[folkertino]

playing devils advocate here...lcs and international shipping? isnt that an oxymoron??

heeyy who are you calling a moron?! jk

example: Chris's The Hobby Box is brick&mortar and has a webshop too

[chads-cards]

Everyone's used to my length of posts, so I'm going to stop apologizing for it.

There are two things that matter the most to me. Organization and Clutter. I know a lot of shops have a lot of miscellaneous, over produced, or old stuff, or a combination of all of those attributes. However, if it's not organized, I am tempted to walk right out of the shop. Boxes stacked on boxes, stacked on boxes on one shelf or on the floor of older overproduced product is not appealing. Try to make it a display like at Wal-Mart. If you have 20 boxes of 1993-94 SkyBox Premium, have one in the front with a price on it, and the other 19 in the back. To know when there are no more in the back, put a red circle sticker on it. Don't stack boxes if possible. If you have to have 10 shelves that are only 8 inches above the other, it looks better (in my opinion).

Clearly label your product. If something is for sale and you have many of them, each one should be labeled with a price regardless. Except for loose cards since you probably have millions of them. If you were to stack the boxes, and you have 20 boxes of the same thing, each box should have the price on it. That way, if only one box were to have the price on it and it was removed, tore, smeared, etc., at least another one has the price.

For anyone who buys a box of cards, they get enough sleeves to cover their box for free. Even if these were older boxes, or a very few of the newer ones, you're only talking about 3 or 4 packs, so $3 or $4 dollars. For higher end products, free sleeves and top loaders. Show the customer you care about them protecting their product. It will go a long way. You could even provide magnetic holders for a discounted price depending on the product or the pull.

Stock up on supplies. I don't know how you get sleeves, and this is only an example, but you could get a case of sleeves (10,000 sleeves) for $50 (not including shipping). That's $0.005 per sleeve. Do the same for top loaders, pages (not that many people use them anymore), and appropriate sized binders. I have a hard time finding 1/2" binders. I would prefer to have each of my sets in their own binder rather than having 2 or 3 per binder. Also, I've never seen any shop that had any, but carry bubble mailers. Also buy them in bulk. Show people how to send cards in trades/sales or for grading properly. The more supplies you have, the more you provide to customers for buying cards, the more you show you care.

A "bar" for card-aholics. I like the table idea as well, because then people can gather around, but I also like the idea of a bar for a few reasons. On this wall, you can post pictures of customers who have had amazing pulls. The "Wall of Awe" or something corny. On each picture you can get the customers "autograph". Also, it could have enough room behind it for an employee to go back there and act like a bar tender, providing sleeves, scissors, etc. If the bar is right up against the wall, then you could also provide a video session (hopefully not for a fee since it's pretty inexpensive). Have cameras built into the wall with a screen that shows what's being recorded. The catch is they have to give you the right to post it on your site or youtube page, etc. The bar idea I think is a rather unique idea, which is why it'd be attractive.

Obviously, getting athletes past and present in there to sign stuff is essential for traffic. You would need an area set up for that. Those pictures could also go up on the Wall of Awe. By the way, the wall of awe doesn't need to have thickly framed pictures, would take up too much room. Obviously you couldn't really dictate the prices, but try to add something to the deal like buy an autograph, buy a box of cards, and get a $5 or $10 gift card for free. Some kind of deal.

I liked the newsletter idea. Also, you could probably sign up for a Google Phone account and have free text messaging for updates. Also, if you could promote Beckett.com for traffic, THAT WOULD BE AMAZING!!!! Actually, depending on if you have a marketplace with Beckett.com, you might be able to work something out with them to give out monthly OPG, or something that gets traffic here, which makes them want to buy more, which makes them come to you more. WE ALL WIN!!!!!

A group submission for BGS (yes, I'm pushing Beckett and not PSA, lol) every week/month would be nice. Show people the benefit of having their cards graded. Try, doubt it would be possible, to get a Beckett grader out there a couple times a year to do RCR and onsite grading as well as to explain the grading process. Again, show your customers that you care about their pulls. If you just show that you care that you sold them a box of cards but you don't care what comes in it, you won't have many return customers (I don't believe). The relationship with the customer is essential.

Well, I think that's all I have for now. Now I want to go get a loan and create my own shop down here since there isn't one within 3 hours of here.

Thanks for the effort! Yeah right now we do have some clutter I will be honest...but thats because we dont have a back room at the current location...we moved from a place that was 3x the size. I do like the bar idea its just going to come down to what the exact size of the new place is since we do not know yet...we have to fit all of our display cases first and then I get to figure out what other stuff were going to build. I can say that we have the biggest supply inventory in Pittsburgh...thats by far our biggest seller. And trust me the new place will be neat and orderly and merchendised like wal mart lol. I want more people to bust packs at our shop so that we could get more pictures of pulls. I like the idea of having a wall of fame thing. Keep the ideas coming!

[kevinr]

+1 on all the above post, I wish I had a card shop close by also. I have to drive 2 to 3 hours to get to one. One of my shops closed down and the other one quit selling sports cards and just went to the magic stuff. So I would have to say for me it would be just to have the shop for sports and if you sell the magic cards to keep them seperate like a different room or something I know when space is limited that is hard to do. Also the shops I go to when I am in New Orleans has the pros do signing's, like xstream suggested. I think that is a big plus there. They have guys from the Saints, Hornets and also from LSU so if you are into the college instead of pros they appeal to everyone. Also they don't charge alot for you to get a couple things signed. I agree also with the organization of a shop if you have display cases keep them organized and seperated by sports. Also the newsletter and/or webpage, for the ones who has to drive a long way to visit your shop. When I am in the area I always stop at the shops but if I am wanting a certain product I may not want to drive to every one to see if they have it.

[folkertino]

By the way, did anyone mention bikini girls?

[chads-cards]

By the way, did anyone mention bikini girls?

I believe that would boost sales...do I need a permit for this? lol

[buckunteer]

I believe that would boost sales...do I need a permit for this? lol

Not as long as the bikinis stay on

OH! New contest idea. Best pull of the (insert time frame here, week maybe?) gets a date w/ a bikini girl of their choice!

[chads-cards]

Not as long as the bikinis stay on

OH! New contest idea. Best pull of the (insert time frame here, week maybe?) gets a date w/ a bikini girl of their choice!

haha yeah that would probably spark some interest in busting more wax?

[xstreaminsanity]

Nah, why a date with a girl they can't get (especially if they're married). How about just throwing them a box of Benchwarmers.

[chads-cards]

Nah, why a date with a girl they can't get (especially if they're married). How about just throwing them a box of Benchwarmers.

haha that stuff never hits the shelves..I rippped about 5 cases of that when I was around 16

[xstreaminsanity]

haha that stuff never hits the shelves..I rippped about 5 cases of that when I was around 16

Wait, are you saying that stuff sells very well?