Chuck explains his Mile High pricing

[Chip Cataldo]

Because you know, hearts.

ROTFL! Thanks for the laugh, man.

[ttfitz]

I am fine with Chuck pricing his books how ever he wants; it is his business to do what ever he wants with his business. What I can not stand for is his lack of business morals when it comes to the "pitch" in order to get you to buy something. Every other month he is going to go out of business if he doesn't sell "x" number, when ever there is a tragedy he is there to swoop in. The Hurricane Sandy hucksterism was the big and most recent one everyone will probably remember but he has done the exact same thing countless times.

 

Someones house was destroyed and they will not be able to buy comics from me, so I might go out of business unless you buy from me. A teenager died in a car accident outside out building, it is very sad..... want to buy some comics!

 

It is this disingenuous snake oil salesman approach that eventually turns repeat buyers away.

 

 

 

Full disclosure, I have purchased from MHC in the past and continue to do so (or try to). Every time he posts a 60% off code I try to bulk purchase NM copies of random books (quasar #1, Wonder man #1, Ninja High School #38, etc). I fine this very amusing as they usually cancel the order and unlist the issue completely, it is my little way of trolling them into thinking they are about to be taken advantage of.

 

I know, right? That just happened a few weeks ago, she crashed into the back dock of HIS building...and the next day he talked about it in his newsletter and was hawking comics in the next paragraph! "We're all really sad here... meanwhile the code word sale is still on!"

 

Any reason you left out this part of the story?

 

"So you know, my plan to help everyone heal is to host a small in-store auction of comics and toys on Saturday, April 11th, at Jason St. with 100% of the proceeds going to help her family to cover Karen's burial expenses."

[mrwoogieman]

I like Chuck and respect him as a businessman.

 

[theddybear-migration]

I think it devolved into a 20 page thread when I posted my last experience with MHC, but my feelings are simple.

 

Price however you want, but don't accept an order then decide to ship what you want against that order because a book Might be increasing in value. If that is a chief concern limit all customers to one of any single issue. If you do ship less then the accepted order at least don't overcharge insurance and shipping to boot.

 

He now calls Shadowman 8 an $80 book when you can get them all day long on eBay for 8. He calls a raw NM- NM 98 a 2500 dollar book. Looks like NM- on eBay are about 250 to 350.

 

Looks like he is aiming for a 10x value or if you wait for a sale 5x value on his in demand items.

 

Ace hardware stores are all independently locally owned franchises in most cities, the closet thing left to a mom and pop. A 25 oz. Framing hammer costs around 22 dollars at Home Depot. Can anyone believe for a second that Ace would survive selling that framing hammer at 110 to 220 dollars? Maybe in an economy 60 years ago when you couldn't go to Home Depot but not today.

 

I think he has been successful because what he did in the past but has failed to change much since the infancy of the internet. I think even into the late 90s and early 2000s he was an early adapter in internet channels, but I think his greed and the failure to roll with the changes in the last 7 to 8 years have really hurt him.

 

His overhead is a big nut to crack but he can probably float along for awhile. I would think he has plenty of high end books to go to when strapped. Many a dealer turn to him when overstocked or getting out so he has a pretty decent flow of new books coming in all the time so he may be a permanent fixture. Unfortunately I think that more than anything he wants to be an icon of the hobby. It can't be denied he did some great things, but his current business practices will deny him icon status if they don't result in the collapse of his business.

[cloud cloddie]

Full disclosure, I have purchased from MHC in the past and continue to do so (or try to). Every time he posts a 60% off code I try to bulk purchase NM copies of random books (quasar #1, Wonder man #1, Ninja High School #38, etc). I fine this very amusing as they usually cancel the order and unlist the issue completely, it is my little way of trolling them into thinking they are about to be taken advantage of.

 

[ft88]

Holding inventory is usually a death blow for companies that don't have a handle on pricing. It hasn't hurt that his inventory, both high value and low value has increased over time. Not many businesses have that luxury. I believe he was hurt hard during the 1990s (short term) melt down in prices.

 

I get what he's trying to do, but between mycomicshop and milehigh I have to figure MCS has better growth potential and a better model all around.

 

Ed

[ft88]

I bought a couple Dallas Stephens Four Color books from him about 12 years ago and really decent prices.

[Gatsby77]

His prices may be out-of-whack on his website, but not always on eBay.

 

I've been buying Magnus 0s since December. 4 of my copies came from Mile High, via eBay BINs. All were solid NM (9.4 or better). His price on the website? $60. My actual buy price via eBay? $17-22 each, shipped. A few times I literally didn't realize I was purchasing from Mile High 'til the book arrived.

 

And hate all you want, he's a solid businessman. He's survived many downturns & reversals in this hobby over the last 40 years and is still in business. That takes real skill.

