SALES TO ASTONISH #25 - SEPTEMBER 2024
Sometimes you have to take the bull by the horns.
There was a sense mid-month that September was drifting. By that I mean that it was going to be an average month in terms of site traffic and sales. September is always a tricky time for retailers - kids are back at school, uniforms and kit have to be paid for and those that don’t have kids often use the month to go away and grab some late summer sun
Sales over the last few months settled into a regular pattern of high Marvel and DC sales, with the stand out titles being Spider-man, Batman, X-Men and surprisingly to me Superman. Image, Dark Horse and other titles sell sporadically and when they are reduced in price. I know I have touched on this before but listing other publishers apart from the big two is increasingly becoming a bit of a vanity project. A recent chat with an old friend has sown the seeds of a couple of ideas of how to get these titles to people without the laborious process of photographing and listing. I mean I don’t think even I have the patience to list 150+ Cerebus back issues especially when I think I would struggle to sell them at 50p each
So as I got to mid-September there was a nagging sense of frustration that unless
I did something to generate sales, September was going to be a bit of a damp squib. Bring on S.O.S - Save Our September!
I apologise for the dramatic title but as a small business owner you’re responsible for everything from order fulfilment through to marketing and this was the best tag-line I could come up with on the spur of the moment. S.O.S - 35% off everything in store for 24 hours.
A couple of years back I did a quick video of some issues I had picked up, posted it to Instagram and among a few likes there was a comment from someone saying I couldn’t possibly think to run a business selling the comics I’d filmed and I needed to get hold of the ‘keys’ everyone wanted. Now this person had never bought anything from me largely on the basis they have a specific title character they focus on and I have never been able to find and offer anything they may be remotely interested in. But a couple of months later I bought in a large Marvel collection that did have a number of key books such as Werewolf By Night #32, Ghost Rider #1 and Tomb of Dracula #1 that I duly graded and priced at what I thought were fair selling prices (and people could apply a discount code to them as well). And these issues just sat
And sat
And sat on shelves at conventions
And sat
And sat
But all three sold when I ran the September sale.
There’s not a moral to this story, my only reflections are that everything has a price where it becomes attainable or attractive enough for someone to buy it, that having something expensive and nice to look at on the website (or convention shelf) is great for show and possibly an indicator of other stock that may be available, but that ultimately businesses need cash so inventory needs to be sold to release that cash. Yes, I have to sell an inordinate amount of £3-£5 comics to generate the same profit margins as those three books generated but it took me two years to sell them.
For those of you who are interested. I pretty much generated the same amount of sales revenue in the sale than I did during the entire month of September which was amazing 🤩
September was also the month where I pulled out of my first Comic Con. I had attended Edgbaston earlier in the month and was the only comic dealer there. Despite that (and selling an Amazing Spider-man #101) it wasn’t a particularly busy event and there weren’t a lot of comic buyers there. I was booked in for a convention at Bedford later in the month and after realising there was a Collectormania event in Milton Keynes early in September, followed the weekend afterwards by the comic art convention To Be Continued in Bedford, I didn’t feel there would be much disposable income left in the area for the Bolt Events convention on 21st September. A decision made all the more prophetic by the fact that the area was heavily flooded on the day and this severely impacted attendance
By the time the month ended I had recorded record online sales along with a palpable sense of relief that what was looking like being a mediocre month was turned around.
What will October bring???
See you in a few weeks to find out 😎
September Key Sales
Amazing Spider-man #101 FN-. @£200
Spectacular Spider-man #1 VFN @£40
Ghost Rider #1 FN+ @ £195
Tomb of Dracula #1 FN+ @ £190
Werewolf By Night #32 FN+ @ £410
