NYcc sales report

[Flex Mentallo]

In the 70's, The Tooth Fairy used to leave a quarter under my pillow when I lost a tooth

 

That's funny. My tooth used to leave a fairy.

[Hulksdaddy1]

In the 70's, The Tooth Fairy used to leave a quarter under my pillow when I lost a tooth

 

Wonder how much she'll leave the second time around?

[Flex Mentallo]

In the 70's, The Tooth Fairy used to leave a quarter under my pillow when I lost a tooth

 

Wonder how much she'll leave the second time around?

 

Fairies never kiss and tell.

[VintageComics]

You do know that people used to get dressed up at shows in the 70's.

 

Halloween has also grown into the 2nd largest retail sales number so wouldn't it be logical that more "cosplay" costumes would be showing up at comic book conventions.

 

Grump

 

True story.

 

At Fan Expo this year Louise and I stepped into our host hotel restaurant for dinner.

 

As I walked in, I walked past an older couple (about the same age as myself, maybe a couple of years older) and some friends of theirs at the bar.

 

I guess they had seen a few costumes floating around. Well, I am walking around in my usual denim and leather with my hair down and the lady at the bar upon seeing me blurts out "So what are you dressed up as?!?"

 

I laugh and say "What are you talking about?"

 

She says "What are you dressed as? Who are you dressed up as?"

 

I stop and turn in to her with an intense but satirical stare and just say "Lady, I simply roll out of bed, pull on a pair of jeans and go out for dinner. Every day. That's what I'm dressed up as."

 

So I guess yeah,there are some cosplayers who buy comics.

[Sqeggs]

Stamps...

 

Those are really cool books. Collecting stuff like this is what makes the hobby fun for me. (I include Baker in "stuff.")

 

Collecting run-of-the-mill super hero books is mostly a matter of just spending the dough.

 

That's what makes Harley or Richie M such great dealers. You walk up to them and ask about an obscure book and they may not have it but they likely know what it is and can talk to you about it. With other dealers you are likely to get the brush off.

 

Not that I don't also have a lot of super hero books.

 

I tend to know which dealers like to talk about what books, or not, and try to be respectful of their time. Even the chattiest of dealers can get busy, and likely doesn't have time to shoot the mess over how excited I am about a new-to-me PCH book, for example.

 

And then there are people who post to chat boards under the misapprehension that people care about their half-assed opinions. (thumbs u

[blazingbob]

I would have said congratulations and asked when the baby was due.

[Tri-Color Brian]

Bob, Bob, Bob, I wouldn't want to have your job. Being a dealer sounds like a pain in the_____. Of course, as a self-employed person you have the right to be as confident or cocky as you want, but it just seemed like you were in a really grumpy mood and wanted to pontificate on Gator's woes. That seemed a little strange coming from a fellow dealer. I was just trying to kid with you a little and lighten things up, but you seem to be too intense. Perhaps a vacation is in order...maybe to sunny AZ, where I can show you what kind of books I would like to see on your website. We could do lunch with Bill...maybe play a few old Montavanni records, play some shuffleboard...it would be a Hoot!

[originalisbest]

Stamps...

 

Those are really cool books. Collecting stuff like this is what makes the hobby fun for me. (I include Baker in "stuff.")

 

Collecting run-of-the-mill super hero books is mostly a matter of just spending the dough.

 

That's what makes Harley or Richie M such great dealers. You walk up to them and ask about an obscure book and they may not have it but they likely know what it is and can talk to you about it. With other dealers you are likely to get the brush off.

 

Not that I don't also have a lot of super hero books.

 

I tend to know which dealers like to talk about what books, or not, and try to be respectful of their time. Even the chattiest of dealers can get busy, and likely doesn't have time to shoot the mess over how excited I am about a new-to-me PCH book, for example.

 

And then there are people who post to chat boards under the misapprehension that people care about their half-assed opinions. (thumbs u

 

You're cute in the mornings. Afternoons, not so much!

