• When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

Seling Comics - Business Potential?
3 3

90 posts in this topic

16 hours ago, moemaya said:

From the start Im telling you this is a loaded question. Also, this post is geared towards seasoned sellers doing 100K a year or more in sales..

Ive started collecting again after many years, but more on the business side of things, buying and selling comics. I spend about 5-10 hours a weeks depending on the week, as i have a 9-6 regular job.
Ive picked up a knack on getting great deals for books, and have actually passed up some great deals simply because i either didnt have space or the time to dedicate to it. As it is i have about 2500 raw books that  i need to bag, board and list for sale. Could potentially take me months to get around to.
Im actually thinking of leaving my 9-6 job for various reasons and before I transition into something new i was wondering (the question)
A- How much potential there is to grow my comic business? Like can i sell 100k a year just on ebay?
B- And if anyone has a clue as to what kind of volume are the small, medium, and large dealers are doing?

Your input is much appreciated.

I don't think this method will get you the $100,000 a year but could get you some profits.

https://www.dcbservice.com/

Look for modern Batman, and Spider-Man comic books on there discounted, plus sprinkle in flavor of the month hyped comics and sell them as needed.

The Batman and ASM titles will always have an audience years from now, especially the Spider-Man variants.

I also suggest maybe adding Magic:The Gathering cards and sportscards into your repertoire as well.

Edited by ComicConnoisseur
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Many of us are giving you grief because $100k net sounds naive, not that many of us in the midst of a job or career transition haven't contemplated similarly. When I was getting transitioned out of a big fancy law practice (aka did not make partner) in 2003 and was not having good luck finding anything suitable in the lateral market, I seriously contemplated hanging a shingle. With no clients I knew it could easily be 6-18 months before I made any money, if ever. I tried to run the math on what it would take to clear $5k a month on eBay, which after taxes basically covered my living expenses here in NYC with some dipping into savings to pay for my law practice. I was already selli g $750-1000 a month on eBay, albeit not just comics, my wife had stuff too, and I also sold books. It was easier to find good deals back then, but more stuff in general sold on ebay.  It was easier to arbitrage on eBay then and shipping was lower. It was both a good time to sell and buy on eBay. On the other hand there were far fewer $10++ keys and semis back then, hot books, etc. Anyway, the math did not work, particularly as I was not going to throw $50k of my three years of F. YOU money I had saved into improved inventory. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Transplant said:

If I have $2M invested in something, I hope I'm not working as hard as is implied here and taking all that risk, just to make a 5% return.  

Yeah, you don't need anything close to two million dollars to make a six figure return in comics. 10-50% margins on $100-$5,000 book aren't THAT hard to find. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It should also be noted that your geography can play into your potential for success.  Are collections and leads available in your area?  Is there a lot of competition for those leads?  Is storage available and accessible to you (free or cheap and safe)?  Is weather a factor (like if you want to access your storage in the winter time, are there crazy storms that would make it hard)?  Also some states have state income tax, some don't.  Some states have sales tax, some don't.  Some have both.  So might have to factor that stuff in. 

Among other costs and considerations, like ebay fees, paypal fees, time and cost of shipping, plus of course the time it takes - hunting for books, sorting, bagging and boarding, grading, pricing, pictures, making ebay listings, answering questions from customers, packaging comics, dealing with returns, dealing with feedbacks, other advertising, accounting and record keeping, etc.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, moemaya said:

Thank @Tony S the B question was just to get a feel - wasnt expecting anybody to offer their tax returns for me to peruse. Just ball park numbers. But it was kind of a dumb question on my part.

Anyway thanks for the advice. I am a top seller on ebay in jewelry, comics and other items and over 5100 feedbacks - so i have some experience in this.

Everybody got caught up on the $4 a book thing. Guys i just bought this lot - i have no idea whats in there, maybe itll average out to a lot more. Its like 20 boxes all mixed bronze , silver and some modern.

