This will be our third highest month in 45 years of business. It looked for awhile like it would be our best month ever, but sales on card games fell off in the second half of the month. It's turned into a bit of a stalemate. Prices are so high customers are hesitating, but the replacement cost so high that I can't lower prices. 

We're on course with the savings I was shooting for. I've spent a bit more on product than I originally intended, but this will set us up well for the rest of the year. Our store has always tried to have more variety in card game boosters than anyone else and that supply is drying up in the wholesale market so I'm making some investments now. 

Going with Ingram has been much easier than ordering direct from the publishers. Of course, the publishers are now suddenly offering even higher discounts promos, so instead of foregoing 10% in margin, it's more like 15%. Still, until I've gotten clear statements from all the publishers, I'm going to keep ordering from Ingram. Not to mention, I love getting replacement product so quickly. 

When I try to fudge the difference by buying both from the publishers and Ingram, we end up with a lot of duplication. Which isn't totally bad if the books are perennials, just not as efficiently "Just In Time" as I'd like.  

As I suspected, once I got an up-to-date statement from Simon & Shuster, I owed quite a bit less than I'd been accounting for (worst case scenario.) I think the same thing will probably be true with Scholastic and Harper Collins. 

 

We've turned our attention to back-issue collectable comics and it's really paid off. I've kind of delegated Dylan to make that effort; keep reminding people of our back issues and direct them toward where they can find them. We've gone from having very few collectable comics to a big surplus, so much that people can dig in and find some treasures. 

 

Sometimes people compliment me on our curation of books, and up to now I've always agreed out loud but in my head I'm thinking (Well, we have what sells, which is what everyone sells.) But really, it is becoming more and more true that our selection is unique. I keep ordering books that are interesting but not best-sellers because we can afford do, and the more of these midlist books we carry, the more interesting the store. At least to me.  

 

I'm curtailing the experiment of going in early. Yes, it's quicker and more efficient, but...physically, it's wrecking me. I've had a sleeping pattern now for probably 40 years. Go to bed at 12:30,  wake up around 8:30. Once I programed myself into getting up "early" my ratfink brain decided I meant 5:30 or 6:00 and that's too damn early. 

I went in yesterday afternoon and put away 10 large boxes of books. Yes, it took all afternoon and yes, it was stressful and inconvenient. but at least I got my beauty sleep.  Plus, I think I was missing the conviviality of being around my people. 

The volume of books we're selling is intimidating. I reordered for just three days and it came to 10 pages from Ingram and a hefty order from PRH. It's amazing when it comes in and clogs the hallway, because we sell books in small batches and never quite see how it adds up until we start reordering. 

I was considering going in to Pegasus after closing and putting away books then, instead of trying to wake up so early in the morning. But I kinda know that wouldn't work. I'd be in the store with the lights on, like a goldfish in a bowl. It's not comfortable, plus I'm a night person, but not a social night person. When I used to go home at midnight after staying late, I always told myself to avoid werewolves. (Drunk belligerent people...) I really can't face it. 

So I'm pretty much stuck with the volume with three options. 

Spread the putting away books over shorter timespans, which would mean going in nearly every day.

Going in as early as possible, getting it done before opening, going home and crashing.

Staying late. (Not going to happen.)

Or put away books while customers are in the store.

 

I think I'm going to go in early, but not crazy early. Say get there by 9:30 or even 10:00, and then if still able to work for the first hour after opening, do that. If I get interrupted too much, quit and go home, which will mean getting up earlier the next day, and so on.

Honestly, I never expected this to be a big problem. Turns out when you do more business, it means more work! Who'd have thunk it?  

By the way, it wouldn't be quite as much work if I was willing to delegate, but I'm already asking Sabrina to do everything else and I'm the one who has the schemes of what books to order and where to put them away. And except for the frustrations of not being able to do it WHEN I want, I really enjoy the process. 

Got interviewed over the phone (I don't like being on camera) by KTVZ about downtown Bend about, of all things, tariffs. Told the reporter I hadn't noticed anything. (I wish I'd added that I didn't think it was a good idea...")

She seemed fascinated by the fact I'd owned the store for 42 years. (It's 41, but I misspoke and didn't feel like correcting myself.) So she kept asking questions.

Thing is, the feature is going to be short, and I'm not the only one interviewed, so I'll probably only be quoted for a couple of sentences, if that. You just never know what they're going to select. 

