I Feel Bad For Shop Owners 0

[the blob]

Who are trying to run a decent store, provide customer service, etc.

I am in a shop the other day and I guess a semi-regular is in there too, although I don't recognize him, the employees do. He pulls a TPB off the rack (he's probably buying other stuff). Anyway, I think the store gives 10% off for file customers anyway. And he goes to the owner telling him that he can get the TPB for $5.50 less on amazon, but he wants to support the store, is willing to pay a little more, etc...So the shop owner lets him have it for $1.50 more than the Amazon price, $4 less than retail. (This, of course, assumes Prime with no shipping and no sales tax). I guess the reference to Amazon is what might be irking me, how about "can I get this for $14, I have seen it for a little less than that elsewhere" rather than  referencing half of what is probably going to put this guy out of business eventually. Now, I understand if TPBs are 50% at wholesale (this was not a closeout type book), he has still made $4.50 on the sale, but I kind of find this shoving Amazon pricing in his face a bit much, even if done respectfully, albeit within earshot of other customers. The owner if willing to negotiate a little, but usually on back issues or whatever. I don't think it is unreasonable to have new TPBs on the rack at cover price..he does 40-75% discounts all the time on various items. And I respect the guy because when folks come in to sell him good stuff (not stuff he offers 5 cents each for) he is willing to go over them with the seller and say what he will charge and what he is willing to pay, etc.

Edited November 1, 2018 by the blob

[WolverineX]

1 hour ago, the blob said:

Who are trying to run a decent store, provide customer service, etc.

I am in a shop the other day and I guess a semi-regular is in there too, although I don't recognize him, the employees do. He pulls a TPB off the rack (he's probably buying other stuff). Anyway, I think the store gives 10% off for file customers anyway. And he goes to the owner telling him that he can get the TPB for $5.50 less on amazon, but he wants to support the store, is willing to pay a little more, etc...So the shop owner lets him have it for $1.50 more than the Amazon price, $4 less than retail. (This, of course, assumes Prime with no shipping and no sales tax). I guess the reference to Amazon is what might be irking me, how about "can I get this for $14, I have seen it for a little less than that elsewhere" rather than  referencing half of what is probably going to put this guy out of business eventually. Now, I understand if TPBs are 50% at wholesale (this was not a closeout type book), he has still made $4.50 on the sale, but I kind of find this shoving Amazon pricing in his face a bit much, even if done respectfully, albeit within earshot of other customers. The owner if willing to negotiate a little, but usually on back issues or whatever. I don't think it is unreasonable to have new TPBs on the rack at cover price..he does 40-75% discounts all the time on various items. And I respect the guy because when folks come in to sell him good stuff (not stuff he offers 5 cents each for) he is willing to go over them with the seller and say what he will charge and what he is willing to pay, etc.

It always takes a few bad apples to spoil it for everyone... kinda like the lady that returned the Christmas tree to costco after the holiday..

[NoMan]

guy sounds like a real piece of work. it's all race to the bottom these days. he'll get his. 

[masterlogan2000]

I'm not sure I see a problem here with what the customer did.  He is free to take his business elsewhere, and the shop owner is free to let him go as well.  From how you describe it, it sounds like the "request" was made respectfully, and a sale was carried out (at a slightly higher price than what was listed on Amazon).

In that sense, I think this was a good situation.  A sale is a sale, and a small profit is better than no profit.

If anyone is to feel bad for the shop owner, feel bad not because of the customer, but because of the changing times that have driven down pricing for all comic buyers (great for the customers, bad for the shop owners).  Competition, whether it is from Amazon, eBay, etc., has really taken a big chunk out of the business from your LCS.  But, this is nothing new.  They will need to continue to adapt, continue to provide great customer service, continue to provide a great in-person customer experience... or slowly go out of business.  It's just a result of the changing times.

[the blob]

1 hour ago, masterlogan2000 said:

I'm not sure I see a problem here with what the customer did.  He is free to take his business elsewhere, and the shop owner is free to let him go as well.  From how you describe it, it sounds like the "request" was made respectfully, and a sale was carried out (at a slightly higher price than what was listed on Amazon).

In that sense, I think this was a good situation.  A sale is a sale, and a small profit is better than no profit.

If anyone is to feel bad for the shop owner, feel bad not because of the customer, but because of the changing times that have driven down pricing for all comic buyers (great for the customers, bad for the shop owners).  Competition, whether it is from Amazon, eBay, etc., has really taken a big chunk out of the business from your LCS.  But, this is nothing new.  They will need to continue to adapt, continue to provide great customer service, continue to provide a great in-person customer experience... or slowly go out of business.  It's just a result of the changing times.

