Comic Shop Owners: What percentage of comic sales come from pull list subscribers vs non? 1 1

[shortboxed]

I recently stopped by a small shop in a small town on a road trip and thought it was interesting they only had back issues, no current issues. The owner told me they only order new comics for pull list subscribers, which I thought was interesting because they don't get stuck with non-returnable merchandise that doesn't sell. I don't think it's a stretch to say that it's very tough running a healthy, profitable comic shop these days, so the idea of only buying new comics for pull list subscribers seemed very interesting to me.

Does anyone else own or know of a comic shop that does that?

For comic shop owners, what percentage of comic sales are pull list subscribers vs non? 

I found this blog post from 2014 that a shop owner wrote showing their sales stats, and roughly 55% of comic sales (periodicals, not trades) belong to pull list subscribers, and 45% come from off-the-rack sales. Sharing this single data point, but it's a few years old and only represents a single shop, so I'm looking for other data points.

[Brother J]

Not a comic shop owner, but the LCS here seems to order only one or two copies of most mainstream Marvel and DC books for the shelves and usually sells out on anything of interest. They are always willing to order something for you, but I'm not interested. If I'm going into a store, I expect instant gratification, for items to be available to be purchased when I am there.

[revat]

51 minutes ago, shortboxed said:

I recently stopped by a small shop in a small town on a road trip and thought it was interesting they only had back issues, no current issues. The owner told me they only order new comics for pull list subscribers, which I thought was interesting because they don't get stuck with non-returnable merchandise that doesn't sell. I don't think it's a stretch to say that it's very tough running a healthy, profitable comic shop these days, so the idea of only buying new comics for pull list subscribers seemed very interesting to me.

Does anyone else own or know of a comic shop that does that?

For comic shop owners, what percentage of comic sales are pull list subscribers vs non? 

I found this blog post from 2014 that a shop owner wrote showing their sales stats, and roughly 55% of comic sales (periodicals, not trades) belong to pull list subscribers, and 45% come from off-the-rack sales. Sharing this single data point, but it's a few years old and only represents a single shop, so I'm looking for other data points.

I don't think its common, but I've seen this from time to time. 

I went to a store in a small (but nice) coastal town, where the LCS didn't even have back issues.  He was only open 4 days a week, and only had subscriptions.  Anything that he ordered ten or more of, he'd order 2 extra, and another one if orders went over 25 per (which was rare).  The only time he'd have extra stock is when someone pre-ordered a variant through him.  He made his money keeping the top 100 TPB's in stock and through special orders of stuff.  He was doing the shop more as a hobby (2nd job), and that the store would give him opportunities buy collections and sell the good stuff online (also more or less as a hobby, maybe a 3rd job?).  There wasn't much competition for comic stores there in the area, but there were a lot of older people in the community who had been there a long time.  The store itself was VERY small (the smallest I've seen), and essentially was a store front for him to buy collections and chat comics for like 20-25 hrs a week.  I think it worked for him, the owner was a young man (in his 20's I think), probably before a wife and kids.  He'd been open for like 6 months when I went in, and he said he was breaking even mostly on monthly costs (which were low, as the rent was cheap due to the size, and he had no employees, and no bathroom, and his real job had insurance) and revenues, and that online sales gave him profit (which was still going to pay off the initial investment).  I don't know if it worked long run or if he even intended it to.  For all I know it could have been money laundering, or he could have been independently wealthy.