It's going to drive my friend Tyson crazy. He's been trying to get me interviewed by KTVZ for years and I've always refused. At this point, it's like I'm the Great White Whale he can't quite catch. But fair is fair, I wasn't on camera, which is the part I always wanted to avoid.  

Accomplished a lot yesterday and I'm tired as hell. After a week or two of waking up at 6:30 in the morning, I slept until 10:30 this morning. That can't be healthy.

Got to work at 8:30 yesterday so I could park near the back entrance of the store and fill the car with all the excess boxes and packing material. There wasn't a single parking space. At 8:30 on a freaking Sunday morning! This town has gone crazy.

I parked in front of the store, which meant I had to haul the stuff through the store, which is inconvenient but possible. 

Then I decided it was time to increase the Rom-Com section by integrating the "Classic Mystery" books back with the regular mystery books. Putting Dasheill Hammett and Raymond Chandler and such into it's own section didn't move the needle a bit. Meanwhile, Rom-Com continues to performs even though the display was chaotic. 

Opened the store at 11:00 and worked a very busy six hour Sunday (expanded by two hours over the rest of the year) so ten hours overall. 

It all had to be done, but wow, it was exhausting.  

The hallway behind the store is jammed with packing material and broken and unbroken boxes. We're reaching a peak moment, I guess. Even though I'm going in hours early to do the sorting and shelving, I'm still falling behind.

Turns out, when you sell as many books as we currently are, it adds a lot of work. Who could've guessed? Really. I just thought, "Oh yeah, we're selling more books," without ever considering the consequences. The danger is that we lose quality control. We're not there yet, mostly because I'm available to take up the slack. We're keeping up with the front of the store, which is the most important part.  

I'm going in early today just to deal with the hallway. I'll fill the back of my Rav and take it to the dump sometime over the next week.

The store was always intended to be profitable for one person at a time to be working the store. If this kept up all year, we'd definitely be looking at two full-time persons and one halftime person. But this only happens about four months out of the year so it makes no sense to add an employee who won't have enough to do during the other eight months. Also, I don't quite trust peak moments because I've experienced 50% declines in business at least three times over the last forty years. That cushion is necessary to survive.

But I do think that when I retire, Sabrina will probably have to move to a two full-time and one part-time employee model.

The other reason I have to go in early is that, during store hours there is never, ever any parking. It's hard to bring or take material out of the store if you're parking on the third floor of a parking garage a block away. 

Oh, and whenever anyone says, "Why don't you sell online? Why don't you go to shows? Why don't you add this service or product line?" I just spread my arms and say, "And when would I do that?"

Oh, first world problems! Too much success! Whatever will I do? 

Linda and I visited Hannah at Oliver Books, and the store looks great. 

I really feel like I did something good when I helped her get started.

 

Her brother, Tim, told me that one his friends hit a $50K Magic card. My response was, "Well, someone has to hit the lottery." Doesn't change my thinking about it whatsoever.  

 

Meanwhile, my main supplier finally offered some new Pokemon and Magic deals after over a month of nothing. (I think that's the longest I've gone without being offered one of his deals.) I went ahead and ordered everything offered, even though it will cut into profits. There is a month left in the summer and it will set us up for the fall.  

The Catch-22 of low supply and high prices vs relatively sluggish sales continues. My rule of thumb has been, if something has proven to be hard to get, order everything that is offered. Meanwhile, books just keep selling... 

We're still on track for our third best month in the history of the store. So I should complain about it not being the best month of our history? (Ratfink brain can't help but being disappointed.)

 

Linda said to me on our way to Prineville. "We should do this all the time," meaning get out and driving around. The weather has been particularly good this year, hovering in the low 80s, which to me is just right.   

A victim of my own success?

I don't know if this getting up early is really working, at least for my health. 

I went to bed at 12:00 last night, which is half an hour earlier than usual. I'm going to try to dial it back to 11:30 from the current 12:30 deadline, which exists because I seem to wake up very early if I go to bed early. 

So I'm getting up early all right: like 6:30. 

For the store, it works perfectly. I can get most of the work done between 8:00 and the opening at 11:00. It's much more efficient and relaxing. 

But the cost of going home and napping most of the afternoon?

