Best & Worst years to own a store? 1 1

[shadroch]

Sometime in the early 2000s, a friend of a friend had a money losing shop. I agreed to spend two weeks working with him to try and blow out some inventory, and help him get a handle on ordering new books. It was incredibly frustrating, as the entire market had changed tremendously in the ten years since I'd run a shop. One thing I saw was how the back issue market had shrunk so badly. In his shop,back issues took up half the space but generated ten percent of sales. Sadly, he cared more about all the money tied up in the books than the fact he was using so much space inefficiently. One suggestion was to blow out most of the back stock, reduce the footprint they possessed and use the money to bring in new lines. Not only did he shoot down down every suggestion, he ended up stiffing me on three days work. He claimed two weeks meant fourteen days of work, not the eleven I performed.

About six months later, he tried to sell the shop to my friend but it fell through when what was supposed to be a courtesy call to the landlord revealed the was several months delinquent on rent and owed Common Area Maintenance fees adding up to almost another $1,000.00.

Store closed suddenly,and people got screwed on deposits and consignment.

Edited January 12, 2018 by shadroch

[the blob]

5 hours ago, shadroch said:

Sometime in the early 2000s, a friend of a friend had a money losing shop. I agreed to spend two weeks working with him to try and blow out some inventory, and help him get a handle on ordering new books. It was incredibly frustrating, as the entire market had changed tremendously in the ten years since I'd run a shop. One thing I saw was how the back issue market had shrunk so badly. In his shop,back issues took up half the space but generated ten percent of sales. Sadly, he cared more about all the money tied up in the books than the fact he was using so much space inefficiently. One suggestion was to blow out most of the back stock, reduce the footprint they possessed and use the money to bring in new lines. Not only did he shoot down down every suggestion, he ended up stiffing me on three days work. He claimed two weeks meant fourteen days of work, not the eleven I performed.

About six months later, he tried to sell the shop to my friend but it fell through when what was supposed to be a courtesy call to the landlord revealed the was several months delinquent on rent and owed Common Area Maintenance fees adding up to almost another $1,000.00.

Store closed suddenly,and people got screwed on deposits and consignment.

If it was krap to blow out, honestly how much money did he have in the books? Was he stressed out about the 55% of cover price he paid for books he couldn't sell on the rack and then stuck in back issues?

[shadroch]

He had hundreds of long boxes.  Must have had sixty in the back issue section that took up well over half the floor space generated a couple hundred dollars a month.

Back room was full, as well.

He was cash poor, and needed about $7000 to get the store going. Newsstand Magazine Distribution took $1000 deposit, as did a paperback deal. $1500 would have got him a jobber account for plastic models and toys. Another $1,000 for bags, boxes and supplies.

A blowout sale would have raised capital and created space, modernizing a store that showed its age.

 

[WolverineX]

On 1/10/2018 at 2:07 PM, aardvark88 said:

My buddy invested all his liquid savings of $6k at the time into flawless mint copies of Image and post-Unity Valiants. He pre-ordered in 1993 so received a generous 35% off cover price. Thought he was guaranteed to make big $$ by 1994. No dealer wanted to buy or trade for any of his long boxes of overstocked Image and Valiants, so he eventually begged the dealer he bought them from to take them back for $1,200 in trade  credit towards future comics or supplies purchases.

I must have bought a bunch of his Newstands today for a buck at the flea market.  This vendor had TONS of image mint comics

[shadroch]

Putting together NM runs of most Image books is easy peasy.

Try putting together a 6.0 run. Not so easy.

[GM8]

On 1/8/2018 at 11:17 PM, shadroch said:

It was when Comic Value Monthly started outselling X-Men that the warning lights went off!

Does anyone recall the name of the comic newspaper that was folded once and had some prices in the back but was mostly classifieds?

[WolverineX]

On 1/13/2018 at 2:01 PM, shadroch said:

Putting together NM runs of most Image books is easy peasy.

Try putting together a 6.0 run. Not so easy.

I think direct market editions are easy to find NM but not  newstands

[ComicConnoisseur]

3 hours ago, GM8 said:

Does anyone recall the name of the comic newspaper that was folded once and had some prices in the back but was mostly classifieds?

Comics Buyers Guide?

[jaeldubyoo]

On 1/13/2018 at 11:01 AM, shadroch said:

Putting together NM runs of most Image books is easy peasy.

Try putting together a 6.0 run. Not so easy.

Just bend up your NM copies. Easy peasy.        

