It seems like I'm hearing lots of fear based messages in the local media and on the blogs.
This isn't all bad. Fear--like pain-- can be a warning.
Even messages of 'don't fear' or 'we're hopeful' can ironically come across as unintentionally revealing of the mindset.
We're keeping our average above what I consider the red-zone, and Linda's store continues to do really well. (In fact, she's getting kind of overwhelmed.) Pegasus had it's best day of the year, yesterday, which was a bit of a relief because I had totally restocked the store from top to bottom, and was wondering if I should have done that.
But I'm getting this feeling that people are starting to seek out retail 'refuges'; places they can sense are healthy, and humming along, and that they can be comfortable in.
I have no idea where that feeling is coming from.
Just a hope, probably.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Saturday, April 4, 2009
The further I am.....
...the farther I get.
The life and death of a product.
You start out, learning everything you can about what you're selling. You keep up. You're interested and you're talking to people who are just as interested. Word gets around. Gossip is ubiquitous. Information is on the frontpage of every communication you get from industry sources.
And then it starts to slide. You sell a little less, so you shrink back the time, space, and attention you give a product. It falls a few pages back in the publications. It's not the first thing people talk about when they come in the store.
And one day, you're standing behind the counter, and a customer gives you a piece of important information that is three months old.
Or maybe I should say, what once would have been 'important' information.
Panini, which just bought out Playoff cards (at least I knew that much!) has got the exclusive to produce collector cards for the National Basketball Association next year.
Wow. An Italian sticker company.
Makes sense, since Basketball is international sport, nowadays. Perhaps I'll have a market for all the mid-list stars in the basement someday in Europe or Asia.
But I'm stunned I didn't know this. It was announced in January.
But you know what? I really shouldn't be surprised. There are no publications I currently take in sports cards, except Beckett which I barely glance at. Others I just let go, or went out of business. Nobody comes in to talk about sports cards. Very few people buy them. I sell the random card, pack or box.
I remember from 1985, when I first started carrying sports cards, through about 1991, my ears were keenly attuned to the hobby. I always used to joke that I would zig just before the hobby zigged, and zag just before the hobby zagged. I knew instinctively which direction everything was going, and if I missed it somehow there were plenty of people to tell me.
So it was almost as big a surprise back in 1992 to hear that a competitor had opened (American Sports) and that he had been open for a couple of months! And the only way I found out was through an ad in the Bulletin. But this connects almost exactly in hindsight to the date when sports cards started their long decline. Not just for me, but for everyone.
This is something I wish people understood about their favorite hobbies. If interest and sales drop below a certain threshold, it pretty much falls apart. The middle cannot hold, because it's all connected. The customer just sees more choice, usually cheaper prices, and all looks great.
Eventually, it always seem to diffuse into nothingness.
Maybe I'm overstating the case. I'm certainly wishing I could continue to be the 'middle', the go-to guy, but still....it's what I see.
The life and death of a product.
You start out, learning everything you can about what you're selling. You keep up. You're interested and you're talking to people who are just as interested. Word gets around. Gossip is ubiquitous. Information is on the frontpage of every communication you get from industry sources.
And then it starts to slide. You sell a little less, so you shrink back the time, space, and attention you give a product. It falls a few pages back in the publications. It's not the first thing people talk about when they come in the store.
And one day, you're standing behind the counter, and a customer gives you a piece of important information that is three months old.
Or maybe I should say, what once would have been 'important' information.
Panini, which just bought out Playoff cards (at least I knew that much!) has got the exclusive to produce collector cards for the National Basketball Association next year.
Wow. An Italian sticker company.
Makes sense, since Basketball is international sport, nowadays. Perhaps I'll have a market for all the mid-list stars in the basement someday in Europe or Asia.
But I'm stunned I didn't know this. It was announced in January.