I'm hoping I can get back to the old way of doing things this fall, though Christmas will present the same problems. We're getting huge numbers of people in the door these summer months. Sales reflect that, but so does the fact that while sales are up, the amount of money per transaction is down. I don't know what number actually spend money, but it's probably less than half of that. So, yeah, we're hopping. 

No sense hiring anyone else, because I'm still the stock boy and janitor either way. Just have to gut it out, though I've warned Sabrina that without me around, she's in for a shock. (I'm going to volunteer to be stock boy and janitor for minimum wage: but I'm also going to want to leave on lots of vacations, so that might not work for her...)

Oh well, it's better than spending hours watching an empty store, which I spent years doing.  

Sisters Betsy and Susie and Klaus are in town and we had a get together at the house with Todd, Toby, and Felicia. 

Pictures were taken.

I'm always the most awkward person in every photograph. It's enough to make me leery of photos altogether. I look so severe, even when I'm not feeling that way. Murder face. 

 

Went in two hours early and it just wasn't enough. I spend a hour just straightening and filling in holes with product we already have on hand before I even start putting away new books. Two hours early is all I can manage, since I need an hour to truly wake up and getting out of the house at 8:30 already seems really early to me. 

I'm disrupting my sleep for this. But there really isn't any choice. I tried staying to put away books after the store opened and immediately realized that we're just getting too many people in the door to be effective. 

(Basically, this is complaining about success!)

 

Had a few slow days which means a record month is probably out of reach. But it will be in the top 3 months of all time. Top 3 out of 495 months is pretty good, I'd say.  

Watched a documentary about Hannah Arendt. The parallels to today are overwhelming. I ordered "The Origins of Totalitarianism" for the store.

Nothing about what is happening today is new. All has happened before and all has been foretold.  

 

Had a long involved dream about meeting an old girlfriend. When I woke up, it was somehow about the Arendt documentary, but I'm not sure how. It has something to do with not knowing anything about her and her life that is strange to me. Her and some other childhood friends. And, when you get down to it, probably most people I might want to talk to from that long ago.  

If you looked me up online, you'd find pages of stuff about the store and my writing. I didn't set out to create that, it just happened. 

Anyway, because I know absolutely nothing about my former girlfriend, my dream was pretty creative in filling in the holes. There's this thing again where I'm trying too hard to  fit in, to be liked. Instead of accepting that she and her friends want nothing to do with me. I try so hard to understand what's she doing that I'm adrift in a sea of nonsense.  

Wake up realizing that I need to leave well enough alone.  

 

Sisters Betsy and Susie are coming over tonight for pizza.  I only get to see them occasionally so it's a treat.  

One of the things I like about Murderbot is how he prefers to live his existence in pop culture. Real life is a distraction.  It's "Oh, shit, the nice humans are in trouble again. I guess I'll save them..." Even though what he'd really like to do is get back to The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon.

Isn't that how most of us live now? 

There's a book at the store entitled, "You Are What You Watch." 

It's pretty undeniable. Getting up, eating, brushing your teeth, driving to work, working, driving home, then the real start to the day: read, watch, or listen to pop culture. 

I'm sure there are people living fabulous lives, bless their little hearts.

Thing is, having gone through a ten year depression there was nothing I wanted more than to just have a normal life. I've lived in books my whole life: and I ended up owning a bookstore for 41 years and writing more than 25 books. 

Not a bad life for me. It was only when I allowed myself to fully immerse myself, when I dropped the guilt trip over doing "nothing", that I really became more contented.  

 

We reached a funny stage at the store with Pokemon and Magic. I'll be damned if I can find any replacement product for much less than I'm currently selling it for. But what I'm currently selling it for has met a price resistance. I've yet to sell a Collector Booster of Final Fantasy since I raised them to their current prices, but when I go online they are at least as expensive there.

Oh, well. It being a sideline and the store having a record month so far (the first half of the month was the best first half we've ever seen) I don't have any incentive to sell the product cheaper. Eventually, either the customer will come around, or I won't have to buy anymore inventory. Most likely, the reality will eventually sink in that the initial wave of product is gone but there isn't anymore coming.  

 

The new Pokemon was more bountiful than I expected. Not only did we get the elite trainers for two different releases, which I can also break into packs, but three other sets, including one set that had two out of date Pokemon boosters plentiful enough to start selling them again by pack. 