 

 

[COI]

This pretty much nails it. He somehow gets just enough people to drink his Kool-aid to keep the lights on.

I'm fairly certain that 90% of this board would have turned the Church collection and all that came after into more than he has. He got lucky. Dumb people win the lottery all the time. His "poor pitiful me" stories and his tales of his "heroic" acts involving the Church collection are laughable.

I've met him a few times at shows. He's a bit aloof, but seems like an o.k. guy. His public persona is pretty much a joke though to anyone that's knowledgeable enough to see through the b.s.

 

 

Is there anything he does thats is not a mixture of poor me and look at how awesome I am plea ?

 

Yeah, dumb people win the lottery all the time; what they rarely do is keep those winnings rolling for 30+ years.

 

And the idea that most of you would have done better with the collection in the context of the time period is laughable.

[COI]

Most of you are conflating 'his business model doesn't suit my needs as a consumer' with 'his business model doesn't work'; they're not the same thing, nor does the latter follow from the former.

[topofthetotem]

I have a hard time letting go of a mid grade so I think I would have done better because I would have kept them.

[1Cool]

I dont know Chuck and have not spent more then a couple minutes looking at his site. All of his prices were sky high so I moved on. His raising his prices to give an artificial 50% discount seems a bit shady to me but it seems to be fooling a lot of suckers . . I mean people.

[mschmidt]

Most of you are conflating 'his business model doesn't suit my needs as a consumer' with 'his business model doesn't work'; they're not the same thing, nor does the latter follow from the former.

 

His business model works just fine - he's proof positive that prolonged carnival barking will allow you to tap into the vast & lucrative market known as "buyers who like getting reamed & come back asking for more".

 

It doesn't mean, however, that we have to respect him as a business man - as far as I'm concerned, he's pretty much the lowest of low; a scam artist who preys on ill-informed consumers :thumbsup:

[COI]

Most of you are conflating 'his business model doesn't suit my needs as a consumer' with 'his business model doesn't work'; they're not the same thing, nor does the latter follow from the former.

 

His business model works just fine - he's proof positive that prolonged carnival barking will allow you to tap into the vast & lucrative market known as "buyers who like getting reamed & come back asking for more".

 

It doesn't mean, however, that we have to respect him as a business man - as far as I'm concerned, he's pretty much the lowest of low; a scam artist who preys on ill-informed consumers :thumbsup:

 

He has a track record of scamming people? And do people who don't have access to google really spend enough for Chuck to pay his mortgages? Because that's the only way you can really be totally clueless in 2015, unless you're a regular contributor to the Prince of Nigeria's International Bank of Banking, in which case you and your money were destined to part ways.

[mrc]

He has hardly justified his exorbitant markups. The analogy doesn't hold, I bet the price of a left handed widget at McGuckins doesn't cost 10 times the price I can get it at lowes.

 

Assuming that you can get a left handed widget at Lowes, which I think is his point. The analogy isn't perfect, but in essence he's trying to separate himself from the rest of the pack by offering a breadth of inventory no one else can or will.

 

 

The only problem is with this analogy you leave out the fact that with the internet there are so many choices and availability that you don't need his store to find what you want. I think he is still stuck in the old mail order days when you did not have the ease of finding what you are looking for.

 

Right, but he's keeping the lights on and he has millions of comics in stock. People are buying from him. Your point about the internet providing a many alternatives means that people are buying from him because they are getting something unique by shopping from him, either in terms of selection or price or both. If his goal is to inflate the prices on some of his stock to justify stocking things of little to no value or very niche demand, while at the same time aspiring towards the larger (and probably imposssible) goal of stocking every American comic book evr published, what exactly is wrong with that? How is he maintaining and expanding this enormous inventory if he isn't making sales? And if he's making sales, on what grounds do so many people base their criticisms of his operation?

 

 

....on the grounds that if he followed a more successful business model (like mcs) and put the customer first (instead of himself) not only would he less people off, but also make more money. But of course, that's his choice.

 

 

 

[mschmidt]

Most of you are conflating 'his business model doesn't suit my needs as a consumer' with 'his business model doesn't work'; they're not the same thing, nor does the latter follow from the former.

 

His business model works just fine - he's proof positive that prolonged carnival barking will allow you to tap into the vast & lucrative market known as "buyers who like getting reamed & come back asking for more".

 

It doesn't mean, however, that we have to respect him as a business man - as far as I'm concerned, he's pretty much the lowest of low; a scam artist who preys on ill-informed consumers :thumbsup:

 

He has a track record of scamming people? And do people who don't have access to google really spend enough for Chuck to pay his mortgages? Because that's the only way you can really be totally clueless in 2015, unless you're a regular contributor to the Prince of Nigeria's International Bank of Banking, in which case you and your money were destined to part ways.

