Are LCSs the new enemy or have they always been?

[1Cool]

I hit up a new shop in Columbus and the owner was a cool guy to talk to (not many books to buy but they can't all be winners). He was saying he takes offense when his long time customers come in and secretly buy up all of the new hot books without telling him about it. In his words they come in all sneaky and act like they are getting away with something. He said he still would sell the books at the price marked but if the customer tells him about it he can go in the back room and pull out more copies. He didn't really expect much info from guys like me who are in once and done but he feels his loyal long time customers should be a little more free with the info.

 

Do you feel long time buyers should help out the store owners or is it a dog eat dog world. I feel like it has to go both ways. If a store owner has been upfront in selling hot new books (like variants) then the buyer should give back a bit with some free info. If the store owner has jacked up the price of all new books and bought books for pennies on the dollar for years then all's fair in love and war.

[Chip Cataldo]

IMHO, store owners should know their business.

 

If I had a store no one would need to tell me what books were hot and what weren't. It's part of running a comic shop.

[Bill1]

All LCS's should sell all new releases at cover, unless they cost them more or if they have to buy multiples to get one, for at least new comic book day. Then, if they wisely ordered enough to have extra, they can raise the price. They should, however, limit purchases to one per, on new comic book day for cover price. They should not take advantage of us, but we should not try to make money on them.

[1Cool]

All LCS's should sell all new releases at cover, unless they cost them more or if they have to buy multiples to get one, for at least new comic book day. Then, if they wisely ordered enough to have extra, they can raise the price. They should, however, limit purchases to one per, on new comic book day for cover price. They should not take advantage of us, but we should not try to make money on them.

 

You had until that last sentence. Everyone is making money from pretty much everyone in this hobby / business.

[1Cool]

IMHO, store owners should know their business.

 

If I had a store no one would need to tell me what books were hot and what weren't. It's part of running a comic shop.

 

I hit up a different store yesterday and bought two nice copies of Marvel Premiere 1 at a great price. The owner said something about I must be speculating since I bought two copies of the same book I think I kind of shrugged and paid but I kind of shook my head on the way out. Couldn't believe he hadn't heard about MP 1 being a hot book by now. I hit up his store every month or so and feel no remorse about buying up a ton of his under priced books.

[W16227]

IMHO, store owners should know their business.

 

If I had a store no one would need to tell me what books were hot and what weren't. It's part of running a comic shop.

 

+1 to this -

 

if this is the persons full time gig - then how hard is it to keep up with this -

 

I know that Chip does this for a living ( - pretty sure anyway) - I would be willing to bey HE knows a majority of the hot books and takes every step he can to maximize what he can get for them. How hard would it be for a LCS to know this.....

 

 

Heck - while I do not keep as current as others with this - even I research the books I sell to make sure I know what the current pricing is. If I miss one and you get a deal - great! - then I get a repeat customer. It all averages out long term.

 

Dave

 

 

 

 

 

[Bill1]

All LCS's should sell all new releases at cover, unless they cost them more or if they have to buy multiples to get one, for at least new comic book day. Then, if they wisely ordered enough to have extra, they can raise the price. They should, however, limit purchases to one per, on new comic book day for cover price. They should not take advantage of us, but we should not try to make money on them.

 

You had until that last sentence. Everyone is making money from pretty much everyone in this hobby / business.

 

Not sure about that. I still think most LCS's are just barely hanging on. Certainly, they are not getting rich at it.

[revat]

All LCS's should sell all new releases at cover, unless they cost them more or if they have to buy multiples to get one, for at least new comic book day. Then, if they wisely ordered enough to have extra, they can raise the price. They should, however, limit purchases to one per, on new comic book day for cover price. They should not take advantage of us, but we should not try to make money on them.

 

You had until that last sentence. Everyone is making money from pretty much everyone in this hobby / business.

 

 

I think different strategies work for different markets. I will say that customers don't owe ANYTHING to the shops. The onus falls on store owners to do their own research, and make decisions based on the work they do. With that being said, you can develop rapport and loyalty with customers. As for raising/not raising prices, limiting copies, its gonna be different for each store.