So we went from only five different Pokemon items to sell (a worrisome shortage of choice) to fourteen different choices. I'm very clever in how I divide these up. I immediately ordered several items at higher prices because I know I can sell the parts for more than enough to cover the cost. 

All I needed was an opportunity.

What was really strange about the last couple months was that almost all options had disappeared, in both Pokemon and Magic. Now we're set on Pokemon, and the new Magic is coming in two weeks and the latest Magic release (Final Fantasy) is going to last. (Not to mention, that unlike Pokemon, we have at least fifty formers releases in stock, and probably more than a hundred choices.)

So we're set for the summer....I hope.  

 

I panicked when I thought we were only getting a few elite trainer boxes of the new Pokemon. I bought some more online from Amazon at a higher price. 

As it happens, we paid about what we intend to start selling them for, which is crazy. But it will extend the inventory farther and we'll be making enough of a margin the cancel the error. 

And really, what is our purpose here? It's to have stuff when people come in. That's our competitive feature: to have a wide variety and depth. 

We're in a weird sort of zone where we are selling at only slightly above replacement costs. (A good rule of thumb is to never sell below replacement costs.) But that price has started to turn off demand. Nevertheless, I feel it is extremely important to have product in stock when customers come in. 

What we're trying to do here is position ourselves for the future. If we can have enough leftover of the current release to last into the next release then we have two brands available, and we can extend those into the next release, we have three...and so on. 

 Ratfink brain woke me at 5:30 so I was on the road by 6:30.

Holy Cow!  The roads were packed, and not only packed, but with really aggressive drivers. This half-awake night person was feeling very threatened by the this heightened energy. I never knew so many businesses started so early. 

My only consolation is that these crazy motherfuckers sometimes have to stay up late and deal with us nighttime crazy motherfuckers.  

 

We had another slow day the day before yesterday which threw me, followed by another busy day. The average is still better than we've ever done, though there is still half the month to go to get to the record.

It turns out, we're getting a bit more Pokemon than I expected, so I now feel like we'll be able to get through the next phase just fine. Not going to lower prices, though. This is the tail end of a bubble and the time will soon come when the sales will drop and we will need to be ready to weather the storm.

Ordering and selling lots of books. Or is it selling and ordering lots of books? My original budget in no way could have kept up with this level of sales so I'm leaning in with the sales level instead of the budget. Theoretically, we should earn just as much profit if not more if we sell at the same percentage of the orders. 

 

Three hours putting books away, one hour cleaning the store. Always feels like I really accomplished something.  

Interesting market, this Pokemon thing.

I simply can't find anywhere on the world wide web who is selling Pokemon for any cheaper than we're selling it for. In other words, with all the choice in the world, customers can buy Pokemon in my store as cheaply as anywhere else.

Except they can't. There's a time lag involved. They see Pokemon in a store a month ago, and to them that was yesterday. There's retail lag. Some stores simply get their product, put it out for sale a SRP, and they sell out instantly. So they tell the customers, "Yeah, we sell for XXX. But we're out."

The customer translates that into, "We sell for XXX..." conveniently leaving "we're out."

And waves come into the chain stores and are sold at regular prices and are quickly snapped up, but I decided long ago I wouldn't deprive customers of their chance to get that stuff, nor did I want to lurk around chain stores. (A worse hell I can't imagine.)

What it means if we are selling as cheap or cheaper than anywhere online that. well, we're too cheap.

But the customers don't see that.

Nevertheless, I have two options. Sell out and maybe never see those customers again or bump up the price. Despite the increasing prices, our profit margin is getting thinner and thinner. At some point I will have to cry uncle and just let us sell out and hope that some more product becomes available.  

 

One week into Ingram only. Certainly is more timely and doing the budget this morning was a breeze. There's bonus to it in that I can wait for a statement to show up from the other publishers that includes all the orders I've so far made and then I can start with a fresh zero balance in my accounting.  

I ordered on Saturday thinking it would come in on Monday, which meant I could put it away today before work. It was a strange thing Ingram was doing for awhile, packing up stuff on Sunday to arrive on Monday. Except this time, it didn't. So that means that two big orders arrived today. 

So I came in to put the few boxes that came in Monday from other publishers, then waited around for the huge orders. I got about one box in and realized, "Nope." It ain't possible with people crowding the aisles 

That good, right? Not always. Sometimes all they do is clog the aisles. 

