Do Local Comicbook Stores need a new business model?

[POSminus-migration]

I walk into my old LCS about two weeks ago and see 3 copies of the Fantastic Four Issue in the poly bags (587?). I pick up all three copies along with a bunch of other new releases. As I am getting checked out the owner tells me I can only buy 1 copy. I ask why..he states he wants to have them if another customer walks in and wants a copy before he gets more next week. I give him a look and buy one copy and the rest of my books.

I walk out and think.... I am standing in front of you willing to buy all three copies and you tell me you rather take the chance that some one will walk in and buys the last two copies until you get more next week.

This makes no sense and I just went on line and bought the other two copies on Ebay...I guess in a couple months when they shut down I wouldn't have to wonder why.

 

thanks for letting me

 

Maybe he figures, if he has to sell to Speculators, better to get 3 of them in the store than just 1?

[Artboy99]

I walk into my old LCS about two weeks ago and see 3 copies of the Fantastic Four Issue in the poly bags (587?). I pick up all three copies along with a bunch of other new releases. As I am getting checked out the owner tells me I can only buy 1 copy. I ask why..he states he wants to have them if another customer walks in and wants a copy before he gets more next week. I give him a look and buy one copy and the rest of my books.

I walk out and think.... I am standing in front of you willing to buy all three copies and you tell me you rather take the chance that some one will walk in and buys the last two copies until you get more next week.

This makes no sense and I just went on line and bought the other two copies on Ebay...I guess in a couple months when they shut down I wouldn't have to wonder why.

 

thanks for letting me

 

Maybe he figures, if he has to sell to Speculators, better to get 3 of them in the store than just 1?

 

I had a similar experience over Captain America 25. The day the comic was put on the shelves I went to a LCS to try to purchase one copy. When I looked around I couldn't find a copy, but noted they did have one pinned to the wall behind the cash register with a price tag of $100.00 on it. As I was browsing another customer came in to get his file, and he noted that his regular subscribed book Cap 25 was not included, to which the response was "we didn't get enough for all of the files, you will get one as soon as we can get them". I glanced at the wall and the book hanging there but said nothing. The customer was obviously upset, and bought the other books and began to walk out. At that point I was so disgusted I stopped him and pointed to the book hanging on the wall and told him "You can buy the book on the wall".

I listened to the ensuing argument for a few minutes and left in disgust. I have never been back inside that establishment since, and I never will.

[Bruce1971]

I walk into my old LCS about two weeks ago and see 3 copies of the Fantastic Four Issue in the poly bags (587?). I pick up all three copies along with a bunch of other new releases. As I am getting checked out the owner tells me I can only buy 1 copy. I ask why..he states he wants to have them if another customer walks in and wants a copy before he gets more next week. I give him a look and buy one copy and the rest of my books.

I walk out and think.... I am standing in front of you willing to buy all three copies and you tell me you rather take the chance that some one will walk in and buys the last two copies until you get more next week.

This makes no sense and I just went on line and bought the other two copies on Ebay...I guess in a couple months when they shut down I wouldn't have to wonder why.

 

thanks for letting me

 

Maybe he figures, if he has to sell to Speculators, better to get 3 of them in the store than just 1?

 

I had a similar experience over Captain America 25. The day the comic was put on the shelves I went to a LCS to try to purchase one copy. When I looked around I couldn't find a copy, but noted they did have one pinned to the wall behind the cash register with a price tag of $100.00 on it. As I was browsing another customer came in to get his file, and he noted that his regular subscribed book Cap 25 was not included, to which the response was "we didn't get enough for all of the files, you will get one as soon as we can get them". I glanced at the wall and the book hanging there but said nothing. The customer was obviously upset, and bought the other books and began to walk out. At that point I was so disgusted I stopped him and pointed to the book hanging on the wall and told him "You can buy the book on the wall".

I listened to the ensuing argument for a few minutes and left in disgust. I have never been back inside that establishment since, and I never will.

 

I know a guy who did the same thing with the death of Superman. He said it was the worst decision he ever made as a store owner.

