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Moderns that are heating up on ebay!
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63,730 posts in this topic

26 minutes ago, Avi said:

A LCS was selling the Batgirl 23 for $20 a piece yesterday! 

That got me wondering, Ive heard there are rules that prevent a store from selling comics early to customers are theres rules on pricing new comic (ie not ratio variants)?

No

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4 minutes ago, ygogolak said:

What rule is there for selling to a customer early? That's called a pull-list. Maybe you mean physically giving a comic to person before Wednesday?
Stores can charge whatever they want. Depending on where you live, they may not be able to change the sale price when you bring it to the register if it has a price sticker on it.

I was referring to "physically giving a comic to person before Wednesday". I guess price on the issue always just MSRP.

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16 minutes ago, Avi said:

I was referring to "physically giving a comic to person before Wednesday". I guess price on the issue always just MSRP.

Customers even having access to the books prior to Wednesday is prohibited by Diamond.  They use mystery shoppers to check up on stores as well....

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I was told that if the price is marked up on new periodicals, then they get taxed differently or something?  Obviously this is a pittance if the book is marked up from cover to twenty bucks.  Maybe it's just NYC or NY State tax rules?  

Also, no the shop cannot hand over comics before Wednesday. I assume 12:01 a.m. counts since Midtown Comics has their midnight release parties once in a while.

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17 minutes ago, speedcake said:

I was told that if the price is marked up on new periodicals, then they get taxed differently or something?  Obviously this is a pittance if the book is marked up from cover to twenty bucks.  Maybe it's just NYC or NY State tax rules?  

Also, no the shop cannot hand over comics before Wednesday. I assume 12:01 a.m. counts since Midtown Comics has their midnight release parties once in a while.

12:01 is definitely ok. The sales tax rules on periodicals (and nearly everything) do vary from state to state and county to county, but I would just assume its based on the actual total sales price.  I wouldn't guess there's a difference if there's an additional markup over MSRP.  That would be nearly impossible to enforce I'd think, and if there was some type of enforcement, it would probably not be worth the extra paperwork to the store. 

Sales tax is 9% for the $3.99 MSRP, but 10% for the additional $10 you're charging on top of MSRP?  Or sales tax is 9% for MSRP books, and 10% for books sold over MSRP?  That's gonna be some rough record keeping and tax reporting for the LCS.

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30 minutes ago, speedcake said:

I was told that if the price is marked up on new periodicals, then they get taxed differently or something?  Obviously this is a pittance if the book is marked up from cover to twenty bucks.  Maybe it's just NYC or NY State tax rules?  

Also, no the shop cannot hand over comics before Wednesday. I assume 12:01 a.m. counts since Midtown Comics has their midnight release parties once in a while.

The Midnight release parties that happen from time to time have to be approved by DC and/or Marvel.  Sometimes, they even agree with each other and it's OK to sell both DC and Marvel at one of those events....but that's not always the case---they exclude each other from time to time as well.

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3 hours ago, speedcake said:

I was told that if the price is marked up on new periodicals, then they get taxed differently or something?  Obviously this is a pittance if the book is marked up from cover to twenty bucks.  Maybe it's just NYC or NY State tax rules?  

Also, no the shop cannot hand over comics before Wednesday. I assume 12:01 a.m. counts since Midtown Comics has their midnight release parties once in a while.

In New York there is no tax on new periodicals, but there is on old periodicals. So new books, no. Back issues, yes. I was actually surprised to find out how many states do have tax on periodicals:

http://www.magazine.org/node/29333

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I guess we are getting pretty far off topic now, but when does a new comic become a back issue? And I think the tax only applies if the shop puts it on the shelf with the new periodicals? Comics in back issue bins aren't subject to the tax? Is that completely wrong? What are laws even...

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1 hour ago, speedcake said:

I guess we are getting pretty far off topic now, but when does a new comic become a back issue? And I think the tax only applies if the shop puts it on the shelf with the new periodicals? Comics in back issue bins aren't subject to the tax? Is that completely wrong? What are laws even...

My understanding was always that once a new book goes in a bag and into the back issue bins, it's an older periodical and there would be tax applied (and usually a .25 or .50 premium on the price over the cover price). But of course I've been to shops where they leave "new" books out for a few months, and they're all sold as new books without a sales tax. But I imagine those officials who track tax fraud have bigger problems to worry about than whether a comic shop is charging tax on a book that came out a month and a half ago.

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My LCS didn't have any copies of the book, variant or otherwise, but they were shorted by Diamond on some of their other DC books, so maybe that was the case here as well.

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I went with my buddy to his local LCS on our lunch break from work and got there right at opening. Shop only had one copy of the Batgirl #23 variant priced at $15. My buddy ended up buying the book and upon talking to the shop owner he started telling us how this particular variant was just a regular variant that required no minimum amount of purchase to get and that any shop could order as many as they wanted and that he also had another stack of them on the way from Diamond. He then started boasting about how each copy only costs him $1.50 and that he will gladly sell them for $15 plus... The guy made me very happy that i ended up not spending any cash at his shop. 

