Comics can be profitable for stores, order smarter.
Those 2 articles are just excellent. Every retailer should read them as simple opinion pieces first…then perhaps some introspection and self-reflection would be wise. I do believe there’s more pain around the corner for the retailers. I know of several that are hurting exactly as described. Thanks for sharing these pieces.
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I was always wondering how some stores were staying solvent until after the Frankie’s Comics debt was revealed. They ran up to nearly $1 Million in debt before the bubble bursted. $1 Million of debt seems excessive for a small comic store, but I wonder how many of the brick and mortars are existing with $100k+ in debt to distributors.
Probably a lot. The problem I see for a lot of retailers is they act like consumers chasing ratio variants and printing up exclusives they might be able to offload. They’re so driven on having the “rare” stuff they forget their in a business model that is about moving inventory, inventory at a low cost and a retail price stamped right there on the cover… in the end, you need to know your customers and your region. If you can’t stay in business only selling comics, you need to expand to other merchandise, etc.
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The reason his store is called Mile High Comics is because Chuck hoards all the comics he buys and refuses to sell them at a reasonable price. Therefore his comics are piled mile high.
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The funny part is that he even admits to all this, so I guess we can’t fault the guy. He just doesn’t want to get rid of any of the books, but his wife pushes him to. After all of the interviews that I have watched with him, he is quite an interesting person for sure.
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Yeah. 95% of the books would need to be discounted by more than 75% off reflect the current market. The remaining 5% are books that have quickly gotten hot and his store hasn’t reflected the market…but would say only 1% of that pool of books is below market price.
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What BJ said. Mile High prices are just that. 50% off basically puts the comics higher prices than most other places. 60% maybe gets you some at fair market value but most are still a little bit overpriced. They used to have 70% off sales more often and that would get you about half of their stock at a little lower than fair market and the rest right around fair market value. It is a game to try and find deals there but possible if you wait and look hard enough. The site is also archaic and it is not always easy to find the title/volume you may be looking for. With the amount of stock Chuck has it could be one of the best online shops out there, but just how it is run and the high overall prices leaves a lot to be desired.
I’ve never ordered from MH, and I was shocked at some of the prices they have listed. You guys aren’t kidding. I always think stores and cons have wall books way over priced, but this blows that model away.
Seems like it comes down to that big question. Are you a collector or a retailer? Can’t be both.
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Their online shop is like so many brick and mortars where they don’t organize their books well…and you spend 75% of your time looking for something that should take seconds…
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At yet somehow it has survived all these years…and keeps growing…
Joe, it can be weird. I ordered a book from them a few years back and never got a confirmation e-mail. So, I called the shop and a really friendly woman named Lynn told me that she found the order in the system but it had somehow failed to get printed out on their list of orders…or something like that. She expedited the shipping and I got the book in a few days. The website is the problem: it’s as though their page functions on hieroglyphics.
Believe it or not, I used to be a frequent ordered from Mile High. I used to have a mail order sub box from them and that was great. They used to do tiered discounts based on the amount of comics you ordered a month. I would also participate in their online auctions and would win a ton of books cheap. Their shipping was rock solid. And then something happened. Started getting less books as they would come in damaged. They were good about refunds but wouldn’t do replacements. Discounts went away. Auctions stopped. Thank god a lcs opened up.
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How long ago was that, would you guess? Circa?
Wow. At least 16-17 years ago.
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They were my main source for comics until Third Eye opened up their first little shop.
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Similar to Antony, there was a time I routinely bought/utilized mile high comics for a great deal of my comic buying.
I know I was using their N.I.C.E. new comic subscription service for at least 8-9 years around the 1999-2008 time frame. Honestly, for back then, they did an amazing job. Perfect packaging, good pricing, free Previews, good customer service & books arrived perfect.
Also, their website (while still identical to now) had a great deal of books priced fairly. In many cases pretty darn low, to the point when they had sales you could fill runs for $3-5 a book.
I recall buying darn near the run of Spawn books at the time for dirt cheap. I also bought a ton of Uncanny X-Men for very fair prices.
Like Anthony said, not sure exactly when that changed, but it certainly did.
Probably my sale on that particular book. Though it was a few years ago, it was the record sale last I knew. I wanna say $1400 and I paid less than $100. I’m sure I posted it in my sales and pickup thread.
The later printings aren’t the only books selling for a lot less. Everything pretty much across the board is selling for a lot less including the first printings of the books you mentioned. I’m still going after lower print run later printings because the market will bounce back at some point & prices are great.
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DAMN. I used to go here. Was such a great store.
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I don’t know if it’s just back to school time, the elections in the US, uncertainty, etc, but I’ve not seen such a surge of various buying & selling ads and posts as I’ve seen in the last week in years. Nothing that I’ve taken advantage of as nobody is realistic at this point but it’s certainly indicative of things to come imo. Anyone else seeing it?
Folks trying to unload their COVID investments like this as a general example…
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