Question for Sellers! China 2 2

[Robot Man]

My wife sold a lot of Chinese antiques for stupid prices a few years ago at local shows. Now with the tartiff talk and a bit of a bumpy Asian economy, she has moved away from that market.

[revat]

I'll give a personal bit insight, which 'might' say a bit more on the topic.

1. I've had sales to Hong Kong and Singapore (Most [but certainly not all] people in Singapore are ethnically Chinese and speak/read Chinese but English is the school/work language) of comics, the people in Singapore were locals, and I got the feeling the guy in Hong Kong was an ex-pat (ex-patriot) meaning a likely American or British guy living in Hong Kong.

2.  My wife has a male cousin in a smallish (4 million population) provincial capital in China, who is 28, upper middle class who was born and raised in China.  He's grown up watching and loving MCU movies and Xmen movies.  He has a good government job and a nice newer apt, married w/no kids.  He goes to Shanghai about once or twice a year.  He's got a few Marvel fancy little statues, but zero Marvel comics in Chinese or English.

3.  I've been to Shanghai like 6 times in the past ten years.  There's like 20M people plus a zillion tourists there and maybe 2 comic shops that sell very limited amounts of comics in English (super expensive), and all the customers are ex-pats.  If you want English comics there, you just buy trades at bookstores in the bigger cities.

4.  They recently tried to have Comic Con of some sort in China, I can't remember what happened but I think it was a disaster.

5.  Personal space is somewhat limited in China, and I think to some extent the communist revolution made it somewhat passé to keep or collect books.  Even the mangas that people have kept are not generally kept in 'collector' condition with the hopes of selling on a secondary market for the most part.

6.  I don't know if Marvel Unlimited is available in China, but its safe to assume that most comics are available to be read digitally, either legally or illegally.

 

Long way of saying...not a lot market for US comics in China.  And with shipping costs and custom issues and currency/payment issues and tariff wars, and the availability of digital comics, and us being firmly in the comic era with little increase in China comic market, I'm not sure there's a ton of hope for the future either.

 

BUT if you really want to monetize the comic craze in China, hire a tall pretty blonde to describe what's going on in a given issue in (good) Mandarin on a one of the Chinese youtube channels.  It only takes a few viewers (1M+, which is not too hard in a country of 1.8B) to make TONS of money.  Just have them read on camera like a mom reading to a 3-year old.

[mycomicshop]

Our China sales were almost non-existent through 2010, low and steady 2011-2015. Quadrupled in 2016, doubled in 2017, doubled again 2018, and so far for 2019 we're already nicely above 2018 with 4 months still to go in the year.

So far for 2019 China is ranked 14th among all countries by sales, behind Israel and ahead of Italy. Singapore is 6th and Hong Kong is 17th. I remain hopeful that China could grow into a more significant market.

[lou_fine]

23 hours ago, Xenosmilus said:

I was curious if over the last 10 years with the popularity of the MCU in China if you Sellers have had an increase in sells in China?

Hate to be the bearer of bad news here, but they are most definitely much more interested in flipping condos and other forms or real estate, as opposed to trying to trade in relatively much lower dollar value comic book transactions.  

[Xenosmilus]

17 minutes ago, mycomicshop said:

Our China sales were almost non-existent through 2010, low and steady 2011-2015. Quadrupled in 2016, doubled in 2017, doubled again 2018, and so far for 2019 we're already nicely above 2018 with 4 months still to go in the year.

So far for 2019 China is ranked 14th among all countries by sales, behind Israel and ahead of Italy. Singapore is 6th and Hong Kong is 17th. I remain hopeful that China could grow into a more significant market.

Great answer! Thank You!

[thirdgreenham]

18 hours ago, Cliff R. said:

That's sad.  We went to an Indians' game in Toronto years ago.  I was very impressed with how cordial and polite the people were, even to the opposing fans.  When Roberto Alomar came up to bat, he was loudly booed.  I asked a young boy of 8 or so, "Why are they booing Alomar ?" .  He quickly replied, "Because he spat on an umpire!" .

True story.

