Monthly orders continued.

A continuation of my series of posts about making my monthly orders from my main supplier.

I said in the beginning that I can manage this process in one day: Wrong. This is the third day.

The longer I take, the more I order. I might be better off making quick decisions, eh? Anyway, the comic orders are coming in much higher than usual. What to do?

As I mentioned in a comment yesterday, if finances were shaky, I'd probably look for places to cut, but sales have been better than good, so I may go with it.

Of course, over-ordering is how finances become shaky, what?

The Before Watchmen are putting my budget over the top. I've decided to order 60 of each, and use them as "optional" titles. Picking shelf customers who I think might be interested (in this case, most people who take DC titles) and putting them on the shelf with the understanding that they can reject them.

I usually have a pretty good hit rate, because I try not to overdue it.

Meanwhile, I have all the other product in the catalog yet to order. I'll just be a bit more sparing in my orders for non-comic related material, this time. Most of this stuff I can order elsewhere, if I need to.


LATER: Plugged in the new Watchmen numbers, and I'm already at budget, with the whole back part of the catalog to go. I'm going give myself another 10% to order from this section.


THE REST OF THE STUFF:

1.) Books and Magazines.

Most of the books are art or pop culture books. I love the magazines, but don't seem to sell them, and they're kind of pricey these days.

I have a weakness for the art and pop books, and if I had the time and space and money, I'd probably carry almost all of them.

I usually try to limit myself to a few, because these are the type of things that aren't monthly and that I can order later from a book wholesaler.

FANGORIA AND FAMOUS MONSTERS, for the regulars.

A SPECTRUM art book, and another artbook called Flesk Prime. A PROMETHEUS artbook.
Fewer than usual.

CALENDARS: A once a year purchase, generally. I used to do pretty well, but this has really tailed off and so has my enthusiasm.

Going to order maybe 8 (used to order 20 or 30.)

CARDS: Ordered a box of Topps Chrome baseball. Also, almost against my better judgement, a box of Game of Thrones. (I'm getting Hunger Games cards this week, so I've sort of decided to try to revive this part of my store...)

T-SHIRTS: They offer us a ton of t-shirts, so I usually wait for them to go on sale. Sometimes I'll piggy back on someone else's order. I have no idea what to order for posters and t-shirts. What I think is cool, no one else does...

TOYS: After spending a few years mostly buying singles, where possible, I've been trying to revive this part of my store by buying a couple of cases a month. This month, I may pass unless something really catches my eye.

O.K. Got some individual Marvel Select, a single Mars Attack figure, and ...well, a retro Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles case. (Ironically, I never carried these the first time around, because the mass market was full of them -- but I always liked them. Funny how nostalgic they are, even though I was never their demographic...)

GAMES: Did some various adventure packs, a big Pathfinder book, some various Hero Clix, and a couple of boxes of 2013 Magic, and 6 fat packs (which I'm unlikely to get.)


FINALLY DONE. Took three days, instead of one. I suppose I was looking harder because I was making this report.

I'm a full 20% over budget.

Since these are summer items (especially the last part of the catalog) I'm going ahead and pulling the trigger. I'm feeling more and more confident in the other parts of the store, so I may as well back it up.