But you know what? I really shouldn't be surprised. There are no publications I currently take in sports cards, except Beckett which I barely glance at. Others I just let go, or went out of business. Nobody comes in to talk about sports cards. Very few people buy them. I sell the random card, pack or box.
I remember from 1985, when I first started carrying sports cards, through about 1991, my ears were keenly attuned to the hobby. I always used to joke that I would zig just before the hobby zigged, and zag just before the hobby zagged. I knew instinctively which direction everything was going, and if I missed it somehow there were plenty of people to tell me.
So it was almost as big a surprise back in 1992 to hear that a competitor had opened (American Sports) and that he had been open for a couple of months! And the only way I found out was through an ad in the Bulletin. But this connects almost exactly in hindsight to the date when sports cards started their long decline. Not just for me, but for everyone.
This is something I wish people understood about their favorite hobbies. If interest and sales drop below a certain threshold, it pretty much falls apart. The middle cannot hold, because it's all connected. The customer just sees more choice, usually cheaper prices, and all looks great.
Eventually, it always seem to diffuse into nothingness.
Maybe I'm overstating the case. I'm certainly wishing I could continue to be the 'middle', the go-to guy, but still....it's what I see.
Sustainable growth.
“This crisis did not come about because we issued too little money but because we created economic growth with too much money and it was not sustainable growth,” Merkel said. “If we want to learn from that, the answer is not to repeat the mistakes of the past.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel
This quote sort of caught my eye, because she's saying what I've been thinking about Bend from the beginning.
It was never growth, per se, that I was concerned about. Too little, too much. Or just right.
It was sustainable growth.
It's as if we built a good solid first floor of a building, and it took us forever to do it, so we skimped a bit on the second floor, but it seemed pretty solid and people liked it and we had an immediate need for a third floor, so we skimped a bit more, on the fourth floor and the fifth floor, as it got progressively shakey.
A few of us who had been through hurricanes or tsunami's or earthquakes before saw the dangers, but most didn't seem to be paying attention. No excuse, really. We just forget the basics. 'Nothing's free.' 'You have to work for the money.' 'If it looks too good to be true...' 'You get what you pay for...'
But as long as the building still stood, no one cared.
The thing about losing the top floor -- as we all know to our sorrow -- is the next floor down is taken out, as well, and so on.
The trickle down theory only works in reverse, evidently.
There is a comment on the Portland Housing Blog that I sort of hope is made up.
"Spoke to a wealthy Bend doctor. He said that most of the down draft you are seeing are the marginally employed and the (hard boiled, institutional, consistently) poor, and the foolishly overleveraged.
For the folks in his socio-economic bracket, things are pretty much the same as they ever were. Sure, some people have delayed purchases, procedures, etc. but that has been an over reaction to the news, not b/c they personally were somehow worse off.
Much Ado About Nothing, was his statement. Bend inhaled a bunch of wannabe jokers and now is exhaling them. Utlimately, it wasn't really that big of a deal if things settled back to where they were 5 years ago. Life was just fine in Bend in 2002-2003 for him and he could do just as well if prices reverted."
Nevermind the "Let Them Eat Cake" morality expressed here, it's just plain foolish and shortsighted. (And as someone immediately pointed out, it was also a 'wealthy' doctor who got caught up by the Shire....)
I also agree with Ms. Merkel in this comment, if you'll allow the stretch, as it relates to Bend.
"German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned bankers to maintain sustainable growth once the global economic crisis subsides, adding that the pace of any recovery would be far slower than the rapid decline."
P.S. Before anyone points out that Merkel was referring to arcane money supply issues, I'm aware of that. But that was just the mechanism; it was the idea that we could grow past our actual production of basic goods and services, that was dubious.
This quote sort of caught my eye, because she's saying what I've been thinking about Bend from the beginning.
It was never growth, per se, that I was concerned about. Too little, too much. Or just right.
It was sustainable growth.
