Just need to vent (about my local card shop)
totallyradd
Posts: 941 ✭✭✭✭
I don't get to many card shops in Milwaukee frequently, because they don't seem to change much as far as vintage cards go, and I don't really collect modern. However, today I ran over to a local shop after work today to try to grab some cards to mail off to Spring Training to help along with my signed Brewers collection. I told the guy what my intentions were, he pointed out where all the Brewers cards would be. I pointed out how I liked how they redid their floor layout, and the guy was like "yeah, it's been this way for about a year now." OOOOOK. That's where our conversation ended. So I went over to where the Brewers cards were and there was three boxes that helpd 3500-4000 cards each, completely unsorted with no rhyme or reason made up of all 80's, 90's and then a ton of All Stars like Braun, Fielder, etc who I wasn't looking for mixed in. That took forever, but I pulled a handful of cards, maybe a dozen I was looking for, but all are retired players. During that time the owner left leaving an older guy and a teenage kid to run the store.
After all those boxes, I went through the 2014 commons and tried to go through all those, but again they weren't really ordered well at all. Fortunately they were bunched by dupes so I was able to get through those cards much faster, but still annoying. Was shutout in that box.
Then I told the teenage kid what I was looking for, and my intention. Showed him my list of cards thinking maybe he'd be able to help since I was now there over an hour digging through commons and not getting very far fast. He said "you should try eBay" when I explained to him that a card that shouldn't cost more than a dime here would easily cost a few bucks after shipping he said "Check back in a week or two, we're always getting new cards." At this point I was pretty frustrated. I know their 70's commons are well sorted, so I began to dig through those but I'd already gotten everything from those sets.
About 10 minutes passes when the older guy then comes out and asks how I'm doing, I told him what I was looking for when he was able to show me the 2015's that they just opened. Right next to that was a huge box with a lot of current players I was looking for. As I'm pulling the cards, he said "so what do you want these for?" I re explained that I'm sending them to Spring Training to have em get signed, and the guy tells me "Yeah, but these cards are all pretty much worthless."
I was so frustrated at that point I may never go back there. To have the initial guy basically point me in the wrong direction, costing me a ton of time, then have a kid tell me I should be looking on eBay, then finally a third guy finally being some help, only to tell me my project is worthless was so irritating.
I just needed to get that off my chest. Even after I explained to the last guy I just liked the idea of attempting to get every single player's autograph as a project he just didn't get it, trying to point me to already signed refractors, or signed baseballs. There's a couple of card shops in Milwaukee where owners just give you the cold shoulder because I'm not shopping for big money cards (which they "have" but don't match the condition of the asking price), or are just short with me when asking them about current card trends.
Outside of this board I don't know anyone else who collects cards, so it's really a bummer when you try to relate to other collectors only to get treated this way. Sorry for the super long rant, it's just been bugging me all day, and something I was looking forward to since the end of last week and it turned into a sour experience within a few minutes of talking to the owner.
After all those boxes, I went through the 2014 commons and tried to go through all those, but again they weren't really ordered well at all. Fortunately they were bunched by dupes so I was able to get through those cards much faster, but still annoying. Was shutout in that box.
Then I told the teenage kid what I was looking for, and my intention. Showed him my list of cards thinking maybe he'd be able to help since I was now there over an hour digging through commons and not getting very far fast. He said "you should try eBay" when I explained to him that a card that shouldn't cost more than a dime here would easily cost a few bucks after shipping he said "Check back in a week or two, we're always getting new cards." At this point I was pretty frustrated. I know their 70's commons are well sorted, so I began to dig through those but I'd already gotten everything from those sets.
About 10 minutes passes when the older guy then comes out and asks how I'm doing, I told him what I was looking for when he was able to show me the 2015's that they just opened. Right next to that was a huge box with a lot of current players I was looking for. As I'm pulling the cards, he said "so what do you want these for?" I re explained that I'm sending them to Spring Training to have em get signed, and the guy tells me "Yeah, but these cards are all pretty much worthless."
I was so frustrated at that point I may never go back there. To have the initial guy basically point me in the wrong direction, costing me a ton of time, then have a kid tell me I should be looking on eBay, then finally a third guy finally being some help, only to tell me my project is worthless was so irritating.
I just needed to get that off my chest. Even after I explained to the last guy I just liked the idea of attempting to get every single player's autograph as a project he just didn't get it, trying to point me to already signed refractors, or signed baseballs. There's a couple of card shops in Milwaukee where owners just give you the cold shoulder because I'm not shopping for big money cards (which they "have" but don't match the condition of the asking price), or are just short with me when asking them about current card trends.
