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I'm opening up a brick and mortar this year and want some advice!!
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Started by Genesis Comics,

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Genesis Comics

Genesis Comics

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Just trying to build up anticipation with the delays lmfao...

I was sick for a week and am still getting better, hence the no write-up, but there was also a problem logging in one day...found out mother in law has cancer, son had an anxiety attack (pretty bad one, he has smaller ones, but this one was rough) AND I had to put my dog to sleep (14 1/2 years old).  Rough week...just because I'm running a business now doesn't mean that life stops outside...

This was the first real tough time I had as the guy who was helping me was also sick and didn't come in for just about a week, so I was here, solo...it was rough...I've worked open to close every day since open 8/26, and that's not including the 12-14 days of getting set up . Body started to break down and I was mentally drained...Last Friday, I was so sick, that the guy who helps me out (he was back), told me to go home lol...I took a few hours off (6-11) on Friday night.  I knew I was going to have to do something eventually as I couldn't keep up  the pace I was doing.  While I had my hours posted 12-8 (Sun, Mon, Tue), 12-10 (Wed, Thur, Sat), and 12-1 (Friday), the closing hours weren't "hard" closing hours, as I'm not going to ask someone to leave that's in the middle of a game, so the 12-8's became 12-10ish, the 12-10 are like 12-11/12).  We have the MTG events on Thurs, Fri, and Sat and those nights can go really late...Sat night until 3:50 AM...but I need to cater to the community and the times that they want to play...there is a store in the area open until 1 AM every night and my preference is to have the players here, not leaving to go to another place.  So, I have to figure out a schedule that will allow for me to have some time off and still cater to the community.

Things are going well.  I have enough money to make my weekly orders, pay my bills, bring in some extra product and pay a few guys a few bucks to help me out.  Not taking any money out for myself yet as I'm reinvesting all I can while I can to build up inventory.  

I've had some decent Magic the Gathering Collections come in as well as some OK comic collections.  Inventory is turning over quickly for Magic the Gathering and not so for comics...If I was just a comic store, I'd be very nervous right now, but with Magic the Gathering continuing to lead the way, still about 70% of sales, things are solid.  

I've increased the shelf area for POP's as they are in higher demand that I anticipated.  I've even brought in some "exclusives" as there is a market for them.  I've also brought in anything Rick and Morty that I can get my hands on, as everything sells well in this genre...comics, POP's, games, etc.

I have 6 people on my pull list, which isn't great, but not bad considering there are 4 comic shops within 30 minutes of here.  All 6 are getting Dark Night Metal lol, but there are some other things as well.  I'm hoping to get up to 10 by Christmas and then add 1 a month and hopefully be at 20+ by next year.  I'm offering 2 different pull services, based on their preference.  1) Straight 10% off all new books or 2) 20% credit that can be used towards back issues in the bins.  There is no "fee" for joining and all pull list customers get a free bag/board if they want.

 

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I made a big mistake which cost me some $$.  I did not get my POS in a timely fashion, i.e. more than 2 days before opening lol...I should have made it one of the first things I did, but hindsight is 20/20 as they say.  This caused me to get the computer only 2 days before opening and only 2 days to get it going properly.  There was an issue with the tax, as it was charging tax on some items and not others.  It was charging tax on new comic books (tax free in NYS), and not charging tax on supplies, which it should have.  Things were hectic and I didn't know how to change it myself...was too busy and didn't have time to sit down and speak with the helpdesk, so I made the terrible decision to just take tax off of everything (unfortunately I did know how to do this lol)...figured I'd get caught up in a few days...well a few days became a few weeks...and $2000 + later we finally got set up properly.  It was a whirlwind and other things kept popping up that needed attention.  I should have made this my first priority...expensive lesson learned.   Looking back, I feel like such an insufficiently_thoughtful_person not making this a priority, but live and learn.

Had my first sweet book come in...a very clean ASM 129...probably and 8.5 but IMHO can press to 9 + as there are a number of NCB creases on back cover...girl, who's dad passed, had no idea of values...explained to her that this was a valuable book and gave her a few hundred for it...she says he has boxes of books at home and she will bring them in...she said lot's of early Spiderman books...we will see...

