Tales from the Comic Box - Rookie Adventures in Buying/Selling/Cons 5 5

[Wall-Crawler]

4 hours ago, spreads said:

Good point.  Unless you're looking for inventory why would you take on that additional burden.  I have another person offering a collection, but I offered to take on a few books consignment instead.  I'm still in building out my inventory at the show, so I'm not super keen on this idea, but I wouldn't mind starting off slow with a few books.

I recently gave a friend similar advice, some guy wanted to trade him a bunch of commons and semi-keys for a Saga #1 CGC 9.8. To me, that kind of trade is not "worth it", for similar reasons that Torch laid out. It did not help that the guy with the commons "over valued" what he had.

One of the things that makes me  is when you share a book and some guy says "trade" and offers a bunch of drek for a key or graded books that make you wonder why they decided to get them graded in the first place.

Edited November 11, 2017 by Wall-Crawler

[thehumantorch]

10 hours ago, spreads said:

Good point.  Unless you're looking for inventory why would you take on that additional burden.  I have another person offering a collection, but I offered to take on a few books consignment instead.  I'm still in building out my inventory at the show, so I'm not super keen on this idea, but I wouldn't mind starting off slow with a few books.

I like consignment deals, especially if the seller and I are having trouble agreeing on a price for a collection.  And as I sell books from the consignment I use the profit to buy books from the consignment, that way I'm getting keys for free and the consignee sees more books moving.  Took 4 keys for our last show at a 20% consignment fee.  Sold 2 and then applied the profit to buy the other 2 at effectively 60% of value.  Consignee is happy, we moved all for of his books at one show.

[Wall-Crawler]

Darn it!

I keep most of my stock and supplies at another location. I just realized I forgot my banner. No time to grab it for tomorrows show.  

[spreads]

20 hours ago, Wall-Crawler said:

Darn it!

I keep most of my stock and supplies at another location. I just realized I forgot my banner. No time to grab it for tomorrows show.  

Hopefully you had a good show, we just had our monthly show and it was my personal worst.  It was frustrating because I brought the most stuff out and put a free ad up the day before we some bites, but the traffic was very poor.  Several dealers were griping about poor sales....oh well.

[spreads]

On ‎11‎/‎11‎/‎2017 at 1:10 PM, Wall-Crawler said:

I recently gave a friend similar advice, some guy wanted to trade him a bunch of commons and semi-keys for a Saga #1 CGC 9.8. To me, that kind of trade is not "worth it", for similar reasons that Torch laid out. It did not help that the guy with the commons "over valued" what he had.

One of the things that makes me  is when you share a book and some guy says "trade" and offers a bunch of drek for a key or graded books that make you wonder why they decided to get them graded in the first place.

There's a guy locally that advertises that....search "crazy trades" on kijiji and you'll see it.  He's a great guy, but I'm stunned he was able to get anyone to offer those trades.  I helped him out once helping him sort through an 18k collection of just independents, that's a couple weekends I'll never get back. 

[thehumantorch]

23 hours ago, Wall-Crawler said:

Darn it!

I keep most of my stock and supplies at another location. I just realized I forgot my banner. No time to grab it for tomorrows show.  

 you'll probably sell twice as much as you've ever sold before and you'll forever wonder if the banner is jinxing sales....

[Wall-Crawler]

22 hours ago, spreads said:

Hopefully you had a good show, we just had our monthly show and it was my personal worst.  It was frustrating because I brought the most stuff out and put a free ad up the day before we some bites, but the traffic was very poor.  Several dealers were griping about poor sales....oh well.

Gateway Summary

Show did not get off to a good start.

Woke up to a fair bit of wet yucky snow. Had to shovel my driveway. Grrr. Snow made a mess of everything. Still don't have snow tires on (go on tomorrow). Last year it was a bright and sunny, but crisp day with no snow whatsoever. 

Where it was being held (local university cafeteria), you had to drive down this one lane road to get to the unloading area that had not been plowed or sanded yet.

Showed up and they had ONE table for me. I kept my cool, walked to the organizer and they very quickly fixed it.  Actual unloading sucked as it was wet and slippery but I got it done.

Weather definitely impacted the show in terms of attendance but I suspect other factors played a role as well.  I have no idea on final numbers.  Other typical things apply, cosplayers have no or shallow pockets. All the card gaming kids stuck to their area and never ventured out.  Still some "organizational inefficiencies" with this show that need to be worked out.

