Does Expertise/Experience no longer matter to be a dealer? 8 8

[NP_Gresham]

On 4/16/2022 at 12:55 PM, Krydel4 said:

At a show I went to recently, there was a Vendor who had a table, 3 full Slab Short boxes, a printout of the Slabs in the boxes with their grade and GPA prices and a Square payment terminal. I perused the print out taped to the table. Asked to see the book as he had the lids on the boxes. He got it out (putting the lid back on), I looked at it, the grade given on the slab was pretty soft as it was given a 9.6 and their were visible spine ticks, blunted corner and a crease on the back ( I had to ask him to take it out of the slab bag it was in). I made an offer that was within 15% of the GPA price he had listed as I thought the book was at best a 9.0-9.2 given the visible defects I could see. He smirked and said the price is as listed. I pointed out the defects. He said the slab says 9.6, the price is what the GPA for a 9.6 is. No Counter offer. I handed it back and walked away. The dispassionate way he went about this really rubbed me wrong. It just makes me feel that now the hobby has given power away to a third party its irrevocably become less human. It felt like I was making a stock trade. Anyone ever encounter something like this? Should we just have automated bot dealers?

I am not a dealer, but that dealer is in business

Once he told you no, you proceed to knock the book down. I would wager that there is no way he was going to ‘talk you up’ to full price? 
As a business person, time is money.

I wouldn’t waste one more second on your Winey Azz.

Take “no” for an answer and stop wasting peoples time.

[Jaylam]

[wardevil0]

This thread has been an amazing experience of pre-conceived notions and goalpost-shifting.  

Dealers have an obligation to negotiate with customers just as much as the OP has an obligation to hear and consider this discussion.  The title of the thread and initial post say it all: OP had an unpleasant experience with one dealer at a show and goes on to make sweeping generalizations about the entire industry while dismissing commentary with the forum equivalent of a hand wave and occasional hyperbolic counterpoint.

Eleven pages in and I still don't understand why OP even offered a "ballpark" GPA 9.6 price on what OP considered a 9.2 in a 9.6 case just so OP can crack it out and read a story that is readily available in HC, TPB, digital, etc.  Whenever anyone has questioned this, OP's been nothing but dismissive.

GPA is a record of past sale prices, not a mandate of future sale prices. It's really no different from Overstreet in that regard, just updated more frequently.  If people only sell based on GPA prices, then why do GPA prices change so often?  New high GPA prices are set all the time; maybe this guy hopes his will be the one.  Nothing wrong with that, invisible hand of the marketplace will sort it out.  If this guy's prices are so unreasonable he can't make sales then he won't be at future shows.  

Why is there a slab premium, and who should eat the cost of the slabbing process?  Obviously again the rest of the marketplace has decided that.  People will pay for the opinion of a disinterested third party (appraisals are common -- and sometimes required -- to sell real estate, businesses, fine art, etc) and people will pay more for the ability to carry that opinion forward (via the sealed slab).  OP suggests the dealers should just eat this as a cost of doing business, but still admits to attempting to negotiate a slab-premium price on a book that's readily available for less than $10.

I'm not a dealer, but I do sell a few things here and there to support my far-greater buying habits.  I often ask for discounts when buying, but it's totally situation dependent in ways too varied to try to detail.  Likewise, I'm open to offers on items I'm selling, but usually only within a 10% window or so.  

OP tries to play "gotcha" with scenarios based on either selling a key or a whole collection at precisely GPA value, but refuses to consider outside factors.  Dealers can't pay full retail for their inventory, because dealing is their job and they do it to make a profit.  Dealers have to pay for the cost of the table or booth at the show, rent and utilities for their store, and also the time they spend dealing comics instead of other wage-earning activities.  How else would the dealers have the $15k in-hand to offer for your collection worth $50k in GPA?

 

TL;DR version: OP is RIGHT and SMRT and everyone else are dumbheads and bullies who plot and scheme against the virtuous.

 

[Jaylam]

[Lord Gemini]

On 4/18/2022 at 9:31 PM, Krydel4 said:

It's the dealers prerogative to pay the money to get a book slabbed. I am perfectly happy to buy unslabbed books. Collectors were perfectly happy to buy unslabbed books for decades before CGC. Dealers were perfectly happy to sell unslabbed books for decades before CGC. If a dealer wishes to send a book to CGC then the cost is on them not me. If a book has a FMV of $30 and grading/fees/pressing costs $60 and the dealer prices it $110 what exactly am I paying for? More than 50% of the purchase price is for a piece of plastic that makes it impossible to actually enjoy the books intended purpose of conveying a story in 30 pages. CGC is on the right track with selling invisible comics cause just owning the slab seems to be endgame now. It's mind-boggling that a premium is given to something that restricts your ability to use the item for its intended purpose, when it should be the other way around. 

You can't be serious. You have to be trolling us.

[theCapraAegagrus]

I mean, "dealers" have existed that lacked expertise, experience, or both. Dealers only continue to exist if they exemplify those characteristics, though.

I think you're here looking for confirmation bias of your hasty generalization, though. Sadly, I think that the intentions of creating this thread devalue any potential lesson that you could learn.

[THE_BEYONDER]

Why does CGC keep slabbing all the books I want to read!?! 

[shadroch]

On 4/19/2022 at 7:54 AM, THE_BEYONDER said:

Why does CGC keep slabbing all the books I want to read!?! 

