We bought a comic collection yesterday. A small one, probably 300ish books (yes, that’s a small collection). Weird mix of late 1990’s junk in mint condition and some ok silver age stuff in bad condition. The kid wanted a bit much for it, but once we explained how it works (comic shops don’t buy this kind of stuff for much if at all), he took our offer. Now we just have to go through it all. Most will probably be $1 bin items, but a few will go in the ½ off file cabinet, and maybe even a few on eBay. Anyway, I won’t bore you with any more of that.
Rumor has it (yes, that comic book shop rumor mill continues to grind at full speed) that the other Waukesha store guy is going to some of the Milwaukee store owners and asking them if they want to buy his store. Not just the inventory and whatever customers are left, but the location. Mainly that is all the buying store would get, since I have heard that his inventory has been virtually stripped of anything decent. And customer wise- well a lot have come here already, and he has told others that he is can still get them their comics at his house and sell them to those people who are crazy enough to agree to that. So, if you are reading this, other stores, I am not sure it is worth the investment. There is no parking at that place, which I think was one of his biggest problems and why he cannot find someone else to lease the space from him. An ideal business for that terrible location would be something mail-order or something where the work force meets customers outside of the office, because people don’t like to go down town, and when they do they want to be able to park their cars. There are few customers that would remain. The inventory is marginal at best. I wouldn’t spend the money on his inventory, let alone be stuck paying the rent at that location.
Well, a couple of posts back I discussed some of the types of non-buying people we get in here. It is kind of fun, so I will review and ad a few more. Those of you who have/do work in retail will probably recognize them!
The “Loud Talker” – the person who talks loudly to anyone in the store, including me, and makes it very difficult for me to have a conversation with anyone but him
The “Haggler” – the person who thinks everything should be sold at a discount, even $.10 items, that’s ten cents, not ten dollars.
The “Lapper” – the person who, when asked, does not need any help and simply walks around the store one time and then leaves.
The “Toucher” – the person who, when asked, does not need any help and avoids eye contact, but must touch many different items before leaving.
The “Psychic Vampire” – this term I got from Mark at Nostalgia world. This person is similar to the “toucher” except that he stays longer, touches more, and also converses wanting to know all kinds of information about different items, sometimes he might even ask to have something taken from the box to look at more closely. This person is in for a while and when they finally leave, empty handed, you are mentally drained.
The “Reader” – this one is obvious. It is the person who reads the books but doesn’t buy any.
“Mr. Nosey” – the person who comes in just to see what the store now looks like, what we have in stock, what our prices are, and will ask how we’re doing “in this location” or if we will be in business for a while.
The “Solicitor” – again obvious. The person who comes in not to buy something from me, but to sell something to me. We’ve had people selling those 3-D laser pictures you can get at the fair, people selling kids books, people selling cheap kids toys, people selling jewelry and hand-made yarn mandelas (dream catchers). Store owners who were going under have come in and asked us to buy items, and of course we get the people selling their collections of toys, cards, comics—even old books, and most of these things we do not buy, ever. And of course the banking services like credit card processing, insurance and such. Even meat – yes, we have had two different vendors try to sell us raw meat.
The “Webie” – this one is particular to our location. The person or usually people who come in here after they are done eating at the George Web that is next door. Usually they smell like grease and stale cigarettes. Often they are just waiting for: the rain to stop, the car to warm up, the cab to come, someone to finish paying and open the car… They stand right by the door and have their conversations, often with bad language, waiting. Why they can’t just wait inside the Webs I don’t know, but I sure would prefer it.
The “Unaccompanied Kid” – again obvious. This is the young child without money who comes in here because it looks cool. Now, I can’t blame them for that. But often they run around or pick stuff up and put it back in the completely wrong place. Then, when mom comes to get him, she just parks outside and honks the horn, not letting him buy a darn thing while we babysat him for 15 minutes while she shopped at the dollar store or picked up subs at Subway.
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