I'm opening up a brick and mortar this year and want some advice!! 7 7

[the blob]

Great posts. I know they come from year's of business experience and they clearly spell out what it takes to make a comic business work.

 

Do you think it's feasible to run a part time comic store, open 20 to 30 hours per week, in a very low rent, no wage situation? Think of it as a part time experiment to see if it's for you and to see if you can grow it into a full time store?

 

Junkdrawer does something like that, no?

 

His rent on his store is about as much as a nice big climate controlled storage locker.

 

[thehumantorch]

Great posts. I know they come from year's of business experience and they clearly spell out what it takes to make a comic business work.

 

Do you think it's feasible to run a part time comic store, open 20 to 30 hours per week, in a very low rent, no wage situation? Think of it as a part time experiment to see if it's for you and to see if you can grow it into a full time store?

 

Junkdrawer does something like that, no?

 

His rent on his store is about as much as a nice big climate controlled storage locker.

 

I think so. I'm just thinking that keeping your current job, perhaps with reduced hours, and opening a store part time might be a safer way to get into the business.

[shadroch]

Baby steps work great in many situations, but sometimes you really need a leap of faith.

[Moondog]

I'm not aware of any successful shops in the northwest and northern suburbs of Chicago that have opened in the past 5 years. Rents are sky high so that may have something to do with it.

[Moondog]

It also means that he'll need to turn his inventory at least 10 times annually.

 

In that example, he would turn his inventory 5x per year, not 10x. $100k of retail inventory at $50k cost. Rev is $500k with COGS at $250k. So, inventory turns would be $250k annual COGS divided by the $50k of inventory or 5x.

 

Yes, of course. Thanks for the correction. Gotta quit making these posts at 2:00 a.m....

 

[shadroch]

Several shops have opened in Last Vegas the last two years. A couple of them are second or third locations of previously opened shops. Rents are much cheaper here.

[Pike's Comics]

POS:

 

-Do you plan to deal in MTG singles and sell them online? Then crystal commerce is your only choice.

 

If you are okay running two separate POS I would then pair this with Comichub or Diamond's Comicsuite.

 

 

[october]

I'm not aware of any successful shops in the northwest and northern suburbs of Chicago that have opened in the past 5 years. Rents are sky high so that may have something to do with it.

 

Chimera opened in LaGrange. Can't imagine rent is too cheap there. Pretty sure he is doing ok, but not 100% sure.

[Genesis Comics]

POS:

 

-Do you plan to deal in MTG singles and sell them online? Then crystal commerce is your only choice.

 

If you are okay running two separate POS I would then pair this with Comichub or Diamond's Comicsuite.

 

 

So Crystal Commerce is a seperate POS system? Like ComicSuite for gaming cards?

Or is it software for a POS?

[Moondog]

I'm not aware of any successful shops in the northwest and northern suburbs of Chicago that have opened in the past 5 years. Rents are sky high so that may have something to do with it.

 

Chimera opened in LaGrange. Can't imagine rent is too cheap there. Pretty sure he is doing ok, but not 100% sure.

 

Haven't heard of Chimera, Andy.

[the blob]

https://www.facebook.com/Chimerascomics/photos/

 

Looks like a nice place, community destination spot, etc.

[AndyFish]

This is a great thread with a tremendous amount of good advice-- I echo the "don't do it" sentiment and if you do, change your mind about the online aspect of it as that takes your customer base from the 100s that walk by to the millions all over the world. Packaging is a lot less work than filing bankruptcy papers.

 

My experience comes from retail grocery where I worked my way from a bag boy to a divisional vice president, my duties included opening new stores and investigating why failing stores were not performing and then taking steps to turn them around or to close them. Grocery stores operate on tiny margins, so they are extremely difficult to make profitable, but look around, there are a lot of them, so it can be done.

 

The biggest reason I saw stores fail: Poorly trained staff, cleanliness issues, lack of customer service, hours that didn't match customer needs.

 

One of my closest friends owns one of the largest comic shops in the Northeast and he retired at 45 from day to day activity at the shop and has a staff that runs it for him. He and I would spend a lot of time talking retail and it's not far from the retail grocery world.

 

For the past 15 years I've been a full time comic book artist, working for a variety of clients most of whom no one in the comics world has ever heard of because quite simply I don't love superheroes so that puts me out from mainstream American comics, my wife does currently work for Marvel as the artist on Spiderwoman so I'm in tune with them too.

