Question for you shop owners 0

[jfenton8287]

I’ve been wondering this for a while. Would you as a comic shop owner rather have a higher priced book in your shop to sell or several lower priced books? The lower priced books surely are easier to move on their own I’d think.

As an example, would you rather have a graded 9.0 copy of ASM 129 ($1800 value) or 6 copies of various $300 books? Or even 9 copies of $200 books?

Thanks in advance

[Krismusic]

12 hours ago, jfenton8287 said:

I’ve been wondering this for a while. Would you as a comic shop owner rather have a higher priced book in your shop to sell or several lower priced books? The lower priced books surely are easier to move on their own I’d think.

As an example, would you rather have a graded 9.0 copy of ASM 129 ($1800 value) or 6 copies of various $300 books? Or even 9 copies of $200 books?

Thanks in advance

I am not a comic shop owner.. but I have to think this question has a lot of un answered variables that are specific to each shop owner. 

1. Such as finances of the shop.. what can they afford...

2. How much traffic do they have through their stores? 

3. What kind of customers do they have?

4. what kind of profit is to be had on the books?

5. What is their store like?

6. Do they do only online do they do brick and mortar and online, do they do most brick and mortar?

7. Do they do Conventions?

8. What is the size of the store?

9. What are their overhead/expenses?

10. Do they think they might be able to sell that book quickly or the 3 books? 

11. all the other many many variables that goes into a sale.

If your looking for yourself of what to do you can answer all the questions I stated above and you might get a better response or realize for yourself what you would do..

[silversurfer275]

Not a shop owner but like if those 9 smaller keys are very slow moving l would take the asm 129 but if those comics are super hot I would take the 9  comics

[revat]

I think in general the biggest factors are turnover and profit margin (assuming the purchase price was the same)

 

If those were EXACTLY the same, space would be a consideration, and how good the book(s) look on my wall (which would depend on what else I have that is 'wall' material) to my likely clientele.

Other factors might be whether the comic(s) are trending in specific directions, or if there are tie-ins to media (new or current tv shows/movies). 

 

But honestly the question is too subjective for any answer to be useful IMO

[THE_BEYONDER]

 

Question for you shop owners

 

[jfenton8287]

1 hour ago, revat said:

I think in general the biggest factors are turnover and profit margin (assuming the purchase price was the same)

 

If those were EXACTLY the same, space would be a consideration, and how good the book(s) look on my wall (which would depend on what else I have that is 'wall' material) to my likely clientele.

Other factors might be whether the comic(s) are trending in specific directions, or if there are tie-ins to media (new or current tv shows/movies). 

 

But honestly the question is too subjective for any answer to be useful IMO

I appreciate the input. I'm just a collector, so it was something I had always wondered. I know of shops that deal with mostly only older books, and shops that deal with mostly only newer books. To me, it would be more difficult to succeed as a business doing either of the two.

I feel like profit margin would make the choice obvious. Likewise if either the expensive or the cheaper books were "hot" while the other/s weren't.

I guess I'm just asking more about people's personal tastes and choices at that point, which to me is useful

[Krismusic]

1 hour ago, jfenton8287 said:

I appreciate the input. I'm just a collector, so it was something I had always wondered. I know of shops that deal with mostly only older books, and shops that deal with mostly only newer books. To me, it would be more difficult to succeed as a business doing either of the two.

I feel like profit margin would make the choice obvious. Likewise if either the expensive or the cheaper books were "hot" while the other/s weren't.

I guess I'm just asking more about people's personal tastes and choices at that point, which to me is useful

I think in that case and from what I've seen and experienced is that usually the shops will buy stuff that they know will sell, they usually have a thumb on what's hot if they deal with moderns and usually know what are first appearances or keys minor/major for non-moderns so they can jump on those books if the price is right to sell them to make a profit. They also generally ask me what I am interested in and what I collect etc.. i am sure they keep in their minds what their regulars like and buy those types of books first and foremost. 

[the blob]

Unless they're also selling on line, many shops may not have an $1800 buyer among their customers. Given that many shops sell on line, it seems like the liquid $1800 book would be better.

But I'm not a shop owner. Just worked part-time in one for a while.

[NoMan]

can't even begin to fathom how much work the comic biz must be, if you you own a shop, own an online shop, cons, whatever. Find a good dealer and stick with 'em.

[RCheli]

There are so many factors involved.

How likely are the 6 lower-priced comics to sell as the expensive one? I mean, a ASM #129 for $1.8k will sell a lot faster than a high-grade, non-key GA book for $1.8k. 

How much did you pay for each? Usually (though not always) the more in-demand a comic, the higher the cost. I may pay 80% or more of a comic's value if I know it's hot or will sell quickly vs one in less demand. But if I pay $1500 for that $1800 comic, I'm likely to make a lot less in profit than buying what I would have paid for those other 6.

What does your business focus on? I don't sell much modern or GA, so an ASM #129 would sell a lot quicker from me than a hot variant modern or a GA book.

Do you have a copy in a different grade already that hasn't sold? If you have an ASM #129 in 6.0 that's been sitting around for 2 months, do you want another that's twice as expensive?

[thunsicker]

I don't own a store, though I did back in the pre-internet days.  I wouldn't care if I had an $1800 comic or 6 $300 dollar comics.  I would only care that I had comics I knew I could sell quickly.  In the days I owned my store that meant New X-Men, Miller Daredevils, Watchmen, TNMT, Dark Knight.  At the time I would happily trade away a more expensive comic (say a FF #1 which didn't sell that well and in my market didn't have many people who could afford it) for a bunch of comics I could sell quickly.  Now with the internet I would guess that calculus has changed.  Again the main thing was to get quick turnover.

[Junkdrawer]

As a shop owner, I find that you don’t get choices on things that people bring in and offer to sell you. You never know what’s going to buy or what’s going to sell. If someone sells me 9 books or one, it’s always about price. How much it costs me. It’s not a really bad thing to have a big ticket item that’s unlikely to sell because you should have other items to sell. Imaging setting up at a comic book show with a single book like Action 1 and nothing else. You’re likely not going to sell it and you won’t pay for your table. Now if you have bins of dollar books, people will come over to see the Action1 and hopefully engage in conversation over it and possibly browse and buy some of your other items and you pay for your table. If by chance I buy a collection of whatever and I’m successful at selling a ton of it, well I just may color up into one big book. That’s because I now can from the work I’ve done and I still have tons of stuff to sell. Diversity and quantity and then just wait.