[1Cool]

2 hours ago, mycomicshop said:

Our China sales were almost non-existent through 2010, low and steady 2011-2015. Quadrupled in 2016, doubled in 2017, doubled again 2018, and so far for 2019 we're already nicely above 2018 with 4 months still to go in the year.

So far for 2019 China is ranked 14th among all countries by sales, behind Israel and ahead of Italy. Singapore is 6th and Hong Kong is 17th. I remain hopeful that China could grow into a more significant market.

Just out of curiosity - what is the comparison between China and US in terms of total sales or amount bought?  1 to 20?  1 to 100?  Behind Israel and ahead of Italy does not sound like a lot of books since I've never sold a book to either of those countries.  It would be great to hear what kind of numbers get you in the 14th place.

[mycomicshop]

Around 15% of our sales go outside the US. China's volume is currently 0.2% of US sales, still need multiple years of high growth to become significant.

[lou_fine]

1 hour ago, mycomicshop said:

Around 15% of our sales go outside the US. China's volume is currently 0.2% of US sales, still need multiple years of high growth to become significant.

So, are you trying to tell us that the impending U.S. China trade war is not going to have an impact on your business, even when they slap on the additional tariffs for your exports into China?    

Edited September 4, 2019 by lou_fine

[Lazyboy]

9 hours ago, revat said:

6.  I don't know if Marvel Unlimited is available in China, but its safe to assume that most comics are available to be read digitally, either legally or illegally.

 Are you suggesting that people in China would violate IP laws?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

10 hours ago, revat said:

ex-pat (ex-patriot)

Expatriate. "Ex-patriot" means something entirely different.

[RockMyAmadeus]

I have had multiple transactions to Singapore and Hong Kong, and all went smoothly (thankfully.) I've had Malaysian and Indonesian buyers as well. None to China.

[revat]

6 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Expatriate. "Ex-patriot" means something entirely different.

Richard Seymour, Aaron Hernandez, drew bledsoe.

[batman_fan]

On 9/3/2019 at 12:19 PM, blazingbob said:

I have 0 sales to China

That's more than I would have guessed.

[lou_fine]

33 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

I have had multiple transactions to Singapore and Hong Kong, and all went smoothly (thankfully.) I've had Malaysian and Indonesian buyers as well. None to China.

Dear Mr. RMA;

Are you not aware of the fact that Hong Kong is not an independent country and actually only a special economic zone within China?  

Please let us know the next time you are entering our country and we will gladly re-educate you in one of our restful and relaxing "resort" camps.   

Sincerely Yours;

- Xi Jinping

Edited September 5, 2019 by lou_fine

[justafan]

19 hours ago, mycomicshop said:

Our China sales were almost non-existent through 2010, low and steady 2011-2015. Quadrupled in 2016, doubled in 2017, doubled again 2018, and so far for 2019 we're already nicely above 2018 with 4 months still to go in the year.

So far for 2019 China is ranked 14th among all countries by sales, behind Israel and ahead of Italy. Singapore is 6th and Hong Kong is 17th. I remain hopeful that China could grow into a more significant market.

This is more along the lines of what I was anticipating.  The MCU movie popularity in China has to have had an effect, even if it was small by comparison to the US.  However, despite the lack of interest in modern comics, I expect that there'll be quite a few high dollar collectors from China looking at comics in the GA/SA for investment and potentially driving up a lot of the sales.  It may already be happening as US collectors begin to fade out of the market, Chinese investors/speculators may enter and see some of those keys as being a nice place to park some cash.  Perhaps there is still a lot of growth left in keys.  Unlike real-estate and man made islands in the pacific, they aren't making any more AC1, Tech 27 or AF15s...yet.

[poizon9886]

Quote

On 9/4/2019 at 4:11 AM, blazingbob said:

Sorry,  spoke without checking.

I have 1 customer in china,  2 in Hong kong.  Multiple sales to the customer in China from 2012-2018.

 

On 9/4/2019 at 5:34 AM, Cliff R. said:

Did you sell any Hulk 181's ? 

 

I bought a few books from Bob. And yes, that included a Hulk 181.

Edited September 5, 2019 by poizon9886