[Filter81]

I will defend Rick here by simply saying that the Reed Expo floor sales reps do not have the best interest of the out of town comic dealers at heart. When I got my terrible booth placement it would not have mattered how loud I announced it on my web-site, how many e-mails I sent to my NY customers, or how much I spent to have local picketers walk the convention entrance with Bedrock City signs, I was not going to get the same foot traffic or sales as the core of East Coast dealers who set up every year, get personal visits from the Reed reps, and probably person_without_enough_empathy, whine and bribe their way into those spots (that being the NY way to get things done). Screw that, I don't have time for it anymore. Anyone who is thinking of setting up a small booth at NYCC for the first time should listen to what happened to Rick. You will not get any kind of reasonable booth placement. They will promise you the moon...and deliver the bathroom. And it isn't just comic dealers. The same thing has happened to a number of small publishers.

 

 

So did you guys (both Rick and Rich) not pick your booths and just have Reed choose them for you?

 

From what I understand they actually allow you to choose a booth space from a map.

 

 

They let you choose a booth space from a map. (Which even though Rick is too polite to say it, was my job for this show, so the blame for getting a bad spot falls some % on me and some % on the promoters.) But the map they show you only has booth numbers, and you are not able to see who (or what) you are set up next to. Which is made further complicated by the fact that NYCC shifts around the entire floor plan so often. Danielle and I have had this problem once before with NYCC so we try to be extra diligent about our location when dealing with NYCC and we asked a LOT of questions before choosing our spot. The problem is we were given all the wrong answers. (We've never had a location problem at any other convention we've set up at, not that we set up at that many, so we always try to do our homework for NYCC.)

 

We started contacting our reps early in the year (our first rep was relieved of his job midway through the process, which probably didn't help things). We were told in writing (three times) that we were in the "heart" of the gold/silver age comic section, and specifically that we would be set up next to Harley Yee & Mike Carbo. I probably should have made some calls to verify this, but had no reason at the time not to believe what I was being told. I didn't know until reading this thread that we weren't even listed in the comic dealer section online which is even more disappointing.. we talked extensively to our both of our reps and our booth name had comics right in the title..

 

The location itself (as far as aisle space, distance from entrances etc) wasn't bad. We were only a few aisles in and a few aisles over from the entrance. The problem is the gold/silver age comic dealers were in the other direction. We had "Hello Kitty" on our left, swords across from us, insurance on the right, and posters behind us. So many people who went to the show to buy comics never made it to our area. When we first arrived on-site and saw our location we immediately went to Fedex on Wednesday and had a large $250 4' by 5' sign printed at the on-site Fedex store to hang from the top of our booth so that hopefully people would see us from several aisles over. When we came in Thursday morning to hang it up, the dealer behind us had overnight set up a 30 foot high wall of poster prints directly behind us which would have completely blocked anything we hung up. Basically, we couldn't catch a break last week.

 

When we spoke to our rep at Reed to let him know how unhappy we were, he basically told us mistakes were made on their end, explained that when he got the job he walked into a mess, he was sorry, and would do his best to make it up to us next year. He also explained that the person behind us with the 30 foot high setup wasn't "supposed" to set up that high, but it was already set up so it was too late for him to take it down. To our new rep's credit, he did his best to try to make things right, but a $300 discount on next year's booth (while a reasonable thing to offer since the booth is only $1800 to begin with) pretty much only covers the cost of a meal in NYCC, and is not much more than a blip when you factor in travel costs, hotel costs, etc etc.

 

Lucky for Danielle and I our sales were still "ok" (I think we did around $100k which is a little less than half of what we do at a normal NYCC show) Thanks mainly to friends, fellow dealers, and fellow boardies. And going out to see dealers/boardies is pretty much the only reason we even do the one show anymore each year when it's so much easier to sell online or privately anyway.

