Behind the Counter
But, at any rate, I am documenting my week as a retailer, to give some perspective to anyone who is interested in becoming a retail game and/or comics/entertainment store owner.
Friday
Alarm goes off at 6AM. My wife and I get up, get our dogs fed (two Chihuahua’s. Hey! They’re dogs. Really!). Get our gym clothes on, and head out for Feeling Fit (a gym we frequent 5 days a week, at least in theory) by 6:30 AM.
6:45 - 7:55: Work out, take shower, dress for work.
8:10 AM: Arrive at Conversations Café - get our morning Coffee drinks or tea, head to work.
8:25: Open the doors at the store, and do opening procedures, including: Count Drawer, turn on lights (replace bulbs as needed), take out Curb Sign, turn on open sign at,
9:00 we are open. Yea! All scheduled employees show up on time. We have an employee meeting and short training session. We discuss the week previous issues, and make sure everyone knows how to handle any new issues, or changes to our policies. I write the work schedule for the following week.
9:30 till Noon: Print orders, do payroll, write checks for bills, reconcile the checkbook, make sure all business accounts are balanced. Review all purchase orders for the previous week. Review the inventory book for Comics. Review the inventory and reorder book for Boxed Games. Review the inventory book and reorder sheets for RPGs. Review the in-store purchase receipts for all categories - these often total to over $2500 a week, and may number from 100 up to 300 sheets. Finally, review inventory book and stock level sheets for “supplies”. This ranges from business cards and mailing envelopes, to styrofoam peanuts and shipping boxes.
12:30 - 1:30 PM Cycle all employee’s and owners (my wife and I) through a lunch break.
1:30: Hand out Payroll, and allow employee’s to cash checks from the register or go across the street to our bank.
2:00 Place order for comics, as needed. Place order for Games (always needed). Place order for supplies as needed.
2:30. Review weeks shipping log making sure that all the orders we received the previous 6 days have shipped or are shipping that day. Our standard is to ship within 4 days of payment, though more than 65% of items ship within 48 hours. Review emails to make sure every customer who had something shipped, was emailed about it.
3:30 Process any returns from dissatisfied customers. Issue refunds if needed. Make sure that all email letters have been sent to all customers who returned any items for any reasons. Purge from my list all items that have been received by customer and they have indicated they are satisfied. Keep as new all items not yet having been delivered by any customer.
4:00ish - review any in store customer complaints. Contact customers who need a follow up phone call. This week there were none. So, my wife and I headed out to Fort Wayne for the Diamond Alliance open house, retailer summit.
Much travel, and singing to the music on the radio. Reviewed employee reviews to be given next week with my wife. Review all advertising options we were considering. Review material we needed to consider - things like new announcements by games and comics publishers, etc. Review which game conventions we plan to attend in 2009. Check in at the Hilton in Fort Wayne.
6PM or so, for an hour: Attend the Diamond Alliance seminar given by Cheryl Slabota (may have misspelled that in my notes, sorry Cheryl) about the Retail Management System (a pos - point of sales - system for retailers), and Comics Suite - a cool piece of software for comics retailers. Wish REALLY HARD that I was the next person on the waiting list for this software. Dangit Cheryl!! Now you really made me excited about comics retailing again. I took 4 pages of notes on things like RMS, ComicsSuite, FOC, Diamond Daily emails and more. NICE Presentation!!!
7:00 PM - go to the Diamond Alliance Retailer Summit GAME ROOM. Much gaming by many retailers, hang out with people we know, meet people we have only talked to online. Renew friendships, have fun. We got demo’s of 6 games. We decided to order three of them. We also watched others playing various games - and we made notes to order 5 games we had previously decided NOT to order, but after viewing the game play, we decided to carry them after all.
7:25 or so, call the shop and get daily numbers and reports from my staff.
7:35 back at the Alliance Open House - Wondered to myself why there are no COMICS publishers here in the demo room with comics to read? Seems like a good time for two things: Primary Publishers (Marvel, DC, Dark Horse) to speak to retailers who don’t carry comics - and convince them do to so!! Also, a chance for smaller publishers (Image, Boom, many others) to get retailers who DO carry comics to carry MORE of THEIR comics. Hmmmm..............
From 8PM till about midnight - We played games and talked shop, and about 12:30PM we are finally headed off to bed.
