Thursday, March 5, 2009

"all my base are belong to you."

It's back to my base.

When I reached the peak of my diversification efforts a couple of years ago, my non-comics part of my store reached 55% of sales.

They have been around 50% for most of the last few years.

When I first approached my landlord for a new lease, she said,"You'll weather this better than most stores, because of the kind of business you have...."

"What ya talkin'about?" I felt like saying.

But you know what? I'm thinking she's right. I have regulars, and that makes all the difference.

So far this month, comics and comic related material are accounting for 75% of my sales. It's still early, but .... wow.

Meanwhile, after losing a few steady regulars late last year and early this year, the subscription list seems to have stabilized. I even had two new sign-ups yesterday.

I'm sort of hoping, but not expecting, that the WATCHMEN movie will remind a few lapsed readers how much they liked graphic stories. (Though I fear an unending stream of 17 year old guys making snarky comments but not buying anything....)

2 comments:

tim said...

Does this mean that books aren't doing as well as they were before? Weren't you saying a couple months ago that books were your new gravy train?

Duncan McGeary said...

Book sales have been down the last couple of weeks, which relates to the less tourist things.

I need to quit reacting to each day's sales, positive or negative, though.

My long term plans are pretty solid, as long as I stick to them.

I spent too much money on books in the fall, and then compounded that in spring. But it'll all get absorbed by the budget by summer as long as I don't blow another fuse.