by Editor » Thu Apr 16, 2009 3:19 pm
- Motto: ""I'm not even supposed to be here today!""
- Weapon: Shotgun
Oh don't worry I don't think i'm that old yet, so all's good.
The thing to remember is that stores like Metropolis and and other comic book stores get completely shafted by big box companies on items they both carry.
For the example of the day let's take an average animated figure. Now TRU, Walmart, HBC/Zellers, RCS/Loblaws et al is likely buying these in lots from Hasbro where they get them for about $6. a figure, so they can sell them for about $15 and make a good return but be able to cut them down to $7.50 and still profit.
Your general Comic store, can't go to Hasbro directly as they are too small so they make up for this by buying thru secondary distributors. These Secondary agents are buying stock from Hasbro at similar or higher costs that the big boys, and need to cover their costs/overhead and profit as well. The net result is the smaller stores end up with product that in the best case situation is no better than the retail price at the big boys.
Hence, (within Vancouver) Metropolis and Golden Age sell Transformers for twice as much, GIJoe for $13 to $20 for a fig thats $8 at Walmart, and so on.
It's also why (at metropolis again) Johnny will not be stocking the amounts that Spencer did, not can he sell them for the prices Spence did. Wether he is trying or not, he is following the basis rules almost all comic stores need to realize.
* You can't beat the big box stores or the same products.
* The products you both have can still sell for a higher price if there is a local market that is willing to pay more instead of waiting/running around town. (Call it a conviniance fee, if you will)
* You can build your store up by offering products that the big stores can't/won't/aren't interested in offering.
Johnny has reduced the shelf space for Transformers/Joe/Starwars, in exchange for increasing the space to gaming, models, and comics. Is it sad that he won't be doing all the "special items" that made A3U interesting in the first place? Yhea, but the lesson is that A3U died, and hopefully Metropolis won't follow the same fate.
I'm wasn't interested in spending $30 for Hound, but clearly from the fact that items are still selling, others are.
Oh well. I guess Hasbro should quit having wonky figure amounts in their waves, but that's not going to happen.
).
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