 

When you limit purchases, you have to balance CASH IN HAND (which is no small thing in a business with small margins), and possibly another customer missing out on a comic they want. BUT seeing comics run out MIGHT get more people to subscribe as well, or come into your store more often. Its not always black and white, and its different for every market, so to throw out a blanket statement like 'limit to 1 per customer' as if its an obvious rule that should be followed seems....

 

....and then to follow that by comic stores can make money from customers but they shouldn't also try to make money....

 

for the purpose of this conversation, I think I see something that makes me feel like a one J Mccarthy.

[BettrFastrStrongr]

Great views here but I can't imagine the daunting task of running a comic shop, especially in this day and age. Just look at that Batman 40 fiasco. I'm not gonna pass judgement on a shop if they are not in the know of a certain "hot" issue. Shooooooooot, he's probably more worried on how to pay the rent.

[revat]

Great views here but I can't imagine the daunting task of running a comic shop, especially in this day and age. Just look at that Batman 40 fiasco. I'm not gonna pass judgement on a shop if they are not in the know of a certain "hot" issue. Shooooooooot, he's probably more worried on how to pay the rent.

 

agree, and I also won't pass judgment if he wants to raise the price, because he thinks its best. I'm an adult and I (and the rest of the market) can decide if that price point fits my preferences.

 

Store owner is doing their best to make a buck which ain't easy. They might be wrong from time to time, but who isn't? That's the beauty of capitalism. Make your decision, let the market decide, make adjustments accordingly. Survive if you can.

[PhoKing]

All LCS's should sell all new releases at cover, unless they cost them more or if they have to buy multiples to get one, for at least new comic book day. Then, if they wisely ordered enough to have extra, they can raise the price. They should, however, limit purchases to one per, on new comic book day for cover price. They should not take advantage of us, but we should not try to make money on them.

 

 

If I owned and operated a LCS I wouldn't impose a limit. Just the opportunity cost would have killed the business if I limited copies. Cash in hand is better than none.

 

LCS owners need to know their business other wise they just losing money.

 

I would keep an issue or two for myself.

[BettrFastrStrongr]

All LCS's should sell all new releases at cover, unless they cost them more or if they have to buy multiples to get one, for at least new comic book day. Then, if they wisely ordered enough to have extra, they can raise the price. They should, however, limit purchases to one per, on new comic book day for cover price. They should not take advantage of us, but we should not try to make money on them.

 

 

If I owned and operated a LCS I wouldn't impose a limit. Just the opportunity cost would have killed the business if I limited copies. Cash in hand is better than none.

 

LCS owners need to know their business other wise they just losing money.

 

I would keep an issue or two for myself.

 

Then we'll have members on here crying about how the LCS let one or two people buy all the hot books. Let the speculators go to the interwebs for their stock. I would rather have books for customers who invest the time to come to the shop. It's a fine line.

[1Cool]

The original owner asked why I thought his frequent buyers were being so sneaky. I said the market is a treasure hunt and he holds a lot of the material in his storage or boxes. If someone tells him about a book being worth triple what he is paying for (with 4 copies in hand) there could be some bad blood on future purchases. I'm also sure some guys are hoping the store owner re-stocks at a low price and they get more copies before the hype hits. Giving away valuable pre-hype info is definitely asking a lot of somebody when they can make hundreds if not thousands of dollars from buying up all the copies in a area.

[AmazingComics413]

Good topic Andrew.

 

Recently hit up a local store I had never been to. This store has been in business 40 years+, so I had to check the shop off my list. TONS of back issues. The kind of store I would frequent, and I'm sure plenty of boardies would enjoy as well.

 

I went to leave a positive review on Facebook, as there aren't many good spots for back issues around here. The owner was on the store's front page complaining about (paying) customers who come in and scoop up hot books at low prices. He called them "mistake buyers." Although, I wouldn't call it a "mistake" buy, but an educated one. I skipped out on leaving a positive review, because I would fall right into that category. Is it the customer's fault that the store owner neglects the thousands of books sitting in front of him? If your business is comics, shouldn't you be keeping track of what is in demand?

