Comic Book Store Essentials-
Except trade ins for action figures. Re-sell the good figures at a higher price but offer the not so great stuff in a $1 or $2 bin. Pay $.50 for not so great stuff, more for the good to great stuff.
$1-$2 bins are great for kids and parents, also great for collectors looking for older stuff or fodder. I have a buddy who buys tons of old ninja turtle stuff from one store and the owner gets $1.75 profit. A lot of the stuff in the bins is 90's stuff.
Deal in stuff from all decades.
Try not to sell stuff big box stores sell since small businesses have to mark up prices so much higher. i.e., no new DVDs, no non-collector figure lines.
If you are going to sell action-figure collector lines, (marvel universe, marvel legends, DC universe, star wars, etc), buy up what you can from local stores, get lackies to buy up stuff to bring in for store credit, or just make sure you can do whatever you can to remain competitive.
Start with 10% discount on new books, but offer incentives to order more. I subscribe to almost 30 books and wish I could get a little bit more off, maybe 15% off. I highly recommend for getting 5% off for every 15 books or something.
Have big regular sales---labor day, easter, christmas, etc.
Know your competition. Check out local stores. Comic book buyers are extremely loyal and are hard to "create". Keep that in mind.
Do not over order collectible stuff. Order "just enough". Never let product sit around. If it sits too long, clearance it down to cost and get rid of it!
Keep employees to a minimum. You need 1-3 people to run a store, and one of those people needs to be around only on tuesdays to help sort books. Have your best hours wednesday-saturday, no more than 4-5 hours sunday-tuesday.
I did consultation for a new comic book store for a few months on basic retail stuff. I was eventually "dismissed" because my ideas clashed too much with that of the staff. The store announced it was closing 5 months later, and then closed two months after that.
Mistakes they made:
-Ordering entire cases of DCD figures to fill an order for one figure, hoping to sell the rest in the store. Thousands of dollars worth of DCD figures sat on the shelves for months.
-Ordering stuff they liked versus what the customers liked
-Too many people on staff. No familiar faces. Staff was like people from the movie Clerks and had too much say in how things worked
-Rarely putting things on sale
-Carrying things big box retailers carried (at one point selling Batman Begins basic figures for $14 each)
-Sometimes not having their books ready on wednesdays, sometimes not until thursdays
-Keeping prices on action figures so high that even customers who came in randomly wouldn't buy a figure for their kid
-Carrying more merchandise than they had room for
-Carrying merchandise no one wanted
-Allowing staff to play with merchandise, breaking it, and still trying to sell it
-Too many staff + open for too many hours = negative profit (if you own the joint, and you're the only one there, keep it open as much as you want. if not, keep the hours to an absolute minimum for staff)
-Ah, lastly, they were heavily influenced by their supplier to buy even the dumbest of merchandise because they were convinced that it would sell. For instance, they had a Family Guy holiday train, made from porcelain, for $130, that didn't sell in their entire 2 year existence.