I agree that the effort for a $5 book and a $50 or 500 book is the same. my goal is the latter.

I’d suggest that you go through the collection and figure out exactly what you have.

Paying the bills selling comics isn’t easy.  If you’re buying collections you’re gonna see a lot of junk and many better collections are overpriced.  It isn’t easy to consistently find decent collections priced with room for decent profit.  You’ll also find that every collection has a good percentage of tough to sell books and they will start to pile up.  When you open your kitchen cupboard and comics fall out you’ll realize this.

best advice I can give you is do this as a sideline while working elsewhere and try to grow the comic business.  At some point you’ll know if it’s sustainable and it’s time to go full time.  

The road is paved with ex comic dealers 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, october said:

Yeah, you don't need anything close to two million dollars to make a six figure return in comics. 10-50% margins on $100-$5,000 book aren't THAT hard to find. 

There is a big difference between a 10% and a 50% margin. You have an MBA, you know that. And a 10% margin usually needs to be a 20%+ margin to stay 10% after paying fees, maybe eating some shipping, etc. And finding those books in enough volume to add up to a $100K net is hard. Otherwise there would be more people doing it. There are plenty of people ding this as a side hustle, sure, but that ain't $100K a year. $100K is $274 a day, net, which means, what, $400 in sales a day even with a roughly 200% margin (you are laying out $126 to sell a comic for $400...not so easy)..a 50% margin is more like $750 in sales a day. Are my numbers wrong? That's a really heavy steady flow of good books. You may score several of these a month with your expert eye, etc., but 30?

Edited by the blob
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 I find it surprising you found 3 opportunities like that where I've heard of some seasoned dealers talking about collections drying up.  the first example you cited is how many of the better finds are starting to end up.  when the collector/heir understands the value of their comics, they tend to end up at auction with between 10% down to 5% commissions depending on the value of the collection. 

that's your biggest competition with large quality collections unless you've carefully been cultivating that relationship like many dealers. the halcyon days of nabbing a collection of SA/GA from an unsuspecting widow or grandma seem pretty much over. every now and then you might get lucky but it's usually feast or famine with long periods between feasts.

100k net annually means you'll either need to be hustling a lot of high margin comics or doing a bunch of high end low margin sales.  7 years ago at my peak with a busy day job I was clearing about 20k net annually for 2 years which of course I poured right back into purchases but I was doing that strictly to fund purchases for my collection. that was me driving around answering every lead, capturing arbitrage opportunities from weekly and monthly auctions on ebay and all the major comic auction houses, and pulling speculation hits at conventions. however there's a lot of collateral, expenses, and losses too that need to be accounted for with all that effort. 

I've stopped for 2 main reasons: my job now pays me more than the time cost of selling comics and the number of finds and arbitrage opportunities have become harder to come by. 

Good luck. it's fun to work at for a while but once the thrill of a big score wears off, it just becomes another daily grind.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, the blob said:

There is a big difference between a 10% and a 50% margin. You have an MBA, you know that. And a 10% margin usually needs to be a 20%+ margin to stay 10% after paying fees, maybe eating some shipping, etc. And finding those books in enough volume to add up to a $100K net is hard. Otherwise there would be more people doing it. There are plenty of people ding this as a side hustle, sure, but that ain't $100K a year. $100K is $274 a day, net, which means, what, $400 in sales a day even with a roughly 200% margin (you are laying out $126 to sell a comic for $400...not so easy)..a 50% margin is more like $750 in sales a day. Are my numbers wrong? That's a really heavy steady flow of good books. You may score several of these a month with your expert eye, etc., but 30?

There are multiple part-time guys who net six figures selling comics. 

Fees are not usually an issue for me. I sell to people directly and in my annual thread, and that knocks out 95% or more of my sales. Some things end up on eBay, Heritage, Clink....but not much.

