Where do I go to have a meltdown? LCS First World Troubles…

[techtre2003]

What's the shipping rate for DCBS? Are they flat rate like TFAW?

 

Can you add books as you please at DCBS? Like if I read good things about a book, can I add it Thursday and get it with the rest of my books at the end of the month?

 

As long as it is prior to the order cutoff date you can add or subtract as many books as you want.

[ChrisInBaltimore]

What's the shipping rate for DCBS? Are they flat rate like TFAW?

 

Can you add books as you please at DCBS? Like if I read good things about a book, can I add it Thursday and get it with the rest of my books at the end of the month?

 

As long as it is prior to the order cutoff date you can add or subtract as many books as you want.

 

If my books ship at the end of the month, when is te order cut off date?

 

I'm going to try out a different store first, but the information would be nice to have.

[techtre2003]

What's the shipping rate for DCBS? Are they flat rate like TFAW?

 

Can you add books as you please at DCBS? Like if I read good things about a book, can I add it Thursday and get it with the rest of my books at the end of the month?

 

As long as it is prior to the order cutoff date you can add or subtract as many books as you want.

 

If my books ship at the end of the month, when is te order cut off date?

 

I'm going to try out a different store first, but the information would be nice to have.

 

It varies from month to month depending on what Diamond sets their cut-off date as. Looks like this month it's the 22nd but that's pretty early. They won't let you edit your order after the cutoff date but you can usually put a new order in late. One time I missed a month and was able to put in an order the first week of the following month and it went through fine.

 

They have a lot of info about using their service posted on their site dcbs They were also pretty good about answering emails too if you have any specific questions for them.

[ChrisInBaltimore]

I'm officially a subscriber at Cards, Comics, and Collectables. I spent about sometime this afternoon and decided I liked it and with all the recommendations decided it was a good place to go.

 

I also picked up a nice ASM 26 reader. My ASM run is getting very close to being finished

[Buzzetta]

Imagine how much closer it would be if you trimmed the modern order in half.

 

[toro]

I'm officially a subscriber at Cards, Comics, and Collectables. I spent about sometime this afternoon and decided I liked it and with all the recommendations decided it was a good place to go.

 

I also picked up a nice ASM 26 reader. My ASM run is getting very close to being finished

 

After my old LCS closed I thought I'd change to an online service, but I stopped by another LCS that I had passed by for years. The owner is a great guy, and most of the people who go there are pretty nice too.

 

I'm glad you checked out the new store. (thumbs u

 

 

[ChrisInBaltimore]

Since this post, I've been on a sort of LCS Odyssey that has taken me in circles.

 

Based on a few comments here and PMs I got, I switched to Cards, Comics, and Collectables. I loved the store although it isn't the most organized place. The thing that killed it for me was the drive. It was about 25+ minutes from my house. I was driving past a lot of stores.

 

I started going in a store about 5 minutes from my house just to pick up stuff I read reviews about or to take my son to pick out a book. One day my daughter came and we asked the women for some reading suggestions. She made some and my daughter really had fun. When we walked out, my daughter exclaimed, "I really like this store."

 

The next week I closed my box at Cards, Comics, and Collectables after about a year of going there and switched to the closer store.

 

What I've found is a few things that are making me unhappy:

 

1) They keep putting post it notes on my books. I guess it is how they sort their pull lists. I've asked twice now for them to stop to no avail.

 

2) A lot of my books show a lot of corner damage. I'm not expecting to get 9.8 candidates or anything, but I'd like my books to at least looks nice.

 

3) The big thing: They keep missing issues. I've fallen behind on my modern reading and I've been getting caught up the last few weeks. I've been stacking books in order to read and I keep finding missing issues. This is truly unacceptable to me.

 

So I'm back to squire 1. My daughter has sort of lost interest again but now my son really enjoys going. Whenever my wife and daughter go off to have "Girl's Day" my son and I always have "Boy's Day" which consists of going to the comic store and getting a burger somewhere.

 

In short, what online subscription services do people use? I think I'm done with stores...

[Rich_Henn]

to the original poster----have you tried Third Eye Comics in Annapolis?

 

It might be a bit of a drive, but it's where I buy all my product.

They really set the bar for what counts as not just above and beyond customer service, they have literally hundreds of titles, and probably get in close to 75 to 100 copies of each book (or close to it, ---certainly seems like it) with 90% of what I look at in damn close to 9.8 quality.

 

The staff is simply a JOY to work with, they appreciate your business, they know that you have other options and from what I see every week, they treat each customer with respect, genuine appreciation and just all out and out super friendly attitude. Each customer is royalty.