Saturday
5:30 AM - Alarm goes off. I hate the frakking alarm!! Wife and I shower and get dressed. Our “first breakfast” shows up by room service at 6:45. Great Omelette and Bacon! We head down to the “official breakfast” at 7:45 and wait in line for the buffet breakfast.
The Buffet breakfast is great - with lots of choices - but having already ate, we just have some fruit and juice. This way we can do a lot more talking with people at our table, like our sales rep, Sean - and John Kaufeld from GAMA who sit at our table.
8:00 till 9:15 - talk with folks, and listen to the presentations by cool people like Mike Webb, VP of Marketing (I think) of Alliance Games Distributors - and others. LEAVE the breakfast when the Q&A becomes a series of “Why Can’t I Have My Way” questions by retailers. (My opinion: Those types of questions best asked 1 on 1).
9:30 till 12:30 - Attend the Diamond Alliance Exhibit Hall. Talk to MANY publishers of comics and games. Make copious notes about what products we want to add to our selection in the store. Comics, games, toys, other stuff too. Pick up my box of freebies from Diamond - wait, they offer to ship it to me. Okay!! Sweet!! Then, pick up other freebies I now have room to carry. Talk with Tony Lakas (retailer, owner of The Danger Room). Talk with Dave Barnette (retailer, owner of Wizards Keep). Talk with Professor Scott Thorne (retailer, owner of Castle Perilous). Rest feet while talking.
12:30 till 2:30 PM - drive back to the shop while covering all the information we gathered from the retail summit in Fort Wayne. Discuss our new game-sections WARHAMMER table. Discuss our board game group we are starting in the store this winter. Review a couple catalogs. Prepare order for Monday.
2:30 till 5PM: Work at store doing stock management tasks such as arranging backstock in the break room, kitchen of the store (yes, we have a kitchen, oven and all). Clean the windows, bathrooms, etc. Wow, that is really glamorous! 5PM - call it a day.
Sunday
Get to the store at the leisurely hour of 10:00 AM. Spend 4 hours doing things like alphabetizing used novel section by authors last name - the Xbox games section by game title, and replenishing the DVD section from backstock. At 2PM call it a day.
Monday
Ack! Get up at 6:00 and be to the gym by 645 or so. 40 minute work out. Ouch, too old for this.
8:40 pick up my morning Mocha at Conversations Café.
8:50 AM: Opening Procedures: Open the doors at the store, and do opening procedures, including: Count Drawer, turn on lights (replace bulbs as needed), take out Curb Sign, turn on open sign at ...
9:00 we are open. Yea! All scheduled employees show up on time. Conduct another short employee meeting and training session. This time we train on identifying which DVDs we buy, and what to pay for them. Since there are no customers right away, we also cover the previous weeks purchases I had reviewed on Friday - and point out where one employee is consistently paying to much for Music CDs. Retrain them on how to identify what to pay, and what NOT to buy.
9:30-12:30 AM: ONLINE ORDER PROCESSING Print orders for the weekend. Friday orders first, then Saturday, then Sunday. Hand them in order of payment to my order processor - she pulls Friday orders first, putting them on one table in the packing room, then pulls Saturday orders - placing them on another table. As she starts pulling the Sunday orders, I begin to pack the Friday orders. As she finishes pulling the Sunday orders, I finish packing the Friday orders - and she begins putting postage on those, and I begin to pack the Saturday orders. I am feeling a bit hurried, cause I want to get all the Friday and Saturday packages IN the mail at pick up time at 3PM. I mention this to my assistant. She points out it is a bank/postal holiday (Columbus Day). I relax. A little.
12:30 to 12:45 - I eat lunch.
12:45 till 1:45 - I work the floor while allowing other employees to take a 30-minute lunch break. While working the sales floor, I make note of which displays need rotation (changing which inventory is face out, which is out of alphabetical order, etc).
1:45 - 2PM: I instruct my retail staff which displays need to be rotated, and which items need to be re-alphabetized. Make sure they have it, and supervise only a little.
2PM: Do weekly inventory of Comics received the previous week, and identify which comics I need to reorder.