It's mind-boggling  how many copies were stashed away, waiting for that easy retirement.  At the beginning, it was like printing money. Those that were late to the party were left holding boxes of landfill. I know of people that opened a comic shop with little more than their meager collections and no business plan, thinking they would be making a decent living. Life teaches hard lessons, sometimes.

 

[GM8]

2 hours ago, ComicConnoisseur said:

Comics Buyers Guide?

That's the one, thanks!  Couldn't remember it but that's where I got my turtles #1.  

[shadroch]

2 hours ago, jaeldubyoo said:

Just bend up your NM copies. Easy peasy.        

It's mind-boggling  how many copies were stashed away, waiting for that easy retirement.  At the beginning, it was like printing money. Those that were late to the party were left holding boxes of landfill. I know of people that opened a comic shop with little more than their meager collections and no business plan, thinking they would be making a decent living. Life teaches hard lessons, sometimes.

 

 That's what I did.  Not sure what the next step was to be, so I rented a very small store on a short term lease, bought my friends brother's collection for $300, borrowed two thousand and went for it. Used a Champagne box for a  cash register, had my sister paint a sign, found an old wooden ping pong table that became  the back issue department and a used greeting card rack for new issues.  Bought a correspondence course on opening a small business and went from there.

Made lots of mistakes, learned from some of them, learned how to make new mistakes, got really lucky when Seagate accidently gave me a rather large credit I didn't deserve, but was told it was easier for them to let it go then to fix it. Got lucky again when my poster guy-who gave me stuff on consignment , went broke and sold me his entire inventory for $200 and I resold it the next day for $600.  Doesn't sound like much now but that turned out to be the first $500 I was able to pull out of the business to target growth. A year later I had outgrown the shop and sold it for $3500, to a guy who also agreed to invest in my next shop, 

Edited January 15, 2018 by shadroch

[the blob]

21 hours ago, shadroch said:

 That's what I did.  Not sure what the next step was to be, so I rented a very small store on a short term lease, bought my friends brother's collection for $300, borrowed two thousand and went for it. Used a Champagne box for a  cash register, had my sister paint a sign, found an old wooden ping pong table that became  the back issue department and a used greeting card rack for new issues.  Bought a correspondence course on opening a small business and went from there.

Made lots of mistakes, learned from some of them, learned how to make new mistakes, got really lucky when Seagate accidently gave me a rather large credit I didn't deserve, but was told it was easier for them to let it go then to fix it. Got lucky again when my poster guy-who gave me stuff on consignment , went broke and sold me his entire inventory for $200 and I resold it the next day for $600.  Doesn't sound like much now but that turned out to be the first $500 I was able to pull out of the business to target growth. A year later I had outgrown the shop and sold it for $3500, to a guy who also agreed to invest in my next shop, 

I think the difference is you did it earlier when you could go that route. Guys opening in the early 90s were arriving at a different time.

[shadroch]

Without a doubt. Cost of opening a shop in the 90s was ten times that of the early 80s.

I recently found an old invoice from Crown Comics from 1984. My weekly new comics for the week was $114. In 1993  My X-Men bill  alone would have been more than that.

[aardvark88]

On 1/16/2018 at 11:42 AM, shadroch said:

I recently found an old invoice from Crown Comics from 1984. My weekly new comics for the week was $114. In 1993  My X-Men bill  alone would have been more than that.

1991 to 1993 was definately crazy peak Marvel print runs with lots of 1st issues and X-men related reboots:

Edited January 18, 2018 by aardvark88
sp.

[the blob]

On 1/16/2018 at 2:42 PM, shadroch said:

Without a doubt. Cost of opening a shop in the 90s was ten times that of the early 80s.

I recently found an old invoice from Crown Comics from 1984. My weekly new comics for the week was $114. In 1993  My X-Men bill  alone would have been more than that.

Which also indicates you were only selling about $900 in new comics a month and somehow surviving. 

[shadroch]

1 hour ago, the blob said:

Which also indicates you were only selling about $900 in new comics a month and somehow surviving. 

Thriving.

Had a nice triangle of sales- New comics( 45% margin), old comics ( much better markup) and Dungeons and Dragons( 50% markup on returnable merchandise).  Also did two monthly conventions on Long Island and twice a year in Manhattan.  I'd take twenty five or so long boxes to each Manhattan show and blow out whatever was left to Koch-Dolgorf-Koch, as I didn't have a basement or big back room for storage. 

Each was roughly 30% of total sales. I also took a $1,000 advance from a guy that put a video game  and an candy machine in the shop. 