It's as if we built a good solid first floor of a building, and it took us forever to do it, so we skimped a bit on the second floor, but it seemed pretty solid and people liked it and we had an immediate need for a third floor, so we skimped a bit more, on the fourth floor and the fifth floor, as it got progressively shakey.
A few of us who had been through hurricanes or tsunami's or earthquakes before saw the dangers, but most didn't seem to be paying attention. No excuse, really. We just forget the basics. 'Nothing's free.' 'You have to work for the money.' 'If it looks too good to be true...' 'You get what you pay for...'
But as long as the building still stood, no one cared.
The thing about losing the top floor -- as we all know to our sorrow -- is the next floor down is taken out, as well, and so on.
The trickle down theory only works in reverse, evidently.
There is a comment on the Portland Housing Blog that I sort of hope is made up.
"Spoke to a wealthy Bend doctor. He said that most of the down draft you are seeing are the marginally employed and the (hard boiled, institutional, consistently) poor, and the foolishly overleveraged.
For the folks in his socio-economic bracket, things are pretty much the same as they ever were. Sure, some people have delayed purchases, procedures, etc. but that has been an over reaction to the news, not b/c they personally were somehow worse off.
Much Ado About Nothing, was his statement. Bend inhaled a bunch of wannabe jokers and now is exhaling them. Utlimately, it wasn't really that big of a deal if things settled back to where they were 5 years ago. Life was just fine in Bend in 2002-2003 for him and he could do just as well if prices reverted."
Nevermind the "Let Them Eat Cake" morality expressed here, it's just plain foolish and shortsighted. (And as someone immediately pointed out, it was also a 'wealthy' doctor who got caught up by the Shire....)
I also agree with Ms. Merkel in this comment, if you'll allow the stretch, as it relates to Bend.
"German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned bankers to maintain sustainable growth once the global economic crisis subsides, adding that the pace of any recovery would be far slower than the rapid decline."
P.S. Before anyone points out that Merkel was referring to arcane money supply issues, I'm aware of that. But that was just the mechanism; it was the idea that we could grow past our actual production of basic goods and services, that was dubious.
Friday, April 3, 2009
never mind the scenery.....
Have you guys seen that ad, I thinks it's a cellphone ad, or blackberry, or something, where a family appears to be visiting the Museum of Natural History?
(Later -- it's a Sprint ad.)
The Mom and Dad proudly lead their charges through the museum, while the kids don't even bother to look up from their video games or their text messaging.
Surely, this isn't the message they wanted to promote?
Or is it?
Don't need to leave your home to visit a museum, when you got a handy little tool in your hand.
I wish I had the tech savvy to change the background pictures from Wholly Mammoths and Sabertooth Tigers, to -- Oh, I don't know. A raging fire, a bomb squad, a out of control forklift, pictures of the Holocaust or the Killing Fields?
Do you suppose those kids would look up for that?
And while I'm having an old foggie moment, has it become standard practice to watch T.V. from the back seat? Whatever happened to the adventure, playing car games, talking to the family?
(Later -- it's a Sprint ad.)
The Mom and Dad proudly lead their charges through the museum, while the kids don't even bother to look up from their video games or their text messaging.
Surely, this isn't the message they wanted to promote?
Or is it?
Don't need to leave your home to visit a museum, when you got a handy little tool in your hand.
I wish I had the tech savvy to change the background pictures from Wholly Mammoths and Sabertooth Tigers, to -- Oh, I don't know. A raging fire, a bomb squad, a out of control forklift, pictures of the Holocaust or the Killing Fields?
Do you suppose those kids would look up for that?
And while I'm having an old foggie moment, has it become standard practice to watch T.V. from the back seat? Whatever happened to the adventure, playing car games, talking to the family?
Thursday, April 2, 2009
More signs of the times.
On the way to work today, I saw a stretch limo parked on 1st St., festooned with "For Sale!" signs.