[Batty Scrooge]

I walk into my old LCS about two weeks ago and see 3 copies of the Fantastic Four Issue in the poly bags (587?). I pick up all three copies along with a bunch of other new releases. As I am getting checked out the owner tells me I can only buy 1 copy. I ask why..he states he wants to have them if another customer walks in and wants a copy before he gets more next week. I give him a look and buy one copy and the rest of my books.

I walk out and think.... I am standing in front of you willing to buy all three copies and you tell me you rather take the chance that some one will walk in and buys the last two copies until you get more next week.

This makes no sense and I just went on line and bought the other two copies on Ebay...I guess in a couple months when they shut down I wouldn't have to wonder why.

 

thanks for letting me

 

Sounds like my LCS, Zapp, they had a sign up about only 1 FF 587 per customer, and I remember thinking, who in the world would want more than one? Thought everyone learned from the Death of Superman that it won't be collectible.

[Larryw7]

I walk into my old LCS about two weeks ago and see 3 copies of the Fantastic Four Issue in the poly bags (587?). I pick up all three copies along with a bunch of other new releases. As I am getting checked out the owner tells me I can only buy 1 copy. I ask why..he states he wants to have them if another customer walks in and wants a copy before he gets more next week. I give him a look and buy one copy and the rest of my books.

I walk out and think.... I am standing in front of you willing to buy all three copies and you tell me you rather take the chance that some one will walk in and buys the last two copies until you get more next week.

This makes no sense and I just went on line and bought the other two copies on Ebay...I guess in a couple months when they shut down I wouldn't have to wonder why.

 

thanks for letting me

 

Maybe he figures, if he has to sell to Speculators, better to get 3 of them in the store than just 1?

 

I had a similar experience over Captain America 25. The day the comic was put on the shelves I went to a LCS to try to purchase one copy. When I looked around I couldn't find a copy, but noted they did have one pinned to the wall behind the cash register with a price tag of $100.00 on it. As I was browsing another customer came in to get his file, and he noted that his regular subscribed book Cap 25 was not included, to which the response was "we didn't get enough for all of the files, you will get one as soon as we can get them". I glanced at the wall and the book hanging there but said nothing. The customer was obviously upset, and bought the other books and began to walk out. At that point I was so disgusted I stopped him and pointed to the book hanging on the wall and told him "You can buy the book on the wall".

I listened to the ensuing argument for a few minutes and left in disgust. I have never been back inside that establishment since, and I never will.

 

I know a guy who did the same thing with the death of Superman. He said it was the worst decision he ever made as a store owner.

 

A local store had Batman 428(death of Jason Todd) on the wall for 20 bucks the day it was released. I went to another store and got my copies for cover price on the same day.

[mikephoen]

I believe that's what has turned some of the comic collectors off is too much "other" product in the stores and not enough of what they came there for.....COMICS! Magic the Gathering "dungeon" parties going on in the shop isn't very cool either. Just my opinion.

 

I changed LCS because mine was paying too much attention to MTG and

repeatedly missed new books from my pull list. Bringing in new product lines

to build the business is smart but neglecting established customers to do it will

drive them away.

 

We don't miss any pull list books. We had a full 100% fill rate for all pull lists in 2010 and did not miss a single book that was ordered in advance. This was impossible in my opinion in the past but with a good point of sale system (we use MOBY) it is pretty easy. It has so many checks and balances to make sure this gets done right that when an error occurs it is easily fixed. Even though single issue comic sales are smaller percentage wise than years ago, we still sell more dollars of them than at any point in the past.

 

[mikephoen]

First, every successful business (local comic store or Fortune 500 company) should be constantly adapting their business model to changing market conditions.

 

Over the 17 years I've had my store, I've tried a lot of different product lines. Some things have worked (magic), some haven't (sports cards!). When I opened in 1994 back issues were the bread and butter. I don't have exact statistics from back then but I would estimate 40-50% of sales were from back issues. In 2010 less than 1% was from back issue sales. The only 'back issues' we do, for the most part, is the $1 bin.

