Thursday, July 17, 2025

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for two different releases, which I can also break into packs, but three other sets, including one set that had two out of date Pokemon boosters plentiful enough to start selling them again by pack.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. 


Wednesday, July 16, 2025

 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.  

Tuesday, July 15, 2025

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.  

Sunday, July 13, 2025

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! 

Saturday, July 12, 2025

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. 

Friday, July 11, 2025

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.  

Thursday, July 10, 2025

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.  

Wednesday, July 9, 2025

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.  

Tuesday, July 8, 2025

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.   

Monday, July 7, 2025

 

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. 



 

Saturday, July 5, 2025

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..." 

Thursday, July 3, 2025

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.  

Tuesday, July 1, 2025

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.