly up; they never seized on the UHG slab craze and only priced at 1X, only more recently changing to 1.5Xish for 9.6+).

[the blob]

Upcoming Harley Yee Shows 2010:

 

march 12-14 orlando megacon

march 13 14 seattle wa emerald city

march 21 london england

march 26-28 toronto

april 2-4 san francisco wonder con

april 10, 11 boston

april 16-18 chicago

april 23-25 pittsburgh

may 14-16 detroit

may 15,16 st paul mn

may 28 to 30 phoenix

june 4-6 charlotte

june 11-13 philadelphia

june 18-21 sydney australia

 

The guy might be expensive, but I have to admire his hustle. practically every frigging weekend he's out there.

 

 

[RustyStaple]

Something like 80% of the comic shops have gone under in the last 10-15 years and it's not like these are boom times now. If it was so easy to wait for all those high end high grade books to walk in the door and pay 10% of FMV for them, a lot fewer of these guys would have gone under. It isn't all because they are the Simpsons "Comic Guy" and emit foul odors and have no social skills and scare away customers.

 

I agree that quite a few are now gone but I do ask, how is it that the few today are still open?

Is it only because of entering into other collecting areas like figurines and cards, or do the bigger ones sell more comics online now and use the shop as a write off?