 

Here is the full percentage breakdown of 2010 sales by category for my store. I won't give the exact dollar figures, but it was our best year so far, with sales in the high 6 figures.

 

Books(TPs and HCs and manga) - 29.4%

Comics (New releases) - 13.0%

Tournament Entry Fees - 2.5%

Games and Game Supplies - 46.1%

Back Issues/$1 Bin - 0.5%

Comic Supplies - 1%

Toys and Statues - 3.2%

Anime - 3.6%

Everything Else - 0.7%

 

As you can see, games (almost exclusively Magic the Gathering) is our biggest category. Single issue comics are a distant (but still very important) third. Magic had a huge 2010 both for us and globally, which helped pump it's percentage up. Dollar wise single issue comics were about even with 2009, and tps/hcs up, but both categories lost a few percent because of Magic's dominating performance. For us, magic singles (about 40% of the overall games category) are the most profitable item. We also added Anime to the mix at the very end of 2009, so it was about .25% of sales in 2009, but grew to 3.6% in 2010. I'm thrilled with it's growth.

 

I'm sure a lot of people here think this post should be in the death of the LCS thread with numbers like that. No back issues, single comic sales at only 13% of net sales... but I think diversity in LCSs will ensure a long survival of the medium. The single issue may only be one 'department' in the overall 'geek experience' store but I believe it will remain an important one for a long time to come.

 

What plans do we have for 2011? I'm thinking of trying apparel again. It was a colossal failure in my second year, but hey, it's been 15 years. Might be time to give it another try!

 

If your back issue stock was less $1 books and more collectible books, do you think your revenue percentage would be markedly improved? When I owned comic stores, I'd have been dead without deep backstock that was priced well

 

Until about 2009 we still did silver/bronze age collectible books. I finally gave up on it when I realized just how few dollars it was generating for the space it was allocated. I knew it was bad, but until we had a real point of sale system I didnt realize how bad. Mostly this is due to the internet in my opinion. The internet has changed a lot of businesses, just ask the video rental people! No one sells good stuff to stores anymore, it is too easy to sell themselves. My city has other special considerations in this regard as well. Calgary was only about 50K people in the 40s and 150K in the 60s so the good collectible books are under-represented for the current 1.2M people we have now.

 

I always feel bad when one of my long time back issue guys comes in, but honestly they were not frequent enough customers to build a business around anyway. At least not in 2010.

[mikephoen]

Mike, I can't thank you enough for your post. If you had the option of not making (or losing) any money off new releases but have a perfect selection of them, would you take it? And hope that you'd get more people in the door to buy other items?

 

The comics vs gaming conversation kinda bugs me, it reminds me of an Emo Philips joke:

 

"I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said "Stop! Don't do it!" "Why shouldn't I?" he said. "Well, there's so much to live for!" "Like what?" "Well... are you religious?" He said yes. I said, "Me too! Are you Christian or Buddhist?" "Christian." "Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant ? "Protestant." "Me too! Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?" "Baptist" "Wow! Me too! Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?" "Baptist Church of God!" "Me too! Are you original Baptist Church of God, or are you reformed Baptist Church of God?" "Reformed Baptist Church of God!" "Me too! Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915?" He said, "Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915!" I said, "Die, heretic scum", and pushed him off. (Emo Philips)"

 

We have so much more in common with the gamers than we have differences and the overlap in the two groups is pretty staggering. I always loved walking past the ridiculous warhammer games being played at my LCS, it wasn't my thing but they're clearly flexing the same nerd muscle as a 3 hour conversation about Jason Todd vs Damian Wayne.

 

I recently told a couple of my friends who play warhammer about the games at my local shop and they went by and set up a series of demos to get reacquainted with the game and up to speed on new rules. It ended up being a refresher for them and I went along for a noobie demonstration with another friend who'd never played before. We were there for 3 or 4 hours and in that time the comic kids (me) were getting into 40k and the 40k kids (my friends) were pushed much closer to comics.