2:30PM: Major Snafu! A “customer” comes in and claims they were told over the phone that we bought used DVDs for $3 each (we actually pay from $0.60 to $1 in most cases). They argue with us for 10 minutes, as I attempt to point out our price sheet on display (which says we pay between 50¢ and $1 on most DVDs, and $1.50 for NEW RELEASES less than 90 days old). They argue. I point out that I sell DVDs at 2 for $10. They insist $3 was the price they were quoted on the phone. They spoke to “Michael”. Our “Mike” says he has not spoken on the phone to anyone. Customer gets loud and vulgar, I ask them to tone it down or leave. Finally, they say “I called you from my !@# Cell Phone!” and wave the phone at me. I ask to see what number they dialed. Looking at the number, I see it is not mine. They hit “send” at it is my competitor nearby. The customer apologizes and leaves. I continue to work near the sale floor, in the stock room.
3:10 customer returns - still angry. They relate the story that when they called that other store the first time, the customer asked them if they were Titan Games. They say that they were told yes, and that they were told that Titan Games paid $3 for used DVDs. But, when they went to my competitor, they were literally laughed at, and were then offered 20¢ each for their DVDs. They need to sell them, so I do buy them at our prices - even buying some few we wouldn’t normally buy, just to be nice. Once I pay the customer, and they have cash in hand - they curse me out again for cheating them. They still being somehow convinced that I usually pay $3 for DVDs, even though we have 2 separate signs in the store saying what we pay. I conclude that some people are so stupid, they are lucky that “breathing” is an involuntary action of the human body, or they would forget they needed air, stop breathing - and simply fall over.
4PM till 6PM: Price 2300 old, unopened bags/blisters and boxes of lead miniatures I find in the back room, under a pile of table cloths. I grumble as I do this task, because these were items my former manager was supposed to sell months earlier - but, evidently, chose to hide in the corner, and bury with other stuff. As I pull these out, I also find 9 large plastic tubs, each with about 150 old Nintendo and SuperNintendo games - which were also supposed to have been processed months ago by previous employee.
6PM till 6:45PM - attempt to do nothing at all. Answer some emails, chat a bit with some friends. Somewhere along the line, I get dragged onto the floor to answer some questions by a person who has never been in my store before - who has a “Really Old Spider-man Comic Book” and wants me to appraise it, sight unseen, without knowing what year it is from, what issue number it is, or what condition it is in. I explain that the year, issue number and condition will determine the value. They persist. They seem adamant that I should be able to determine the value with their description “Really old, Spider-man comic, in great shape, mint condition, except for a couple tears”. I attempt to explain that there are over 1000 “spider-man” comics that have been printed, and that they might sell for between 25¢ and $500 or more. They express interest in selling their comic for $500 and promise to bring it in soon, and leave - in my mind, already trying to decide what they will spend their $500 on. Oh, joy.
6:45 - deciding discretion is the better part of valor, I call it a day, and take my wife home, allowing my employees and daughter to close the shop at 7PM.
Tuesday
Ugh, 6:00 AM is really early. Whose idea was it to join this gym? Oh, yeah, my doctors. Frak him, I don’t see HIM at the gym. Drag myself out of bed. Go to gym, and today do a 15 minute cardio-only workout - shower, get ready for work.
7:30, arrive at Conversations Café, get Mocha. Ahhhhh, Mocha. Life is good.
7:50, get to work early to find a note on my desk about the comic-customer/person who came back at 1-minute to 7, and wanted to sell their “Spiderman 2099" comic book. They are angry because they were told we are not interested. They leave a somewhat nasty, handwritten note which says, and I quote precisely:
“Deer Sirs - You lied to me abot my comicbook and i need to sell it for $500 as i losed my job and need the money!!!!! Ill will be returnd tomorow to sales it too you.”
(Note: I spelled every word exactly as the note indicates). Oh, it is looking like a really fun day.
8:50 learn that one employee has a family emergency out of town, and another didn’t realize the schedule had changed and I needed them today. Yikes. Ask third employee to stay late, they agree, but have to leave at 5PM
9:00 Spend some time online at various forums such as the Game Industry Network, the Game Store Resource Forum, the Comic Book Industry Association forum, and of course Board Game Geek reading about industry news, and arguing with some of my fellow retailers, as well as comics and games publishers about various and sundry silliness.
10:45 - get interrupted by my staff because there is someone here who wants to sell me their comic books. They have 10 long boxes of comics, mostly from the 80's and 90's. I let them know that I pay 5¢ a book for stuff from those years, as it is not in demand. They understand they say. I explain that means that 20 books are bought for $1, and 100 books are bought for $5. They assure me they understand.