 

We did some last minute buying on Sunday to try to help off-set a few of our costs. (but unfortunately it is slim pickings by Sunday afternoon if the intent is to buy to resell at a profit) Speaking just for Danielle and myself, our biggest difference between this year and last year is that some of our biggest buyers (Bob, Doug, Tom etc) didn't buy from us this year which was probably due to some holes in our inventory this time around and had nothing to do with our location.

 

A lot of posters in this thread (Bob especially) bring up some excellent suggestions some of which were implemented already this year, and others that we'll definitely try next year (if we go back next year.)

 

While it's definitely unfair to just blame the promoters for a bad show, we probably heard something along the lines of "Hey, I've been trying to find your booth all week but couldn't find you" twice for every time we heard someone ask to see a book on the wall. We could have probably limited that problem with better promotion, but still, it's not fun to hear all week long from people who went out of their way to try to find us and couldn't do it. That (and the fact that we weren't set up where we were told we would be) are my only complaints. (Except that for the 5th year in a row I was unable to make it out of NYCC without finding out what the Buffalo Bills final score was before getting to watch the game )

 

I don't think I'd go back as an exhibitor (although no final decision has been made on that yet) but it was still fun to see everyone since we don't make it out to the convention circuit much anymore. So I'm choosing to look at this more as an expensive vacation where we had to work 8 hours a day Rick, having to fly up all the way from Florida, got the worst end of it by far.

 

In retrospect, it was probably a good thing that our sales were light this year anyway, because Danielle's purse got lost on the way home

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[blazingbob]

Sales were light at $100K?

 

Wow, I think if you went to most of the dealers on the floor and asked if $100K were light they would say "Are you kidding".

 

 

 

 

 

 

[originalisbest]

Hope your wife gets her purse back/cards, etc. are easy to cancel -- that sort of thing is always an unwelcome PITA.

[Filter81]

Sales were light at $100K?

 

Wow, I think if you went to most of the dealers on the floor and asked if $100K were light they would say "Are you kidding".

 

 

It could always be worse Different business models are at play too though. We try to sell mostly wall books where the profit margin may be only 10%-20%. Which probably nets the same as a dealer who does $20,000 in sales in box books if his profit margin is 100%. It's all relative.

 

By no means am I complaining (except about our spot), getting out to NYCC was a lot of fun (until Sunday when we were all ready to just go home!)

[Filter81]

Hope your wife gets her purse back/cards, etc. are easy to cancel -- that sort of thing is always an unwelcome PITA.

 

Thanks! The credit cards were a pain. The tougher pill to swallow was losing all our cash from the show, and needing to call up anyone who issued us a check in NYC and asking them to be cancelled

[originalisbest]

Hope your wife gets her purse back/cards, etc. are easy to cancel -- that sort of thing is always an unwelcome PITA.

 

Thanks! The credit cards were a pain. The tougher pill to swallow was losing all our cash from the show, and needing to call up anyone who issued us a check in NYC and asking them to be cancelled

 

GUH. Super annoying.

[blazingbob]

If I'm making $10-20K profit at a show based on your model's example I would be hard pressed to say my sales were "light".

 

If you did the "national tour of shows" and were doing $100K at some of them I don't think you were be posting this. In fact I think you were be getting high fives and congratulations from your fellow dealers.

 

I'm sorry to hear Danielle lost her purse. The calling of banks/credit card companies is a royal PITA.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Filter81]

If I'm making $10-20K profit at a show based on your model's example I would be hard pressed to say my sales were "light".

 

If you did the "national tour of shows" and were doing $100K at some of them I don't think you were be posting this. In fact I think you were be getting high fives and congratulations from your fellow dealers.