It was more about jamming the "Amazon" price down his throat. And, of course, it assumes free shipping via prime and ignores the cost of prime membership. Dunno if Amazon would also charge tax. Like I said, I dunno why, but this wouldn't have stuck with me if he just asked for a break and said he saw it less elsewhere. The tone, while polite, was almost as if the owner had done something wrong by charging the printed price on the book and not changing his prices to reflect amazon's.

[NoMan]

What joy- shopping at Amazon. Forget having a learned  shop owner to point you to stuff you may not know about, ect.

Keep saving that precious 2 or 3 bucks.

[the blob]

 And I know a lot of things have hurt shops, specifically ebay. And some shops deserved to go under die to being poorly run. But they can and do sell there too and ebay provides substantial part and sometimes full time income to hundreds if not thousands of comic sellers, at least, in part, offsetting the job losses of various shop closings (which are also attributable to declining readership). I am not sure if any jobs are created between aggressive comic tpb discounting on Amazon and less aggressive discounting as it is a tiny fragment of sales. And ebay has helped keep many people ( and $) in the hobby by giving collectors a venue to sell, and finance, their hobby. The pre-ebay model of selling to a dealer and getting hosed was untenable and setting up at local shows was not an option for many. I got back into collecting heavily in the 90s (vintage) thinking if need be I would set up a table at shows, and did a couple of times. But that became increasingly unrealistic as I got older and my responsibilities multiplied and knowing ebay (and fora like this) allowed me to stay in the game and pump thousands each year into the comic economy. Otherwise I would have cashed out around 2002 when I moved.

With that said I miss 40-50% off coupons at borders, so I am a hypocrite, but never used the as a basis to demand a discount at the shop.

Edited November 1, 2018 by the blob

[Black_Adam]

I would much rather buy a TPB in new condition than roll the dice with Amazon shipping and have to return the TPB when it arrives with the cover torn and a corner banged after being shipped loose in a bubble envelope (I am in the process of returning two trades that arrived in exactly that condition as I type this post).  Amazon...

 

[WolverineX]

36 minutes ago, the blob said:

 And I know a lot of things have hurt shops, specifically ebay. And some shops deserved to go under die to being poorly run. But they can and do sell there too and ebay provides substantial part and sometimes full time income to hundreds if not thousands of comic sellers, at least, in part, offsetting the job losses of various shop closings (which are also attributable to declining readership). I am not sure if any jobs are created between aggressive comic tpb discounting on Amazon and less aggressive discounting as it is a tiny fragment of sales. And ebay has helped keep many people ( and $) in the hobby by giving collectors a venue to sell, and finance, their hobby. The pre-ebay model of selling to a dealer and getting hosed was untenable and setting up at local shows was not an option for many. I got back into collecting heavily in the 90s (vintage) thinking if need be I would set up a table at shows, and did a couple of times. But that became increasingly unrealistic as I got older and my responsibilities multiplied and knowing ebay (and fora like this) allowed me to stay in the game and pump thousands each year into the comic economy. Otherwise I would have cashed out around 2002 when I moved.

With that said I miss 40-50% off coupons at borders, so I am a hypocrite, but never used the as a basis to demand a discount at the shop.

Oh yeah I would load up on graphic novels at Borders back in the day...

[Mystafo]

Class act...100%

[Ryan.]

If indy bookstores can rebound then comic shops can too.

 

[lighthouse]

We get some of those visitors. But it's less than 10% of our traffic, and probably less than 5% most months.

We treat those transactions the same way as when someone comes in with a collection to sell that we definitely don't want to buy. Usually we know almost immediately if there is a deal to be made or not. And if there is not, the whole focus of the dialogue is about getting the customer to leave unangered. Someone comes in with a run of 1991 X-Men 1-50 all unbagged and starts insisting they want $2 a book for all of them because they saw such-and-such online, we don't even bother trying to educate them. The whole conversation switches from "can we work out a deal that both parties will be comfortable with" to "can we get this person to leave without them making a scene or being so angry they write a terrible review". Instead of explaining how many copies we have in stock already, and what their turn times are, and how many we are offered each week at 15-20 cents a piece, and how we make decisions about allocating our buy budgets... we don't engage in any dialogue that would remotely resemble a counter-offer. It's all "if that's what you're looking for, you should stand firm on that... maybe try Craigslist, or offer them at a garage sale, blah blah blah. We wouldn't want you to take an offer you won't be happy with. Blah blah blah." Giving them a response of "your books suck, get out of my store" (which is sadly all too common) is just begging for terrible reviews that unfortunately have an outsized impact on a store's reputation.

