Opening a new brick and mortar shop 13 13

[the blob]

3 hours ago, shortboxed said:

Can you explain how your loyalty program works? My LCS simply offers 10% off your pull, but no loyalty program. 

Midtown gives a $10 credit for every $100 spent (or is it $20?), does it work like that?

[lighthouse]

20 hours ago, shortboxed said:

Can you explain how your loyalty program works? My LCS simply offers 10% off your pull, but no loyalty program. 

Square has changed the way their system works recently, and we've had to adjust a bit. But essentially it works like this.

Transactions are automated through Square whether cash or credit (or gift card). Every item has an inventory tracking category, like you saw in a couple of the recaps earlier in the thread. We assign a certain number of "stars" to each category. So someone buying a new release gets 1 star, someone buying a t-shirt gets 3 stars, someone buying a Marvel Gallery figure gets 5 stars, etc. We then give $15 off a future transaction when they hit 25 stars. This makes the stars worth 60 cents each on redemption.

We developed ALL of these thresholds ourselves. I probably spent 8-10 hours crunching numbers and talking to customers and fellow shopowners, as well as researching behavior online. A lot of thought went into whether the make the redemption award $10 or $15 or $20 or $25. And I won't get into all the specifics as to why $15 was chosen, but it wasn't a casual decision by any means.

The system tracks how many stars are earned in each transaction and it texts customers with their current totals. All the tracking is done by phone number, so if a household wants to "share" their stars they can just have them added to a particular phone number. Square will automatically capture customer info connected with any credit card, so even if they've never been in our store before, if they used that card for Square at their last bikini wax, it will pop up with the last 4 on our POS, allowing us to offer to text their receipt to the number ending in 1973 or whatever. It's not much different from using a loyalty card at your grocery store, you are getting better prices by allowing the merchant to capture data on you. We offer an extra star to any customer who gives their email address (which then authorizes us to email them with offers). They can obviously opt out later if they choose. We don't currently use email marketing at all. But we have well over a thousand customer email addresses captured at this point.

Back of envelope math would suggest that customers buying $2.99 comics are seeing a 20% discount, and those buying $3.99 comics are seeing a 15% discount. That's actually not the case. A customer buying exclusively $2.99 comics sees a discount of 17.45%, and a customer buying exclusively $3.99 comics sees a discount of 13.08%. Because it isn't $15 off a $74.75 purchase (25 comics at $2.99), it's $15 off a purchase of $89.75 (25 comics at $2.99 plus whatever the free $15 item was).

In the long run, we see blended loyalty discount rates around 4%. It obviously varies month to month because some customers will wait to redeem until there is something they really want. We have one customer who routinely waits until he has 100 stars to redeem for $60 off all at once. So some months report light when customers are accruing, and some heavy when there are extra redemptions, but in generally lands around 4% .And there are obviously some customers who come through town, visit once, accrue 15 stars and never come back. Those stars don't cost us anything if they never return. When you include discounts for active military, first responders, and educators, plus some scratch and dent discounts here and there, we tend to sit around an average discount rate of 5%, plus or minus half a percent.

Essentially we wanted a program that everyone could participate in. So that customers who only buy t-shirts still get something, customers who only buy Funkos still get something. We give a bigger "discount" on new release comics than on other merchandise, because those customers are the biggest "regulars" we have. Pretty much the only items in the store that give no stars are individual bags and boards and the various $1 reprints (Image Firsts, True Believers, etc). Our Funko regulars know that they effectively get 1 free Funko for every 12* they buy. The trade paperback collectors know that they get one $14.99 trade for free with every 6* they buy. Gallery collectors know that if they buy 5 gallery figures, they have $15 off something else. And those new release subscribers don't just get stars from their pull, they get them from any trades or t-shirts or statues or wall books or anything else as well. So they still get a strong effective discount on new books while also getting rewards for everything else.

Free is a powerful word. If it wasn't, you wouldn't see stores offering BOGO deals, they would just say things were 50% off. And customers are much happier getting $15 "free" than they would be getting a discount on each purchase along the way, even if those discounts totaled more money in the long run.

Recently Square announced some significant upcoming changes to their program, and for a week or two we were concerned we would have to scrap the whole system. We cautioned some of our regulars that changes might be coming that we couldn't control, and that we would honor past rewards but might have to discontinue the program. We had customer after customer respond by raving about how much they loved the program and to please never change it. Thankfully our voice was added to many others and Square ultimately backed off the proposed changes. But it was great hearing that the program made customers so happy. Because ultimately that's our goal. As long as we take care of our customers, profits will take care of themselves.