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2 minutes ago, DarkPhantom13 said:

I went with my buddy to his local LCS on our lunch break from work and got there right at opening. Shop only had one copy of the Batgirl #23 variant priced at $15. My buddy ended up buying the book and upon talking to the shop owner he started telling us how this particular variant was just a regular variant that required no minimum amount of purchase to get and that any shop could order as many as they wanted and that he also had another stack of them on the way from Diamond. He then started boasting about how each copy only costs him $1.50 and that he will gladly sell them for $15 plus... The guy made me very happy that i ended up not spending any cash at his shop. 

I really dislike shops that crank up the prices on "hot books" on the day of their release----I tend to avoid them and would rather spend it at other shops that don't follow that practice.  

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Both of the local shops here reported that they didn't receive any copies of the Batgirl #23 variant. I'm usually one who sells the latest hot book instead of buying, but this one I wanted a copy for my collection.

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4 hours ago, F For Fake said:

My LCS didn't have any copies of the book, variant or otherwise, but they were shorted by Diamond on some of their other DC books, so maybe that was the case here as well.

Yea shorted that's the ebay ticket err ticket.  Yea that's the ticket.  Shorted

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3 hours ago, DarkPhantom13 said:

I went with my buddy to his local LCS on our lunch break from work and got there right at opening. Shop only had one copy of the Batgirl #23 variant priced at $15. My buddy ended up buying the book and upon talking to the shop owner he started telling us how this particular variant was just a regular variant that required no minimum amount of purchase to get and that any shop could order as many as they wanted and that he also had another stack of them on the way from Diamond. He then started boasting about how each copy only costs him $1.50 and that he will gladly sell them for $15 plus... The guy made me very happy that i ended up not spending any cash at his shop. 

I wonder about that from time to time the quandry it puts local shops in. They screwed either way. Obviously we are going in the shop to buy and flip the book. At least 80% of the time. Now granted without the boasting
how does a shop handle this? So far the only effective way I have seen is to limit customers to 1 book each. Now granted there ways around that too, but it seems to be the best policy I have seen from any shop
lately. I can understand the position they are in.  A good shop wants to offer the book to elicit both new customers and their pull and hold which is their most prioritized customer. That being said tech savy shops and can 
easily pull them right off the shelf and make a nice profit. It is their shop afterall.

 

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1 hour ago, Pirate said:

Yea shorted that's the ebay ticket err ticket.  Yea that's the ticket.  Shorted

At a less reputable shop, I'd agree with you, but they wouldn't pull something like that at my shop. They routinely put hot variants in my holds folder at cover price, never once asked for a mark up. They were shorted on several books this week, had signs up on the stands. I was just curious if this might have been one of them, because there were no copies, variant or regular, on the stands at all. I didn't want one of these, I was just curious about it since I'd seen everyone talking about it.

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24 minutes ago, F For Fake said:

At a less reputable shop, I'd agree with you, but they wouldn't pull something like that at my shop. They routinely put hot variants in my holds folder at cover price, never once asked for a mark up. They were shorted on several books this week, had signs up on the stands. I was just curious if this might have been one of them, because there were no copies, variant or regular, on the stands at all. I didn't want one of these, I was just curious about it since I'd seen everyone talking about it.

This is the way to go. Everyone who pre-ordered gets theirs, and if you have a bunch of regular customer who don't pre-order that book, put some aside in case they want it. Keep your regulars happy. The rest are available 1 per customer.

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12 minutes ago, GeeksAreMyPeeps said:

This is the way to go. Everyone who pre-ordered gets theirs, and if you have a bunch of regular customer who don't pre-order that book, put some aside in case they want it. Keep your regulars happy. The rest are available 1 per customer.

Totally agree, I think this is the best policy. The pull-list customers should really be the most valued customers for a shop as it's regular, consistent business. For every 1 book that may have potential $10-15 potential profit flipping, there are 100s of drek titles that customers buy for $3.99/$2.99 cover price that couldn't be sold in $0.50 bins at a con. A store needs its pull list customers who are buying the regular titles at cover price to sustain itself. them off (and potentially losing some) to try and get a couple bucks extra profit on the rare title that gets hot is penny-wise pound-foolish. 

 

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I walked into the local shop to see how ASM 800 went over. 

First thing that surprised me was that my local shop had ordered more Harbringer Wars than ASM 800. I am thinking cost played into it that.
I be they had 150 copies of HW. I am sure there was some incentive there. 

The ASM 800  covers that had sold the most so far were Dodson, Romita and the blank sketch cover. Those 3 covers only had 1 copy left of each
other copies still had at least 10-15 copies each. The high ratio variants were still there as well, but my shop wants a pretty penny on those.

 

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