Outside of this board I don't know anyone else who collects cards, so it's really a bummer when you try to relate to other collectors only to get treated this way. Sorry for the super long rant, it's just been bugging me all day, and something I was looking forward to since the end of last week and it turned into a sour experience within a few minutes of talking to the owner.
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Comments
<< <i>
Outside of this board I don't know anyone else who collects cards, so it's really a bummer when you try to relate to other collectors only to get treated this way. Sorry for the super long rant, it's just been bugging me all day, and something I was looking forward to since the end of last week and it turned into a sour experience within a few minutes of talking to the owner. >>
Yep. Can certainly relate with that one.
____
Sorry this happened. While it's not great to hover over a customer like a used car salesman, there should be a balance between helping a customer and leaving them out to dry. I'd have helped search for cards, walk away to give you privacy, and then come back. Calling the cards or your collection worthless is crazy. Telling you you should try eBay is crazy.
There is only one card shop near me and I would LOVE to visit often as I love card shops but I have had somewhat negative experiences with the owner...nothing horrible, but enough for me to spend my money elsewhere.
Dime boxes make no sense to me. You have a guy digging through boxes for an hour to make what, a $6-7 sale for 70 cards? And he paid an employee $8.50 to help/watch you for the hour. A shop either needs to have his stuff organized where he can get you the cards you need quickly (and probably charge 25-50 cents per card), or just not deal in commons.
If you went into a shop and gave them a list of players you needed, would you be willing to pay 50 cents a card if they had them organized and could pull them for you in a couple of minutes? Or do you just want them at 10 cents each? From base topps, you get 360 cards in a box, and boxes direct cost around $45. So by breaking a box, the shop is already into the cards at 13 cents each. Then if they are organized and sorted for you, they have additional labor costs into that. So selling at 10 cents each makes no sense at all.
2015 World Series Champions
2018 Worst Minor League System In Baseball
#FIREDAYTONMOORE
<< <i>If you went into a shop and gave them a list of players you needed, would you be willing to pay 50 cents a card if they had them organized and could pull them for you in a couple of minutes? Or do you just want them at 10 cents each? From base Topps, you get 360 cards in a box, and boxes direct cost around $45. So by breaking a box, the shop is already into the cards at 13 cents each. Then if they are organized and sorted for you, they have additional labor costs into that. So selling at 10 cents each makes no sense at all. >>
I completely what understand what your saying. I just said "a dime" as a random pricing. I would pay 25-50 cents a card if they wanted to be more organized (and more if that's the price the card commanded, but I'm looking for mostly bench players/relievers). For many of the other cards I've recieved for this project I've contacted one other dealer who came up with cards for me. I'm more than willing to give him extra cash for hand picking cards for me as I know it takes time, and saves me a bunch. Just wanted to mix things up since 1) I was lacking time until pitchers/catchers report, and
<< <i>One of your complaints was that the cards were not organized. But later you said the cards you wanted should cost no more than a dime each. That right there would be a problem if I was the LCS. It costs money to have an employee sort cards in order. And then to sell them at a dime each makes no sense. I know there are shops that are on the beckett marketplace that sell cards at 25 cents for commons. You could always go on there for your common needs.
Dime boxes make no sense to me. You have a guy digging through boxes for an hour to make what, a $6-7 sale for 70 cards? And he paid an employee $8.50 to help/watch you for the hour. A shop either needs to have his stuff organized where he can get you the cards you need quickly (and probably charge 25-50 cents per card), or just not deal in commons.
If you went into a shop and gave them a list of players you needed, would you be willing to pay 50 cents a card if they had them organized and could pull them for you in a couple of minutes? Or do you just want them at 10 cents each? From base topps, you get 360 cards in a box, and boxes direct cost around $45. So by breaking a box, the shop is already into the cards at 13 cents each. Then if they are organized and sorted for you, they have additional labor costs into that. So selling at 10 cents each makes no sense at all. >>
I have to respectfully disagree. If you are paying an employee to watch your store. Instead of them just sitting there doing nothing when they are not busy with customers have them sort through cards. You are paying them the same amount if they are sorting cards or just sitting there. if you run your own store and have no employees during your downtime you should be sorting cards. A $6 or $7 sale is better than no sale at all and then having the cards sit around for years doing nothing.
