What would you do with 12,000 comics? 2 2

[lighthouse]

2 minutes ago, DavidTheDavid said:

Fascinating to read this. Thanks for sharing.

Threads like this one are a big reason I don't publicize my shop on the boards. I can give better peeks behind the veil without giving advantages to my local competitors. It's a thin veil, plenty of boardies know exactly where my shop is. Some provided counsel years ago during the business plan phase, and others like Greggy plan to visit and just haven't yet. But as it is, I can share a little more behind the scenes this way.

[DavidTheDavid]

8 minutes ago, lighthouse said:

Threads like this one are a big reason I don't publicize my shop on the boards. I can give better peeks behind the veil without giving advantages to my local competitors. It's a thin veil, plenty of boardies know exactly where my shop is. Some provided counsel years ago during the business plan phase, and others like Greggy plan to visit and just haven't yet. But as it is, I can share a little more behind the scenes this way.

I've just never thought about physical space as a cash generation calculus.

Flash thought: Netflix series inside the businesses mind of a brothel owner. 

[ThothAmon]

Have a lot more space. 

[spreads]

3 hours ago, ThothAmon said:

Have a lot more space. 

Not what the OP intended with his question....

[Myowncollector]

Just browsing through. Good thread. OP has good mix of comic and business knowledge. Seen a lot of comic fans open stores and fail. A lot of the ones who do make it just rely on mainly gaming and subs, won't have any back issues older than the store. Little or no wall books. Some I offered back issues to sell, split the profit. Turn them onto collections to buy. ( I come across so many that are just full of $3 $4 books that have little to no keys that I dont have any use for but would be thousands of dollars for a store or flea market guy. I usually buy them anyways because I got a problem. ) Even free junk books. Nope. And they had plenty of space, too much space, made store look more dead that it even was. One guy I would trade wall books for store credit. Others wouldn't. So I buy your book, sell it for more $ and the only $ I give you can only be used to buy things in my store, nah sorry not interested. People see other people's shops on social media. Watched comic book men. They want to see that when they go into shops. A lot of shops cant buy enough books to even get the variants to flip online. They just have gaming, owner hopes to sell some soda and snacks while working 6 or 7 days a week. Glad to see someone having some success besides the mega stores or chains. 

[Myowncollector]

On 5/3/2020 at 3:52 PM, Yorick said:

This is crazy.  The last Free Comic Day I attended we were all limited to only taking three free books.  There were more than three I wanted. 

Couple of my lcs are like this, then another one gives out 1 of everything to everyone. Might have to expand your radius to find a shop that gives more. 

If you are a regular who spends $ your shop should give you whatever you want or I would find another shop. I am not a huge spender, not really a new book buyer, do buy a few statues but my friend gets every issue of every dc and marvel book and every variant. So I get treated like a king when I do stop in. 

[spreads]

22 hours ago, Myowncollector said:

Just browsing through. Good thread. OP has good mix of comic and business knowledge. Seen a lot of comic fans open stores and fail. A lot of the ones who do make it just rely on mainly gaming and subs, won't have any back issues older than the store. Little or no wall books. Some I offered back issues to sell, split the profit. Turn them onto collections to buy. ( I come across so many that are just full of $3 $4 books that have little to no keys that I dont have any use for but would be thousands of dollars for a store or flea market guy. I usually buy them anyways because I got a problem. ) Even free junk books. Nope. And they had plenty of space, too much space, made store look more dead that it even was. One guy I would trade wall books for store credit. Others wouldn't. So I buy your book, sell it for more $ and the only $ I give you can only be used to buy things in my store, nah sorry not interested. People see other people's shops on social media. Watched comic book men. They want to see that when they go into shops. A lot of shops cant buy enough books to even get the variants to flip online. They just have gaming, owner hopes to sell some soda and snacks while working 6 or 7 days a week. Glad to see someone having some success besides the mega stores or chains. 

This is very painful to read.  

[Pat Thomas]

OP, I bought the last 10,000 or so comics from my lcs when they shut down last year, and I've been able to move a ton of it by selling to mycomicshop.com   I'm just a collector and don't have any experience selling comics, but this has been one of the easiest ways to make extra money for the last 8 months.  Getting the books in order and entered into the database was time-consuming, but now I only have to let the orders build up, then pull and ship them. I opt for store credit, because it pays a little more, and I've been able to add almost $12,000 worth of comics to my personal collection. But there is a cash option. If you've never used their system, it might be worth it to put a portion of your dead stock into the database and monitor it for a couple of weeks. You might be surprised.

[lighthouse]

45 minutes ago, Pat Thomas said:

OP, I bought the last 10,000 or so comics from my lcs when they shut down last year, and I've been able to move a ton of it by selling to mycomicshop.com   I'm just a collector and don't have any experience selling comics, but this has been one of the easiest ways to make extra money for the last 8 months.  Getting the books in order and entered into the database was time-consuming, but now I only have to let the orders build up, then pull and ship them. I opt for store credit, because it pays a little more, and I've been able to add almost $12,000 worth of comics to my personal collection. But there is a cash option. If you've never used their system, it might be worth it to put a portion of your dead stock into the database and monitor it for a couple of weeks. You might be surprised.

The 12,000 books referenced in the original post are FCBD books and have no collector value until years later (and even then only if they are of some new property that becomes a tv show).

We've sold a five-figure sum through mycomicshop the last couple years, but those are higher demand books. We would have to hire personnel specifically to put $3-5 books into the database and pack them, and the return likely wouldn't be there. In a choice between investing that time in grading and pricing our own books that will sticker at $10-20 or cataloging books worth cover price, it makes more sense to put the labor into the better books. The calculus would be different if no more collections would ever come in. But we will probably be offered 60-70 long boxes of back issues during June, and the return on those is better than on spending labor on the "dead stock".

[FlyingDonut]

Buy one of these. I'm quite serious. It will turn a book into dust. Put said dust into a 55 gallon bag. Repeat until books are gone.

[FlyingDonut]

Or if you're serious, one of these.

[IbukiLord]

I'd bundle and sell.

 

20-30 comics in a pack $5 a pack