SALES TO ASTONISH #34 - JUNE 2025

Seeing the wood from the trees.

A couple of things happened in June which epitomised the above phrase.

Firstly it’s very difficult when you run a small business to take a step back from the day to day. Conversely it’s very easy to get fixated on doing just one thing (some times to the detriment of others) that brings you the most in immediate rewards, without having a fall back if things go awry.

June had started reasonably well, I was staring to process the large collection of comics and RPGs I had picked up at the end of May, sold a few items and also picked up a smaller collection from someone down in East Sussex which had around 200 Bronze Age Marvels (with one stand out key issue).  Some of these issues went straight up and all the Tomb of Dracula including #10 (first Blade) sold out pretty much the day they dropped in store. There were some more monster related titles which followed later on in June such as Werewolf By Night and they sold well too. I’d also sold a few RPG bits and pieces which was pleasing as generally these are bigger ticket items and often I have to sell 10 £3 comics to achieve the same return on a RPG hardcover rulebook or module.  However, almost coinciding with the Summer Solstice there was a dramatic slide in terms of website traffic and sales and when I looked at activity and revenue for the month I was really surprised to find that whilst I had thought June had been one of the best months so for in 2025, it wasn’t. Not by a long stretch

I’d been so caught up in being ‘busy’, working long hours and at weekends that something in my head just associated this with good sales. The harsh reality was that I hadn’t got my head up and taken stock of my situation. I was busy listing £3 comics to drop on Thursday and Saturdays when really I should have been looking into opportunities as to how I was going to shift some of the RPG stock I had acquired last month (and quickly). To go back to Les Gold who I wrote about in May’s column, I’d been guilty of buying a lot of stuff without planning on how I was going to sell it. I’m not going to be too hard on myself as the acquisition of that collection happened very quickly and I don’t doubt that had I not acted immediately I would have lost out to someone else. And i did have an event in June that I was attending where I could hopefully sell some of the comics which brings me neatly on to the second part of this diatribe…

Leicester Comic Con

The comics I had picked up in the collection from Birmingham were in a range of conditions and a lot were slightly bent at the corners or had other visible defects. So in order to clear out some space and to offer people the chance of getting some cheap reading and probably one or two treasures I made up around 8 boxes of comics for 50p or 3 for £1.

Halfway through the Con I was talking to a fellow trader and friend about the fact people don’t even want to buy three comics for £1 and found myself saying that these cheap boxes take up a lot of ‘retail real estate space’ on the table so you really have to sell 4/5 of a box to make it worthwhile. Now I don’t think the clientele at the convention were particularly interested in comics but had I taken 8-10 boxes of normally priced issues I probably would have made the same amount of money. But…….. selling one issue at £10, £20 or £50 is easier and probably more impulsive on the part of the buyer than having to spend hours digging through 50p comics for someone to spend a similar amount. Lesson learned here - don’t bother with cheap stuff at comic cons and probably more importantly don’t bother doing comic cons 😆😆.

I genuinely don’t know what to do about Fridays. Over the last two years they have become by far the quietest day of the week even a bump in sales from the so called ‘Pay-Day Friday’ remains elusive. There’s often a reasonable amount of website traffic on Friday but precious few sales. Any suggestions to enable me to cut through this Gordion Knot are welcomed. In addition to the general Friday sales malaise,

June saw the return of Zero Sales Days. Not one, but four days in June passed by without a single comic, magazine, book or RPG being snapped up by someone. And as I conclude this column I have just gone the longest period without a sale for around 3 years. I genuinely think this is a symptom of online retail where people can browse a website without being pressured to buy something in the same way they might if they’d walked into an empty shop and ended up making a casual purchase out of sympathy for the owner. We have a local model shop which although geared towards model rail enthusiasts does stock a number of other model kits and associated items and I often wonder how many people go in the shop (which never appears busy) and make a purchase they never intended on making ahead of opening the shop door.  I’m not sure there’s anything that online retail in general can do to encourage that immediate sale other than the standard discount/free postage/sense of FOMO all of which people have become numbed to over the years since online retail took off.

A quick look at comparative data for 2024 shows that in the first 6 months of 2025 whilst website traffic has increased, sales and revenue are around 10% down. There’s a sense that I am having to work longer to just about maintain parity with last year.  As we hit the usually tricky summer months there’s a sense of uncertainty as to what the future holds. Regular readers of this column I imagine are also regular buyers so without asking people to buy more stuff I would ask that if there are any opportunities that arise with friends or family to recommend The Unreality Store then that would be awesome.

Now, I’ve got to go and figure out how I can get myself in front of all those role players who have never heard of the website and who desperate to buy rule books, supplements and modules. It very much feels like that part of the business is at the same stage as the comic side was 5 years ago. 

See you next month when hopefully the weather is a little cooler 😎

Notable Sales

Tomb of Dracula #10 (First Blade) VG+ @£285

Marvel Premiere #28 FN- @£60

Amazing Spider-man Annual 6 FN @£75

AD&D GDQ1-7 - Queen of the Spiders (no map booklet) £60

AD&D Kara-Tur Boxed Set £125