SALES TO ASTONISH #22 - JUNE 2024
Do comic collectors care about the weather?? The notion of applying lotion and hitting the sun lounger with a back issue is something anathema to me and even if it weren’t for the majority of you reading this the good old British summer arrived for 48 hours and has departed leaving grey cool days, perfect for indoor comic reading.
Whether the weather affects the Unreality Store in the same way as it does the leisure and food & beverage industry remains, to me at least, an unknown quantity. After all if you are looking for an issue to complete your collection you’ll buy it come rain or shine. Especially if you can do it online, from the comfort of your own home.
If you’re still with me after that seasonal preamble then I’m pleased to say there wasn’t a downturn in trading due to the summer. In fact the Euro’s didn’t even put a dent in trading and I even took sales as England scraped their way through their group games! When I’d woken up after Market Harborough Comic Con on 1st July I could look back on June 2024 as being my best month for online trading since the opening of The Unreality Store.
I’ve touched previously on the stock I have to offer and how important that can be in terms of generating sales. June saw the usual sales pattern of peaks coinciding with the Thursday and Saturday releases and generally quieter periods during the week. Although I did start to drop sets and other items onto the website on other days accompanied by a social media post altering people to new stock arrivals and this helped to increase both traffic and sales on quieter days. My stock position was helped by the acquisition of two collections in June - the first a small collection of DC, Indies and Bronze Age horror magazines and the second a much larger (14 long boxes) collection of DC comics from 1960’s to present day and some Image and Indies. These began to filter onto the website at the end of June and most of then Batman and World’s Finest 100 Page Giants and Copper Age issues sold almost immediately.
June started well with the sale of a nice batch of Marvel UK Captain Britain, Mighty World of Marvel and Daredevils issues. Although the Alan Moore, Jamie Delano and Alan Davis Captain Britain strips have been reprinted over the years there is still demand for the original issues and I was lucky enough to find a small collection of these issues which had the posters still intact and even the free badges.
This was followed by the usual mix of Bronze, Copper and Modern Age Marvel & DC issues throughout the month which resulted in the following sales
Iron Man 128 FN+ @£55
Iron Man 150 FN @£20
Avengers 196 FN- @#32.50
Avengers King Size 1 VG+ @£20
When I started The Unreality Store I had aimed to keep as broad as possible variety of stock and went about listing everything from Indies to Valiant to US Manga. It takes just as long to photo and list an Indie comic as it does a Marvel or DC issue but with the exception of titles like TMNT there are far fewer bigger ticket Indie issues and the demand for general fillers or runs of certain issues is small. I mean is there anyone out there who needs any Cerebus issues as I’ve just got hold of a box full and there’s no way I have the time or inclination to get them up on the website despite it being a fantastic comic! That said I won’t stop listing indies and other marginal publishers from time to time but when your own time as a sole trade is precious you have to make a decision to offer what you know will sell and pay the bills.
On 30th June I attended the second Market Harborough Comic Con. To say it was my best Con by far would be an understatement. Even without selling a short box of X-Men comics to one buyer it would still have been the best Convention in terms of takings. But aside from that I met some great people (some of whom I had met last year) and following on from the convention went and looked at two collections belonging to people I had met on the day and have acquired one of those already.
It was a great day all round and I’m looking forward to it again next year!
The start of summer 2024 may have been rubbish weather-wise but it’s been hot work here at The Unreality Store HQ.
Long may it continue 😎