I've been hearing how the Bridezilla phenomenon is starting fade, so I suspect that extra luxurious Proms and Graduations are probably out, as well.
What's interesting to me is to watch the cable channels, and see how flummoxed most of the commentator's are at the muddiness of the times.
They were expecting some big denouncement?
For it all to become clear?
This isn't a movie, or a T.V. show. What I found in the past was the booms were going on for quite a while before I noticed them, and recovering from crashes took even longer to develop.
Only in hindsight were they obvious.
I've been hearing how the Bridezilla phenomenon is starting fade, so I suspect that extra luxurious Proms and Graduations are probably out, as well.
What's interesting to me is to watch the cable channels, and see how flummoxed most of the commentator's are at the muddiness of the times.
They were expecting some big denouncement?
For it all to become clear?
This isn't a movie, or a T.V. show. What I found in the past was the booms were going on for quite a while before I noticed them, and recovering from crashes took even longer to develop.
Only in hindsight were they obvious.
A fantasy life.
When I was twelve years old, I wandered into my Dad's bedroom looking for something to read. He always had stacks and stacks of books, A book cover caught my attention.
"What's that?" I asked, picking it up and staring at the soft fantasy cover, a mountain and billowy trees, if I remember.
"Oh, you might like that," my Dad said.
I opened up the book, and read the first line.
"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit...."
That's when my life was highjacked.
My family never knew what hit me. I became obsessed, reading the trilogy over and over again that summer. I fought with my sisters over reading rights, and it was a disaster when one of them left the Two Towers out on the lawn. I read it anyway, twisting the bloated paper into a readable format.
My brother was home that summer and was in the play, The Fantasticks, and that was the soundtrack of that summer. I still can't listen to Try to Remember, without an overwhelming nostalgia. Overwhelming.
What you love at 12, you love for life. I searched the library for something, anything that would fill that need. I couldn't find anything outside of children's fantasy, which barely sufficed.
It wasn't until about 5 years later that 'modern' fantasy became a strong genre, with books in every bookstore. I was in a college bookstore, and from the corner of my eye I caught the cover of a book. I remember veering toward the book rack, drawn to it like a laser.
A Frazzeta cover to the first Conan book. I found and abandoned Lord Foul's Bane (stupid book), I read The Sword of Shannara (a complete copycat of LOTR's) without criticism. (When I see the excitement of young kids over Eregon -- which to me is completely unreadable -- I understand that there must be something there....)
I did read many other books, but the Lord of the Rings was my touchstone.
It's why I became a writer.
It's why I own a bookstore with comics and books and games and toys.
My mother indulged me, buying the Hildebrant calendars every year. Eventually, my love started to fade a little bit. I got frustrated with waiting for the next fantasy chapter, and disgusted by the sameness of it all. I continued to read S.F. but mostly started reading mysteries.
Still, when I see the look in the young girl's eyes when they talk about Twilight, or when a young boy talks about Harry Potter, young and old talking about Star Wars, even titles that have no real resonance with me, such as G.I. Joe and Transformer --- I know exactly how they feel.
"What's that?" I asked, picking it up and staring at the soft fantasy cover, a mountain and billowy trees, if I remember.
"Oh, you might like that," my Dad said.
I opened up the book, and read the first line.
"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit...."
That's when my life was highjacked.
My family never knew what hit me. I became obsessed, reading the trilogy over and over again that summer. I fought with my sisters over reading rights, and it was a disaster when one of them left the Two Towers out on the lawn. I read it anyway, twisting the bloated paper into a readable format.
My brother was home that summer and was in the play, The Fantasticks, and that was the soundtrack of that summer. I still can't listen to Try to Remember, without an overwhelming nostalgia. Overwhelming.
What you love at 12, you love for life. I searched the library for something, anything that would fill that need. I couldn't find anything outside of children's fantasy, which barely sufficed.
