keeping a card shop open

kingraider75

Seeing what people were writing in the puke thread made me wonder something. A lot of us complain about the prices we have to pay at card shops vs ebay,shows etc.; yet some of us still go to shops. I once thought of running a shop, but I am risk averse. What percentage of your purchases are from card shops? why do you buy there? Loyalty? habit?

LordThanos1969

I'd say less than 5% of my purchases are from card shops. In fact, I go to only one local card shop in Phoenix, and the reason I go there, usually, is to purchase supplies, which are priced very reasonably there. I have bought a few things there besides supplies, mainly raw cards or unopened material. They don't have many graded cards, and the ones they do have are priced far higher than what I can find on eBay. As for why I go to this store as opposed to others in the area is that their customer service is excellent and sometimes their weekly auctions include some interesting raw cards that go for reasonable amounts.

kingraider75

good point about bid boards. I mind that some of the olders shops in LA don't have a bid board. Do you folks like bid boards?

sixdart

Where is the card shop located in Phoenix?

Axtell

The problem with stores is the overhead costs are just nuts....inventory, operating costs, all that stuff...

I see most stores going to the virtual variety...way easier to manage inventory and costs overall.

LordThanos1969

The shop in Phoenix is named "The Batters Box," and it's located off I-17 and Cactus. To my knowledge, they are the longest running shop in Phoenix, having opened in 1982 (which is around the time the dearly departed store "The Shoe Box" was entering its heyday). If you are selling material and don't want to hassle with eBay, they also do quite a bit of consignment and advertise as a co-op for cards.

jimtb

Ten years ago, 90% of my buying was from shops and shows. Today, I go to the only shop in Orlando when I need supplies. The card shows here are pathetic, so 95% of my buying is online.
Jim

MajorDanby

most card shops deal with modern items. Only a very few stores (at least in my area) sell vintage simply because they know they cant compete with ebay. The three shops near me do a ton of ebay auctions....reason why one of those shops is even in existence.

As far as shows....unless youre looking for obscure items that do not appear too often on ebay, then they only provide modern stuff and ungraded stuff. Some of the ungraded stuff are actually good....but, they tend to overprice them.

LordThanos1969

At the shows I attend (all local), I continue to see sellers marking their raw, vintage cards 50% off NM guide prices. Unfortunately, given the condition of the cards they have, the reality is even after the discount, they tend to be asking double of what they should be going for. Needless to say, I buy very few cards at shows, though there is always the chance for something rare or unusual to pop up, as well as some raw common I might need for a set.

kingraider75

good views all. I wonder how much longer before the companies start selling direct to the public, and skip the middle man(card shops)????

Knuckles

Probably not much longer. If the shops keep dieing off the companies will have fewer and fewer places to sell too. I give it two years. I can't wait to see the day.

I do like 2% of my shopping at card shops. I'll usually go in to buy a pack or two if I have the urge but this is pretty rare and I'm always left with the reminder as to why I hardly go in anymore.

Why I hardly go:

I use to go in to buy the monthly Beckett's.. Now they're on almost any magazine stand.
I use to go in to buy supplies, top loaders etc.. Now they're available at Toys R Us and I would rather go there.
To buy a box of cards. Why buy a box from the shop for $140 when I can get it off eBay for $100 or even cheaper?
I use to go in to yap about sports and the hobby and always ended up cracking packs while doing so. I don't know how the store owners are in your area's but here they all seem to be bitter, cranky, arogant, ignorant jerks now.

I went in a few days ago and found a card that I wanted but in horrible condition.. I mean this thing probably had almost every qualifier. Stains, paper loss etc.. It books for $700 in beckett. It's not very rare to find one on eBay. The card shop owner wanted $300 for it!! Give me a break I can get a pretty nice PSA 5 for $100-$200 off eBay.

Screw card shops.

kingraider75

if card shops were around 10% more expensive than ebay, shows, etc I would be more inclined to buy more from them. I get a lot of non-sports cards specially ordered from baseball card shop owner, I pay upfront usually, so it's not that much more than ebay. I just prefer to walk in somewhere and buy something, it's nice to "grade" cards yourself. On the flip side, I wouldn't want to be a shop owner trying to compete with ebay though. There's no way a shop owner can win on a routine basis.

Knuckles

The only stores that will survive in my opinion are the one's that do a lot of eBay buying/selling as well. Having an online store or an online auction of their own as well wouldn't hurt.

kingraider75

some of the stores that have the an ebay account won't tell you their username. Some of the guys have two or three ebay accounts. They don't want their customers to know what they are buying and selling, or probably more likely for how much.

TheCARDKid

Alot of retailers compete with Ebay. Some thrive. And some die off (FAO Schwartz).