 

We do several cons all over the country and I've traveled to comic shops from east to west and I see some that are great and some that are still just as bad as the dank old comic shops of the 80s that used a cigar box instead of a cash register.

 

I strongly agree with the poster that said watch the music or WHATEVER you have playing on your PA system. I was in one shop that had horrible rap music blasting, another had droning folk music and still another had the most obnoxious comic book promotional video playing over and over again on the TV-- all of these drove me running out of the store. You know why big retailers play that Musak ? Because shoppers barely notice it. That background music should be white noise.

 

All right so from there-- approach your store like a customer, if you have a wife get her insight too. Too many shops are run like boys clubs, what you might see as a "cool fun place to hang out" I see as a place where the regulars are all engaged in conversation and I'm ignored.

 

Gamers are a necessary evil because they provide some small revenue when your comic sales are off but set them out of the way of your main store and make sure they behave themselves.

 

I walked into a comic shop in Northampton Ma one day, and it's a nice enough shop with a big discount TPB section and in the middle of the store was a table with about seven gamers packed around it-- they were eating chinese food and basically acting like a bunch of should be adults who live in mom's basement and were out of that setting for the first time in years-- yup, you guessed it, I didn't spend much time there-- counter this with the $200 I dropped the previous time I was in and guess what-- no gamers that day.

 

In my experience the stereotypical "comic book guy" of Simpson's fame is actually a gamer. Most comic buyers seem like pretty normal folks, it's the gamers who don't seem to understand the magic of soap and deodorant.

 

If I were opening a shop I would offer gaming but it would be in some kind of annex and they would have strict rules about conduct or they'd get tossed. Too loud and obnoxious-- bye bye. No food, no drinks in the store.

 

A Mom's opinion is priceless. At another store I was at-- a big well run store by the way, I was browsing and a mom walked in with her son who was about six years old. The kid at the counter walked them over to the new comics section to show them the latest issue of Daredevil because as she had explained that the new Affleck movie (yup a few yeas ago) was too violent for little Jimmy to go see, but she'd heard it was based on a comic book so she decided to get him one of those. The clerk just pointed her to the latest issue and the mom said thanks and started to take it to the register.

 

I stopped her and explained the new DD had very adult content (I think there was a rape in this one) and that she would be better off getting one of the old books out of the back issue section-- we went over and found a Gene Colan one from the mid 70s. She ended up buying 3-4 of those.

 

So what's the point? Staff was poorly trained. The clerk merely took her to the DD Comics without listening to what she said. Had that woman bought the issue he recommended the store would likely have an angry ex customer. Instead we have the potential for a lifelong new reader.

 

At another store I went to I was impressed by how much like a "real" store it was, but it had strange operating hours. It was closed Sunday and Monday and then open 11-5 on Tues 10-8 on Wed 11-5 on Thu & Fri and 12-4 on Saturdays.

 

How can your customer remember these hours and who are you serving? 11-5 is pretty much a working day for 90% of your base. Worse, by having different hours each day you run the risk of turning away a customer and trust me they don't always come back.

 

In the past I've done some retail consulting and I once encountered a store owner who changed his hours from 10-6 to 12-8-- he found much more business with the same amount of hours. He said he likely lost no business because mornings were so slow. I set up a camera that pointed to his front door for while he was closed and over the course of three weeks we counted 30 customers who had come to his door during those closed hours and left. He's now open 10-8. The extra business has allowed him to hire two part time clerks.

 

Speaking of those clerks-- how do they perform when you're not there? Send in relatives and friends to check and then hold them accountable. That same retailer I consulted for had a clerk he called his "right hand man" when I came in after the owner was gone I noticed he was giving free packs of magic cards to his friends.

Not a great right hand.

 

As I said, great thread. My strongest advice based on years of retail is do not open a brick and mortar store. Do cons, do online, do everything but. But if you really want to do it be prepared to lose money for the first 3-4 years and expect to work 365 days a year.

 

 

 

 

[Genesis Comics]

This is a great thread with a tremendous amount of good advice-- I echo the "don't do it" sentiment and if you do, change your mind about the online aspect of it as that takes your customer base from the 100s that walk by to the millions all over the world. Packaging is a lot less work than filing bankruptcy papers.