If I only scored a couple of quality buys a month I would have quit a long time ago. I absolutely expect to find 30+ good books a month with a decent margin. It's too much of a time commitment otherwise.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, october said:

There are multiple part-time guys who net six figures selling comics. 

Fees are not usually an issue for me. I sell to people directly and in my annual thread, and that knocks out 95% or more of my sales. Some things end up on eBay, Heritage, Clink....but not much.

If I only scored a couple of quality buys a month I would have quit a long time ago. I absolutely expect to find 30+ good books a month with a decent margin. It's too much of a time commitment otherwise.

I suppose you have been at this a long time and if you have money and a good eye you can buy high end books in quantity and even a 5-10% margin on a $5000 book is a nice piece.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, the blob said:

I suppose you have been at this a long time and if you have money and a good eye you can buy high end books in quantity and even a 5-10% margin on a $5000 book is a nice piece.

It's taken a decade, at least 10,000 hours, to get to the point where I know enough to find a decent amount of books, and you can't be picky. I buy low grade, high grade, no grade, gold, silver, bronze, modern, mags, slabs, raw....whatever. Having gaps in your knowledge means that you leave money on the table every day. There are a lot of guys on the boards whose knowledge and skill far exceed mine, which is why this place is (still) such an amazing resource.

...and it's getting MUCH harder. Some of that is the market, some of that is personal. There are a lot more guys hunting for deals and keeping up with everything while having two small kids is a real challenge. I was going gangbusters for 4-5 years, but I've had to pump the brakes. That's what's nice about it though. It's scaleable to a certain point. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've ran the math a number of times and even owning all my inventory so there was no inventory cost, it's rough clearing much more than 25-30K without putting in a lot of hours. 

Sending $500-600 worth of books a month  to auction houses is less work and nets about the same. I just started selling on ebay after a nearly two year hiatus.

Last week I sold $271 worth of stuff. My cost were $45 plus the ebay fees. I'm hoping to list about $200 a week for the next few months. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

51 minutes ago, Ride the Tiger said:

Your best bet is to get in a time machine and go back to 1990. Open a comic shop and dump all you have into the business. Then just sit back and wait.

Open a comic shop in 1990. Buy as much nice GA, SA, and BA as possible that walks in the door that people don't care much about, do not sell it, keep it at home. Order 1000 copies of Harbinger 1. Don't order 11,000 copies of Turok 1 or any other sucker book. Don't hold out for top dollar on your modern back issues, sell them fast!  Well, regardless, 1995 - 2001 are going to be rough. Buy 1000 copies of Walking Dead 1 when it comes out. Retire on that and the cheap vintage stuff you were able to trade Harbinger 1s for in 1993.

OR buy $5,000 worth of Amazon stock in 1997, don't deal with all the hassle, wait until now, retire.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

100k net/year is a lot of work.  Especially if you’re just getting into it.  It would take years of networking and hustle to even come within half that (barring the “ultimate score” that sets you up as a real player).  

As others have said, if you want to make your living selling books, there are a ton of variables to consider. 

The first is available cash.  How much cash on hand do you have to compete?

Second, IMO, would be how much available supply is in your immediate area?  Are you able to offer fair market value for collections you may come across?  Are you willing to put out the money it would take to acquire those collections (knowing that a bunch of those books are tough sells)?   Are you able to sit on a ton of “leftovers” after you’ve sold off the good stuff?  

Are you willing/able to follow up on every potential lead?  Even if it means you have to pass more than you pay? 

Everyone dreams of the “big score”.  It does happen, but know it’s not the norm.  A few years back, my buddy and I “lucked” into a great collection.  We did really well on it.  Nowhere near 100k in sales though.  I’m fairly certain I’ll never get a score like that again.  

Good luck.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I know for myself, I have started grading some of my collection to sell.  Most of the stuff I purchased 10 to 30 years ago so the cost is quite low.  My experience is if you want to sell it quick, be prepared to offer serious discounts otherwise you will have to be willing to wait unless you have something that is super hot.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
3 3