But there is nothing I do about it but stand there and wait until the move. Impossible.

So there's a huge amount of books to put away tomorrow and I need to try to get it done before opening.  

I'm throwing out all the game plans. We've had such an extraordinary month that my budget simply isn't sufficient to replace the sold product (especially books), much less improve it.  

Well, I can't have that. The store must be served. So the budget is now replacing the perennial sellers and the new hot stuff and to figure it will all pan out. 

I'm not spending anything on extraneous stuff. It all product we want in the store. 

So I'll let the chips fall where they lay and hope for the best. On one hand, we're doing far better than I expected, but on the other hand, it's hard to control a runaway beast. Heh. 

If I hadn't stocked Pokemon far beyond normal, I'd be completely wiped out by now. As it is, we'll probably manage to get to Friday without selling out of everything. I have at least two brands and probably three that I can continue to sell, which is still more than most stores, I suspect.

Some new Pokemon brands arrives on this Friday. I don't know if the new stuff will be enough, but I've run out of places to find Pokemon at affordable prices. I'm in the same boat as everyone else, despite all my preparations.

My old saying, "If something is hot, you can't have too much. If it's cold, anything you get is too much," has once again proven to be true. Another saying, "Supply always catches up to demand," may be true in the long run, but in the near future it's going to be an interesting situation of trying to hang onto just enough product to get to the next release.  

And there it is, Bubble Marker #11.

Someone broke into a shop in New Bedford, Mass. and stole 100K worth of Pokemon cards. (I did mention "hijacking," which is pretty much the same thing.)

By the way, that 100K value is bullshit. You have to have a hundred cards to sell one, and a hundred thousand cards to sell 1000, if that. I could live for years on the supposed value of the back issue comics I have. But the only thing that counts is the monthly average in sales, which is a tiny fraction.  

If I was that retailer I'd gladly take 100K than have to spend years and tons of overhead trying to sell the stock.  

It's all rather silly. Life is too short, guys. It's just Pokemon cards! 

I should elucidate what I think are the major markers of a bubble.

 

1.) Allocations. 

2.) New business's and expanding business's. Everyone jumping into the pool.

3.) Price increases to slow demand.

4.) Separation of product into winners and losers. Dumping the losers. 

5.) Stock at manufacturers and distributors going out the backdoor.  Literal hijacking of product. 

6.) Mainstream media coverage.

7.) Scalpers buying up all available product in mass market. (This should be #1, actually.) Fights in the aisle. 

8.)  Schools banning it because of disruptions. Fights in the schoolyard.

9.) Everyone insisting it isn't a bubble and it's different this time and that they aren't buying for the money but because they really, really like these: pogs, beanie babies, sports cards, Pokemon cards. Also shouting down people like me for being negative. 

10.) Original purveyors complaining but going all in anyway because they think they'll outsmart the market.  

 

I'll add more as I think of them... 

 

Had to go in on regular hours to put the last batch of books away. We basically got three weeks worth of books this week because of delayed shipments. It took me four hours of dodging customers and I couldn't help but feel that it interferes with business. It moves people out of the way no matter how I try to avoid them. Worse, I think it distracts from Sabrina paying full attention to the customer.

An hour after I left the store, sales had doubled. 

So I will, for the rest of the summer do two things.

1.) Order 90% of the product from Ingram to arrive within one or two days.

2.) Go in early during off hours to put books away.  

Still on pace for a record month. 

The dreaded "B" word.

Okay, I've been wondering. Should I start using the B word?

Our sales on game cards has more or less doubled, and they had increased dramatically for the previous years as well. We're selling out our allocations. The prices are increasing with every set and there are lots of people in the game.

So you can't keep exponentially growing for long. People's incomes aren't doubling and doubling. 

The allocations are happening because everyone is trying to get a piece of the pie.

We went all in on Final Fantasy Magic. I thought it would be a bit of gamble, but it paid off. However, I was hesitant to go that deep on the next two waves: Spider-man and Avatar. 

I needn't have worried. My allocations are much smaller, so I can only do what I can do.

So should I be using the B word?  I didn't have enough information. TCG cards are a sideline for us. As an example, it too me way too long to understand that actual players were focusing on Commander Decks. I was ordering very little of that. Nor did I understand how Collector boosters had supplanted Play boosters as the main focus of collecting.  