Obviously, they can't compete on price alone. There must be dozens of other ways to add value. Great/friendly customer service, great atmosphere, pack wars, bulletin boards, raffle prizes, contests, great unique selling proposition (i.e. Burbank Sports.....worlds largest selection). There has to be a compelling reason to go into the store.

ranger63

i only go to the shops for supplies. every now and again i will pick something up but rarely.

Wabittwax

Lord Thanos, small world, we've probably ran into each other before. I did all the local shows for about 6 years here in Phoenix. I still do the Phoenix Baptist Church show but he hasn't had it in a few months. Plus I still submit many items for that auction at the Batters Box. I'm probably the only guy loading them up with offshoot PSA cards for their auctions. I just dropped off about 5 4-card PSA lots and a 4-card lot of really nice raw tall boys. I was going to submit those tall boys but them I realized that it would cost my $15 per card to grade them so I'm just selling them raw. You've probably ran into Marty also at shows, he posts on these boards too.

LordThanos1969

Steve:

As a matter of fact, I've known Marty for a number of years. And I've been going to the Thalblum shows since he had them at Kiwanis Park in Tempe. Funny you should mention it, but there will be one this weekend at the church, where you probably will find me toward the end of the afternoon.

I'll keep my eyes out for the cards you put into the Batters Box's. That's too bad about the tall boys. I thought you could submit them for the current special at $12, which is still not exactly a cheap price? I've put together a graded set of 1969-70 basketball tall boys and am very close to completing a graded 1976-77 set. I also am working on the 1970-71 tall boy set, but that's going to take some time. By the way, I have a very nice, raw 1970-71 set from which I submitted a Maravich that garnered an 8. Guess who I got that set from? Marty, in a very crazy trade! Small world, isn't it!

Allon

Griffins

I've got several shops within 3 miles of me (in L.A.) and a slug of them 15-20 miles away. I don't think I've spent a dime in any of them in over 3 years, rarely find a reason to drive the 200 yards out of my way to check them out- its not worth the quarter I'd drop in the meter. Why not?
-Overgraded cards
- low selection
-lack of current knowledge
- very high prices vs. shows, let alone ebay
- In a few cases, the places are complete dives- they can't tidy up once a year or so?

I think the best reason to have a store is to get those walkins that are selling everything for a quick buck.

ctsoxfan

There are a few small card shops near me, and I occasionally visit - but rarely buy due to high prices. I would pay a little more, just to keep the guy in business, and to have my items right away...but I won't pay double or more than Ebay or show prices for the privilege.

kingraider75

it's hard to pay double for something online. Anyone had a better rate of sucess at pulling inserts/autographs from ebay wax? Mine is usually worse. This is my consiparcy theory, collaborated by a few, that the wax on ebay isn't going to yield the same rate of return. A dealer may open an entire case of boxes until they get the one card that comes one per case. Playing the odds, they then dump the rest of the cards onto ebay. What do you folks think?

bowdowntome

All the shops I grew up hanging out at are gone, even the ones that somehow survived until about 10 years ago. I'd come to the conclusion that they are all pre-computer shops, where the owners were not into being online, so they could not compete, especially when ebay came along. Now, i am seeing more younger people trying to open up stores who are computer saavy, and maintain an online presence with a webpage and/or ebay account. They are also much more aware of grading issues than our collecting forefathers from the days of yore! Maybe there will be a whole new generation of hip young card shop owners.

boggs301012

I am in the same boat I go to the card shop for emergency supplies. He wont sell at a discount in quanitity to me. SO I still buy cases of sleeves and top loaders off ebay.



<< <i>As a matter of fact, I've known Marty for a number of years. And I've been going to the Thalblum shows since he had them at Kiwanis Park in Tempe. Funny you should mention it, but there will be one this weekend at the church, where you probably will find me toward the end of the afternoon. >>




I might attend although I wont have much funds my mechanic took most of it.
What is the address?


James

kingraider75

It would be nice to see some younger folks open up shops. I just don't see it happening. What percentage of collectors are under the age of 30???? Not a very high percentage in my experience.

Axtell

<< <i>It would be nice to see some younger folks open up shops. I just don't see it happening. What percentage of collectors are under the age of 30???? Not a very high percentage in my experience. >>



Most collectors of 30 or younger are ebay/online shoppers...why deal with an antiquated (and frankly) overpriced way of doing business?

Card shops in a traditional sense are a dying breed, partially (if not mostly) due to the dealers not being able to let go of the 'old days' and actually selling cards for what they are worth.

kingraider75

good point about most of us younger guys being online buyers. I still go the shows and shops, but there isn't a good way to know who's buying stuff online. Only one other guy at work, even has a passing interest, he buys stuff in some bargain bins at shop, other than that nada. Guess it would be interesting to know.