Banned my first guy.  Guy came in, recovering addict, wanted to straighten out his life and focus on comics to take his mind off of the drugs, he also had a slight mental handicap as well..., I knew him from my local LCS, not a bad guy, just a guy who made some really bad decisions...wanted to help if I could...He was a handful...no social skills, would interrupt me, bother people, sit on the floor, take books out and put them back where ever, place random books on the "wall", etc.  He would always move things around and would constantly ask the same questions as he would forget he asked them in the first place.  I was doing my best to be patient with him and gave him his own set of rules.  One day he came in high and I asked him to leave.  He proceeded to get mad and do a bunch of "air karate" moves.  I explained it would be better if he didn't return.  Tried to do something nice, just didn't work out...he needs to want to change first...

 

My Magic the Gathering crowd is awesome, spend money, good solid crowd, clean up after themselves, etc!  So happy to have them here!

My Vanguard crowd, on the other hand, not so much...messy, don't spend money, and feel like it's OK to curse whenever they want.  I had conversations with them 4 straight weeks about language...by the 5th week, after a guy YELLED out, not softly, not coversationally, YELLED F&%$@ YOU!!  to the guy he was playing I lost my cool and told them the next time I hear foul language they can all leave.  Incidentally they didn't show up this week to play, which is OK with me...not going to tolerate that kind of behavior in my store.  If they show up this week they can play, but the first time I hear foul language, they are out.  

Had a guy come in thinking I was trying to rip him off.  He said he had old comics worth thousands!!  I told him I'd love to see them!  He, his wife, and his daughter came in with a pile of the books, his wife said she finally convinced him to bring in a small stack.  I went through the books, Return of the Jedi limited series, Nick Fury Agent of Shield reprint from 1983, a magazine, forget the name, that had an article about Return of the Jedi (from around the time of the release) and Wolverine 1 (1988).  I said the Wolverine was the best book, and I sell them at 40...his was in nice shape, and explained if he wanted to sell it, I'd offer him $20...he sneered/snickered, looked at his wife and showed her something on his phone.  She asked about the Nick Fury book and the guy interrupted me saying that it was worth $350 dollars.  I explained it was a reprint and he got more and more agitated, continually showing his wife his phone and saying "See, see!!  I told you they try to rip you off".  At this point I was getting a bit annoyed as this guy was questioning my integrity.  I asked him if he'd like me to show him why the books were priced the way they were, show him a price guide, and explain Ebay completed listings. I even explained that I would not offer to purchase the books, only show him actual values.  He said the Woverine book was worth $17,000 and that he emailed a picture of the magazine to someone in California and they told him it was worth $8000.  I showed him the Overstreet Guide and had him come behind the counter to look at Ebay completed listings.  I explained the Nick Fury was a reprint and not the original # 1.  I asked to see what he kept showing his wife and he said "Here it is!!!"  He had an article from some site that said "Record Breaking Sale of Wolverine # 1 for $17,000, along with some other ridiculous prices for copper age CGC 10's  At this point I had to explain grading and how CGC 10's were like unicorns.  No matter what I told him, he would not believe me.  When I realized that this guy just wasn't getting it (his wife and daughter understood), I showed him my Wolverine # 1 on the wall for $40.  You would have thought I kicked his dog...it's hard to explain to people when they think they have gold, that what they have is basically worthless.  He picked up his stuff and stormed out, his wife and daughter apologized...haven't seen them since...

Getting ready for Halloween Comic Fest this Saturday...have all the free comics in house, hired some cosplayers 12-4:30 (Harley Quinn, Green Arrow, Supergirl, and Catwoman) as well as Mr. Popintwist (3:00-5:00)  who does incredible balloons of anything you can think up.  Artist Creeece will be here from 12-2 along with colorist Mike McGuire.  We'll be teaching the new TCG Lightseekers, and raffling off a beautiful print by JaCo Tartaruga titled "La Llorna Boriquena" to help raise some money for those devestated by the hurricane in Puerto Rico.  We will also be collecting food donations as well.