Gateway Sales Summary

Most popular: Sets took top spot again.  Second was the bargain books $2 each or 3 for $5. I had a whack of DC 3-D covers that I had acquired in the summer and priced those nicely and they moved pretty good. I really need to beef up my bargain selection.

Single most popular title: X-Men and related titles...After that, single issues are all over the place.

Weirdest comic book ask:  Soloman Kane

Non-comic sales: Marvel Legends Action Figure and Power Record (Justice League)

Sale most happiest about:  Ultimate Fantastic Four #1 - #30 set. It's gone!!! See, it is not always the most expensive book...

Single largest sales: $200, $115 and $90. Smallest was $2.

I also had my first "Square Reader" sale!

Funniest (non) sale:  A young kid buys 3 for $5. Comes back an hour later asking for a refund. I asked him is something wrong with the books, says no, just he only has $5 and saw something he wants more. I thought about using this as a teachable moment about honouring your commitments but didn't think it would be appropriate  and of course, took the cheapies back and refunded his cash and he was like "THANK YOU" and promptly ran off to buy his treasure.

I didn't break any records, but sold enough to make it a decent day. I sold a lot of "small stuff" which is what I like about these shows. Overall, a satisfactory experience with a decent level of profit.  I will go back but the organizers have more work to do.

 

Edited November 13, 2017 by Wall-Crawler
new info added.

[Wall-Crawler]

I just went with a traditional style this time too.

 

 

 

 

[spreads]

Very nice setup, quite 'retail oriented'.  Here's my rickety- setup; I was at the end with no one showing up, the nice thing is that I have a lot of space.  That side folding table I brought and added $1 books.  I might even be able to grab another one, but for now I want to maximize my space (includes expanding the display wall).

 

Since my display is so $hitty compared to yours I added a cute photo of one of my cats hanging out in my hockey bag.

Edited November 14, 2017 by spreads

[1Cool]

35 minutes ago, spreads said:

Very nice setup, quite 'retail oriented'.  Here's my rickety- setup; I was at the end with no one showing up, the nice thing is that I have a lot of space.  That side folding table I brought and added $1 books.  I might even be able to grab another one, but for now I want to maximize my space (includes expanding the display wall).

 

Since my display is so $hitty compared to yours I added a cute photo of one of my cats hanging out in my hockey bag.

I don't think your cat looks like it wants to be associated with your cr*ppy booth

[thehumantorch]

2 hours ago, spreads said:

Very nice setup, quite 'retail oriented'.  Here's my rickety- setup; I was at the end with no one showing up, the nice thing is that I have a lot of space.  That side folding table I brought and added $1 books.  I might even be able to grab another one, but for now I want to maximize my space (includes expanding the display wall).

 

Since my display is so $hitty compared to yours I added a cute photo of one of my cats hanging out in my hockey bag.

Nice Zamboni 

That side table looks look a couple I bought.   They're not designed to hold a lot of weight, mine fell apart after about 10 shows.

[Wall-Crawler]

3 hours ago, spreads said:

Very nice setup, quite 'retail oriented'.  Here's my rickety- setup; I was at the end with no one showing up, the nice thing is that I have a lot of space.  That side folding table I brought and added $1 books.  I might even be able to grab another one, but for now I want to maximize my space (includes expanding the display wall).

 

Since my display is so $hitty compared to yours I added a cute photo of one of my cats hanging out in my hockey bag.

What kind of show was it? People just set up in hallways of arena?

[spreads]

2 hours ago, Wall-Crawler said:

What kind of show was it? People just set up in hallways of arena?

It's at an arena, but the main hall was packed and there's usually about 6-12 dealers setup along the hallway to the side.  I don't mind being out there, more room for people and we usually bring extra tables/setup with no renting cost.   I'm sure at one point there will be space in the main hall, but until all the card guys go away....

[spreads]

3 hours ago, thehumantorch said:

Nice Zamboni 

That side table looks look a couple I bought.   They're not designed to hold a lot of weight, mine fell apart after about 10 shows.

There's usually kids out there practicing or playing a game; I like to heckle them - P.A announcer...."and here comes the turok 1s...."  The table has been pretty solid so far, it came with good reviews and only cost me $10.

