A remarkable week, one of the best we've ever had outside of Christmas. And it's only June.
I stocked up on Pokemon and Magic, gambling that we'd be able to sell it during the summer, and that seems to be happening. That's probably 60% of the increase, with books being the other 40% of the increase, holding our own with comics and down a little on toys and games.
Last year at this time I went all in on returnability with PRH. Bought multiple copies of bestsellers I might not have bought at all before (or after.) It didn't really work out. But in order to prepare, I redesigned the store yet again and that has proven to be a real bonus. Plus I kind of learned that I might have been a little too careful ordering new stuff before that, and that ordering a couple of copies almost always works out.
So the increase in book sales is partially due to that experiment. But as a whole, I really blew my budget on inventory instead of trying for a monetary profit.
This year I'm going forward with a rolling average for the budget. It's a generous budget (the mistake in the past I've always made is to make the budget too skimpy thus almost always busting the budget in short order.)
I've been doing this for seven weeks now, and I'm about 20% of a single week above the average, so pretty darn close.
I don't want to anticipate too much. Whenever I do that, it runs the risk of being a disappointment. But July 4th is usually the real kickoff to summer business, where it normally really takes off. If it takes off from the current level...well, that would be amazing.
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