 

My experience comes from retail grocery where I worked my way from a bag boy to a divisional vice president, my duties included opening new stores and investigating why failing stores were not performing and then taking steps to turn them around or to close them. Grocery stores operate on tiny margins, so they are extremely difficult to make profitable, but look around, there are a lot of them, so it can be done.

 

The biggest reason I saw stores fail: Poorly trained staff, cleanliness issues, lack of customer service, hours that didn't match customer needs.

 

One of my closest friends owns one of the largest comic shops in the Northeast and he retired at 45 from day to day activity at the shop and has a staff that runs it for him. He and I would spend a lot of time talking retail and it's not far from the retail grocery world.

 

For the past 15 years I've been a full time comic book artist, working for a variety of clients most of whom no one in the comics world has ever heard of because quite simply I don't love superheroes so that puts me out from mainstream American comics, my wife does currently work for Marvel as the artist on Spiderwoman so I'm in tune with them too.

 

We do several cons all over the country and I've traveled to comic shops from east to west and I see some that are great and some that are still just as bad as the dank old comic shops of the 80s that used a cigar box instead of a cash register.

 

I strongly agree with the poster that said watch the music or WHATEVER you have playing on your PA system. I was in one shop that had horrible rap music blasting, another had droning folk music and still another had the most obnoxious comic book promotional video playing over and over again on the TV-- all of these drove me running out of the store. You know why big retailers play that Musak ? Because shoppers barely notice it. That background music should be white noise.

 

All right so from there-- approach your store like a customer, if you have a wife get her insight too. Too many shops are run like boys clubs, what you might see as a "cool fun place to hang out" I see as a place where the regulars are all engaged in conversation and I'm ignored.

 

Gamers are a necessary evil because they provide some small revenue when your comic sales are off but set them out of the way of your main store and make sure they behave themselves.

 

I walked into a comic shop in Northampton Ma one day, and it's a nice enough shop with a big discount TPB section and in the middle of the store was a table with about seven gamers packed around it-- they were eating chinese food and basically acting like a bunch of should be adults who live in mom's basement and were out of that setting for the first time in years-- yup, you guessed it, I didn't spend much time there-- counter this with the $200 I dropped the previous time I was in and guess what-- no gamers that day.

 

In my experience the stereotypical "comic book guy" of Simpson's fame is actually a gamer. Most comic buyers seem like pretty normal folks, it's the gamers who don't seem to understand the magic of soap and deodorant.

 

If I were opening a shop I would offer gaming but it would be in some kind of annex and they would have strict rules about conduct or they'd get tossed. Too loud and obnoxious-- bye bye. No food, no drinks in the store.

 

A Mom's opinion is priceless. At another store I was at-- a big well run store by the way, I was browsing and a mom walked in with her son who was about six years old. The kid at the counter walked them over to the new comics section to show them the latest issue of Daredevil because as she had explained that the new Affleck movie (yup a few yeas ago) was too violent for little Jimmy to go see, but she'd heard it was based on a comic book so she decided to get him one of those. The clerk just pointed her to the latest issue and the mom said thanks and started to take it to the register.

 

I stopped her and explained the new DD had very adult content (I think there was a rape in this one) and that she would be better off getting one of the old books out of the back issue section-- we went over and found a Gene Colan one from the mid 70s. She ended up buying 3-4 of those.

 

So what's the point? Staff was poorly trained. The clerk merely took her to the DD Comics without listening to what she said. Had that woman bought the issue he recommended the store would likely have an angry ex customer. Instead we have the potential for a lifelong new reader.

 

At another store I went to I was impressed by how much like a "real" store it was, but it had strange operating hours. It was closed Sunday and Monday and then open 11-5 on Tues 10-8 on Wed 11-5 on Thu & Fri and 12-4 on Saturdays.

 

How can your customer remember these hours and who are you serving? 11-5 is pretty much a working day for 90% of your base. Worse, by having different hours each day you run the risk of turning away a customer and trust me they don't always come back.

 

In the past I've done some retail consulting and I once encountered a store owner who changed his hours from 10-6 to 12-8-- he found much more business with the same amount of hours. He said he likely lost no business because mornings were so slow. I set up a camera that pointed to his front door for while he was closed and over the course of three weeks we counted 30 customers who had come to his door during those closed hours and left. He's now open 10-8. The extra business has allowed him to hire two part time clerks.