 

Don't get me wrong, if you're in the comics business for 40 years, you're (probably) doing something right. But if you can't keep up with the current market, maybe it is time to reevaluate pricing methods, instead of complaining about customers via social media.

[1Cool]

IMHO, store owners should know their business.

 

If I had a store no one would need to tell me what books were hot and what weren't. It's part of running a comic shop.

 

Its not that easy man. If you own a store you have a million things to worry about from ordering books to fixing the light fixtures. I can't imagine a store owner can spend a lot of time looking over completed e-bay sales or hanging out on the boards gathering info. That being said I don't think the LCS owner can't expect others to impart free knowledge about which book is hot. If they get some free info that great but you can't hold a grudge when they don't get it.

[revat]

IMHO, store owners should know their business.

 

If I had a store no one would need to tell me what books were hot and what weren't. It's part of running a comic shop.

 

Its not that easy man. If you own a store you have a million things to worry about from ordering books to fixing the light fixtures. I can't imagine a store owner can spend a lot of time looking over completed e-bay sales or hanging out on the boards gathering info. That being said I don't think the LCS owner can't expect others to impart free knowledge about which book is hot. If they get some free info that great but you can't hold a grudge when they don't get it.

 

I agree with you completely.

 

I think ideally most stores would try to run their store where they rely ONLY on sales of retail new books every week. Relying on sales of back issues or hot books for any amount of your expected revenues is far too inconsistent unless you have many many years of personal data and experience to draw from.

 

But if there's bandwidth to do a bit more research to make a bit more money, more power to you. But to expect something OF VALUE (information about comics trends) without GIVING value in return...well that sounds very entitled.

[Couchy81]

IMHO, store owners should know their business.

 

If I had a store no one would need to tell me what books were hot and what weren't. It's part of running a comic shop.

 

Its not that easy man. If you own a store you have a million things to worry about from ordering books to fixing the light fixtures. I can't imagine a store owner can spend a lot of time looking over completed e-bay sales or hanging out on the boards gathering info. That being said I don't think the LCS owner can't expect others to impart free knowledge about which book is hot. If they get some free info that great but you can't hold a grudge when they don't get it.

 

There are stores who know their prices and there are stores who don't. It's up to the owner to decide how to run his business.

 

 

[Chip Cataldo]

IMHO, store owners should know their business.

 

If I had a store no one would need to tell me what books were hot and what weren't. It's part of running a comic shop.

 

Its not that easy man. If you own a store you have a million things to worry about from ordering books to fixing the light fixtures. I can't imagine a store owner can spend a lot of time looking over completed e-bay sales or hanging out on the boards gathering info. That being said I don't think the LCS owner can't expect others to impart free knowledge about which book is hot. If they get some free info that great but you can't hold a grudge when they don't get it.

Dude, I've averaged listing nearly 200 auctions a week for the entire year. I do all that myself plus run my household AND take care of a 2-year-old. Running a store would be a breeze.

[revat]

IMHO, store owners should know their business.

 

If I had a store no one would need to tell me what books were hot and what weren't. It's part of running a comic shop.

 

Its not that easy man. If you own a store you have a million things to worry about from ordering books to fixing the light fixtures. I can't imagine a store owner can spend a lot of time looking over completed e-bay sales or hanging out on the boards gathering info. That being said I don't think the LCS owner can't expect others to impart free knowledge about which book is hot. If they get some free info that great but you can't hold a grudge when they don't get it.

Dude, I've averaged listing nearly 200 auctions a week for the entire year. I do all that myself plus run my household AND take care of a 2-year-old. Running a store would be a breeze.

 

uhh....congratulations

[mwande]

Great views here but I can't imagine the daunting task of running a comic shop, especially in this day and age. Just look at that Batman 40 fiasco. I'm not gonna pass judgement on a shop if they are not in the know of a certain "hot" issue. Shooooooooot, he's probably more worried on how to pay the rent.

 

Maybe I missed something. What was the "Batman 40 fiasco"?