Also, if a shop breaks a new wax box we are assuming they are keeping any game used, autographed or high doller cards that they find. They then sell those cards in their shop. so they are not into the commons for for $.13 but probably cheaper and most likely don't even want the commons, only the higher valued cards.
I think to move inventory and to keep people coming back you have to put in a little effort. Our local card shop has common piles alll over the place. Every time I go in the owner is usually alone watching TV.
<< <i>From base topps, you get 360 cards in a box, and boxes direct cost around $45. So by breaking a box, the shop is already into the cards at 13 cents each. Then if they are organized and sorted for you, they have additional labor costs into that. So selling at 10 cents each makes no sense at all. >>
Bad business. At least one card is going to fetch $10. The inserts and parallels will go for $.50+. Using 13 cents as the baseline for every card just because that is the average price for all cards is a great way to end up with 250 unsold cards. No one is paying 20 cents for a base Kennys Vargas.
It's like getting a PSA submission. You unload some of the bad grades for $3 while making the profit on the 1972 Nolan Ryan PSA 8.
<< <i>
<< <i>From base topps, you get 360 cards in a box, and boxes direct cost around $45. So by breaking a box, the shop is already into the cards at 13 cents each. Then if they are organized and sorted for you, they have additional labor costs into that. So selling at 10 cents each makes no sense at all. >>
Bad business. At least one card is going to fetch $10. The inserts and parallels will go for $.50+. Using 13 cents as the baseline for every card just because that is the average price for all cards is a great way to end up with 250 unsold cards. No one is paying 20 cents for a base Kennys Vargas.
It's like getting a PSA submission. You unload some of the bad grades for $3 while making the profit on the 1972 Nolan Ryan PSA 8. >>
You would be shocked at the number of people that pay $1 for commons on eBay and .25 to .50 on beckett for commons.
<< <i>
<< <i>One of your complaints was that the cards were not organized. But later you said the cards you wanted should cost no more than a dime each. That right there would be a problem if I was the LCS. It costs money to have an employee sort cards in order. And then to sell them at a dime each makes no sense. I know there are shops that are on the beckett marketplace that sell cards at 25 cents for commons. You could always go on there for your common needs.
Dime boxes make no sense to me. You have a guy digging through boxes for an hour to make what, a $6-7 sale for 70 cards? And he paid an employee $8.50 to help/watch you for the hour. A shop either needs to have his stuff organized where he can get you the cards you need quickly (and probably charge 25-50 cents per card), or just not deal in commons.
If you went into a shop and gave them a list of players you needed, would you be willing to pay 50 cents a card if they had them organized and could pull them for you in a couple of minutes? Or do you just want them at 10 cents each? From base topps, you get 360 cards in a box, and boxes direct cost around $45. So by breaking a box, the shop is already into the cards at 13 cents each. Then if they are organized and sorted for you, they have additional labor costs into that. So selling at 10 cents each makes no sense at all. >>
I have to respectfully disagree. If you are paying an employee to watch your store. Instead of them just sitting there doing nothing when they are not busy with customers have them sort through cards. You are paying them the same amount if they are sorting cards or just sitting there. if you run your own store and have no employees during your downtime you should be sorting cards. A $6 or $7 sale is better than no sale at all and then having the cards sit around for years doing nothing.
Also, if a shop breaks a new wax box we are assuming they are keeping any game used, autographed or high doller cards that they find. They then sell those cards in their shop. so they are not into the commons for for $.13 but probably cheaper and most likely don't even want the commons, only the higher valued cards.
I think to move inventory and to keep people coming back you have to put in a little effort. Our local card shop has common piles alll over the place. Every time I go in the owner is usually alone watching TV. >>
I would agree with you if this LCS is just one that makes money with walk-in customers and you are just paying the guy to "watch" the store.
In either case, you are paying an employee $8.50 an hour no matter what. But do you want them spending an hour with a customer and only take in $6, or would you rather them spend the majority of that time listing to eBay or some of your other sales channels? It's just a poor business decision in my opinion to have unsorted boxes of commons, have a customer go through them for an hour, and only make a $6 or less sale. If the shop was well run and organized, they could have everything in order, get the customer the cards he wants in 5-10 minutes, and then be able to spend the other 50 minutes making money in other ways. I'm not saying you rush customers out of the store. But there comes a point where certain customers are just not profitable.
<< <i>sportscardstop is wrong and 72skywalker and coachnip are right. >>
Did coachnip call you? I do not see a post from that person in this thread.