 

*(it's actually 12.5 and 6.25, but in people's minds it's 12 and 6)

 

------ Edited to add

From a back of house standpoint, the loyalty program pays for itself many times over. We get incredibly detailed customer tracking information. We can pull up individual customers and review all their transaction history. We get automatic info on lapsed customers. And we can change aspects of it whenever we need to. When we started carrying comic-themed doormats, it took 30 seconds to update the loyalty program with them added. No one has to carry punchcards. There's no stamps. It's all completely seamless. And it adds no time at all to the checkout process, which is huge when we have 7 or 8 customers waiting in line to pay. Of all the features the Square ecosystem has made available to us, the loyalty program is easily the one with the biggest impact.

[lighthouse]

Here's a real life example of how much fun it can be dealing with Diamond.

Every Monday evening it's FOC time. FOC stands for Final Order Cutoff, and represents an opportunity for shops to adjust their orders up or down. For new release stuff it's normally 23 days ahead of release date. For TPBs and HCs, it's usually 2-3 months out. For statues, it's usually 6-7 months out. So if you got caught off guard by how well Middleton's Batgirl covers were selling, you're not locked in on what you guessed you would need 7 weeks ago when you placed an initial order, you can place a new guess 3 weeks out.

Even though today is a holiday for most people, it's still FOC time. So I log in to fine tune my orders, and see that the total retail of what I am adjusting is a bit higher than normal. I figure maybe there's some statues or Omnibus or something, because nothing struck me as all that huge for September 26th. So I sort the FOC items by descending extended cost and...

Well that's interesting... I mean we are big fans of Walking Dead, but I think I would have remembered ordering over $3,000 retail worth of graphic comic boxes. Given that such things can be reordered later, it's pretty odd that I would have ordered so many in the first place. Maybe I was drunk the last Thursday in June? No, wait, one was June and two were July. I definitely don't remember being drunk both Initial Order dates... So I pull up one of the items and find...

Well now... that seems to explain it. See that pink bar of text? Three days ago, just before Labor Day weekend started, they apparently changed this item from a single box at $13.95 retail to a 10-pack of boxes at $139.50 retail. And they just ported the original orders over even though the quantities had multiplied. So instead of having orders on file for 10, 8, and 4 graphic boxes, we now have orders in place for 100, 80, and 40...

It's a good thing I didn't decide to go camping for the weekend and lock in my FOC numbers on Thursday afternoon before leaving town... I mean I am sure we could eventually sell 220 Walking Dead themed short boxes... but...

Now, do I honestly think Diamond would have held retailers to these quantities? I doubt it. I am sure there will be dozens of retailers who chose not to even check their FOC this week (there's no obligation to), who are going to be shocked when they see that their order of 3 became 30, or their order of 22 became 220 like ours. But there's a decent chance they wouldn't have realized what happened in time. And if you happen to be a new account and still on COD Certified terms (as all accounts are their first 6 months)? You'd be stuck coming up with extra cash just to get the rest of your shipment that week...

Is it an honest mistake, made by some employee right before they left for the holiday weekend, and they didn't realize the consequences? Probably... But I am awfully glad I checked the FOC this particular week.

[G.A.tor]

16 hours ago, lighthouse said:

 

Even though today is a holiday for most people, it's still FOC time. So I log in to fine tune my orders, and see that the total retail of what I am adjusting is a bit higher than normal. I figure maybe there's some statues or Omnibus or something, because nothing struck me as all that huge for September 26th. So I sort the FOC items by descending extended cost and...

Well that's interesting... I mean we are big fans of Walking Dead, but I think I would have remembered ordering over $3,000 retail worth of graphic comic boxes. Given that such things can be reordered later, it's pretty odd that I would have ordered so many in the first place. Maybe I was drunk the last Thursday in June? No, wait, one was June and two were July. I definitely don't remember being drunk both Initial Order dates... So I pull up one of the items and find...

Well now... that seems to explain it. See that pink bar of text? Three days ago, just before Labor Day weekend started, they apparently changed this item from a single box at $13.95 retail to a 10-pack of boxes at $139.50 retail. And they just ported the original orders over even though the quantities had multiplied. So instead of having orders on file for 10, 8, and 4 graphic boxes, we now have orders in place for 100, 80, and 40...

It's a good thing I didn't decide to go camping for the weekend and lock in my FOC numbers on Thursday afternoon before leaving town... I mean I am sure we could eventually sell 220 Walking Dead themed short boxes... but...