 

Speaking of those clerks-- how do they perform when you're not there? Send in relatives and friends to check and then hold them accountable. That same retailer I consulted for had a clerk he called his "right hand man" when I came in after the owner was gone I noticed he was giving free packs of magic cards to his friends.

Not a great right hand.

 

As I said, great thread. My strongest advice based on years of retail is do not open a brick and mortar store. Do cons, do online, do everything but. But if you really want to do it be prepared to lose money for the first 3-4 years and expect to work 365 days a year.

 

 

 

 

Thank you for taking the time out for a well reasoned articluate post! Lot's of gread advice and insight! Much appreciated

[revat]

This is a great thread with a tremendous amount of good advice-- I echo the "don't do it" sentiment and if you do, change your mind about the online aspect of it as that takes your customer base from the 100s that walk by to the millions all over the world. Packaging is a lot less work than filing bankruptcy papers.

 

My experience comes from retail grocery where I worked my way from a bag boy to a divisional vice president, my duties included opening new stores and investigating why failing stores were not performing and then taking steps to turn them around or to close them. Grocery stores operate on tiny margins, so they are extremely difficult to make profitable, but look around, there are a lot of them, so it can be done.

 

The biggest reason I saw stores fail: Poorly trained staff, cleanliness issues, lack of customer service, hours that didn't match customer needs.

 

One of my closest friends owns one of the largest comic shops in the Northeast and he retired at 45 from day to day activity at the shop and has a staff that runs it for him. He and I would spend a lot of time talking retail and it's not far from the retail grocery world.

 

For the past 15 years I've been a full time comic book artist, working for a variety of clients most of whom no one in the comics world has ever heard of because quite simply I don't love superheroes so that puts me out from mainstream American comics, my wife does currently work for Marvel as the artist on Spiderwoman so I'm in tune with them too.

 

We do several cons all over the country and I've traveled to comic shops from east to west and I see some that are great and some that are still just as bad as the dank old comic shops of the 80s that used a cigar box instead of a cash register.

 

I strongly agree with the poster that said watch the music or WHATEVER you have playing on your PA system. I was in one shop that had horrible rap music blasting, another had droning folk music and still another had the most obnoxious comic book promotional video playing over and over again on the TV-- all of these drove me running out of the store. You know why big retailers play that Musak ? Because shoppers barely notice it. That background music should be white noise.

 

All right so from there-- approach your store like a customer, if you have a wife get her insight too. Too many shops are run like boys clubs, what you might see as a "cool fun place to hang out" I see as a place where the regulars are all engaged in conversation and I'm ignored.

 

Gamers are a necessary evil because they provide some small revenue when your comic sales are off but set them out of the way of your main store and make sure they behave themselves.

 

I walked into a comic shop in Northampton Ma one day, and it's a nice enough shop with a big discount TPB section and in the middle of the store was a table with about seven gamers packed around it-- they were eating chinese food and basically acting like a bunch of should be adults who live in mom's basement and were out of that setting for the first time in years-- yup, you guessed it, I didn't spend much time there-- counter this with the $200 I dropped the previous time I was in and guess what-- no gamers that day.

 

In my experience the stereotypical "comic book guy" of Simpson's fame is actually a gamer. Most comic buyers seem like pretty normal folks, it's the gamers who don't seem to understand the magic of soap and deodorant.

 

If I were opening a shop I would offer gaming but it would be in some kind of annex and they would have strict rules about conduct or they'd get tossed. Too loud and obnoxious-- bye bye. No food, no drinks in the store.

 

A Mom's opinion is priceless. At another store I was at-- a big well run store by the way, I was browsing and a mom walked in with her son who was about six years old. The kid at the counter walked them over to the new comics section to show them the latest issue of Daredevil because as she had explained that the new Affleck movie (yup a few yeas ago) was too violent for little Jimmy to go see, but she'd heard it was based on a comic book so she decided to get him one of those. The clerk just pointed her to the latest issue and the mom said thanks and started to take it to the register.

 

I stopped her and explained the new DD had very adult content (I think there was a rape in this one) and that she would be better off getting one of the old books out of the back issue section-- we went over and found a Gene Colan one from the mid 70s. She ended up buying 3-4 of those.

 

So what's the point? Staff was poorly trained. The clerk merely took her to the DD Comics without listening to what she said. Had that woman bought the issue he recommended the store would likely have an angry ex customer. Instead we have the potential for a lifelong new reader.

