Volatility?

Volatility.

I had some very high peaks in sales in comics last spring -- Civil War was probably 3 times better a seller than Secret Invasion; Dark Tower Pt. 1, probably sold twice as well as Dark Tower Pt. 2, and so on. So I really didn't expect to be able to match those sales.

Nevertheless, in two months of this year so far, I did match last years sales, which means that some of my other product sold better.

But there are three frankly horrible months interspersed.

So my question for all you stock market types -- what does such volatility signify in other markets?

My own take is -- whenever I've seen a spike in sales, within a year I'd be averaging that spike. I suspect the same is true on the downside.

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Article on KTVZ.com of Bend being the 'new' Boulder, with this comment:

"Isn't that awesome?" Alana Audette, executive director of the Central Oregon Visitors Association, said in reaction to the article. She echoed one theme: "A predominance of new business startups here is largely from people who came here on vacation" and liked what they saw.

Oh, my God.

I've told this story before, but it bears repeating. A few years ago, a lady opened a Mystery bookstore in the Brooks Alley, facing Mirror Pond Parking lot. I won't call it Brooks 'Street' because there is no vehicle access.

Anyway, it was a very nice store, especially for us mystery readers. She really knew her stuff.

But I thought it doubtful that she could cut the customers down to such a small portion; and I especially doubted her location.

Finally, I asked her why she had opened on that spot.

"When I used to visit, this alley was absolutely packed. I'd come for the Market."

In other words, she had come on probably the only days in the entire year when Brook's Alley was super busy, and thought that was normal.


Unlike the COVA director above, I don't think luring tourists into opening businesses in Bend is "awesome." I think it's a recipe for disaster.

1.) They most likely visited on Peak days and hours.

2.) They most likely moved from a bigger town for the small town feel.

3.) They haven't lived in Bend long enough to really get a handle on it.

There seems to me to be only three ways to understand local business conditions: either you do a heck of a lot of accurate research. Or you live here for awhile. Or you have extensive experience in the field you choose, and can make educated guesses.

The most important thing a business needs to do to survive is to calibrate as closely as possible what the most likely sales levels are going to be, and to carry the proper amount of inventory to get there and to have overhead low enough to be covered by that level of sales.

How the hell do you know that? Especially if you are from out of town? Especially if the business is a dream business and you've never done it before?

Lets say you open a restaurant that does an average of 50 tables worth of business a night after 3 years. If you opened with 75 tables for peak hours, and you can still survive with 25 tables business, than you guessed accurately. But if you opened with 100 tables, you overreached.

And every business has the same strictures.

The problem with doing demographic research for Bend, it that it will probably mislead you. Bend really is different -- most people have been here for five minutes, for instance, which completely changes the whole marketing dynamic. If, as is likely, you come from a more populated area and you've seen what you perceive as successful businesses and that Bend is lacking such a business -- your conclusion might be that Bend needs such a business. When your conclusion might ought to be -- that Bend doesn't have such a business for good reasons. That if you actually knew any better, you'd know that several such businesses have already come and gone. And so on....

I've seen many businesses open that had great presentation, great inventory, great service-- and still failed, because there just weren't enough customers.

Bend's population is rather dramatically higher during the peak season, when most business opening tourists are visiting. But that's like visiting a restaurant on a Saturday Holiday night and expecting that to be average. They need to come back in February and November. Take a clicker and stand on the street corner and count how many people walk by, something like that.

So by all means, open a business in Bend. But live here for a year or two or three, first.