 

So much has happened that I'm sure I've forgotten a lot, but overall it's been a positive experience!  I'm glad I did it, now I'm just fine tuning it and putting more and more systems in place in order to make it run more profitably and smoothly.  Thanks for all the support and for all the interest!  

Any questions, fire away!!

 

 

 

 

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ADAMANTIUM

ADAMANTIUM

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Stay Diligent @Genesis Comics the reward will be that much sweeter!

Yes life happens, good job on pushing through :) thoughts and prayers are with you, sounds like you've encountered most anything that "can" happen in the line of work ha. Now that you have that experience, it should be hopefully easier next time and sounds like you handled it pretty well this time ^^

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thehumantorch

thehumantorch

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Sounds like you've been awful busy while dealing with family issues.  Not easy to own your own business.  Glad you got through it.

Sounds like your weakest market is comics.  Consider creating a 50% off section and blow out everything that isn't key, build a reputation for deals and move inventory that isn't selling well.  Hopefully you'll also drive traffic and attract new file customers.

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Dick Pontoon

Dick Pontoon

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52 minutes ago, Genesis Comics said:

Had my first sweet book come in...a very clean ASM 129...probably and 8.5 but IMHO can press to 9 + as there are a number of NCB creases on back cover...girl, who's dad passed, had no idea of values...explained to her that this was a valuable book and gave her a few hundred for it...she says he has boxes of books at home and she will bring them in...she said lot's of early Spiderman books...we will see...

 

While it’s great that you’ll make a tidy profit on that deal, I have to wonder if that sort of thing won’t come around to bite you. An 8.5-9.0 ASM #129 is going to be  selling for around $1200-1900 these days. If the seller finds out the current FMV, she may not be so inclined to offer more books since a few hundred dollars is but a fraction of that.

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Genesis Comics

Genesis Comics

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11 minutes ago, Pontoon said:

While it’s great that you’ll make a tidy profit on that deal, I have to wonder if that sort of thing won’t come around to bite you. An 8.5-9.0 ASM #129 is going to be  selling for around $1200-1900 these days. If the seller finds out the current FMV, she may not be so inclined to offer more books since a few hundred dollars is but a fraction of that.

I should have been more clear...when i said a few hundred I meant $600...I explained that I would be getting the book graded and that there was a cost associated with that...I valued the book at 1000-1200 and explained that I generally pay 50-75% for keys...she understood the value and understood I had to make $$ as well!

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revat

revat

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11 minutes ago, Pontoon said:
1 hour ago, Genesis Comics said:

Had my first sweet book come in...a very clean ASM 129...probably and 8.5 but IMHO can press to 9 + as there are a number of NCB creases on back cover...girl, who's dad passed, had no idea of values...explained to her that this was a valuable book and gave her a few hundred for it...she says he has boxes of books at home and she will bring them in...she said lot's of early Spiderman books...we will see...

 

While it’s great that you’ll make a tidy profit on that deal, I have to wonder if that sort of thing won’t come around to bite you. An 8.5-9.0 ASM #129 is going to be  selling for around $1200-1900 these days. If the seller finds out the current FMV, she may not be so inclined to offer more books since a few hundred dollars is but a fraction of that.

its a tough one either way, IF she's inclined to look it up after the fact.  Either she'll be mad you offered her so little, or she'll expect 70-80%% of FMV on all the rest of the non-keys she selling too.  If she looks it up, you're probably boned either way.  I'd give her the fair but lower offer up front (as the OP did), just in case she's in the mood to negotiate.  Its already hard enough to get a non-comic person to come BACK to the shop.  Its possible that it backfires, but you'll probably never know either way.  But I expect everyone is a little different on those types of things, and experience will help one develop a methodology.

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ft88

ft88

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Each deal and person is different.  And you can't win every deal.  Some folks are thrilled to get 50% of value they just want to sell.  Others are trying to sell Wolverine #1......

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