It wasn't until about 5 years later that 'modern' fantasy became a strong genre, with books in every bookstore. I was in a college bookstore, and from the corner of my eye I caught the cover of a book. I remember veering toward the book rack, drawn to it like a laser.
A Frazzeta cover to the first Conan book. I found and abandoned Lord Foul's Bane (stupid book), I read The Sword of Shannara (a complete copycat of LOTR's) without criticism. (When I see the excitement of young kids over Eregon -- which to me is completely unreadable -- I understand that there must be something there....)
I did read many other books, but the Lord of the Rings was my touchstone.
It's why I became a writer.
It's why I own a bookstore with comics and books and games and toys.
My mother indulged me, buying the Hildebrant calendars every year. Eventually, my love started to fade a little bit. I got frustrated with waiting for the next fantasy chapter, and disgusted by the sameness of it all. I continued to read S.F. but mostly started reading mysteries.
Still, when I see the look in the young girl's eyes when they talk about Twilight, or when a young boy talks about Harry Potter, young and old talking about Star Wars, even titles that have no real resonance with me, such as G.I. Joe and Transformer --- I know exactly how they feel.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Rumbles from above.
One thing I wasn't looking out for, and I probably should have been, was trouble from above me on the food chain.
I inhabit such a small retail niche, that in most cases there is really only one supplier for each category. Hardy survivors, at that. After the collapse of the comic market in the mid-90's, there was only one survivor -- Diamond Comics, who had exclusives with Marvel, DC, Dark Horse and Image. That's 85% of the market, right there.
A TRUE MONOPOLY.
Up until the end, I supported Capital Comics, Diamond's main competitor, as much as I could. When they went under, I supported the next biggest supplier and so on.
Until there weren't any.
Diamond also bought the biggest game distributors, and renamed them Alliance. There are a few smaller distributors which I haven't used, because my game volume just isn't big enough.
LOOKING FOR PARTNERS.
When it came time to buy books, I approached Ingrams, but felt rebuffed. They wanted high guarantee purchases for a product line I was just starting. I could almost hear them sneering when I told them I was a comic shop. Baker and Taylor, on the other hand, actively welcomed me into their ranks.
Today, there was a story in the comic site, ICV2, which said:
"Baker & Taylor, a key distributor of books, DVDs and CDs, has denied reports that it is in danger of defaulting on its obligations or filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection."
"Kuo told Home Media that B&T had been able to increase cash flow by 25% and had plenty of liquidity ($110 million), saying: “We are a long way from not paying our bills.”
Oh, oh. That can't be good.
I won't even go into all the rumbles about the weaknesses of book publishers. But if Borders give up the ghost, which I fully expect to happen this year, you have to wonder how that's going to impact on the entire book industry. Returns alone will be dreadful.
(Just as Gottshalks and Circuit City and Linens and Things all pretended that they had viable 'suiters' to buy their companies, but which folded, I think Borders is kidding us and themselves. They couldn't sell two years ago -- I see no chance that anyone would take on that red ink now....)
In sports cards, I have had a long journey with Roger of the Magazine Exchange. He started distributing cards just about the time I was getting into them. He provided me with pogs, and beanie babies, and non-sports cards, and more recently, card games.
He's a very savvy guy, but lately I've been wondering how he's weathering all this. Several brands were taken away, Wiz Kids for one, others have dwindled to nearly nothing. I used to depend on Roger to keep an eye out for the Next Big Thing, but there really hasn't been one since Pokemon started declining in Christmas of 2000.
He seems to be O.K., but unfortunately, he's a very small part of my business nowadays.
MANIA IS OVER.
Part of the weaknesses in my distributors derives from the products no longer being 'hot'; Yugi oh and Pokemon, which have declined, sports cards which seem to continuing their long fall to zero, non-sports cards. Games, which are settling back to normal after artificial boosts. I think a sign of weakness is how much and how often good selling games are simply unavailable, which says to me the makers are being too conservative in their print runs. I haven't been able to get the new games Agricola or Dominion since they were released last year....