 

It's about an hour each way for me to get out there and back, a two hour drive total, but quite frankly if they were two hours out each way I would probably still shop there. I genuinely enjoy giving them my business, they really have lightening in a bottle over there. Steve Anderson who is the owner of Third Eye goes out of his way to pull what you need, set you up with pull and hold, if there's a creator even, let's say, who does variants, you'll get on a short list to have those pulled when they come out

 

Actually, little known fact, Third Eye was on a top 10 list of comic shop retailers in the country which was printed in Maxim Magazine about a year or so ago.

 

They do in store signings on a regular basis with both small and big name creators, and people line up outside the shop EVERY TIME the night prior and make an event out of it.

 

One other thing about the staff I should mention---they are ALL on top of what is on the shelves and interact with the customers to not just inform them about what is hot, but what some other titles that said customer may have missed----the staff let's you know about those books.

They'll tell you about the plot, who the creative team is, if you are interested in A then you might want to check out B, etc. Simply amazing.

 

My personal favorite Third Eye story was when I attended one of their book clubs a few years back. The book in discussion was SCALPED. I loved that book.

But I was unaware of the other great books Jason Aaron was doing.

Steve and the other people in the group began talking about the other Jason Aaron books, and I think I dropped close to $300 in Aaron TPB that night, just so I could see what else he was writing. I wasn't disappointed.

 

At Third Eye, they are excited about comics, they are genuinely excited about the creators and they want to share that excitement with you. That's what really makes shopping there so much fun.

 

I don't know if I've ever met a more beloved retailer, Steve and his staff truly know how to make it work.

 

Here's a link to the shop---I know it might be a bit of a haul coming out of Baltimore, but it's really worth the trip.

 

http://www.thirdeyecomics.com/

 

https://www.facebook.com/thirdeyecomics/?fref=ts

[CAHokie]

I tried local shops but they would miss half my pull list and always if the issue was hot. They said I had too many different titles in my pull list and it was too hard. No problem, someone else might appreciate my $200-300 a month.

 

That is why I only use Midtown. I have never missed an issue and the books have rarely been damaged from NY to CA. They come bagged and boarded. I also like to look at issues (they show cover and description of book) coming out the next week and add them to the shipment. Same with any other items I want to add. I couldn't imagine finding a better place for me personally.

[Chaseman210]

Have you tried Ultimate Comics based in North Carolina? They offer discounts based on how many books you subscribe to, and they offer free monthly shipping.

[Artboy99]

I recently closed my file at a LCS I had been going to for 20 years. Over the time period of 2007 to present they missed over a 100 books on my ordered pull list.

I suppose I am partially to blame for not checking, I merely showed up to buy my file contents and took them home and put them into a box.

 

I spent several weeks without a file, and was scoping out stores to possibly open a file at.

I found a newly opened place just a few blocks from where I live and decided I liked the vibe of the place and opened a file.

 

Now that I have been a customer for a few weeks I already notice many things that bother me:

1. Disorganized. There are books all over the place and most of them are without prices. It is annoying as a customer to have to ask the price of a book to then find out it is either too much, or worse not even for sale! ( then why is it out???)

When I asked the store owner why the book is on display if it isn't for sale she got angry at the mere suggestion that a customer is trying to tell her how to run her store and she replied "lots of things you can see are not for sale. You can see my cash register, but it isn't for sale".

 

2. Grading/ pricing. Far to many LCS can not grade at all and therefore can not price. This LCS close to me is no exception. They have a GSXM 1 on their wall for a $1000 and it is at best a good.

[Hulksdaddy1]

Too bad you guys are so far away. I'd take good care of ya. 21 years in business, still love what I do!

 

 

[FineCollector]

When I asked the store owner why the book is on display if it isn't for sale she got angry at the mere suggestion that a customer is trying to tell her how to run her store and she replied "lots of things you can see are not for sale. You can see my cash register, but it isn't for sale".

 

She'd have to be very hot or very funny to pull that one on me...

 

I'm having trouble understanding books on display that aren't for sale. Are they in bins, up on the wall, or well hidden in closed boxes under counters that you had to drag out?

[Artboy99]

When I asked the store owner why the book is on display if it isn't for sale she got angry at the mere suggestion that a customer is trying to tell her how to run her store and she replied "lots of things you can see are not for sale. You can see my cash register, but it isn't for sale".

 

She'd have to be very hot or very funny to pull that one on me...

 

I'm having trouble understanding books on display that aren't for sale. Are they in bins, up on the wall, or well hidden in closed boxes under counters that you had to drag out?