The only really practical way for him to quickly find everything he needed would have been to go online with Beckett, COMC, Ebay, etc. and just type in the guys he was looking for. Pretty much every card ever made of them available instantly, and the ability to choose from any issue you want. Somebody else will pull them for you and mail them to you in one convenient stack. No need to even get dressed or risk human contact.
Ex:
2013 Topps Update
US19 Johnny Hellweg
US301 Juan Francisco
2014 Topps
394 Sean Halton
494 Rob Wooten
etc etc etc.
<< <i>KB, I had a check list of about 150 cards listed by year, brand, number and name based on what I was looking for.
Ex:
2013 Topps Update
US19 Johnny Hellweg
US301 Juan Francisco
2014 Topps
394 Sean Halton
494 Rob Wooten
etc etc etc. >>
beckett This is where I get my commons.
sportlots can be a good place to pick up commons too.
As to the other comments in the thread...If card shops have to put up with "customers" who think that a shop employee's prime function is to help them sort through 10 cent cards for an hour to find $6 worth of cards (if you're lucky that is-it's normally more like $1 worth, and leaving a bunch of dinged corners in their wake to boot), then it's probably a good thing I'm not a card dealer.
For those who say "They already made money on the better stuff"...your point? Every square foot of a store has an overhead cost attached to it so if that inventory's sitting there, common or not, "gravy" on a deal or not, it bears part of that cost. And if someone's taking up an hour of my time for a $6 or $7 sale, I guarantee you I'm losing money on the deal.
Frankly, assuming 10c apiece is all a certain group of commons is all they're worth then I wouldn't have them out in a pick and choose box in the first place; they'd either be in lots of x mixed commons-perhaps by team- for $X (that's what my employee would be doing), or I'd blow them out to someone else who either has a different market for them and/or is willing to put up with the cherrypicker crowd.
Common wheat cents and junk foreign coins are the "commons" in our business; a few guys may start out with pick 'n choose junk bins but sooner or later adopt the 'mixed pack' business model after putting up with enough wasted time for no gain.
JMHO from a business standpoint as a 30 year B & M'er.
RIP Mom- 1932-2012
<< <i>
<< <i>
<< <i>From base topps, you get 360 cards in a box, and boxes direct cost around $45. So by breaking a box, the shop is already into the cards at 13 cents each. Then if they are organized and sorted for you, they have additional labor costs into that. So selling at 10 cents each makes no sense at all. >>
Bad business. At least one card is going to fetch $10. The inserts and parallels will go for $.50+. Using 13 cents as the baseline for every card just because that is the average price for all cards is a great way to end up with 250 unsold cards. No one is paying 20 cents for a base Kennys Vargas.
It's like getting a PSA submission. You unload some of the bad grades for $3 while making the profit on the 1972 Nolan Ryan PSA 8. >>
You would be shocked at the number of people that pay $1 for commons on eBay and .25 to .50 on beckett for commons. >>
We were talking about a local card shop, not a worldwide audience.
<< <i>
<< <i>
<< <i>
<< <i>From base topps, you get 360 cards in a box, and boxes direct cost around $45. So by breaking a box, the shop is already into the cards at 13 cents each. Then if they are organized and sorted for you, they have additional labor costs into that. So selling at 10 cents each makes no sense at all. >>
Bad business. At least one card is going to fetch $10. The inserts and parallels will go for $.50+. Using 13 cents as the baseline for every card just because that is the average price for all cards is a great way to end up with 250 unsold cards. No one is paying 20 cents for a base Kennys Vargas.
It's like getting a PSA submission. You unload some of the bad grades for $3 while making the profit on the 1972 Nolan Ryan PSA 8. >>
You would be shocked at the number of people that pay $1 for commons on eBay and .25 to .50 on beckett for commons. >>
We were talking about a local card shop, not a worldwide audience. >>
That's fine. My whole point is you can't stay in business if you have to stay up front helping people searching for dime cards for an hour. Also, if you pay $45 for 360 cards, the cost of each card is 12.5 cents. So you are taking a loss on cards when you sell them at 10 cents. I don't care if some will go for 50 cents, and some $8. No matter how you look at it, you have 12.5 cents into each card.
All of that said, it sounds like the folks who work the shop have a less than stellar attitude. No reason to go back.