 

I would not think a returnable low profit system for new books would benefit me. We have a really good point of sale system which lets us order with great precision. We are sitting at about 93% sell through on single issues, which makes them very profitable. We leave books on the rack for one full year before they hit the dollar bin. Most major mavel and dc titles we aim to have enough copies to have them on the rack for the first six months after their release. Obviously the odd book here and there sells out faster than we expect, but again, a good point of sale system lets us identify those and reorder them if possible or get second prints etc.

 

As to your second point, I couldn't agree more. The crossover between the game players and comic readers is much, much higher than comic guys think. I would say at least half of the Magic crowd reads at least some comics. One guy reading a Walking Dead TP between rounds of FNM can easily lead to 3 or 4 other guys picking up the first trade to check it out too.

[InvstmntComcSuply]

Mike,

 

Excellent feedback and analysis.

Have you considered snacks? or are they in everything else?

 

 

[ComicConnoisseur]

Mike, I can't thank you enough for your post. If you had the option of not making (or losing) any money off new releases but have a perfect selection of them, would you take it? And hope that you'd get more people in the door to buy other items?

 

The comics vs gaming conversation kinda bugs me, it reminds me of an Emo Philips joke:

 

"I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said "Stop! Don't do it!" "Why shouldn't I?" he said. "Well, there's so much to live for!" "Like what?" "Well... are you religious?" He said yes. I said, "Me too! Are you Christian or Buddhist?" "Christian." "Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant ? "Protestant." "Me too! Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?" "Baptist" "Wow! Me too! Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?" "Baptist Church of God!" "Me too! Are you original Baptist Church of God, or are you reformed Baptist Church of God?" "Reformed Baptist Church of God!" "Me too! Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915?" He said, "Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915!" I said, "Die, heretic scum", and pushed him off. (Emo Philips)"

 

We have so much more in common with the gamers than we have differences and the overlap in the two groups is pretty staggering. I always loved walking past the ridiculous warhammer games being played at my LCS, it wasn't my thing but they're clearly flexing the same nerd muscle as a 3 hour conversation about Jason Todd vs Damian Wayne.

 

I recently told a couple of my friends who play warhammer about the games at my local shop and they went by and set up a series of demos to get reacquainted with the game and up to speed on new rules. It ended up being a refresher for them and I went along for a noobie demonstration with another friend who'd never played before. We were there for 3 or 4 hours and in that time the comic kids (me) were getting into 40k and the 40k kids (my friends) were pushed much closer to comics.

 

I would not think a returnable low profit system for new books would benefit me. We have a really good point of sale system which lets us order with great precision. We are sitting at about 93% sell through on single issues, which makes them very profitable. We leave books on the rack for one full year before they hit the dollar bin. Most major mavel and dc titles we aim to have enough copies to have them on the rack for the first six months after their release. Obviously the odd book here and there sells out faster than we expect, but again, a good point of sale system lets us identify those and reorder them if possible or get second prints etc.

 

As to your second point, I couldn't agree more. The crossover between the game players and comic readers is much, much higher than comic guys think. I would say at least half of the Magic crowd reads at least some comics. One guy reading a Walking Dead TP between rounds of FNM can easily lead to 3 or 4 other guys picking up the first trade to check it out too.

Hi Mike, I am curious how does Walking Dead do saleswise in your store compared to the old guards Batman,Spider-man ,X-men and Superman?

[mikephoen]

Mike,

 

Excellent feedback and analysis.

Have you considered snacks? or are they in everything else?

 

 

We don't carry a lot of snacks (just a pop machine and a couple 25 cent candy machines). We have a number of fast food places near by, so most players just go there. I could definitely make some money selling snacks, but not enough in my opinion to justify the space and the time to run to costco to stock up on snack stuff every couple weeks.

[mikephoen]

Hi Mike, I am curious how does Walking Dead do saleswise in your store compared to the old guards Batman,Spider-man ,X-men and Superman?