BUY AND KILL.
Some product lines are taken out of circulation completely, such as Wiz Kids, which was purchased by Topps Cards, and unceremoniously dumped. (Why do these companies buy brands only to kill them?)
SIGNS AND PORTENTS.
One canary in the mine that I've been watching is non-sport cards. I quit buying these about 5 years ago, except when they go on 'Sale.' Which they almost always do. I can't afford to buy Twilight Cards, or Star Wars cards, and then have the customers ask me, "I bought these everywhere else, and now they're gone, so can you get them for me?"
Well, no. By the time you finally get around to me, the cards are either sold out, or not worth having.
But still, it was interesting to me that there still were several producers of non-sports cards. Whenever I looked at the sports cards and wondered how they were surviving, I could turn to non-sports cards and think: "Well, I can't sell ANY of these, and yet they're still making them."
Well, the biggest of these companies, Inkworks, just went out of business. They had a 'hit' in Twilight, but the flop of The Spirit pulled them under. (Obviously they were teetering if one license can kill them.)
THE BIG THREE CRACK.
Since I started, there has been at least three big card companies; Topps, of course, Donruss and Fleer, and a couple years later, Pinnacle and Upper Deck, and then at the peak, a plethora of companies (Score and Playoff and many others...)
One by one, they cracked. The 'brand' was bought by one of the bigger fish, carrying on the illusion that they were still alive, but really, Donruss and Fleer and Score aren't independent companies anymore.
For the last few years, there has been Topps, Upper Deck, and Playoff. Upper Deck played power politics, and forced Playoff out of the baseball license.
Recently, Playoff sold to Panini, an Italian sticker company of all things. (I'm guessing they got a rock-bottom price, maybe for the printing facilities -- I can't imagine Panini is excited about jumping into the American sport card market....I expect they'll be going away.
Meanwhile, Upper Deck has always been a bit of a fraud in my eyes. Always looking for ways to scam the market. (Obviously, I don't think much of them.) Meanwhile, Topps was bought by Michael Eisner, who used to run Disney, and I suspect he'll try to leverage it into a 'multi-media' conglomerate. (Which has been tried many times before -- the big tycoons mistake the 'fame' of licenses like Topps or Star Trek as indications of actual sales, I guess.)
KING OF THE WORLD!
The owner of Diamond Comics is a former Baltimore mailman, named Steve Geppi. Fortunately, he has been a benign dictator, and I think handled his power well and faithfully. Personally, I think he's done a great job.
But I noticed along the way, that he was starting to live the high life. He became part owner of the Baltimore Orioles, started a huge and fancy Comic Museum, (Called -- red lights and sirens -- Geppi's Entertainment Museum -- and started buying up orphan properties. He bought Gladstone, which produces Disney comics in the U.S. as well as EC Reprints, and most importantly, the Overstreet Price Guide, the Blue Book of comics.
He also became the toymaker of last resort. After Buffy or Stargate or Battlestar Galactica were turned down by the big boys, he produced them for the comic market. Even the venerable Star Trek -- which has gone through 5 or 6 different card makers, toy makers, comic publishers and failed every time. (NO ONE is more choosy than a Trekkie -- NO ONE! Like non-sports cards, I only carry Star Trek when it's on sale. With the notable exception of right now cause of the new movie.....)
UNEASY LIES THE CROWN.
There have been rumors that the rent hasn't been paid for the Geppi's Entertainment Museum. The Overstreet Price Guide seems to be MIA. The Disney comics have slowed to a trickle...and the latest information is that they will be stopped altogether. (Disney comics sell in Europe, but strangely, not in the U.S.A. I keep telling you guys, and no one believes me, kids just don't read comics anymore....)
One of the gossip sites is talking about Diamond suddenly having to deal with a surge of late or non-payments from comic shops.