Lee
<< <i>
<< <i>
<< <i>
<< <i>
<< <i>From base topps, you get 360 cards in a box, and boxes direct cost around $45. So by breaking a box, the shop is already into the cards at 13 cents each. Then if they are organized and sorted for you, they have additional labor costs into that. So selling at 10 cents each makes no sense at all. >>
Bad business. At least one card is going to fetch $10. The inserts and parallels will go for $.50+. Using 13 cents as the baseline for every card just because that is the average price for all cards is a great way to end up with 250 unsold cards. No one is paying 20 cents for a base Kennys Vargas.
It's like getting a PSA submission. You unload some of the bad grades for $3 while making the profit on the 1972 Nolan Ryan PSA 8. >>
You would be shocked at the number of people that pay $1 for commons on eBay and .25 to .50 on beckett for commons. >>
We were talking about a local card shop, not a worldwide audience. >>
That's fine. My whole point is you can't stay in business if you have to stay up front helping people searching for dime cards for an hour. Also, if you pay $45 for 360 cards, the cost of each card is 12.5 cents. So you are taking a loss on cards when you sell them at 10 cents. I don't care if some will go for 50 cents, and some $8. No matter how you look at it, you have 12.5 cents into each card. >>
You can't stay in business with an attitude like that.
<< <i>Seems like a lot of folks are missing the point of treating a customer like crap today means they won't be coming back. Yeah, $6 for an hour of time sucks, but what about the potential future client(s) you lose because of the poor attitude? >>
+1, but I don't think the OP wasted an hour of anyone's time except his own....
<< <i>...he pointed out where all the Brewers cards would be... So I went over to where the Brewers cards were and there was three boxes that held 3500-4000 cards each, completely unsorted with no rhyme or reason made up of all 80's, 90's and then a ton of All Stars like Braun, Fielder, etc who I wasn't looking for mixed in. That took forever, but I pulled a handful of cards, maybe a dozen I was looking for, but all are retired players.
After all those boxes, I went through the 2014 commons and tried to go through all those, but again they weren't really ordered well at all. Fortunately they were bunched by dupes so I was able to get through those cards much faster, but still annoying. Was shutout in that box.
Then I told the teenage kid what I was looking for, and my intention. Showed him my list of cards thinking maybe he'd be able to help since I was now there over an hour digging through commons and not getting very far fast... I know their 70's commons are well sorted, so I began to dig through those but I'd already gotten everything from those sets.
About 10 minutes passes when the older guy then comes out and asks how I'm doing, I told him what I was looking for when he was able to show me the 2015's that they just opened. Right next to that was a huge box with a lot of current players I was looking for. As I'm pulling the cards, he said "so what do you want these for?" I re explained that I'm sending them to Spring Training to have em get signed, and the guy tells me "Yeah, but these cards are all pretty much worthless."
I was so frustrated at that point I may never go back there. To have the initial guy basically point me in the wrong direction, costing me a ton of time, then have a kid tell me I should be looking on eBay, then finally a third guy finally being some help, only to tell me my project is worthless was so irritating. >>
It doesn't sound like anyone at the store did anything except point to some unsorted boxes, wasting maybe a few seconds of their time if the story doesn't have to be repeated 3 times. I would take their advice and search the Internet while they sit there wondering why no one comes in the store. COMC probably has most, so only one shipping fee and a lot less time wasted.
<< <i>I'm all for being organized, but there isn't a chance in hell I'm paying someone to put post-1980 .10 commons in order. It's not cost-effective no matter how you look at it. There are much more profitable things for employees to do, such as scanning/listing stuff online, looking for buying opportunities, posting on social media, etc.... Most shops these days rely on modern unopened and autographs for 90% of their revenue, so they likely put little energy into loose singles.
All of that said, it sounds like the folks who work the shop have a less than stellar attitude. No reason to go back.
Lee >>
There are a ton of people who pay .25, .50, and up to 1.00 for commons online to fill sets, complete player collections, etc. Look at this stuff that sells for .99, and a lot of it is multiple quantities.
commons selling for .99 and up
<< <i>Also, if you pay $45 for 360 cards, the cost of each card is 12.5 cents. So you are taking a loss on cards when you sell them at 10 cents. I don't care if some will go for 50 cents, and some $8. No matter how you look at it, you have 12.5 cents into each card. >>
That's an absolutely horrendous understanding of business. You don't have "12.5 cents into each card", you have $45 out of pocket. If you sell everything for $75, you've made money. I'm doing this right now with a jumbo case. Going by your logic, I have 18 cents in every card and therefore must get 18 cents out of every single one. That's moronic. While I'm selling a pink parallel for $40 and a 1/50 auto relic for $275, I am unloading complete base sets for $25. Every base card will sell, and every one will sell for less than 18 cents. But I am going to turn a profit because of about two dozen inserts. If I used your approach, my base sets would go unsold at an absurd $63 each.