 

At another store I went to I was impressed by how much like a "real" store it was, but it had strange operating hours. It was closed Sunday and Monday and then open 11-5 on Tues 10-8 on Wed 11-5 on Thu & Fri and 12-4 on Saturdays.

 

How can your customer remember these hours and who are you serving? 11-5 is pretty much a working day for 90% of your base. Worse, by having different hours each day you run the risk of turning away a customer and trust me they don't always come back.

 

In the past I've done some retail consulting and I once encountered a store owner who changed his hours from 10-6 to 12-8-- he found much more business with the same amount of hours. He said he likely lost no business because mornings were so slow. I set up a camera that pointed to his front door for while he was closed and over the course of three weeks we counted 30 customers who had come to his door during those closed hours and left. He's now open 10-8. The extra business has allowed him to hire two part time clerks.

 

Speaking of those clerks-- how do they perform when you're not there? Send in relatives and friends to check and then hold them accountable. That same retailer I consulted for had a clerk he called his "right hand man" when I came in after the owner was gone I noticed he was giving free packs of magic cards to his friends.

Not a great right hand.

 

As I said, great thread. My strongest advice based on years of retail is do not open a brick and mortar store. Do cons, do online, do everything but. But if you really want to do it be prepared to lose money for the first 3-4 years and expect to work 365 days a year.

 

 

 

 

Thank you for taking the time out for a well reasoned articluate post! Lot's of gread advice and insight! Much appreciated

I think everyone can learn something from that advice. well done.

[F For Fake]

In my experience the stereotypical "comic book guy" of Simpson's fame is actually a gamer. Most comic buyers seem like pretty normal folks, it's the gamers who don't seem to understand the magic of soap and deodorant.

 

This +1000. In all of my years of attending various conventions, for comics, movies, video games, etc, the gaming folks are by far the stinkiest and most socially maladjusted.

[Pike's Comics]

POS:

 

-Do you plan to deal in MTG singles and sell them online? Then crystal commerce is your only choice.

 

If you are okay running two separate POS I would then pair this with Comichub or Diamond's Comicsuite.

 

 

So Crystal Commerce is a seperate POS system? Like ComicSuite for gaming cards?

Or is it software for a POS?

 

It is a software/website integrated POS. It is the only POS that works directly with Tcgplayer.

[Genesis Comics]

POS:

 

-Do you plan to deal in MTG singles and sell them online? Then crystal commerce is your only choice.

 

If you are okay running two separate POS I would then pair this with Comichub or Diamond's Comicsuite.

 

 

So Crystal Commerce is a seperate POS system? Like ComicSuite for gaming cards?

Or is it software for a POS?

 

It is a software/website integrated POS. It is the only POS that works directly with Tcgplayer.

 

Awesome...I did not know about this...now only if there was one that worked with TCG and Diamond...that would be great...

[the blob]

I am curious to know from people who have/had shops that sell back issues and what not, do you find that you maybe have 10-20 customers who account for a big chunk of your business?

 

At my old shop it seemed that way. He had a core of people who spent maybe $200-$500 a month there between their pull list, toys, back issues, supplies, etc. (He closed 17 years ago, so adjust for inflation). I was one of those guys. When a couple of them dropped out because they lost their jobs or got sick or whatever, it was a hit for him. And it was a bad time in general anyway.

 

He was a small store, .5 - 1 employees. Obviously we're not talking about bedrock or wherever, but maybe he has a few folks who drop $5K a month on a few nice books, who knows?

[masterlogan2000]

I'm not aware of any successful shops in the northwest and northern suburbs of Chicago that have opened in the past 5 years. Rents are sky high so that may have something to do with it.

 

Chimera opened in LaGrange. Can't imagine rent is too cheap there. Pretty sure he is doing ok, but not 100% sure.

 

Haven't heard of Chimera, Andy.

 

Chimera's Woodridge location just closed (today actually). It was a decent shop, but I'm not sure if there was enough foot traffic in the area to sustain it.

 

The LaGrange location seems to be doing pretty well, but brick and mortar is a tough business, especially with what appears to be high rents all around Chicagoland.

 

When I was at the Woodridge location on Wednesday, they did tell me that they are actively pursuing franchising if people were interested to go that route.

[the blob]

A shuttered location is not great advertising for the franchising route.