Edited November 14, 2017 by spreads

[Artboy99]

On ‎2017‎/‎11‎/‎14 at 10:18 AM, thehumantorch said:

Nice Zamboni 

That side table looks look a couple I bought.   They're not designed to hold a lot of weight, mine fell apart after about 10 shows.

quite literally fell apart. He unfolded it and all the metal parts flew apart and the plastic top fell to the floor.

It was a good table while it lived. It lasted far more than 10 shows.

[Artboy99]

On ‎2017‎/‎11‎/‎13 at 7:16 PM, Wall-Crawler said:

I just went with a traditional style this time too.

 

 

 

 

I quite like your display.

Very organized boxes with labels and dividers.

One thing I want to do with our boxes is to make every bag the same. Mylite 2 with board. I really dislike browsing a box where you have all sorts of different bags: poly bags with no tape or only 1 piece of tape and the corners of the flap are flipped up, mylars with open tops so as you browse flipping through books your fingers go into that open top and you ding the book.

We have a banner that I made, that I would like to get back to using again but I want to come up with a very fast and simple way of attaching it to the wall display.

[spreads]

1 hour ago, Artboy99 said:

This setup is awesome guys, how much additional time/space is needed transporting the materials/wall displays.  You guys really have quite the inventory if NTT #2 didn't make it to the wall!  On average for a show like this how many of those wall books would you sell in a day?

[spreads]

1 hour ago, Artboy99 said:

quite literally fell apart. He unfolded it and all the metal parts flew apart and the plastic top fell to the floor.

It was a good table while it lived. It lasted far more than 10 shows.

Do you know the make off-hand, curious to see if it's the same one I bought?  I got it for $10...it was actually listed for free but I gave the woman $10 because I liked-it.  She said she used it for many craft shows and it seems pretty stable - holds the 4-5 long boxes quite well - but I have only used it for three shows.

Went to a 'sell-my-stuff' content sale today, we ended up walking away with two antique pieces - one that will be re-finished and painted, the other we're leaving as is.  I'm dealing with a minor injury so I probably shouldn't have been buying/moving this stuff...oh well.  This company is great, I'll never forget the first sale I went to where I was snagging $1 comics left and right, lol...

[Artboy99]

50 minutes ago, spreads said:

This setup is awesome guys, how much additional time/space is needed transporting the materials/wall displays.  You guys really have quite the inventory if NTT #2 didn't make it to the wall!  On average for a show like this how many of those wall books would you sell in a day?

we try to do a single load each. Since there is 2 of us - 2 vehicle loads.

I get 16 shorts in the trunk of my car, 14 in the backseat, and 6 to 8 more in the passenger seat.

Dave brings all the walls and tables and quite a few other longs and shorts.

For the big local multi day shows we will bring one load on setup day, then a second load on the next day. Then take home a load on the second last day ( Saturday ) and again one load home on the Sunday. We have left it all to the final day and take multiple loads but it is very time consuming.

 

Some shows we don't sell any wall books. Some we sell several. The Alberta economy is really struggling and we are not seeing the sell off that we used to. I take pics of our walls almost every show and a few years ago a picture I took at the beginning of the year had a "record" of the books we displayed for sale. Compare that picture to the end of the year and 95% of the books had sold.

The last few years we sell maybe 10%, a sign of the tough economy locally.

Some other things we have tried: Use of our spinner racks.

Edited November 18, 2017 by Artboy99

[thehumantorch]

3 hours ago, spreads said:

Do you know the make off-hand, curious to see if it's the same one I bought?  I got it for $10...it was actually listed for free but I gave the woman $10 because I liked-it.  She said she used it for many craft shows and it seems pretty stable - holds the 4-5 long boxes quite well - but I have only used it for three shows.

Went to a 'sell-my-stuff' content sale today, we ended up walking away with two antique pieces - one that will be re-finished and painted, the other we're leaving as is.  I'm dealing with a minor injury so I probably shouldn't have been buying/moving this stuff...oh well.  This company is great, I'll never forget the first sale I went to where I was snagging $1 comics left and right, lol...

What is a 'sell-my-stuff' content sale?

We have 2 types of tables.  Larger 6'X 3' and a smaller 4'X 2'.  Karl is right, one of our 6'X 3' fell apart when I opened it at the last show, we've used them for probably 40 shows or more.  I tossed it.  Both of my smaller 4'X 2' tables have fallen apart also after perhaps 10 shows.  Essentially the screws holding the metal legs to the plastic top have ripped out.  They're just not built for heavy boxes.