<< <i>For those who say "They already made money on the better stuff"...your point? Every square foot of a store has an overhead cost attached to it so if that inventory's sitting there, common or not, "gravy" on a deal or not, it bears part of that cost. And if someone's taking up an hour of my time for a $6 or $7 sale, I guarantee you I'm losing money on the deal. >>
Letting a guy give you $7 would be better than throwing that stuff out in the trash, no? Your overhead doesn't go up just because that guy walks in. It's actually the opposite. When that guy can't get his 10 cent commons from you, he stops coming in for anything. So you don't have to worry about that guy taking up an hour of your time anymore.
I swear, some of you don't get why these local card shops keep closing down. I don't go to mine anymore precisely because they took this guy's attitude: boxes of raw cards aren't worth it. So instead of me having me drop by every now and then to finish sets, and thus getting the chance to sell me some of those hobby and jumbo boxes, they have forced me to go to eBay and Beckett. And then they wonder why no one shops there anymore.
<< <i>
<< <i>Also, if you pay $45 for 360 cards, the cost of each card is 12.5 cents. So you are taking a loss on cards when you sell them at 10 cents. I don't care if some will go for 50 cents, and some $8. No matter how you look at it, you have 12.5 cents into each card. >>
That's an absolutely horrendous understanding of business. You don't have "12.5 cents into each card", you have $45 out of pocket. If you sell everything for $75, you've made money. I'm doing this right now with a jumbo case. Going by your logic, I have 18 cents in every card and therefore must get 18 cents out of every single one. That's moronic. While I'm selling a pink parallel for $40 and a 1/50 auto relic for $275, I am unloading complete base sets for $25. Every base card will sell, and every one will sell for less than 18 cents. But I am going to turn a profit because of about two dozen inserts. If I used your approach, my base sets would go unsold at an absurd $63 each. >>
Couldn't have explained it better myself.
<< <i>
<< <i>For those who say "They already made money on the better stuff"...your point? Every square foot of a store has an overhead cost attached to it so if that inventory's sitting there, common or not, "gravy" on a deal or not, it bears part of that cost. And if someone's taking up an hour of my time for a $6 or $7 sale, I guarantee you I'm losing money on the deal. >>
Letting a guy give you $7 would be better than throwing that stuff out in the trash, no? Your overhead doesn't go up just because that guy walks in. It's actually the opposite. When that guy can't get his 10 cent commons from you, he stops coming in for anything. So you don't have to worry about that guy taking up an hour of your time anymore.
I swear, some of you don't get why these local card shops keep closing down. I don't go to mine anymore precisely because they took this guy's attitude: boxes of raw cards aren't worth it. So instead of me having me drop by every now and then to finish sets, and thus getting the chance to sell me some of those hobby and jumbo boxes, they have forced me to go to eBay and Beckett. And then they wonder why no one shops there anymore. >>
No, $7 isn't worth an hour of my time. Most guys who dig through dime boxes are cheap and only spend$5 after taking up your time. If your employee can generate an average of $50 per hour in sales by scanning and listing cards, then you are wasting time on the guy who spent $7 in an hour. Shops should sell singles, but be organized and use Beckett software to sell their singles.
<< <i>
<< <i>Also, if you pay $45 for 360 cards, the cost of each card is 12.5 cents. So you are taking a loss on cards when you sell them at 10 cents. I don't care if some will go for 50 cents, and some $8. No matter how you look at it, you have 12.5 cents into each card. >>
That's an absolutely horrendous understanding of business. You don't have "12.5 cents into each card", you have $45 out of pocket. If you sell everything for $75, you've made money. I'm doing this right now with a jumbo case. Going by your logic, I have 18 cents in every card and therefore must get 18 cents out of every single one. That's moronic. While I'm selling a pink parallel for $40 and a 1/50 auto relic for $275, I am unloading complete base sets for $25. Every base card will sell, and every one will sell for less than 18 cents. But I am going to turn a profit because of about two dozen inserts. If I used your approach, my base sets would go unsold at an absurd $63 each. >>
You are breaking to make sets and sell the inserts, which is different from breaking to just sell singles. If your business is just selling singles and you actually took inventory on your singles, you would assign each card an inventory value of roughly 13 cents. when you sell one for 1.00, you would have 87 cents of gross profit. If you sell one for 10 cents, you would have a loss of 3 cents. So for accounting purposes when selling singles, you would have a value on each card of 13 cents.