JonB

I'm only 23. I used to go to local shops all the time to see what the had in, usually it was over-priced, but of course every now and then I found something I just had to have. But as of about 2 or 3 years ago they had all pretty much gone out of business (at least the ones I knew about).

If anyone knows of any good shops in the DFW area please let me know (or for that matter any shops at all).

ydsotter

My favorite card shop is in Orlean, MA... Cape Cod...
The owner may have recently retired...
Jim was a great guy.
Whenever kids would go in and bust $20+ worth of packs and get nothing they wanted, he would always let them trade from a huge box... so they never went home disappointed...
He never downed ebay, psa etc like a lot of other card shop folks do either...
He was friendly, heightened the excitment and always threw some cool freebies at you when you spent a lot of cash relative to your budget.
He would always trade.

Many other shop owners I used to frequent would never trade.
This is particularly hard for kids who think that a $25 card in beckett is the same as cash. Jim would explain the reality without taking the wind out of their sails...
and help them acquire something they would be happy with.

I actually saw a kid pull a $5,000 card from a pack... Jim made sure he knew what he had and called the kids dad down to share the excitment...

anyways, I think that a good store owner needs to help heighten the excitment of collecting, never let someone perceive what they have in their hand is junk and always allow some kind of trade...

as far as the ebay comparison goes, I find that most are pretty negative towards ebay and graded cards...
This is a bad marketing and a poor professional stance that would only alienate the card shop owner from the customer...
No one can tell me that the $5 I paid for the 1995 bowman;s best jeter refractor was a bad deal when he's go the same card for $40 and won't budge...

The Jim's of the workd are far and few betwee I am afraid.

CTSOX fan... are you in CT? I used to live in new haven, we had a good number of card shops in that area... none too good though when it came to price.

Tabe

I have one shop that I'll buy stuff from, but that's about it. He has a wide selection of packs, but it's all overpriced. For example, he charges $119.95 for a box of 2001 Atomic Prism football - Dave & Adam's has them for $54 and they're on Ebay for $50 all the time. Sure, it's nice to have the boxes right away, but is that worth an extra $80 ($70 + tax) - the price of another box and then some? Uh, no.

I do buy supplies from the guy and the occasional loose pack as well. I've bought a few singles from him as well, but nothing spectacular. It just doesn't make sense financially to buy anything more from him.

Tabe

Knuckles

I'm 24. I think as the kids who collected in the 80's/90's get more financially stable they'll return to the hobby. OR.. once they get married they'll return. (the days of going out with the boys blowing your money on drinks and such disappear) time to spend the money on cars and cards.

I returned from my hiatus based on those two reasons.

CollectorChris

Before the internet, I bought 80% of my cards site unseen through the mail (mainly based on SCD ads), 10% from card shops and 10% at conventions. Now I buy 100% of my cards through the internet, mostly Ebay, and only PSA graded cards. I haven't even been to a card shop for about six or seven years.

ctsoxfan

<< <i>CTSOX fan... are you in CT? I used to live in new haven, we had a good number of card shops in that area... none too good though when it came to price. >>



Yep, Connecticut indeed. Fairfield County though, but I am very familiar with the New Haven area. Can't think of any card shops in that immediate area anymore, but I know someone who just opened a card / comic shop in nearby Orange. There was a great shop in Milford back in the eighties, the guy used to advertise heavy in SCD and Baseball Cards magazine back then for mail order - Big Bob's Baseball Cards. He used to have weekly prizes for customers who shopped in his store, all you had to do was fill out a card, drop it in a box, and if you won, they'd call you. I won a 1989 UD Baseball Factory Set (in 1989, it had just come out), and I still have it today, sealed. What was different in the pre-Ebay world was just like in my example - stores did things to encourage you to shop there, unlike today where there is virtually nothing a store can provide for you that you cannot get online at a significant discount.

On a side note ydsotter, you must miss Pepe's and Sally's, eh? Just had a great pie from Modern a few weeks ago, too...

goudeygold

When I was younger I went to card shops weekly to look and talk, now its all ebay. All 3 of my main card shops closed in the early 90s. A good friend ran a shop for a while, but realized 80% of all activity was RPG and yu-gi-oh. Everything was modern. They even bought stuff on ebay, then put it in the shop and people bought it marked up. Tried to have raffles and such but when your dealing with kids your dealing with quarters and dollars and thats not going to maintain a profit margin large enough to cover bills and rent, AND your time away from home and kids. He sold out to his partner, then his partner sold out to some lady who got rid of all the sports cards and is now 100% RPg and its still open. In 2 years i've bought prob 2 packs 1 cardboard storage box, and 1 pack of sleeves from a card shop. Got ripped off on supplies, so now i buy that at card shows too. kinda sad, but when i feel the urge to buy a new pack, i just pick one up at 7-11, or wherever, then throw it in the trash. cards are worthless, but opening one every month or so is kinda nostalgic and worth the $3.