Doesn't reading them lower their value?

[Gonzimodo]

On 4/19/2022 at 9:28 AM, Lord Gemini said:

You can't be serious. You have to be trolling us.

After reading this whole thread, I'm pretty sure that you're right.  Trying to bring down the cost on a slabbed book by arguing against the grade, then admitting that he just wants to crack it open to read it, when the same book is available  almost anywhere for 5% of the slabbed one's cost?  Then asking why there is a "slabbing premium" on books in the first place?  This has been amazing.  

[THE_BEYONDER]

On 4/19/2022 at 10:59 AM, shadroch said:

Doesn't reading them lower their value?

[shadroch]

Who needs Friday's?

[oakman29]

On 4/19/2022 at 8:52 AM, Gonzimodo said:

After reading this whole thread, I'm pretty sure that you're right.  Trying to bring down the cost on a slabbed book by arguing against the grade, then admitting that he just wants to crack it open to read it, when the same book is available  almost anywhere for 5% of the slabbed one's cost?  Then asking why there is a "slabbing premium" on books in the first place?  This has been amazing.  

I agree with both of you.  This has got to be BS trolling, got to be.

Nobody is this ignorant. 

[Kramerica]

On 4/18/2022 at 7:47 PM, chrisco37 said:

Eventually it will all come together and make sense.  
We’re almost there.  I can feel it.  

[MR SigS]

On 4/19/2022 at 9:17 AM, Kramerica said:

I hope this isn't a deleted scene from the "Master Of My Domain" episode 

[Kramerica]

On 4/19/2022 at 9:34 AM, MR SigS said:

I hope this isn't a deleted scene from the "Master Of My Domain" episode 

I don't believe so. But my hope is that it serves as a warning to all who ponder reading all 12 pages of this nonsense. 

Edited April 19, 2022 by Kramerica

[kav]

On 4/16/2022 at 12:55 PM, Krydel4 said:

At a show I went to recently, there was a Vendor who had a table, 3 full Slab Short boxes, a printout of the Slabs in the boxes with their grade and GPA prices and a Square payment terminal. I perused the print out taped to the table. Asked to see the book as he had the lids on the boxes. He got it out (putting the lid back on), I looked at it, the grade given on the slab was pretty soft as it was given a 9.6 and their were visible spine ticks, blunted corner and a crease on the back ( I had to ask him to take it out of the slab bag it was in). I made an offer that was within 15% of the GPA price he had listed as I thought the book was at best a 9.0-9.2 given the visible defects I could see. He smirked and said the price is as listed. I pointed out the defects. He said the slab says 9.6, the price is what the GPA for a 9.6 is. No Counter offer. I handed it back and walked away. The dispassionate way he went about this really rubbed me wrong. It just makes me feel that now the hobby has given power away to a third party its irrevocably become less human. It felt like I was making a stock trade. Anyone ever encounter something like this? Should we just have automated bot dealers?

there are always people who will disagree with CGC grade especially when they are buying but I dont think you can ask him to come down in price for a graded book just because you disagree with the grade.  He did nothing wrong.

[kav]

On 4/16/2022 at 1:48 PM, Krydel4 said:

Part of expertise is having knowledge of your product and your customers. In this case there was neither. No knowledge of how to grade and be honest about your product (and that there may be a need to budge on it) and no knowledge that every customer is different and needs to be approached accordingly. I know I got a deal on the books I purchased from the other dealer as I did my due diligence by researching those books and knowing what they were going for in the grades I was looking for. Dealers are at Cons to make sales, if that has changed I missed the memo. Everyone has a backend and needs to make money. If the future of the hobby is the former dealer instead of the latter, well then may be time to step away.

Possibly he did know how to grade and you are just a tighter grader than CGC.  

[kav]

On 4/16/2022 at 5:54 PM, blazingbob said:

Hell no,  We are comic book price assassins.   We go for the jugular,  leave the dealer bleeding,  leave him enough profit to afford the next McDonald's happy meal, post the trophy buy on instagram where the likes come poring in on the new trophy piece you got for a "steal".  Flip it,  make more then the dealer and then come back next time looking for the next "kill".  

[oakman29]

On 4/18/2022 at 8:41 PM, Krydel4 said:

And that is something a reputable and experienced dealer cannot provide? Therein lies the crux of what I was asking. But I have more than enough replies to this thread that it has given me a better idea of where the hobby stands now and where it is going. Peace Out.

I think the hobby would stand a tiny bit better if you weren't in it, just sayin'.

[kav]

On 4/16/2022 at 6:05 PM, Krydel4 said:

Thank you everyone for your responses. It's helped me come to some understanding of the current dealer environment. I've had 3 takeaways based upon the question I asked in the Topic header:

1. That dealers do not have to know or have knowledge of grading or how to grade. That 3rd party grading companies are now the arbiters of all grading in the hobby and are infallible and any questioning of their grades is heretical.

2. Customer Service and/or creating relationships with customers is unnecessary and annoying. 

3. Pricing is solely the based off of 3rd Party data algorithms that create prices within a vacuum, that are absolute and never subject to environment, context, or circumstance. 

 

1. Dealers do not agree with your grade-neither does CGC.
2. Customer service does not mean give the customer what they want.  You have a business to run.
3. Basically.  You got a better system?