<< <i>
No, $7 isn't worth an hour of my time. Most guys who dig through dime boxes are cheap and only spend$5 after taking up your time. If your employee can generate an average of $50 per hour in sales by scanning and listing cards, then you are wasting time on the guy who spent $7 in an hour. Shops should sell singles, but be organized and use Beckett software to sell their singles. >>
So when a customer is digging through a box and spending $7, the employee can't scan and list cards? Why would you instruct your employee to stop working just because a customer is looking through singles?
And why do you assume that only one person is ever going to shop here? Why can't there be six or seven guys spending $7 on a Saturday morning?
<< <i>You are breaking to make sets and sell the inserts, which is different from breaking to just sell singles. If your business is just selling singles and you actually took inventory on your singles, you would assign each card an inventory value of roughly 13 cents. when you sell one for 1.00, you would have 87 cents of gross profit. If you sell one for 10 cents, you would have a loss of 3 cents. So for accounting purposes when selling singles, you would have a value on each card of 13 cents. >>
That's great in 3rd period accounting, but you have to account for the fact that people don't spend $1.00 on common base cards. I looked up my daughter's favorite player, Kevin Kiermaier. Popular, but hardly a superstar. In the entire eBay world, exactly one buyer has purchased a single base card. People have bought 30 for a dollar. People have bought parallels. People have bought framed cards. But there is no market for the single common card, especially at $1.00 each.
FYI - no one on the planet approaches business the way you do. No one divides a shipment of completely different items and assigns all of them the same value. It would be like Wal-Mart getting a shipment of 30 different types of TVs and assigning an average value to all of them. Dumb.
I immediately thought of them too, but you're comparing apples and oranges. They sell so many commons because a) they had the capital and made a concerted effort to have the largest inventory in the world, b) 95% of their business is online, and c) they have the manpower to organize and list all their crap. Yes, being organized is a key to their success, but that's because their inventory is so immense. Unless the local Milwaukee shop has millions of cards or the capital to acquire millions of cards, they will never be a one-stop-shop like Burbank is. And even if they did have that inventory, they would need to make a strong push to get it all online for the masses rather than the 50 or so people that come in every year to fill their 1986-present wantlists. I would advocate keeping the current and prior year of Topps in order at all times, as well as anything 1980 and earlier. And the home team players and all world superstars (Jeter, Griffey, Jordan, etc...) should probably be kept in order by year. Anything further would most likely be a waste of labor dollars. I always laugh when I walk into a shop and see sorted player boxes for everybody who has ever sniffed an all star team. I'm sure the Eric Karros and Sean Casey boxes get a ton of play these days.
The attitude of the people that work there is the reason the shop will fail, not the fact that they haven't put their 1988 Score commons in numerical order.
Lee
The other day I only did spend about 7 bucks there, and spent an hour digging through them. Had I been sent in the right direction immediately, they woulda made 7 bucks in about 10 minutes. I put that more on the owner than the other two working there. In the past I've spent time there just browsing and spent more on costly refractors of current stars, and boxes of unopened modern to rip when I was getting back into cards and dabbling with modern sets. As said earlier, I have no real intention of going back there. There's a few other Milwaukee shops I can go to, and I know one show dealer on a somewhat personal level that is willing to pull cards for me if needed.
I worked at a bike shop for about 10 years, and customer service goes a long way. If a customer came in just to get a $5 tube, we treated them the same as if they came in to buy a $2500 carbon fiber bike. At the end of the day customers won't come back if treated like their inconveniencing the employees.
I worked at a bike shop for about 10 years, and customer service goes a long way. If a customer came in just to get a $5 tube, we treated them the same as if they came in to buy a $2500 carbon fiber bike. At the end of the day customers won't come back if treated like their inconveniencing the employees.
Ah, but the $5 tube customer isn't taking an hour to buy it, nor is he asking to go through each and every tube you have, now is he...
No one's advocating treating customers badly; I'm certainly not... it's about effective time and customer management. And yes, customers are managed to some extent in virtually every successful business whether one realizes it or not. From product placement to signage to ads to the amount of time a salesperson spends with a customer.