These signs are giving everyone in the comic industry the willies. DC Comics has the option of buying Diamond, but you have to wonder if they'd want to, and wonder how Marvel would react.
But if it has to be done, I suspect is would be.
STAYING FLEXIBLE.
Comics are currently 30% of my sales, a very significant number, but not large enough to kill me. I have purposely diversified over the years. Graphic Novels, which are available from Book Distributors, are another 25% of my business. The rest is pretty evenly divided among: books, new and used; card games; games, rpg and boardgames; toys; cards, sports and non-sports and anime.
It'll be a hassle, but ... well, when hasn't it been?
I inhabit such a small retail niche, that in most cases there is really only one supplier for each category. Hardy survivors, at that. After the collapse of the comic market in the mid-90's, there was only one survivor -- Diamond Comics, who had exclusives with Marvel, DC, Dark Horse and Image. That's 85% of the market, right there.
A TRUE MONOPOLY.
Up until the end, I supported Capital Comics, Diamond's main competitor, as much as I could. When they went under, I supported the next biggest supplier and so on.
Until there weren't any.
Diamond also bought the biggest game distributors, and renamed them Alliance. There are a few smaller distributors which I haven't used, because my game volume just isn't big enough.
LOOKING FOR PARTNERS.
When it came time to buy books, I approached Ingrams, but felt rebuffed. They wanted high guarantee purchases for a product line I was just starting. I could almost hear them sneering when I told them I was a comic shop. Baker and Taylor, on the other hand, actively welcomed me into their ranks.
Today, there was a story in the comic site, ICV2, which said:
"Baker & Taylor, a key distributor of books, DVDs and CDs, has denied reports that it is in danger of defaulting on its obligations or filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection."
"Kuo told Home Media that B&T had been able to increase cash flow by 25% and had plenty of liquidity ($110 million), saying: “We are a long way from not paying our bills.”
Oh, oh. That can't be good.
I won't even go into all the rumbles about the weaknesses of book publishers. But if Borders give up the ghost, which I fully expect to happen this year, you have to wonder how that's going to impact on the entire book industry. Returns alone will be dreadful.
(Just as Gottshalks and Circuit City and Linens and Things all pretended that they had viable 'suiters' to buy their companies, but which folded, I think Borders is kidding us and themselves. They couldn't sell two years ago -- I see no chance that anyone would take on that red ink now....)
In sports cards, I have had a long journey with Roger of the Magazine Exchange. He started distributing cards just about the time I was getting into them. He provided me with pogs, and beanie babies, and non-sports cards, and more recently, card games.
He's a very savvy guy, but lately I've been wondering how he's weathering all this. Several brands were taken away, Wiz Kids for one, others have dwindled to nearly nothing. I used to depend on Roger to keep an eye out for the Next Big Thing, but there really hasn't been one since Pokemon started declining in Christmas of 2000.
He seems to be O.K., but unfortunately, he's a very small part of my business nowadays.
MANIA IS OVER.
Part of the weaknesses in my distributors derives from the products no longer being 'hot'; Yugi oh and Pokemon, which have declined, sports cards which seem to continuing their long fall to zero, non-sports cards. Games, which are settling back to normal after artificial boosts. I think a sign of weakness is how much and how often good selling games are simply unavailable, which says to me the makers are being too conservative in their print runs. I haven't been able to get the new games Agricola or Dominion since they were released last year....
BUY AND KILL.
Some product lines are taken out of circulation completely, such as Wiz Kids, which was purchased by Topps Cards, and unceremoniously dumped. (Why do these companies buy brands only to kill them?)
SIGNS AND PORTENTS.
One canary in the mine that I've been watching is non-sport cards. I quit buying these about 5 years ago, except when they go on 'Sale.' Which they almost always do. I can't afford to buy Twilight Cards, or Star Wars cards, and then have the customers ask me, "I bought these everywhere else, and now they're gone, so can you get them for me?"