Now, do I honestly think Diamond would have held retailers to these quantities? I doubt it. I am sure there will be dozens of retailers who chose not to even check their FOC this week (there's no obligation to), who are going to be shocked when they see that their order of 3 became 30, or their order of 22 became 220 like ours. But there's a decent chance they wouldn't have realized what happened in time. And if you happen to be a new account and still on COD Certified terms (as all accounts are their first 6 months)? You'd be stuck coming up with extra cash just to get the rest of your shipment that week...

Is it an honest mistake, made by some employee right before they left for the holiday weekend, and they didn't realize the consequences? Probably... But I am awfully glad I checked the FOC this particular week.

I ordered 2 initially and even with price change I’m still just at 2. It was solicited as a 10pack to begin with (unlike reg boxes the graphic boxes have been case solicitation since just about day 1). 

So unless folks messed up and ordered as singles vs case of 10, they should only see the previously price discrepancy corrected  

Edited September 4, 2018 by G.A.tor

[lighthouse]

20 hours ago, G.A.tor said:

I ordered 2 initially and even with price change I’m still just at 2. It was solicited as a 10pack to begin with (unlike reg boxes the graphic boxes have been case solicitation since just about day 1). 

So unless folks messed up and ordered as singles vs case of 10, they should only see the previously price discrepancy corrected  

When I first read your reply, I thought I was going crazy... It's not as though I haven't misread plenty of Diamond listings in my time, but I specifically remembered having a 10-minute discussion with three of the employees about how many of these boxes to order. And there was a pretty heated discussion about whether to order more Saviors or more Factions. So I went and pulled the original Retailer Order Form to check.

It's possible you place your orders through Diamond's POS software and perhaps the item info had changed there by the time you were placing your order. But I was doing mine through their order entry system on the site, using the paper Retailer Form as I always do... and sure enough, those boxes were listed as singles in the Retailer Form.

This is our first time ordering Graphic Boxes from Image. The recent Marvel and DC ones have all been in 5-packs. But it's certainly possible the Image ones were in 10s. I wouldn't know since we hadn't ordered any before these.

I'm just glad to know I wasn't going crazy. I mean, I know I'm going crazy, but at least not about this lol.

[G.A.tor]

25 minutes ago, lighthouse said:

When I first read your reply, I thought I was going crazy... It's not as though I haven't misread plenty of Diamond listings in my time, but I specifically remembered having a 10-minute discussion with three of the employees about how many of these boxes to order. And there was a pretty heated discussion about whether to order more Saviors or more Factions. So I went and pulled the original Retailer Order Form to check.

It's possible you place your orders through Diamond's POS software and perhaps the item info had changed there by the time you were placing your order. But I was doing mine through their order entry system on the site, using the paper Retailer Form as I always do... and sure enough, those boxes were listed as singles in the Retailer Form.

This is our first time ordering Graphic Boxes from Image. The recent Marvel and DC ones have all been in 5-packs. But it's certainly possible the Image ones were in 10s. I wouldn't know since we hadn't ordered any before these.

I'm just glad to know I wasn't going crazy. I mean, I know I'm going crazy, but at least not about this lol.

I ordered mine through comicsuite , yes. It was solicited as 10 pack. Never looked at paper order form

[thunsicker]

1 hour ago, lighthouse said:

I specifically remembered having a 10-minute discussion with three of the employees about how many of these boxes to order.

Hey lighthouse.  If you're looking for more stuff to share that would be interesting...

Could you speak a bit about how you went about staffing the store.  Figuring out how many employees you needed.  Planning full time vs part time employees.  Are there any employees that haven't worked out for you?

[lighthouse]

3 hours ago, thunsicker said:

Hey lighthouse.  If you're looking for more stuff to share that would be interesting...

Could you speak a bit about how you went about staffing the store.  Figuring out how many employees you needed.  Planning full time vs part time employees.  Are there any employees that haven't worked out for you?

There's a lot more of the regular story to tell. But I like to sit for 2-3 hours straight composing those posts. The quick replies I can do while waiting for a few hundred price labels to print, or while waiting on things to download. So I'll get back to the "story" soon... but sure.

My initial staffing estimates were horrible. They were as bad as the cover of Berzerker 1 from Gauntlet Comics. I mean really bad... Seriously, go look at that cover for 3 minutes. Lol.