Well, this morning I listened to a podcast by a big game store guy. And it was like reliving the the sports card market of the late eighties/early nineties. I mean, almost word for word, what this guy was saying was the same kind of thing I was saying back then.

He revealed information I just didn't have. And the conclusion was pretty clear. 

We are in Bubble. 

Thank God I'm not that guy. Thank God TCG's are a sideline and not the main focus of our store. 

I'll need to be careful, and I can't avoid running some risk. The Bubble is only about 50% inflated in my estimation, which is a wild guess. But that means there is only about 20% left in the bubble to be doing things the same old way. 

I'll need to watch carefully and not wait too long.  

Told myself to start waking up earlier, thinking around 7:00 or 7:30 would be about right. My ratbag brain apparently went, "Oh. You want to wake up earlier?  5:30 it is!!!"

 

I think going in early to put away books is so enjoyable because I'm able to accomplish so much without the stress of dealing with people at the same time. (Dealing with people is a full time job, heh.) Displaying product in as clever a way as I can come up with has always been a creative and satisfying thing for me. There is something peaceful about an empty store, half-lit, full of cool stuff.   

 

Had a semi-slow day, which at almost any other time in the store's history would have been a good day. My heart sank. 

You'd think after 40 years I'd be immune to being whipsawed by daily totals, but if anything, that feeling is reinforced by the number of times it was a warning. 

Next day, sales went back up again. Still, it bears watching. (Though the only real danger is that I won't keep breaking record sales...) 

Good thing about ordering daily from Ingram is that I can keep firm control over the budget and adjust accordingly.  

I think in some ways, the non-communicative nature of other retailers helped me find my own way. I mean, I was aware of general trends. Over time, I learned on my own to separate the myths from the reality of retail. 

But the "secret sauce" as one retailer said to me when I inquired a little too inquisitively about what was working for him, that remained cloaked. 

Kinda silly, really. I mean if something works for one retailer, it doesn't hurt them if it works for another retailer. In the end, we're individual units dealing with the public. How we deal with the public will be different. A different vibe. 

I know, that's a little muddy sounding, but I've been trying to figure it all out for decades. 

I decided that there is very little I could reveal about my business that would actually hurt us. I've seen only one drawback to being candid with another retailer: I have to be careful not to use anything they say to me in a way that detracts from them. Not that I think it would, but I don't want there to be even a whiff of that.  

I never asked for specific numbers, though that would have been hugely illuminating. But I was curious about general trends: What do you think works here? What doesn't work there?

Unfortunately, my worst experiences with a competitor was at the beginning (40 years ago), a guy who decided to try to take us down by predator pricing and bad mouthing. It was such an extreme example that I worried every time a competitor opened a store. I would try to take a hands off approach, but I would eventually go into their store and greet them as friendly as I could be and tell them I'd be sending people their way any chance I got.   

Honestly, how well another store does doesn't impact on me. But that's not the way most people think. I firmly believe we can co-exist and thrive. The trick is to do your own thing. 

 

How refreshing. Made an order with Ingram on Monday, put the books away today. Replacement copies I know I can sell.

Meanwhile, I'm supposed to get orders I started building three weeks ago from the publisher/distributors over the next few days. 

That's it. That's just too long to wait. I'm using Ingram the rest of summer, probably doing an order every day. Every book they have in stock that I want, I'll order. 

There are perennials that I can order from the four publishers that can be backstock, but I only order backstock when I'm ahead. It's a bit of a luxury. Right now, I can't afford to lose the Summer traffic. 

It's a flaw in the system for sure. I tell you, if Ingram would give me a larger discount for non-returnable books, they'd get most of my business. For some reason, they don't have that option.

I went into the store at 8:00 this morning, which a few years ago would have been inconceivable. I have a set time I go to bed: 12:30. Any earlier and I awake early and can't get back to sleep. But lately, I've been waking up early anyway. 

It's a lot less stressful and much more productive to do the stocking while the store is closed. I can keep my concentration, I can move freely around the store without dodging, or worse, dislodging the customers, and I can make changes without worrying about disrupting the flow. 

 

Made the order and it even qualified for the secondary warehouse. I know they will arrive before this weekend, not two weeks from now. Enough chasing discounts. 

I also rediscovered something I once knew. It's twice as fast to order from one website which is functional than assembling two websites and three emails. Duh. 