 

 

For single issues, Walking Dead is a solid second tier title. The top books are Amazing Spider-man and Batman. The 1A tier just slightly behind would be Deadpool, Wolverine, Green Lantern, Ultimate Spider-man. The second tier would be books like Walking Dead, Superman, Fantastic Four, Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, Buffy etc.

 

For TPs, Walking Dead is in a league of it's own. Since Vol 13 came out, it has out sold the next best superhero trade (Superman Earth One) by almost 3-1. Non-superhero it has outsold Fables 14 by more than 2-1. In fact the top selling Marvel trades in this time period were Wolverine Origin and Wolverine Old Man Logan at about 20% of WD 13's sales. Those are mostly attributed to X-mas sales as well.

 

For the year 2010 the top five sellers and seven of our top ten were Walking Dead volumes (1,11,12, 2,3,13,4). Scott Pilgrim 1 and 2 and Crossed round out the top 10.

 

The best selling Marvel TP was the KickAss HC at about 30% of Walking Dead 1. The best selling DCs were Batman Hush complete TP and Arkham Asylum Madness HC at slightly less than 25% of WD 1 sales.

[ComicConnoisseur]

Hi Mike, I am curious how does Walking Dead do saleswise in your store compared to the old guards Batman,Spider-man ,X-men and Superman?

 

 

For single issues, Walking Dead is a solid second tier title. The top books are Amazing Spider-man and Batman. The 1A tier just slightly behind would be Deadpool, Wolverine, Green Lantern, Ultimate Spider-man. The second tier would be books like Walking Dead, Superman, Fantastic Four, Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, Buffy etc.

 

For TPs, Walking Dead is in a league of it's own. Since Vol 13 came out, it has out sold the next best superhero trade (Superman Earth One) by almost 3-1. Non-superhero it has outsold Fables 14 by more than 2-1. In fact the top selling Marvel trades in this time period were Wolverine Origin and Wolverine Old Man Logan at about 20% of WD 13's sales. Those are mostly attributed to X-mas sales as well.

 

For the year 2010 the top five sellers and seven of our top ten were Walking Dead volumes (1,11,12, 2,3,13,4). Scott Pilgrim 1 and 2 and Crossed round out the top 10.

 

The best selling Marvel TP was the KickAss HC at about 30% of Walking Dead 1. The best selling DCs were Batman Hush complete TP and Arkham Asylum Madness HC at slightly less than 25% of WD 1 sales.

thanks Mike for the info.

Sounds like in the overall big picture Walking Dead made more money than Spidey or Bats because isn`t there a bigger profit margin with a TP than a regular monthly comic? Seems like this Walking Dead has some legs(no pun intended) for long term growth.

[Prince Namor]

First, every successful business (local comic store or Fortune 500 company) should be constantly adapting their business model to changing market conditions.

 

Over the 17 years I've had my store, I've tried a lot of different product lines. Some things have worked (magic), some haven't (sports cards!). When I opened in 1994 back issues were the bread and butter. I don't have exact statistics from back then but I would estimate 40-50% of sales were from back issues. In 2010 less than 1% was from back issue sales. The only 'back issues' we do, for the most part, is the $1 bin.

 

Here is the full percentage breakdown of 2010 sales by category for my store. I won't give the exact dollar figures, but it was our best year so far, with sales in the high 6 figures.

 

Books(TPs and HCs and manga) - 29.4%

Comics (New releases) - 13.0%

Tournament Entry Fees - 2.5%

Games and Game Supplies - 46.1%

Back Issues/$1 Bin - 0.5%

Comic Supplies - 1%

Toys and Statues - 3.2%

Anime - 3.6%

Everything Else - 0.7%

 

As you can see, games (almost exclusively Magic the Gathering) is our biggest category. Single issue comics are a distant (but still very important) third. Magic had a huge 2010 both for us and globally, which helped pump it's percentage up. Dollar wise single issue comics were about even with 2009, and tps/hcs up, but both categories lost a few percent because of Magic's dominating performance. For us, magic singles (about 40% of the overall games category) are the most profitable item. We also added Anime to the mix at the very end of 2009, so it was about .25% of sales in 2009, but grew to 3.6% in 2010. I'm thrilled with it's growth.