 

He raises the prices site-wide before announcing one of his big codeword sales & then cries in his newsletters about the low, low nature of his prices.

 

His entire business model is proof positive that there's a metric ton of clueless people out there - how else would you explain that he's still in business considering that pretty much every single comic book that's available on his site is available elsewhere for far cheaper? His excellent customer service? ::

[COI]

Most of you are conflating 'his business model doesn't suit my needs as a consumer' with 'his business model doesn't work'; they're not the same thing, nor does the latter follow from the former.

 

His business model works just fine - he's proof positive that prolonged carnival barking will allow you to tap into the vast & lucrative market known as "buyers who like getting reamed & come back asking for more".

 

It doesn't mean, however, that we have to respect him as a business man - as far as I'm concerned, he's pretty much the lowest of low; a scam artist who preys on ill-informed consumers :thumbsup:

 

He has a track record of scamming people? And do people who don't have access to google really spend enough for Chuck to pay his mortgages? Because that's the only way you can really be totally clueless in 2015, unless you're a regular contributor to the Prince of Nigeria's International Bank of Banking, in which case you and your money were destined to part ways.

 

He raises the prices site-wide before announcing one of his big codeword sales & then cries in his newsletters about the low, low nature of his prices.

 

His entire business model is proof positive that there's a metric ton of clueless people out there - how else would you explain that he's still in business considering that pretty much every single comic book that's available on his site is available elsewhere for far cheaper? His excellent customer service? ::

 

Anyone getting his newsletter and regularly shopping on the site would clearly see this tactic, so where's the scam? Even if they're unaware, where's the scam? He lists books for a price, and you can either buy it or not buy it; that's not a scam because the buyer is not being misled. You simply can't determine MH customer intentions or gullibility any more than you can determine if someone paying thousands of dollars for some 9.8 variant that came out yesterday is, in a more abstract sense, being misled by hype, greed, and speculators passing along their hot potatoes. I'm not suggesting he's an awesome guy; what I am suggesting is that the hate he gets is disproportionate to what amounts to little more than carnival barking, to use your words.

 

Large segments of this hobby have become so $$$$ focused that undisclosed pressing isn't even a "thing" anymore, people can doctor books with thousands of dollars at stake and it barely makes a dent in the collective consciousness, and known dirt-bags with a long history of committing actual fraud still operate freely, because cool books, and despite all of this the community piles on the moral outrage over obnoxious grandstanding with a totally straight face. In what world is someone selling books with undisclosed pressing (just an example) less misleading than Chuckles pricing things high? In the case of undisclosed pressing, the buyer's agency is compromised; with Chuck, it's all out on the table and you can buy or not buy. He's just an easy target for people around here to project upon because most are not interested in doing business with him. It's silly.

 

 

[musicmeta]

Personally I have no idea why people buy from Mile High. It just baffles me.

 

Same here!

[mschmidt]

Most of you are conflating 'his business model doesn't suit my needs as a consumer' with 'his business model doesn't work'; they're not the same thing, nor does the latter follow from the former.

 

His business model works just fine - he's proof positive that prolonged carnival barking will allow you to tap into the vast & lucrative market known as "buyers who like getting reamed & come back asking for more".

 

It doesn't mean, however, that we have to respect him as a business man - as far as I'm concerned, he's pretty much the lowest of low; a scam artist who preys on ill-informed consumers :thumbsup:

 

He has a track record of scamming people? And do people who don't have access to google really spend enough for Chuck to pay his mortgages? Because that's the only way you can really be totally clueless in 2015, unless you're a regular contributor to the Prince of Nigeria's International Bank of Banking, in which case you and your money were destined to part ways.

 

He raises the prices site-wide before announcing one of his big codeword sales & then cries in his newsletters about the low, low nature of his prices.

 

His entire business model is proof positive that there's a metric ton of clueless people out there - how else would you explain that he's still in business considering that pretty much every single comic book that's available on his site is available elsewhere for far cheaper? His excellent customer service? ::

 

Anyone getting his newsletter and regularly shopping on the site would clearly see this tactic, so where's the scam? Even if they're unaware, where's the scam? He lists books for a price, and you can either buy it or not buy it; that's not a scam because the buyer is not being misled. You simply can't determine MH customer intentions or gullibility any more than you can determine if someone paying thousands of dollars for some 9.8 variant that came out yesterday is, in a more abstract sense, being misled by hype, greed, and speculators passing along their hot potatoes. I'm not suggesting he's an awesome guy; what I am suggesting is that the hate he gets is disproportionate to what amounts to little more than carnival barking, to use your words.

 

Has he ever mentioned in his newsletter that prior to his 50/60% sales he raises the prices of his entire inventory? To me, that is superbly scammy :shrug:

[1950's war comics]

even at any prices he doesn't have any golden age books that I need in stock.