So that's what I'm going to do for summer. I will continue to throw backlist orders at the publishers, but everything else is going to be faster from now on.  

I'm nothing if not inconsistent. 

After all my going too and fro about timeliness vs discount, the third element of the equation has come to the fore: accuracy.

I tried to do my budget this morning as I usually do on Tuesday and the truth is, I can't tell how much I owe Simon and Shuster, Scholastic, and Harper Collins. All I've got is a blizzard of invoices, some with as little as one title, and a couple of "statements" that make no sense to me. The dates seem all wrong, and the accounting is indecipherable, at least to me. I'm sure they make sense to an accountant, but it might as well be Algebra 2, which is the  only class I ever failed in high school. (I just quit going after the first few weeks because I couldn't begin to understand it, even when I had my friend Steve Davies try to help me.

I've added up every bit of money I think I owe and I've added 5K to my reserve fund just in case. But I'm not sure I can go on like this. All I want is a simple statement each month: You Owe X Amount Of Money, so I can write out a check for X Amount of Money. Is that too much to fucking ask?

I went around and around with the credit rep from S & S and we didn't seem to understand each other one little bit. "How much do I owe?" I ask.  "Which claim are you paying?" she answers. "How the hell do I know? You tell me!" and so on. 

So I've made a drastic decision. It's Ingram for the rest of the summer until the smoke fades. Sure I get 10% less discount but by God, I get the product the very next day (not two weeks!) and I know exactly what I've spent. I've always chosen timeliness and accuracy over discounts, all things being equal. 

So the quandary continues.   

No wonder Amazon is eating up the book world. Their search engine is a marvel and they get stuff to you promptly. Doesn't help me, as a retailer much. I mean, obviously, it hurts. But I can understand why it's happening.

The Big Five are still in the stone age, as far as I can tell. 

Penguin Random House at least has a way for you to order online directly with them, and know exactly what is in stock. But then...they split the damn order into a dozen little shipments with a dozen little invoices that come in on a dozen different time schedules. So they're halfway there. 

But the others? Might as well be writing them letters.   

 

After sales dragging all day, we had a burst in the last hour, including I believe, a box of Final Fantasy. (Which makes me feel better about buying another couple of boxes from Mag. Ex.) 

We're on a great pace.

A huge number of books showing up this week, basically two weeks in one. (I neglected to hit the "Send" button on the order the week before last.)

The massive volume of books means I will need to go in early every day for the rest of the week. 

I don't mind. I kind of like it. 

I just ordered 20 Pokemon Pop figures, not so much because I think they will sell fast but because they can be protective coloring. There is barely enough Pokemon product available until the new stuff shows up later in the month. We could possibly have gaps in our displays, which I don't like. So if nothing else, we'll have some nice toys to offer.  

I'm having more fun than I've probably had in the entire history of the store except in the run-up to the baseball card crash. After that, I was leery of all such bursts, and more focused on trying the fix the damage of each successive bubble. (Including the housing bubble.) This time, we are not in debt, we're not over-extended and the overhead is well within bounds. 

We'll be fine either way. 

 

Still struggling with the choice between ordering direct from publishers at 10 to 15% better margins but waiting ten days for the books to show up, or paying lower margins from Ingram and getting the books a a very timely couple days later. 

Question is: how many sales are we missing during those eight days, multiplied by the basically 2/3rds of the books we're currently getting from publishers? A lost sale in not only about the lost profit, it's also a failure to meet the customer demand, and that's something you don't want to do too often. 

When it was just Penguin Random House, I chose to order from only Ingram during Christmas. Makes no sense to order a book from PRH on the 10th of the month and at best have a couple days before Christmas to sell it. But that was only 1/3rd of the books, not 2/3rds. 

The same is true during Summer. Really, there are only about eight or nine weeks of summer after July 4th, which is real kickoff for increased sales. So in 63 days, I can order books from publishers maybe 5 times, or I can order from Ingram more than twice as often. That's a lot more books in on a timely basis.

But there is another phenomenon going on. During summer and Christmas we are getting customers for which ALL the books in stock are new to them. They usually aren't coming in for specific titles, but for a wide selection.

And by ordering from each publisher each week, a wide variety of books are coming in all the time. 

Ironically, it's more important to have every important book during the slower months because every customer and every sale counts.