 

I'm sure a lot of people here think this post should be in the death of the LCS thread with numbers like that. No back issues, single comic sales at only 13% of net sales... but I think diversity in LCSs will ensure a long survival of the medium. The single issue may only be one 'department' in the overall 'geek experience' store but I believe it will remain an important one for a long time to come.

 

What plans do we have for 2011? I'm thinking of trying apparel again. It was a colossal failure in my second year, but hey, it's been 15 years. Might be time to give it another try!

 

If your back issue stock was less $1 books and more collectible books, do you think your revenue percentage would be markedly improved? When I owned comic stores, I'd have been dead without deep backstock that was priced well

 

Until about 2009 we still did silver/bronze age collectible books. I finally gave up on it when I realized just how few dollars it was generating for the space it was allocated. I knew it was bad, but until we had a real point of sale system I didnt realize how bad. Mostly this is due to the internet in my opinion. The internet has changed a lot of businesses, just ask the video rental people! No one sells good stuff to stores anymore, it is too easy to sell themselves. My city has other special considerations in this regard as well. Calgary was only about 50K people in the 40s and 150K in the 60s so the good collectible books are under-represented for the current 1.2M people we have now.

 

I always feel bad when one of my long time back issue guys comes in, but honestly they were not frequent enough customers to build a business around anyway. At least not in 2010.

 

Bingo. And that's a big part of why LCS's are evolving.

That and everyone who owns a back issue for sale wants to sell it for as much as they can get on the internet. The margins for LCS's on those books has gone down so much, it's not worth it to mess with in most market's.

LCS's are more and more becoming new product 'book store's' in a niche market that has an antiquated no return system.

It's no wonder they add gaming as a way to boost revenue.

[batman_fan]

If I read the original title to this thread "do comicbook store's need a new business model", I would say definitely "NO!". Comicbook stores need what all businesses need, and ever evolving business model. To stay in business, you must continually be monitoring the trends and move with it. I think the most successful businesses do this. I think the info posted by the original poster is exactly what all comicbook stores should be doing, looking at what items generate the most revenue for them and what the duds are. Also looking at other shops to get an idea of what moves well for them to see if there is anything you can learn is a good idea.

[mikephoen]

If I read the original title to this thread "do comicbook store's need a new business model", I would say definitely "NO!". Comicbook stores need what all businesses need, and ever evolving business model. To stay in business, you must continually be monitoring the trends and move with it. I think the most successful businesses do this. I think the info posted by the original poster is exactly what all comicbook stores should be doing, looking at what items generate the most revenue for them and what the duds are. Also looking at other shops to get an idea of what moves well for them to see if there is anything you can learn is a good idea.

 

Agree 100% with this. One of my favorite things to do when I'm traveling is to check out other comic stores and look for good ideas to steal.

[Sam T]

I would not think a returnable low profit system for new books would benefit me. We have a really good point of sale system which lets us order with great precision. We are sitting at about 93% sell through on single issues, which makes them very profitable. We leave books on the rack for one full year before they hit the dollar bin. Most major mavel and dc titles we aim to have enough copies to have them on the rack for the first six months after their release. Obviously the odd book here and there sells out faster than we expect, but again, a good point of sale system lets us identify those and reorder them if possible or get second prints etc.

 

That 93% sounds pretty impressive. I can't imagine my LCS is doing better than 60%-70% and even after a year they really can't afford to drop prices to a dollar on most books. I might try to volunteer at my LCS and maybe help them step their game up.

 

A lot of peoples complaints about the handling of books like Death of Superman, Captain 25, FF 587, etc.. seem to be entirely lacking in context. If your shop immediately raised the price on Death of Superman by 400-500% then they're most likely just being greedy, but almost 2 decades later the market isn't the same.

