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What The Plan Was
Opening A Comic Book Shop | Phase 1 of My Epic Journey
So the original plan for this particular time frame got screwed up. I was going to get the website up and running and buy some more inventory before making the store public. As with many things in life, starting a business does not always go according to plan. As I was building the site, I realized that I had overlooked a MAJOR issue.
What Actually Happened
So being someone with no experience running a business, I had overlooked how to set up shipping costs on a website. I had always assumed this happened automatically on most online store sites. But I have discovered this is not the case. Upon attempting to enter items into my shop’s inventory, it asked me what the shipping cost would be and I went blank. I hadn’t even considered it.
Luckily after hours of research and phone calls to the post office, I found there was an automatic webtool offered by the USPS for this exact purpose! So that was one problem solved for the most part. Still have to have another phone meeting to get it set up properly.
Another Oversight
This was not the only thing I had forgotten to research. When trying to price anything in the collector’s market it’s not always so straight forward. Back issues of comic books are no exception to this. There are dozens if not hundreds of different sites and services that say they have the most accurate price guides. And all of them charge some kind of yearly or monthly fee in order to gain access to their entire database.
Just like a new comic reader going to a comic book shop for the first time, I felt like a deer in headlights. Blindly scouring the internet looking for the best, most reliable comic book pricing guide that would not cost me an arm and a leg. Thankfully I have wonderful and helpful friends within the community.
The Solution Found
As I said before, it’s good to have friends. I reached out to my friend Michael from here at Nerd Initiative and asked if he had any info on the price guides. I was also able to reach out to another online comic book shop owner to get advice on this. After about a week, I got the info I needed in order to feel confident in my decision on which pricing service to use for my new comic book shop.
The Next Phase
Barring any further oversights and mishaps, NOW I should be ready to begin adding inventory to my shop’s site. I still need to buy up more inventory for the shop itself. My initial stock I’m beginning with is from my own personal comic collection. They are all older back issues that I have either already read in the past, or things I no longer have the space to store.
If you are enjoying this new series, then keep a look out for the next article in the series. Hopefully it will be covering the process of obtaining my first major inventory purchase. My new online comic book shop will be opening soon called Columbus Underground Comics.
Thanks for joining me on this journey so far and I hope you stick around for the rest of it!