This is Summer week is where I decide whether to switch from publisher ordering each week, knowing that each book I'm ordering will miss roughly 20% of the summer, or to ordering from Ingram and losing less than 10% of the selling period.

Of course, I can finesse this quite a bit. Often I'll order from both Ingram and publishers for books that I'll probably need more copies of.  And the flow of product is so much stronger than it used to be that there is a better then even chance that if I don't have one title the customer wants, I'll have another.

So I'm sticking to the publisher discounts for now even though it will be a dagger in the heart every time a customer asks for a book we could have had in stock, but instead have to tell them, "It's on its way..." 

I always resisted getting an RV because it seemed to me that most people don't get enough use out of them to warrant the cost. Of course, no one will admit to this, but all I know is that I see my neighbors's RV parked month after month and rarely taken out for a spin. 

Besides, you can pay for a lot of nice rooms in nice hotels for the price of an RV.  

But it came down to never leaving the house again or getting a transport for our cat. Our RV is a very expensive Catbus. 

OK... I was up for it, but then I decided to stay around the store for another couple of years and business has been booming, which makes it fun again. So even less chance to get away. 

By the time I'm done with the store, I'll be 74 years old and the cat will be 18 years old, assuming that we both make it that far.

Therefore when the boys started to ask to use the Catbus, no only didn't I object, I was delighted. "Please...take it any time you want!' 

So now I feel like maybe we're getting our monies worth. It's a family bus, and as far as I'm concerned, the money we're currently earning and still saving for "retirement" is family money and that's the way it should be.

I want for nothing. Seriously. There isn't anything I want that I don't have, except a teleporter that can get me anywhere I want to go in seconds. I can't quite seem to find one for sale. 

So the Catbus is seeming rather part of life now and I don't mind it a bit.  

Interesting that retailers are still blaming Diamond for all that is wrong in the comic world.

Here's the thing. Diamond doesn't exist, except as a name. The company that took it over is a completely different entity.

And they are pulling the plug on most of what Diamond was still doing (not that there was much less.) Word is, they're selling off the consignment inventory left and not paying the publishers. So that's gotta hurt if you are a publisher.

Meanwhile, smaller publisher will have to got through a new company that gives a smaller discount and/or minimum orders. This was entirely predictable. It always amazed me that Diamond was willing to pack a singe comic. I mean, it can't have been worth the time, energy, and labor to do it.

Speaking of minimums, that's mostly how the toy industry works. You buy a case with six or twelve figures. You don't get to say, "I want only Yoda and Boba Fett." No you get three minor characters that no one wants. Plus your buying at such a low discount that it's only worthwhile to buy most toys if you tack a little bit above the retail price. (There isn't usually an SRP.)

But the chain stores are selling for below retail price so it's a double whammy. Meanwhile, the chain stores get what they ordered and they get it earlier. We often don't get the 'good' stuff and we have to wait much longer. 

With Diamond no longer there, stores will have to buy from toy distributors and they are awful. Not just for toys, but for everything else: posters, pins, t-shirts, buttons...you name it. Again, minimums at awful discounts arriving late if at all. Whoopee!

 

 

It took many years for the store to get to where it is. During most of those years I not only couldn't afford to carry 100% of what we should, I was probably only getting half to two/thirds of the way there. 

Now? The only thing stopping us is lack of space. We have gotten to that 100% and surpassed it and it shows. Now people come in and there is a very good chance they'll find something interesting. It's the excess inventory that causes the average to stay steady.  

It's made me refine my notion that the most important element of success is to think for yourself. Or more clearly, to separate the bullshit from the reality. So many businesses are concerned about their image, how good looking they are, how wonderful it all feels.

But books are our image. The more and better books we have, the better our image. I assure you that no one sees that the wall is patched in places, or the there is a bit of dust here and there. Not that you shouldn't try to fix that, but just that there is a lot of leeway--if you are otherwise doing the job of getting good product at affordable prices.  

If you've got the space and the fixtures and the manpower, then the most important thing to have is inventory. Somehow I understood that from the beginning and always plowed the bulk of our gross profit back into the store. In the last fifteen years or so and especially in the last five years, we're finally getting rewarded for that. But that meant we spent 25 years getting there. 

It wouldn't have taken so long if I hadn't made so many mistakes, but mistakes are how you learn what not to do. Experience is what teaches you what to do.