But that's largely because I expected to have a couple months of slow rampup. Not $1.81 a foot in a day. So the initial staffing was planned to be one full-time future-manager employee beyond myself, plus one part-timer in the 10-20 hour range, with additional staff to follow later. I had a few friends who volunteered their time to help out during the pre-open phase. And a couple of those helped out with crowd control during the grand opening (and to assist with the costume contest). But at the end of the first week, we had already beaten my full-month sales estimate for month 1, and I had just the two additional employees.

We wound up hiring from our customer pool (a very common strategy), and added a couple part-time folks that way who could assist with grunt labor (making bags and boards, restocking Funko, etc). One of those early hires is still with us. The other was removed after a couple months over attendance issues.

We get probably 60-80 job inquiries a month, and of those we interview 2-3 people a month. Of those roughly 20% of the interview candidates are offered a position. It's frustrating because a huge number of people think their love of comics is critical to getting a job. We get inquiries like "I've loved comics my whole life, this would be my dream job!" And it's extremely unlikely that those candidates will be a good fit. We hire for trustworthiness first, customer service second, punctuality third... comic knowledge is probably 15th-20th if I were making a complete list. I mean I freaking love eating cheeseburgers, but that in no way qualifies me to work at Five Guys. Comics are amazing. Getting employees to fall in love with comics isn't difficult at all. Over my three shops I can't tell you how many employees went from "I haven't read any comics ever" to "I can quote you first appearances of 100 different characters and will rant about how much I love 30 different titles if you let me" in a matter of weeks. We can teach people about comics, we can't teach people to care about customers. We require all employees to read dozens of titles a month (on the clock), and demand that at least a third of those are outside their normal interests. I'd say our average employee read 50-60 new books last month alone.

On the question of full-time versus part-time, in the initial stages, part-time is better. We would rather have 5 different employees who work 15 hours a week than 2 employees who work 40. Even if you ignore the payroll burden questions, the flexibility to have people cover someone else's shift or to have extra employees come in for a busy day... that's critical. If you need 5 employees working the night before FCBD, you can't reschedule 2 people in such a way to get the coverage you need. Things would likely be different in a B location, but it isn't unusual for us to have 30 customers in the store at a time, and we hit our occupant load for three full hours during last FCBD (having to hold customers in line outside the store waiting for people to leave). Flexible scheduling is the only way we made that happen.

 

Edited September 5, 2018 by lighthouse

[jmg3637]

Great thread Lighthouse

Had the chance to finish reading it yesterday while waiting for my Daughter's tonsils to come out.

Enjoyed finding out the behind the scenes of a Brick and Mortar store.

Was wondering how long since the store opened its doors? 

[FineCollector]

22 hours ago, lighthouse said:

We get probably 60-80 job inquiries a month, and of those we interview 2-3 people a month. Of those roughly 20% of the interview candidates are offered a position. It's frustrating because a huge number of people think their love of comics is critical to getting a job. We get inquiries like "I've loved comics my whole life, this would be my dream job!" And it's extremely unlikely that those candidates will be a good fit. We hire for trustworthiness first, customer service second, punctuality third... comic knowledge is probably 15th-20th if I were making a complete list. I mean I freaking love eating cheeseburgers, but that in no way qualifies me to work at Five Guys. Comics are amazing. Getting employees to fall in love with comics isn't difficult at all. Over my three shops I can't tell you how many employees went from "I haven't read any comics ever" to "I can quote you first appearances of 100 different characters and will rant about how much I love 30 different titles if you let me" in a matter of weeks. We can teach people about comics, we can't teach people to care about customers. We require all employees to read dozens of titles a month (on the clock), and demand that at least a third of those are outside their normal interests. I'd say our average employee read 50-60 new books last month alone.

That's an interesting perspective.  I don't disagree that customer service trumps comic trivia, but you're not selling a commodity like gravel or walnuts.  If your employees don't share a passion for comics, your customers may not accept their recommendations, particularly if they don't know the important creators or classic storylines.  You can be sure that any comic shop employee who tells me Civil War was a great story is one that I will ignore from then on.  Beyond that, you'll have TPBs that become pieces of furniture because employees don't know how to recommend them.  A lesser concern is that the employees may not clue into a good find when someone calls to sell something.

Do you train new employees how to handle comics?  I find that many non-comic people in retail either don't care how they handle a comic, or are terrified to handle comics above a certain dollar amount, or both.

[lighthouse]

1 hour ago, jmg3637 said:

Great thread Lighthouse

Had the chance to finish reading it yesterday while waiting for my Daughter's tonsils to come out.