In your case the owner left less than competent people in charge. That's on him....but the larger point here is that a business won't last long making $7/hr. no matter how well it's organized or run, and anyone thinking that a business can stay afloat selling 10 cent items one at a time (or even 50 at a time at the expense of an hour or more) is kidding himself.
While I'm selling a pink parallel for $40 and a 1/50 auto relic for $275, I am unloading complete base sets for $25. Every base card will sell, and every one will sell for less than 18 cents.
Yes, but there's a difference between selling them as sets and selling them individually at a dime each and taking an hour plus to sell a couple cards. You just reinforced part of my point.
When I was in college majoring in business I guess I missed the class that showed where taking in below minimum wage for an hour of my time is making money somehow....and even if you had ten such people, that's $70 at the end of the day. Anyone thinking that's good business, or good business practice is sorely lacking in the common sense department imo.
Sit at a table or behind a counter when there's something important you need to get done (that's invariably when the 10 cent guys show up-seen it time and again), while someone picks through everything you have in a box (or boxes), pulls out a handful of nickel dime stuff that's already discounted in the first place-that's why it's in there... and then demands a quantity discount because he's buying 50 of them otherwise "you won't get any more of my business"... a commonly seen mantra on boards like these... and then have it happen multiple times...often with them buying nothing at all...then get back with me about how glad you were just to have had their biz.
(And yes, a prudent merchant generally needs to babysit while people are going through inventory; that's security 101, plus it's customer courtesy 101 should they have a question or issue. So yes, someone needs to be on the floor.)
RIP Mom- 1932-2012
<< <i>Burbank Sports Cards has made out pretty well filling these small and inexpensive orders quickly because they are organized. All brick and mortar shops would be wise to research their model and they might be surprise at year's end just how much additional income they could pull in from those 3200 count boxes of what they consider "junk".
I immediately thought of them too, but you're comparing apples and oranges. They sell so many commons because a) they had the capital and made a concerted effort to have the largest inventory in the world, b) 95% of their business is online, and c) they have the manpower to organize and list all their crap. Yes, being organized is a key to their success, but that's because their inventory is so immense. Unless the local Milwaukee shop has millions of cards or the capital to acquire millions of cards, they will never be a one-stop-shop like Burbank is. And even if they did have that inventory, they would need to make a strong push to get it all online for the masses rather than the 50 or so people that come in every year to fill their 1986-present wantlists. I would advocate keeping the current and prior year of Topps in order at all times, as well as anything 1980 and earlier. And the home team players and all world superstars (Jeter, Griffey, Jordan, etc...) should probably be kept in order by year. Anything further would most likely be a waste of labor dollars. I always laugh when I walk into a shop and see sorted player boxes for everybody who has ever sniffed an all star team. I'm sure the Eric Karros and Sean Casey boxes get a ton of play these days.
The attitude of the people that work there is the reason the shop will fail, not the fact that they haven't put their 1988 Score commons in numerical order.
Lee >>
Yeah, I understand what you are saying, and you have a good point about Burbank. I wasn't really talking about the "average Joe" brick and mortar shop buying tons of inventory and trying to be or out do Burbank. Rather, just organizing what they have so they could pull product faster and more efficiently to fill requests that would result in better sales totals at the end of the year. It all adds up. A guy I know that runs a shop tells me his common and stars boxes are his bonus checks at the end of each month. While he did not tell me exactly how much he made from them, he did say it was hundreds of dollars. Not bad for stuff that many may consider junk.
You have the right idea, in my opinion. The small stuff does add up, and it's stuff most shop owners aren't going to be able to do anything else with anyway. Let's say an "average Joe" shop can sell $25-$30 in commons/stars from those dime boxes per day, that is about $500-$600 a month right there on top of their big card and unopened product sales totals.
<< <i>
The other day I only did spend about 7 bucks there, and spent an hour digging through them. Had I been sent in the right direction immediately, they woulda made 7 bucks in about 10 minutes. I put that more on the owner than the other two working there. >>
Telephoto1,
I know what you're saying, absolutely. But I think this is the quote I made that should be highlighted.
In conclusion, this has been a great discussion. Maybe the shop should have their current Brewers in the same area as the 80's-90's guys. Since I don't frequent the place as often, maybe that's on me or I shoulda realized none of the guys I was looking for where in that box. When I did speak up, the teenager told me to check eBay. It took the third guy in the shop to show me what I was looking for. Had that third guy been the first one I talked to, the OP probably wouldn't exist.