 

I'm sorry to hear Danielle lost her purse. The calling of banks/credit card companies is a royal PITA.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You're probably right. My experience is probably different from the norm since I've only ever set up at NYC shows and SDCC. But if I'm making $10k-$20k in profit (before show costs), and spending $8k-$10k to set up at the show (and discounting what I'm selling) it winds up being closer to break even than it sounds. It's probably easier to sell here, on eBay, Clink, Cconnect, HA, Highgrade, etc except for the fact that then you don't get to meet up with everyone. (All my sales came from 8-9 books) which is why I've cut down to the one show a year.

 

All things considered, I am satisfied with the sales we did, especially considering how it could have gone. My only complaint is with Reed putting us somewhere completely different than they said they were going to.

 

 

[campued1010]

If I'm making $10-20K profit at a show based on your model's example I would be hard pressed to say my sales were "light".

 

If you did the "national tour of shows" and were doing $100K at some of them I don't think you were be posting this. In fact I think you were be getting high fives and congratulations from your fellow dealers.

 

I'm sorry to hear Danielle lost her purse. The calling of banks/credit card companies is a royal PITA.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You're probably right. My experience is probably different from the norm since I've only ever set up at NYC shows and SDCC. But if I'm making $10k-$20k in profit (before show costs), and spending $8k-$10k to set up at the show (and discounting what I'm selling) it winds up being closer to break even than it sounds. It's probably easier to sell here, on eBay, Clink, Cconnect, HA, Highgrade, etc except for the fact that then you don't get to meet up with everyone. (All my sales came from 8-9 books) which is why I've cut down to the one show a year.

 

All things considered, I am satisfied with the sales we did, especially considering how it could have gone. My only complaint is with Reed putting us somewhere completely different than they said they were going to.

 

that and the fact you had to listen to Rick all four days!!!!!

[G.A.tor]

If I'm making $10-20K profit at a show based on your model's example I would be hard pressed to say my sales were "light".

 

If you did the "national tour of shows" and were doing $100K at some of them I don't think you were be posting this. In fact I think you were be getting high fives and congratulations from your fellow dealers.

 

I'm sorry to hear Danielle lost her purse. The calling of banks/credit card companies is a royal PITA.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You're probably right. My experience is probably different from the norm since I've only ever set up at NYC shows and SDCC. But if I'm making $10k-$20k in profit (before show costs), and spending $8k-$10k to set up at the show (and discounting what I'm selling) it winds up being closer to break even than it sounds. It's probably easier to sell here, on eBay, Clink, Cconnect, HA, Highgrade, etc except for the fact that then you don't get to meet up with everyone. (All my sales came from 8-9 books) which is why I've cut down to the one show a year.

 

All things considered, I am satisfied with the sales we did, especially considering how it could have gone. My only complaint is with Reed putting us somewhere completely different than they said they were going to.

 

that and the fact you had to listen to Rick all four days!!!!!

[Iceman399]

If I'm making $10-20K profit at a show based on your model's example I would be hard pressed to say my sales were "light".

 

If you did the "national tour of shows" and were doing $100K at some of them I don't think you were be posting this. In fact I think you were be getting high fives and congratulations from your fellow dealers.

 

I'm sorry to hear Danielle lost her purse. The calling of banks/credit card companies is a royal PITA.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You're probably right. My experience is probably different from the norm since I've only ever set up at NYC shows and SDCC. But if I'm making $10k-$20k in profit (before show costs), and spending $8k-$10k to set up at the show (and discounting what I'm selling) it winds up being closer to break even than it sounds. It's probably easier to sell here, on eBay, Clink, Cconnect, HA, Highgrade, etc except for the fact that then you don't get to meet up with everyone. (All my sales came from 8-9 books) which is why I've cut down to the one show a year.

 

All things considered, I am satisfied with the sales we did, especially considering how it could have gone. My only complaint is with Reed putting us somewhere completely different than they said they were going to.

 

that and the fact you had to listen to Rick complain about how he is old and needs to sit down all day cause his back is sore and there is only one chair so NO adam you can't sit, NO danielle you can't sit, this seat is reserved for the old all four days!!!!!