Enjoyed finding out the behind the scenes of a Brick and Mortar store.

Was wondering how long since the store opened its doors? 

That's part of "the story". And I will get to it in time.

I still have a lot more to cover from the earliest stages, including Diamond's credit process, our marketing decisions, wall book display choices, Diamond's discount structure, loss prevention strategies, collection buying, etc... but all in good time.

[lighthouse]

25 minutes ago, FineCollector said:

That's an interesting perspective.  I don't disagree that customer service trumps comic trivia, but you're not selling a commodity like gravel or walnuts.  If your employees don't share a passion for comics, your customers may not accept their recommendations, particularly if they don't know the important creators or classic storylines.  You can be sure that any comic shop employee who tells me Civil War was a great story is one that I will ignore from then on.  Beyond that, you'll have TPBs that become pieces of furniture because employees don't know how to recommend them.  A lesser concern is that the employees may not clue into a good find when someone calls to sell something.

Do you train new employees how to handle comics?  I find that many non-comic people in retail either don't care how they handle a comic, or are terrified to handle comics above a certain dollar amount, or both.

From our perspective it takes around 200-250 hours to get an employee trained to the point that they could be in the store alone with customers for a half hour. And roughly 400 hours to get them to the point that they could handle an entire shift as the primary employee.

New employees spend a LOT of time on the more menial tasks in the beginning. Making bags and boards, restocking Funkos, restocking t-shirts etc. During this time they are in the store with experienced personnel so they can hear how customer questions get answered (and how they absolutely never get answered). They learn where various things can be found. And they read a lot of current series to get to know the material. After a time, they get assigned to Tuesday evening shifts to assist with the weekly shipment. Week after week after week they are shown exactly how to unpack the boxes, exactly how to handle books to get them to the rack. We've had many sub customers indicate they have received 9.8s from books we put in their sub pull for them, and proper handling of new releases is a huge point of pride for me (and now for the rest of the team). Part of that Tuesday evening shift involves bagging and boarding books that come back off the recent releases racks and into the boxes and that is all supervised. Proper handling of comics isn't rocket science, but it does require training. And it's actually easier for us to teach someone who hasn't collected previously than someone who has a decade of bad habits built up from handling their own books poorly. By teaching new employees how to keep a 9.8 new release in 9.8 condition even if it's a book that "will never be worth anything", it's easier to transition to having them handle "expensive" books later.

Two "worst of times" ago, I got multiple CGC 10s and a few dozen 9.9s from new releases, so I am confident in the handling techniques I teach the employees. The only actual difference between that technique and "every Tuesday" is that we don't have everyone wear nitrile gloves every week.

No employee is ever going to have read every comic story ever written. I mean, we carry over 300 titles a month and it isn't like anyone is reading all of those, much less the 300,000 issues that came before them. But we don't turn an employee loose on their own until they have had plenty of time to get up to speed. By the time that employee is the face behind the counter, their comic knowledge is strong, and their customer service is even better.

[SteppinRazor]

On 9/6/2018 at 1:50 PM, FineCollector said:

You can be sure that any comic shop employee who tells me Civil War was a great story is one that I will ignore from then on. 

I can imagine that no matter what recommendations, there will be those who don't like it.  The Death of Superman, Knightfall, and the X-Men Fatal Attractions knocked me out of the hobby when they came out, but somehow there are people who like that pile of toilet paper.

Question is, would you stop going to that comic store, or just ignore the employee's recommendations?

[lighthouse]

8 minutes ago, SteppinRazor said:

I can imagine that no matter what recommendations, there will be those who don't like it.  The Death of Superman, Knightfall, and the X-Men Fatal Attractions knocked me out of the hobby when they came out, but somehow there are people who like that pile of toilet paper.

Question is, would you stop going to that comic store, or just ignore the employee's recommendations?

I find it's important to frame recommendations against other titles. If you like X, we think you will like Y. If you're a fan of Smith, we think you'll like Jones. If you loved the complicated characters in this book, we think you'll like that book, etc.

If someone comes in telling us they loved Regression, we will likely steer them to Ice Cream Man. But it depends on WHY they liked Regression. We could just as easily point them to Walk Through Hell. All are excellent, unsettling titles. But none are exactly alike by any means.

We get customers who don't care about story but want pretty art. Okay, that's an easy enough request to fill, even if it's not my personal preference. We need to know what to recommend for that person, even if we wouldn't give the same recommendation to someone who tells us they loved Maus or Blankets.

