Thursday, March 22, 2012

Every little bit helps.

Squeezed in the first half of the new books I ordered, with no room to spare. The other 150 books will show up in about a week, so maybe I'll sell enough by then to make room for them too. (Not likely.)

The thing about ordering too much -- there always seems to be a clever way to make room for them. Someday I won't figure out a solution, but it hasn't happened yet.

This year, I've been concentrating on the three categories that I let idle for a couple of years while I concentrated on new lines (books and games.)

Toys, collector cards, and anime.

Mostly it's a matter of picking out some premo stuff to mix with what I already have, which seems to be the key to unlocking sales in the moribund categories.

Cameron said that my addition of the Miyazaki movies, along with significant titles like Steamboy, has started people buying older anime, which was my goal. Toys sales are up this year, too, because I've paid more attention to them.

Sport card sales are holding their own. I didn't have an agreement with Panini, the official basketball card maker, so I couldn't get Bsk. cards until a month after they came out. It didn't matter. Until -- Lin. Then I wanted them, and I couldn't get them. So finally filled out the paperwork and should be getting Bsk. cards in a timely matter soon.

I've been dabbling in non-sports cards, too. I ordered a couple boxes of Hunger Games cards, for instance.

Cameron asked me if sports cards were really worth the hassle.

"Well, they pay for you," I said.

"Oh, in that case -- never mind."

1 comment:

Duncan McGeary said...

I had a stock of 3 hardcovers of each of the Hunger Games books, plus 10 of the paperback of the first book.

The day after I made my order, I sold all three hdc. Catching Fire.

Just for reference, I usually have a hard time selling hdc.'s of any kind.

Doh!

Had a girl and mom looking for Mockingjay, used.

"Not going to happen," I said. "Seriously, you'd be incredibly lucky..."

Got the usual doubtful look.

So they went off looking for it...

"It won't be in paperback for at least a year," I said. (Even Catching Fire isn't in paperback yet --)

How long will that girl hold out before she just buys the damn thing?