Posted in: Comics | Tagged: comic con, Comics, entertainment, new york, new york comic con, NYCC

My Little Comic Books Shop Of Horror

Mathias Beamen wrote from New York Comic-Con's panel:  ComicsPro – So you want to be a comics retailer?

All my friends dream of opening a bar. Free shots for friends and sexy ladies. Making money by partying. You can choose the music, hire the barmaids, and have a reserved seat only for you. All the men in the world in fact. All but me!

Me? I dream of opening a comic book shop. To include a free issue of my discovery of the month in every customer's pull box, having a lot of geeks hanging in my shop, large boxes of back issues to satisfy everyone, … A place where you could comfortably read the new comics, while enjoying a hot drink. Customers would become friends, because how can you not love someone who really likes comics?

Fortunately a panel of veteran comic book retailers were there to underline how maybe it isn't such a good idea (and potentially preventing any future competition), including Jonathan Cohen who owns two stores (Beyond Comics) and Chris Powell (vice president of Diamond Comics Distributor).

The real question is, why do you want to open a comic book store? If you find a satisfying answer somewhere in your subconscious, then you can think about the following steps.

You need to find a good location, that's the main focus of your success. After that, negotiate a good lease, get a loan, order furniture, and make the necessary alterations to adapt the place. After that ,you need to make an order at Diamond Comics because it's the only distributor of comic books. And you still have two at three months to wait before opening your store.

If you find a location where other diverse stores operate well, then there is a chance that your shop could also work. If there's a college close to your location, it can be good but you can't only count on it because the summer will be difficult.

You can follow your competitors. If you're implementing yourself in a place where another comic book store is making money, there is a chance that you could make some too.

You could also buy an existing shop and run it in a better way than your predecessors.

And to do it better, you need to create a sensitive communication with your customers. They must be feeling good by visiting your shop. You can organize some events, for example a mini comic-con in your shop for all the customers who can't go to the big ones. But you also need to be careful with the people that you hire. You can't teach them courtesy or the comics sense. You need hire those who already have welcoming  personalities. A good test to do is to take them just for one day and leave them standing in the shop for three to four hours without a break, and just observe how they react with customers.

Launching an online store is nowadays, however, is a bad idea because there are very big dogs in the game who can afford to give huge discounts. And with the internet, customers look only on the cheapest price. You can't create a special relationship with them and then ask for extra bucks.

Having a lot back issues at the opening of your store is not a good idea either because it's very expensive to manage an interesting assortment of back issues. Yes, it can be lucrative but only for issues that you're sure to sell nearly immediately. Or else, it takes up a lot of room and needs a lot of effort to manage. And it also is not easy to fight against the deals that internet can provide.

You need to focus only on what is under your control. Okay, a fire can happen or your shop could be flooded… which is why you pay insurance. But what it's really difficult nowadays is to find a lot of money to start your business.

Yeah… I think I will continue to read my comics in a corner of my apartment…

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