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Help me design my dollar bins
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90 posts in this topic

Hmmm seems to me any collector/ dealer worth his salt should have plenty of old bags and boards lying around for their drek bin. Nothing wrong in using old bags and boards if you got em on " worthless comics"  it`s called recycling and just try to remember the drek of today might just be the gem of the next generation.   :preach:

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My friend Mark is an LCS owner, and the only shop in our area that I know of that has a dedicated Dollar Box section. His are successful and what I like is that Marvel's, DC's, and Indy's each have their own area, and there are grouped batches of different titles, though no complete runs. He said that storage fees for overstock had become almost crippling, and decided to try this route. I usually grab something from them each time I visit. I've picked up obscure Vertigo titles, scarce B&W Indy's and much more. Everything is bagged and boarded, though not necessarily brand new bags and boards. He keeps the stock fresh and it's a steady revenue stream for him. GOD BLESS...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)(thumbsu

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Didn't read through all 5 pages, but the shop I used to go to had a $0.50 bin and a $1.00 bin.

$0.50 bin was not organized, nor bagged/boarded.

$1.00 bin was not organized, but was at least bagged.

Personally, I hated that the $0.50 bin was unorganized and that so many people pilfered through it that you were pretty much just left with reader copies.  The worst was when you would recognize that there was some semblance of a run scattered throughout, but I would be too lazy to recommit myself to searching through the first 2 rows of books.

I think books should at least be bagged because it does make it easier to quickly skim through the issues.  I don't think one can expect the books to be neatly organized by title because they're just not worth the effort and customers can't be trusted to put books back in their proper place.  Maybe it's easier to do if they're organized from the outset and the customers recognize this and maintain some order.  But if it starts off a mess, then it's going to stay a mess.  I think the suggestion of at least grouping by publisher is good idea.

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Late to the party, but I'd say throw them in the bin and let the chips fall where they may. For me, I actually DISLIKE an organized dollar bin, because that takes away the thrill of the hunt. It's much more likely to have been cherry picked. If someone wants a bargain, let 'em dig for it. And in all my years, I have very rarely seen an organized dollar bin. It's kind of the whole deal we make, as seller and buyer: these aren't in order, they're all over the place, but hey, they're only a buck. You get what you get!

As for the bagging and boarding, as a buyer it's nice when they are bagged/boarded, because after months of being pawed over, the books are going to get pretty ragged. However, I'd also agree that they're likely not worth the resources and time. The way my LCS does their big $1 and 50 cent sales, the books come the way they received them: if they were bagged and boarded, they go in bagged and boarded. If they were raw, they go in raw. Those sales go gangbusters, no one seems to care.

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I really can't think of a LCS that has $1 bins currently.  One of the guys down in Akron does $0.50 bins and they are unbagged with no organization.  At $1 a book it really does not make sense to spend $0.12 on bags and boards let alone the time to rebag and board everything.  At $1 a book they really should be very minimal effort with no additional cost.  The same people who want the $1 books bagged, boarded and arraigned have never set up at a Con or had a store since that is way too much work and effort for that little money.

Edited by 1Cool
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Sorting doesn't need to be perfect, but even a little makes a huge difference. If the owner spends just ten minutes a day on the dollar books tidying, sorting and rotating stock, that alone would probably be all that's necessary to have a decent $1 section. That time could also be used for bagging.

Edited by tvindy
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On 9/6/2020 at 12:09 AM, Mercury Man said:

Nothing worse than unsorted, unbagged comics, tossed in long boxes. 

Sort them at least alphabetically.   Don't have to break it down by title or publisher.

Bag and boarded.  Not only will it protect what remains of the current condition, but easier to sort through. 

This.

If I get a collection that needs to be re-bagged+boarded I typically save the old bags+boards for dollar bin books

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On 9/21/2020 at 12:45 AM, HouseofComics.Com said:

Congrats on getting close to opening a store. I always figured sorting and bagging and boarding was the kind of things the help can do while they have nothing else to do. No one in the store, while they are chatting with a customer and manning the register they can bag and board books, etc. I know one store that was large enough that they felt they needed four employees at once to avoid crazy theft, etc. and the aggregate work that the four were involved with at any one time was kind of minimal.

But my general vote is if the book is nice, get it in a bag and board unless it's really a junk book. Hate to see something, especially something from what I consider the low print run, high cover price years of say 1997 on, get trashed. As for sorting, probably not, though it is really fast for experienced people to at least sort by publisher or even better the roughly A-D boxes, the E-J boxes, etc. Whatever.

Many a time I have helped various stores out by grouping and alphabetizing some long boxes while I was shopping.  Not that Chaos bugs me, mostly I'm killing time.

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On 9/18/2020 at 9:27 PM, shadroch said:

I'm still waiting for someone to identify stores that keep their dollar bins in alpha numeric order. I've spoken to at least twenty store owners who don't, and I'd love to speak to some who do if someone would simply give me the stores names.

Southern California Comics in San Diego.

Majority are bagged and boarded. I go there several times a year and it seems they try to keep on top of numeric order but you will find some out of order but not like A books in the S box. Just 40,41,60, 43 etc.

Edited by Park
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I always find better stuff in $1 boxes when they're unorganized. Less people look through them and it's much easier for the seller/other customers to go right to the letter when searching for the newest hot book. 

On the other end, I notice I sell a lot of books when they're mixed that people normally wouldn't see as they would just go to the few titles they are looking for and not even flip though 75% of the books there. 

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