 

If your LCS says you can only buy one copy of FF587 isn't it more likely to be because they can't afford to take the loss and hassle of being stuck with extra copies of new releases that have almost no chance of selling after the first few weeks? They need those 3 copies to represent 3 independent chances to also sell other items. Can't you imagine the difficulties of owning a shop and maintaining a complex inventory and the risks taken every time an owner orders "extra" books?

 

And for the record, no the hobby can't exist without the LCS. Walmart will never carry hundreds of titles or a single line of indie books. If the only value an LCS has to you is the price of their books then you're using them wrong. This board is great but a thread titled "Who is the best robin" isn't the same as standing around longboxes and arguing that Tim Drake could snap Damian in two with an owner and whoever might just feel like chiming in.

[thehumantorch]

I walk into my old LCS about two weeks ago and see 3 copies of the Fantastic Four Issue in the poly bags (587?). I pick up all three copies along with a bunch of other new releases. As I am getting checked out the owner tells me I can only buy 1 copy. I ask why..he states he wants to have them if another customer walks in and wants a copy before he gets more next week. I give him a look and buy one copy and the rest of my books.

I walk out and think.... I am standing in front of you willing to buy all three copies and you tell me you rather take the chance that some one will walk in and buys the last two copies until you get more next week.

This makes no sense and I just went on line and bought the other two copies on Ebay...I guess in a couple months when they shut down I wouldn't have to wonder why.

 

thanks for letting me

 

Maybe he figures, if he has to sell to Speculators, better to get 3 of them in the store than just 1?

 

Quite the opposite. Rather than sell all the copies to a few speculators or hanging his extra copies on the wall at an inflated price he is limiting customers to 1 each and trying to keep more customers happy. There is huge demand for the book and this store owner is taking the least selfish approach and trying to satisfy every customer. I would go out of my way to deal at this store.

[MrBedrock]

This will not be a popular sentiment but here goes...

It is always interesting to watch these "death of the LCS" discussions. Particularly here on the CGC board. This chat board is overwhelmingly populated by back issue comic book collectors. As a category, back issue collectors make up such a small percentage of most LCS's customer base as to be essentially insignificant. There are certainly exceptions to that, Bedrock being one of them. But it takes a ton of work, time and cash to maintain the back stock required to properly service a back issue clientele. And even with all that effort the end sum is a break even proposition (unless the odd Savannah collection happens through your door, in which case you sell it through an auction house and it has no end effect on the day-to-day sales of your shop).

 

What I'm getting at is that back issue comic collectors need to realize that the time when the LCSs actively sought out your business is gone. If you aren't going into a comic shop looking to purchase some sort of retail item, be it a book, toy, t-shirt, supply or yes, a new comic book, the possibility is very high that the comic shop will have nothing for you. And the shop is probably not planning on spending much time looking to win you back.

[paperheart]

I walk into my old LCS about two weeks ago and see 3 copies of the Fantastic Four Issue in the poly bags (587?). I pick up all three copies along with a bunch of other new releases. As I am getting checked out the owner tells me I can only buy 1 copy. I ask why..he states he wants to have them if another customer walks in and wants a copy before he gets more next week. I give him a look and buy one copy and the rest of my books.

I walk out and think.... I am standing in front of you willing to buy all three copies and you tell me you rather take the chance that some one will walk in and buys the last two copies until you get more next week.

This makes no sense and I just went on line and bought the other two copies on Ebay...I guess in a couple months when they shut down I wouldn't have to wonder why.

 

thanks for letting me

 

Maybe he figures, if he has to sell to Speculators, better to get 3 of them in the store than just 1?

 

Quite the opposite. Rather than sell all the copies to a few speculators or hanging his extra copies on the wall at an inflated price he is limiting customers to 1 each and trying to keep more customers happy. There is huge demand for the book and this store owner is taking the least selfish approach and trying to satisfy every customer. I would go out of my way to deal at this store.

 

i would agree w/ HT here. what might have been best is if he had posted a sign that stated one per customer. my LCS does it all the time on "hot" books- they had the sign up for FF #587.