Well, no. By the time you finally get around to me, the cards are either sold out, or not worth having.
But still, it was interesting to me that there still were several producers of non-sports cards. Whenever I looked at the sports cards and wondered how they were surviving, I could turn to non-sports cards and think: "Well, I can't sell ANY of these, and yet they're still making them."
Well, the biggest of these companies, Inkworks, just went out of business. They had a 'hit' in Twilight, but the flop of The Spirit pulled them under. (Obviously they were teetering if one license can kill them.)
THE BIG THREE CRACK.
Since I started, there has been at least three big card companies; Topps, of course, Donruss and Fleer, and a couple years later, Pinnacle and Upper Deck, and then at the peak, a plethora of companies (Score and Playoff and many others...)
One by one, they cracked. The 'brand' was bought by one of the bigger fish, carrying on the illusion that they were still alive, but really, Donruss and Fleer and Score aren't independent companies anymore.
For the last few years, there has been Topps, Upper Deck, and Playoff. Upper Deck played power politics, and forced Playoff out of the baseball license.
Recently, Playoff sold to Panini, an Italian sticker company of all things. (I'm guessing they got a rock-bottom price, maybe for the printing facilities -- I can't imagine Panini is excited about jumping into the American sport card market....I expect they'll be going away.
Meanwhile, Upper Deck has always been a bit of a fraud in my eyes. Always looking for ways to scam the market. (Obviously, I don't think much of them.) Meanwhile, Topps was bought by Michael Eisner, who used to run Disney, and I suspect he'll try to leverage it into a 'multi-media' conglomerate. (Which has been tried many times before -- the big tycoons mistake the 'fame' of licenses like Topps or Star Trek as indications of actual sales, I guess.)
KING OF THE WORLD!
The owner of Diamond Comics is a former Baltimore mailman, named Steve Geppi. Fortunately, he has been a benign dictator, and I think handled his power well and faithfully. Personally, I think he's done a great job.
But I noticed along the way, that he was starting to live the high life. He became part owner of the Baltimore Orioles, started a huge and fancy Comic Museum, (Called -- red lights and sirens -- Geppi's Entertainment Museum -- and started buying up orphan properties. He bought Gladstone, which produces Disney comics in the U.S. as well as EC Reprints, and most importantly, the Overstreet Price Guide, the Blue Book of comics.
He also became the toymaker of last resort. After Buffy or Stargate or Battlestar Galactica were turned down by the big boys, he produced them for the comic market. Even the venerable Star Trek -- which has gone through 5 or 6 different card makers, toy makers, comic publishers and failed every time. (NO ONE is more choosy than a Trekkie -- NO ONE! Like non-sports cards, I only carry Star Trek when it's on sale. With the notable exception of right now cause of the new movie.....)
UNEASY LIES THE CROWN.
There have been rumors that the rent hasn't been paid for the Geppi's Entertainment Museum. The Overstreet Price Guide seems to be MIA. The Disney comics have slowed to a trickle...and the latest information is that they will be stopped altogether. (Disney comics sell in Europe, but strangely, not in the U.S.A. I keep telling you guys, and no one believes me, kids just don't read comics anymore....)
One of the gossip sites is talking about Diamond suddenly having to deal with a surge of late or non-payments from comic shops.
These signs are giving everyone in the comic industry the willies. DC Comics has the option of buying Diamond, but you have to wonder if they'd want to, and wonder how Marvel would react.
But if it has to be done, I suspect is would be.
STAYING FLEXIBLE.
Comics are currently 30% of my sales, a very significant number, but not large enough to kill me. I have purposely diversified over the years. Graphic Novels, which are available from Book Distributors, are another 25% of my business. The rest is pretty evenly divided among: books, new and used; card games; games, rpg and boardgames; toys; cards, sports and non-sports and anime.
It'll be a hassle, but ... well, when hasn't it been?
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