[musicmeta]

All this is so interesting to read.  Looking forward to the next posting of info. 

[davidpg]

Lighthouse, are you using a traffic counting solution right now?  If not, you should be.  You know enough about what you're doing though the insights you get from proper traffic counting can be eyeopening.  Let me know if you'd like to discuss it as I've worked the business.

 

Edited September 9, 2018 by davidpg

[lighthouse]

On 9/9/2018 at 10:51 AM, davidpg said:

Lighthouse, are you using a traffic counting solution right now?  If not, you should be.  You know enough about what you're doing though the insights you get from proper traffic counting can be eyeopening.  Let me know if you'd like to discuss it as I've worked the business.

 

We are not currently. We spot check the daily counts by reviewing the security feeds (we have 8 visible cameras in the store). And we staff a person for accurate traffic counts for event days like Halloween Comic Fest or Free Comic Book Day.

We were somewhere in the top 21% of shops for FCBD attendance this past May. Diamond only breaks out the higher counts in 500 person increments, but there were 3.4% of shops with over 2000, and another 4.0% between 1501-2000. We were in the 13.4% with attendance between 1001-1500. Best guess would be around 85th percentile. So in the top 300-350 shops, something like that. There were 2,428 shops participating this past May.

58% of shops had fewer than 500 FCBD attendees, and the mean was roughly 610 (drug well above the median by the high attendance outliers). The average shop gave away around 2200 free comics. We gave away around 6,000. On a per-square-foot basis, I doubt there were many stores that came close to how packed we were for FCBD. Three hours of having a doorman denying entry until we were under occupant load was definitely not what I expected.

Our foot traffic is unusual for reasons I will get into later in "the story". But we may well add a dedicated traffic counting solution down the line. In spite of all my advance planning, there are certainly things I didn't anticipate, lots of them. And our goal is to always be better than we were the previous month.

[HouseofComics.Com]

Now that you've gotten through another new comic book Wednesday, let me toss you a quick little question on your philosophy towards local cons. If the promoter of your local con asks to put fliers in your store, do you say yes? Do you support your local annual Comic Con (really a pop culture con, with some comics)? Do you take a booth at the show to promote your store? Or will you in the future?

Also, has your philosophy on this been consistent with your previous stores or has it changed with the new store?

[lighthouse]

15 hours ago, HouseofComics.Com said:

Now that you've gotten through another new comic book Wednesday, let me toss you a quick little question on your philosophy towards local cons. If the promoter of your local con asks to put fliers in your store, do you say yes? Do you support your local annual Comic Con (really a pop culture con, with some comics)? Do you take a booth at the show to promote your store? Or will you in the future?

Also, has your philosophy on this been consistent with your previous stores or has it changed with the new store?

In my first two shops, literally no one ever asked to put out flyers. At the first shop in Texas, I never set up at cons. But at the second shop (in Oregon) we set up at shows from Seattle to San Diego. The very first ECCC (roughly 2003?) is still the most profitable show I have ever done. Sales at that show were just insane relative to the cost of the booth. Did that show twice, plus multiples of "the other show" in Seattle (I think Steve? was the promoter, been way too long). Did a half dozen of the Portland shows. Did WonderCon in SF in 2003 and San Diego in 2004, but by then I wasn't a brick and mortar shop any more.

At the current shop, we will put out flyers for any Con within 300 miles or so. We don't have a huge area for them, probably 2' by 3', but we wind up with flyers out for cons, art shows, film festivals, all sorts of things.

We have not yet taken a booth at a con, but that's largely a matter of not having enough staff to adequately service customers in two venues at once. We won't let the customers at the shop suffer just so we can grab extra sales at another venue (or worse, so we can drive more traffic to the shop). It's a slap in the face to care more about finding new customers at a show than about the customers that are already in the store. Given the lead time necessary to get "good" spaces at Cons, we will probably look at exhibiting starting next March or April. We would probably have staffing where it needs to be by November. But I don't want to advance book space at a Con without already having the staff in place.

So currently our "support" for Cons would be in the form of flyers or donations. Any event that asks for material for a charity auction or raffle, we will donate. That's actually true of pretty much any event, Con or not, whether it's a high school fundraiser, church group, or minor league baseball team. But down the road, yes, we plan to exhibit.

[comicwiz]

On 8/27/2018 at 2:35 PM, lighthouse said:

Those of you who were members 15 years ago are well aware that I write like I am being paid by the word

Lol. That used to be the custom title on my profile.