 

On a display stand shelf beside other books for sale that have prices on them.

I have bought a book off that shelf previously.

Here is a picture of the store. Right shelf laying flat below the slabbed books. other books laying flat there have prices on them.

 

The shelves underneath are the files for customers.

[dupont2005]

I'd go to DCBS.

 

My childhood LCS was ran by a super cool guy who always had signings in the store, giant bargain bin, nice back issues, and he always gave me free stuff. Like when I grabbed 10 or so Epic Elfquests out of his bins he gave me a reprint of the magazine sized #1.

 

I guess he got too old and his son or grandson took over. A creepy goth who didn't seem to care about comics at all and just turned the store into a clubhouse for him and his friends to play Magic. He put heavy drapes over the windows, had a GIANT table dominating the floorspace where all his friends would sit around and sneer at customers, got rid of the bargain bin. I quit going.

 

It eventually got bought out by a nice couple but where the Magic table was they put a baby playpen and had an actual baby screaming and crying in it. They bought the place for something for the wife to do and didn't pull in much money. They put the place up for sale, said it made 10K a year, and I think that was total and not after the wife took a salary. So she worked in there full time for like $850 a month. Liquidated after about two years. Now the place is gone.

[CAHokie]

As I have said in the past, customers like me should be their dream. A guaranteed 300 a month not counting impulse buys. "Too many books" should not even be in their vocabulary.

[Chip Cataldo]

I wish I could have a store.

[SquareChaos]

I've had pulls at, I don't know, ten different LCS in my collecting life? The pulls have ranged from around 5 books to over 25 - no single shop has ever consistently failed to pull the issues I was subscribed to. There were instances here and there where one was missed, sure, but they were by far the exception - OP's problems seems to suggest it was the rule more often than not.

 

Is this something that happens to people a lot? How could they screw this up, it's their bread and butter, it should be pretty easy, right? :shrug:

 

 

Also... I remember reading this thread when it originally went up and seeing all of the modern hate. "Whoa, you're spending $150 on moderns?"

Revisiting it now by reading this thread over again in it's entirety, I still find that the most interesting part of the thread.

[dupont2005]

Is this something that happens to people a lot?

I stopped shopping at my current LCS because his policy is to put everything on the shelf Wednesday morning, open the store, and during store hours fill the pull boxes. If something is hot the local flippers who show up every Wednesday morning an hour before the store opens to stand in line out front will buy every copy and I won't get mine. Sometimes I miss an odd copy (always the copy selling for more online) out of a series. Sometimes it's the entire series. Never once got my Afterlife With Archie because every time an issue came out it would sell out to flippers before my box got filled. Also, for some reason, this shop owner refused to order anything from Fantagraphics, even when you specifically request it. I wanted Love And Rockets, which was coming out annually. He missed it twice, which means for TWO YEARS he me on that. Then, on the third year, I reminded him multiple times it was coming out and I wanted a copy. What I found in my pull box was a copy of Love And Capes. I forgot which comic made me decide to not come back but I made sure to not close my pull box. I wonder how full it got before he realized I wasn't going to be emptying it? That was pretty much the end of my modern floppy buying too, which has saved me probably $800 a year.

[Batman1fan]

I recently closed my file at a LCS I had been going to for 20 years. Over the time period of 2007 to present they missed over a 100 books on my ordered pull list.

I suppose I am partially to blame for not checking, I merely showed up to buy my file contents and took them home and put them into a box.

 

I spent several weeks without a file, and was scoping out stores to possibly open a file at.

I found a newly opened place just a few blocks from where I live and decided I liked the vibe of the place and opened a file.

 

Now that I have been a customer for a few weeks I already notice many things that bother me:

1. Disorganized. There are books all over the place and most of them are without prices. It is annoying as a customer to have to ask the price of a book to then find out it is either too much, or worse not even for sale! ( then why is it out???)

When I asked the store owner why the book is on display if it isn't for sale she got angry at the mere suggestion that a customer is trying to tell her how to run her store and she replied "lots of things you can see are not for sale. You can see my cash register, but it isn't for sale".

 

2. Grading/ pricing. Far to many LCS can not grade at all and therefore can not price. This LCS close to me is no exception. They have a GSXM 1 on their wall for a $1000 and it is at best a good.

 

I spent over 20 years in retail, and it right then and there I would have told her that her cash register had seen the last of my money, walked out and never darkened their doorstep again. I also might have told her to check out the Yelp website in a day or two for the fantastic review I would be posting about her store.