With the "I can get this cheaper on Amazon" crowd, we tend to give responses along the lines of "Amazon is a great company. I buy stuff from there myself all the time." It's pretty much a variant of the Jack Ryan "lifelong friends" speech early in Clear and Present Danger. Instead of arguing about Amazon, or trying to explain why a customer would be foolish to shop there, we embrace the discussion and defuse the hostility. We will sometimes make some light comments about sometimes our prices are cheaper than online, and sometimes Amazon's are cheaper. But usually we don't engage any further.

But we aren't a store that competes on price. We compete on customer service and selection (and somewhat on convenience). A store who is strongly competing on price is going to have a far harder time defusing the Amazon landmine. We just chose to go another way.

[kav]

Yep very difficult to not anger someone who comes in with drek.  They have this expectation and no matter what you say, if you dont follow that expectation they get pissed.

[Artboy99]

15 minutes ago, lighthouse said:

We get some of those visitors. But it's less than 10% of our traffic, and probably less than 5% most months.

We treat those transactions the same way as when someone comes in with a collection to sell that we definitely don't want to buy. Usually we know almost immediately if there is a deal to be made or not. And if there is not, the whole focus of the dialogue is about getting the customer to leave unangered. Someone comes in with a run of 1991 X-Men 1-50 all unbagged and starts insisting they want $2 a book for all of them because they saw such-and-such online, we don't even bother trying to educate them. The whole conversation switches from "can we work out a deal that both parties will be comfortable with" to "can we get this person to leave without them making a scene or being so angry they write a terrible review". Instead of explaining how many copies we have in stock already, and what their turn times are, and how many we are offered each week at 15-20 cents a piece, and how we make decisions about allocating our buy budgets... we don't engage in any dialogue that would remotely resemble a counter-offer. It's all "if that's what you're looking for, you should stand firm on that... maybe try Craigslist, or offer them at a garage sale, blah blah blah. We wouldn't want you to take an offer you won't be happy with. Blah blah blah." Giving them a response of "your books suck, get out of my store" (which is sadly all too common) is just begging for terrible reviews that unfortunately have an outsized impact on a store's reputation.

With the "I can get this cheaper on Amazon" crowd, we tend to give responses along the lines of "Amazon is a great company. I buy stuff from there myself all the time." It's pretty much a variant of the Jack Ryan "lifelong friends" speech early in Clear and Present Danger. Instead of arguing about Amazon, or trying to explain why a customer would be foolish to shop there, we embrace the discussion and defuse the hostility. We will sometimes make some light comments about sometimes our prices are cheaper than online, and sometimes Amazon's are cheaper. But usually we don't engage any further.

But we aren't a store that competes on price. We compete on customer service and selection (and somewhat on convenience). A store who is strongly competing on price is going to have a far harder time defusing the Amazon landmine. We just chose to go another way.

well said. Wishing you were my LCS.

[the blob]

2 hours ago, Ryan. said:

If indy bookstores can rebound then comic shops can too.

 

This particular shop is a survivor. But when his manhattan lease is up and they try to jack up his rent 300% he will be a goner.

[the blob]

14 minutes ago, kav said:

Yep very difficult to not anger someone who comes in with drek.  They have this expectation and no matter what you say, if you dont follow that expectation they get pissed.

I'd think the "we have a lot of this stuff already and it isn't selling" should work, no?

 

At the end of the day this shop owner knocked a few bucks off, figuring he might as well because the guy was buying other stuff and I guess had bought stuff before. He doesn't compete on price, per se, but he does want to move inventory, so sometimes that means cutting price.

 

Edited November 1, 2018 by the blob

[kav]

Just now, the blob said:

I'd think the "we have a lot of this stuff already and it isn't selling" should work, no?

it should but emotions come into play-its really something to watch.

[kav]

their eyes narrow like you are trying to rip them off or something-

[kav]

On the flip side I have sold $700 worth of books for $200 store credit which means shop owner paid about $40 for those books which means he gets $700, for $40

[kav]

the store credit books were priced about double ebay.  I stopped selling to LCS after that.