Hope you know inventory management. That is the biggest factor you will have of success vs. failure. See if you can get any of the articles from Comics Retailer online and any order history the previou sowner can give you. Hope you like ramen noodles and cereal. Try and get Diamond to send you some stuff for a "Under New Ownership" party. Good luck.

Frank,

Though I've never run a store, allow me to be the voice of caution. Your 10 K might be better spent on a down payment for a house.

Do the math. Let's say you can sell 4000 comics a month at 2.50 each (which is a lot of comics). That's a gross of $10,000/month. It's a small store, and Diamond takes 45%, so you are down to $5,500. Estimate rent is another 1,000 per month, so you are now down to 4,500. That means you're now down to 54,000 a year.

If you pay your brother in law a salary of $30,000 a year (salary and fringe) to work the store 5 days a week, you'll then be at about 25,000 a year profit - NOT counting taxes, unsurance, advertising the store, repairs (dont'expect your landlord to fix everything), gas, parking, etc.

You will ALSO be giving up your free time many nights and most of your weekends to keep the place open. You will also be losing money by not building equity in your home, and losing time with your wife.

The math above also assumes 100% sell through, which most stores don't have. If you only sell 75% of your comics, then the 120,000 per year becomes 90,000, and you are now down to less than 20,000 a year profit. If your brother in law finds a better job, then you may find yourself up a creek, in that you'll have to hire someone you don't know or trust.

If this shop were a gold mine, the owner wouldn;t be trying to sell it. You may be able to grow the business by selling used DVD's trades, toys, etc, but it will take a lot of work on your part.

I'm glad your wife is so supportive, but do NOT rush into this. Spend some money to meet with an accountant before you take the plunge. An experienced accountant might be able to foresee unexpected financial costs and consequences.

If youve already made the plunge, best of luck, and we're behind you.

Most Def Frank. Think about it man. I can't offer you any advice, cause damn son I'm as excited about you possible doing this as you are!!
But if you do get a clerk to help run the shop, make sure he/she can do comics while it's slow, you know draw your Sancho stories? That way you're not only his/her employer but his/her publisher as well.
Yea and getting a chick to help in the store may not be a bad idea.

There were a lot of little bits of advice I was going to give you, but I'll instead go down to one piece that will get you so many more:

Join The Comic Book Industry Allianca (CBIA) . It's an online discussion board where many comics retailers exchange ideas and discuss situations, and publishers go on as well to share the latest news and find out what retailers need. Most of the top retailers and many smaller folks are there.

The 10K cost on paper seems reasonable, since I have more that that tied up in fixtures, signs and my POS system. The thing that worries me about what you said, is the fact the the store has been in business for 20 years, with the current owner for over 5 years, and he has only 70 subscribers. To me this means the market is stale and there is no room for growth.

When I opened my store in 1995, we had over 70 subscribers in little over 2 months. Currently we have over 200 subscribers.

Also do not anticipate that your subscibers will spend $20 per week. Our average subscriber sale is $11.36. We are able to track this with our POS system, which just happens to be the one designed by Mel Thompson.

If you go ahead with your purchase, I wish you all the luck, the country needs more well run shops.

Thanks, Tim.

Once I get everything reorganized I do plan on doing a Grand Re-0pening type thing.

I appreciate that, man.

From the numbers he gave me and projections I figured up, I feel if I can make 10-15k back in the first year after all expenses (rent, ins., payroll, etc.), I'll be happy. Anything over that is bonus.

We don't plan for this to be our Bread and Butter. We both do well enough in our current jobs, so although we should be able to do better than Ramen Noodles and Cereal, we know it won't be Steak and Lobsters for a while either.

Like I was telling Hugo, our main goal is to stay away from being behind the counter. All dead time needs to be spent getting to know what we are selling. Which means, I expect him to be current on most storylines.

He's gotta know what the customers know and it's our job to be their "inside" man. Keeping them informed on what's coming up OR books they might be interested in.

It would be nice to have a few Hooters girls there, though...


Awesome.

Thanks Nat.

and remember...you only pay 20 percent of current OVERSTREET when purchasing ANYTHING back issues strictly by condition from private individuals.

Stick to that like glue Frank.

I feel the same way, John.

And that's a good point about the growth potential. What's good though, it that we are the only shop on this side of town and there is NOTHING going North. So, with that in mind, I think I can add more than the 75 sub. he currently has.

Question:
How many books do ya'll allow to begin a subscription pull?

Understood.

Did you pay cash or only store credit?