Sunday, June 12, 2005

What standards to you use to determine success?

Bigger is often a symbol of success – the rich man drives the big car, owns the big house, gets a big pool. Even further back, in fact much further back, people wanted to be fat because it was a sign of wealth—you could afford to feed you and yours and didn’t have to work all day in the fields to do so. But does bigger always signify success? I guess it depends on what type of success. If your goal is to have a big store, or be the one who has the most stores, then being the biggest means you’re the best. But if success is measured by something else, maybe not.

Why this strange tangent? Because I don’t believe that the success of a comic book store, or stores, can be based on how many you’ve got or how many square feet they are alone. Someone came in the other day and referred to a particular store as “the most successful in the area” simply because they’ve got a couple of locations, and it made us a bit mad. I’m not going to mention any names specifically, but those of you from the area probably know the places I’m referring to. There’s a store not to far away that has 3 times the square footage we do, but rumors are that since the upgrade in size the “success” of the store has gone down. Now, I have no actual proof of this, but it’s the word on the street. There’s another store that has several locations – that does signify some sort of success, to be sure: success of being able to maintain the status quo for a couple of decades. But have you seen the status quo? Is that really success? What about growth? What about improvement? What about people loving to visit your store? Truthfully the comic book industry often seems to be quite content with the status quo. However, in today’s economy and marketplace I don’t believe the status quo will really be able to be survive. Stores are closing all over the place, as people turn more to movies and video games and 200 cable TV stations and the internet… over comics. And as the price of a comic book continues to grow, while publishers crank out books that are only OK. We retailers have a lot of choices to make, we take big risks on inventory since nothing is returnable should it not sell, our profit margins are quite thin in retail standards, and only about 5% of the US population reads comics, where in places like Europe and Japan it’s closer to 20%.

Maybe success is having people walk into the store and say, WOW (which has happened here more than one time). Maybe success is seeing growth month to month and year to year. Maybe success is having people leave other stores and decide to shop here. Maybe it’s having kids beg their moms to bring them here, and having women feel comfortable shopping alone in the store. Maybe it’s hearing from people out of state saying they wish they could shop at THIS store all the time. Maybe it’s having friendly and informed people working in the store, maybe it’s presenting merchandise in an atmosphere that’s clean and well lit and fun. Maybe it’s hosting artists and writers for people to meet and talk to for free. Maybe it’s promoting diversity and taking a risk on lesser known publishers and writers and comics in order to help the industry grow in a way that makes it more appealing to a broader variety of people. Maybe it’s getting recognition in the industry as someone taking positive steps to improve the industry. If success is these things, then we’ve got it down. We’ve blown away the competition. WE ARE SUCCESSFUL! Sure, we’re only 1200 square feet with one store, but give that time…

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would say that Neptune Comics is truly sucessful. I used to shop at several of those other shops, and my only shop now is Neptune. The owners are friendly, they know my name, and it might seem petty, but that makes me happy that they greet me by name when I enter the store!!! Keep up the great work and I love the rants Lisa!!! Alan

Anonymous said...

It looks like this has caused quite a stir in the Milwaukee area. It seems another retailer saw your blog and was passing it around one of thier many stores. They seemed to have taken it as you were slamming thier business. They were not too happy about what you wrote and took it personally.

I do not find one thing wrong with what you posted nor do I see how anyone could be offended by that. Everyone judges success in different ways.

I found this out from a couple (3 to be exact) of friends who shop at that chain in Milwaukee. It seems they have taken an interest in what you do at neptune that they seem to have to nose around the website.

Just a thought, and thought you might want to know...

Anonymous said...

in regard to the last comment - I don't get it. Lisa doesn't say anything bad. Why are they upset? I think she's just bragging about their (really nice) store and the success they've had there. It's a blog about Neptune, so I should think that she'd be predisposed to brag about her own store. No names were mentioned, and I just don't see where they would take this as a slam.

Oh well, don't they say any publicity is good publicity?

Anonymous said...

Not only should no one be offended by what Lisa said, but they should learn from her comments, and try to do some of the things that Neptune has done to be successfull. No one was mentioned by name, Craig and Lisa never slam any of those other shops (as a matter of fact they have said some nice things about some of them), and if you feel her remarks were directed at you, maybe you should study their business rather than get upset. Neptune is a great shop, it is my only shop, and I will continue to shop exclusively at that shop (and I live in Milwaukee). Continued success!!!