GG

ydsotter

Yeah, I miss pepes and sallys badly. Nothing else compares.
There was great food in that area... from fairfield to branford...
There was a card store in northhaven, a couple in wallingford, 3 in west haven and one at the mall... also... one in westville... this was 3 + years ago... I used to frequent the one in west haven... because the owner would deal etc... he was pretty cool. Harvey was his name... though he retired... and sold the place.
One in Wallingford had a terrific inventory... but prices were quite high on everything.

Wabittwax

I really think the only way to keep a good card shop open is to combine it with some other kind of business. I am really into playing sports so I've tossed around the idea of someday franchising a Play It Again sports with a card shop. Obviously you wouldn't want to take up too much space with stuff that doesn't sell but I would focus on stuff people actually want. Most card shops today really stink. They are stuck in the "100% High Beckett" days on modern stuff.

I dump that stuff in a 10 cent box at shows and it just blows out. Cards range in "Beckett" value from 50 cents to $5. I have no problem keeping it replentished just by buying out crap collections for peanuts. I can usually pay for my table space just on those boxes.

Then I stick about 300 misc cards in a brown paper lunch sack and blow those out for a dollar each. Mostly 80's crap commons but there's enough stars to keep people happy. People love that stuff. Although I must say that the brown paper bags are very time consuming but it's a way to get rid of commons without throwing them in the trash. I don't have the heart to do that. I love cards too much.

Other than that, it's all vintage. I stick a book of Nmmt 1975's and 1974's out at shows for 3 for $1 and they sell really well too. Plenty of that stuff on Ebay at cheaper prices to replentish supplies. It's really not that hard to make a couple bucks on cards if you give people what they want. I'll never get rich from this, but I enjoy it, so it's really not like working.

kingraider75

how do you pay to rent a table at a show?

Cubfan

Does anyone know of a halfway decent card shop in Northern Illinois?

The only places I see that have cards only have modern cards and are 90% comic book, fantasy and war game stores and 10% sports cards stores.

Back in the day, there was a nice store down the street from Wrigley that had decent vintage as well as the former Sports Collectors Store. Im not aware of any today. Anyone know?

ctsoxfan

YD, don't feel bad - that area has the best pizza in the USA, nothing else will compare, no matter where you are! As for the shops, I have been to that West Haven shop - but not for a few years. The one in the mall (and all the CT malls) stinks, unless you want to pay 100% markup on wax, or buy a team logo jersey. The Wallingford shop I heard was decent, but I haven't made it up that way in a while...

baseballcardsonly

<< <i>Ten years ago, 90% of my buying was from shops and shows. Today, I go to the only shop in Orlando when I need supplies. The card shows here are pathetic, so 95% of my buying is online.
Jim >>



Same here...In Orlando, the stores only sell modern. I only buy vintage, so I'm stuck buying on ebay 95% of the time. I would love to have a nice shop with vintage, but its not going to happen. I also feel that price guides/SMR's/ etc. has gotten shops in trouble. Price guides to me are a dream world, but most card shops look at them as bibles. So they overprice what vintage they have, making it nearly impossible to sell. Sometime I get lucky at shows and pick up something I need. I do buy most of my supplies at shows. Dealers seem to be more willing to cut you a deal on large purchases. Card stores won't! (at least not in Orlando). FWIW!

kingraider75

If I pay upfront for supplies, then I can get some deals from card shops on supplies.

I have recent cardshop vs Ebay example, from the non-sports world however. It's hard to find non-sports at a card shop in LA, so I have one shop who will pre-order cards for me. He then wants cash before he picks them up for me. So I ordered two boxes of twilght zone months ago. The cards were released a week ago ( I saw a box at the hollywood park show), and I still haven't gotten them. Card shop owner claims there was a ordering problem, blah blah, etc etc. Price wise I am going to be paying $140 for 2 boxes, one box is $55 on ebay + S/H, so I could probably have gotten two boxes off ebay for combined $20 less. I guess $20 more isn't that bad, not good, but not that bad. What irks me is that one of the reason I didn't buy off ebay was to get the cards faster via the shop. Maybe I too will have to abandon the shops and just go for ebay.

Speaking of card shops marking up vintage, and using the price guides as a bible. I went into a shop looking for 78 football set( not sure that's really vintage). Shop didn't have anything around that year expect for 74 and 75. I looked at the one with the Swann RC( not sure which year I think 75) and it was pretty clean, except the Swann and Fouts had print marks. Not huge one's but enough to lose a lot of eye appeal. The set books for $300, the dealer wanted $260. So guess who didn't buy anything that day. The set for $150-175 on ebay routinely. Guess that's why he three sets for 74 and 75!!