Rent was $300 and included heat. I was supposed to put the electricity in my name but somehow never got around to it.  Drove a fourteen year old Mercury and shared a $450 apartment with a good friend and whomever he was hooking up with that week.  I also supplemented my income bouncing, bartending, doing an odd security gig or driving cars to Florida for snowbirds.

Kept my expenses low and proved the concept could work.  After a year, I needed more space and started to reel in some investors to open what I hoped would be my dream shop. 

[the blob]

15 hours ago, shadroch said:

Thriving.

Had a nice triangle of sales- New comics( 45% margin), old comics ( much better markup) and Dungeons and Dragons( 50% markup on returnable merchandise).  Also did two monthly conventions on Long Island and twice a year in Manhattan.  I'd take twenty five or so long boxes to each Manhattan show and blow out whatever was left to Koch-Dolgorf-Koch, as I didn't have a basement or big back room for storage. 

Each was roughly 30% of total sales. I also took a $1,000 advance from a guy that put a video game  and an candy machine in the shop. 

Rent was $300 and included heat. I was supposed to put the electricity in my name but somehow never got around to it.  Drove a fourteen year old Mercury and shared a $450 apartment with a good friend and whomever he was hooking up with that week.  I also supplemented my income bouncing, bartending, doing an odd security gig or driving cars to Florida for snowbirds.

Kept my expenses low and proved the concept could work.  After a year, I needed more space and started to reel in some investors to open what I hoped would be my dream shop. 

True, life was a lot cheaper in 1984. And people bought more back issues. Kids and mortgages make it hard.

Edited January 19, 2018 by the blob

[aardvark88]

On 1/18/2018 at 4:11 PM, the blob said:

 life was a lot cheaper in 1984. And people bought more back issues.

Had a debate with my buddy. I thought 1987 was a prosperous year for comic retailers. He said, "No," as comic shops were offering their higher volume subscribers crazy discounts of 35-40% off cover price as they were speculating. Some LCS were getting all their subscribers to give large deposits to the LCS. In effect, the LCS was using his subscriber base as a bank to finance their Diamond, Capital City, Second Genesis, Andromeda, Pacific Comics Distribution comic, mag, graphic novel pre-orders.

[aardvark88]

NM back issue prices for relatively 'common' issues from summer 1987. Comics were trending hot so I will list the higher of CVM or Overstreet Price Update 'values' that many of us could have or did buy in at:

ASM #1 $900, #14 $70, #39 Romita $12, #50 $16.50, #129 Punisher $20.

Avengers #4 $175

Batman #181 w/ poster $4 Poison Ivy.

Brave Bold #34 Hawkman $60

Capt America #100 $12

Cerebus #1 $500, counterfeit #1 $125, #2 $200 **

DD #7 $25, #158 Miller $40, #168 Elektra $21

Detective #359 Batgirl $5

FF #48 $35, #49 $18

Fish Police #1 1st print $40

G.I. Joe #2 1st print $55 **

GL 76 $65

HoS #92 Swamp Thing $25

Incred. Hulk #102 $13, #180 $11, #181 $37 **

Iron Man #1 $48, Iron Man and Subby #1 $7 (as so common)

Justice League #3 Superman test logo $25

Marvel Spotlight #5 Ghost Rider $8 which was higher than common Nick Fury #1 $6 Steranko

New Teen Titans vol. 1 #1 Perez $20

Showcase #34 Atom $34.

Silver Surfer vol. 1 #1 $65, #4 $35

Subby #1 $9 vs Thor #126 $5 as harder to sell.

TMNT #1 1st print $200

WWbN #32 Moon Knight $15

X-men #94 $100, #121 Alpha Flight $35, Gt Sz X-men #1 $90.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[David-Lance Roten]

86 - 91-ish. We've never had an abundance of comic shops proper in my area (Charleston/Berkeley/Dorchester counties S.C.).   The best times for me as a reader/collector were 77-84. We had several Book Exchanges in the area. 3 of which had comic specific areas, one in Summerville had a whole back room devoted to comics. By the mid 90's Barnes and Noble, in Galactus fashion, began murdering, er, buying out our Book Bag stores and others. 90's teens/young adults needed to be able to sit in the middle of an aisle reading instead of buying while drinking a latte', B&N provided that service. Book Bag  was our local in-state stores that sold only new books/mags/comics.  That trickle down effect eventually hit the remaining Book Exchanges and poofed them. Online availability of course plays a role also, then and now. Selection / convenience.