SALES TO ASTONISH #36 - AUGUST 2025
I read about and listen to a lot of podcasts regarding mental health, staying positive and focused. I have found that it’s important to treat my mental health as important if not more importantly than my physical health especially being self employed. Being a company of one does have it’s benefits (you make all the decisions, set your own working agenda etc) but the downside is there is no one to share the highs and the lows with, to engage in small talk about football or music or to turn to if you need a hand with something outside of your comfort zone and knowledge base.
I’ve found over the years of running The Unreality Store that it’s very easy to start a downward spiral if things don’t go to plan. More often than not this would be as a result of what I would call a failed launch where new products are dropped into the store on a Thursday or Saturday and there are minimal or zero sales. When this happens I often picture indistinguishable people looking at their devices at the new stuff going ‘Meh, load of rubbish’ and quickly flicking onto another website. What’s this based on? Nothing other than my own ‘magical thinking’. There’s a WWE wrestler called Sheamus who shouts out to the crowds ‘Are you not entertained’ and when I don’t sell anything new I have this overwhelming urge to take to social media and post ‘Is there nothing you want to buy??’
But working on my mental health has meant that this summer I have kind of had an epiphany moment. When I have one of those weeks where sales drop, nothing seems to go right and my mood darkens (and I’m sure we all have them), in the past it’s been easy to blame everyone and everything other than myself. Yet, there is only really one person responsible for the success or failure of The Unreality Store and that’s me. No one else. Just me.
So when I do a Saturday mini drop on 9th August which comprises of mostly modern age DC issues and nothing sells that’s on me. I should know better by now that in terms of popularity that Marvel outsells DC around 4-1 and therefore doing an almost entirely DC launch limits the appeal. Let alone the fact that most of the issues were random fillers. I can hardly be surprised that these issues didn’t fly out the door or create the slightest bit of FOMO. And that’s on me. When life gives you lemons, you can’t always make lemonade. You need sugar and water too…
The interesting thing about some of the modern age DC issues that dropped on 9th August was there were a couple of absolute cracking covers. There was a lovely John Cassaday cover on Superman and a fantastic Cyborg Supergirl cover by Mahmud Asrar on Supergirl #22. Now I don’t tend to buy any new comics these days but do see social media posts about various variant covers and store exclusives so there seems to be kind of subsection of comic collecting that revolves around these variants and exclusives (some selling and changing hands for lots of money) and yet there are countless comics produced over the last 20 years with some absolutely belting covers and yet there’s no interest in them whatsoever. Madness 🤪 I was thinking I may resurrect the Cover of the Day collection on the website again to showcase some excellent cover art. It did become a bit of a labour of love and engagement on social media slowly tapered off but if anyone wants to see some classic covers from yesteryear then drop something into the comments
For a traditionally quieter time, August actually started very well. Someone placed what was the biggest single order I’d ever had to date and there were numerous other higher value items sold in the first half of the month including some roleplaying books and supplements. I’d exchanged a couple of messages with someone I used to commute with who now buys and sells antique and retro items and I’d asked how business was for him. ‘A bit of a rollercoaster’ was his reply and I couldn’t find a better summary for how sales had been for The Unreality Store in August.
There are still days in every month where I don’t sell anything at all. Nothing. Not a single comic and August was no different. In fact there were more Zero Sales Days in August than usual. The upshot of this is that my cash flow is very irregular which can be a bit of a headache to manage. Equally I’ve begun to notice some almost micro-trends every week. On a Thursday when the bulk of my new products are dropped into the store there are a few people who I have termed ‘early adopters’. If they buy between 4am-6am in the morning then generally it will be a good Thursday. If they don’t then it tends to be a disaster or mediocre at best. To circle back to the start of the column these challenges can put a real strain on my mental health which is why it’s important to recognise when things are stating to get tough. My partner is also very good at letting me know when she thinks I’m not looking too good 😎 Ex-Man Utd boss Erik Ten-Hag used to tell the media (and by extension the clubs fans) to ‘trust the process’ when things weren’t going well. I’ve found myself dwelling on that phrase when things don’t go to plan. It has it’s merits but in Erik’s case whether the club/fans etc trusted his process or not he was getting paid a fair whack and also a nice severance package when the process didn’t work. I have a process which I’ve largely stuck to and tweaked over six years but I’m self employed and relying on people to buy what I put in front of them if they want it, think it’s good value, can afford it etc. The process doesn’t work if people don’t buy anything. And yet the only real mechanism I have being an (almost entirely) online entity is to keep dropping product onto the website in the hope that it attracts someone’s attention, fills a gap in a collection or is picked up a Google shopping search and ranks highly enough for the item to show up on the first page of results. I’ve even started to do social media posts with new product that I put into store outside of Thursday or Saturday in the hope that someone sees the posts and jumps on the site for that immediate purchase. It smacks of desperation and to be fair when I’ve gone a day or two without a sale, it is.
When things take a downturn I also find it incredibly distracting. I continually check the website analytics to see how many people are on the site, whether anyone has an active cart, what pages have been visited the most and whether there have been any abandoned orders. This is not good for my mental health because it basis happiness on sales and continuing down that route surely lies madness. And yet the dilemma I (and no doubt other self employed people have) is how invested do you need to be in your business when it’s your sole source of income, against taking time to look after yourself and family? It’s probably an impossible question to find the answer to and one I have spent six years trying to 😆😆
Just when I thought things couldn’t get any quieter on 21st August I sold 3 comics and a Cloak and Dagger mini series from the launch which plumbed new depths in terms of takings on what has for years been my go -to day of the week for sales. Trying to spin a positive on the day, there were well over 300 website visits so people are actively looking.
In an attempt to drum up some sales and much needed income I ran a 30% off sale on Bank Holiday Monday. The result was half of August’s total income was taken in one day. So I just want to say a big thanks to everyone who bought something in the sale.
The remainder of August followed the same pattern as the middle of the month, sporadic sales and aside from some Classic Star Wars issues selling the morning they were put into the store, little other interest in the new stock that was released and certainly no ‘payday bounce on the final Friday.
Whether next month follows in a similar fashion remains to be seen. August was challenging and it made me seek counsel from friends and others on how best I should deal with the ups and downs of business (and life). Some things that were suggested resonated well with me so hopefully it leaves me in a better place going into September 😎