10:50 to 11:20 count books
11:21 make offer of $122.80
11:21.30 get called a lying, cheating bleepity bleep because that is a “rip off” and bleepity bleep. Explain again that 2,456 comics x 5¢ each equals $122.80. More name calling, customer packs up books in a huff, and leaves.
11:30 - early lunch! Time to calm down a bit. Grab my cell phone and head back down the block (it’s actually two blocks) to Conversations Café. Have a nice grilled ham and cheese on wheat, some potato salad, and a Coke Zero. Half way through lunch, get a call about the comic guy is back, and wants to sell now. My competitor offered him $50, and suddenly $122.80 sounds great. Reluctantly tell my staff to buy the stuff. Had I been there in person, I would have declined to make the purchase, but I figure my staff does not get paid enough to be called lying cheating blankity-blank rip offs.
12:00 get back to the shop, find out the people actually only sold us 9 of the boxes, but took the full $122.80, thus shorting me about 250 books, or so.
12:15 to 2PM. Sort a magic collection we bought the day before, while helping customers as needed. I am strangely interrupted by someone asking about Magic singles. Yea! I show them the rares I have sorted out of a random collection I bought the day before - and offer to sell him any card for $5. He buys 9 cards, thus covering more than double what I paid for the collection. He leaves. He comes back. He asks if I would take $100 for the rest of the rares in the pile. I ring him up!
2PM till 3PM I assist on the sales floor as things get hectic. At 3PM the employee who agreed to stay late decides she can’t, and asks to leave. (Shrug). My wife and I are now left to brave the last 4 hours........ alone!
3PM to 4PM. Literally - nothing happens. Not one customer comes in, not one phone call comes in. I decide to call my games sales rep at my primary distributor, and do an order.
4PM I pick up the phone, and call.
4:01PM As soon as I have him on the line - a stream of people wander in. 3 different customers want to have Video Game discs resurfaced, there are two customers wanting to sell DVD collections, and a woman has 3 kids all of whom are SHOUTING over one another to get their mothers attention - because she had agreed to buy two DVDs, so each child is quickly trying to find ANY movie they can talk her into buying (regardless if they might actually like it). I hurry my call, and help my wife. We are non stop busy buying, selling, making one large refund, and handling various “things” for customers until 6:45 PM
7:00 - Do store closing procedures, etc.
7:25 or so, we make our night deposit.
7:30: Go home
Wednesday
Also known as NEW COMIC DAY:
Up at 5:30 AM, Off to the gym, must get early start for New Comics. Workout, shower, breakfast, fast, fast, fast.....
7:30 AM - arrive at store, my Comics Manager and I take out this week's invoice (before order arrives) and note how many copies of which comics we need for our subscribers pull lists. We then note which comics we may be short on.
9:00 AM Open Store, do usual morning stuff, and await comics arrival. They get here at:
10:15 AM - pull all staff personnel to assist in the check in of the comics order. We each take one or two boxes and I take the invoice.
I call out items, and the person with that item in their box tells me quantity and if anything is damaged. We check in our order (7 boxes this week, unusually large for us) in about 20 minutes, and pull the subscribers comics as we go. My wife scans items into our Point of Sales system, making sure every item will scan OUT as it is purchased, etc. This takes 5 people to insure that we are done in less than an hour, and by....
11:00 AM - have all inventory on the shelves for customers to purchase.
I spend Wednesday on the retail floor mostly - helping customers and suggesting new comics to the comics customers, along with my comics guy, Mike. We demo a few games, and point out any merchandise we think customers will enjoy. Business is brisk, and we get busy and stay busy for quite some time.
2PM We cycle through lunch breaks.
3PM We continue to help customers with comics and games. Our newly finished Game Table has some gamers playing Warhammer 40,000 on it, and we have had several people asking questions about the game. At one point, one of the gamers snaps at a customer who is asking questions. I go over and review the house-rules about using our table, which are:
- A. Only food and drink bought in the store is allowed at the table.
- B. Table must be reserved a minimum of 2 hours in advance of wanting to play.
- C. Players MUST interact with curious customers in an appropriate manner.
I go over the other rules, such as:
- D. Players may not tell other customers/players “Go buy that on whatever.com and save money”. You have to promote the store (while I also do realize that people WILL buy big expensive items online, we just don’t promote that in the store).
- E. Players may not offer to sell items to other players/customers in my store. If you want to be a competitor, I can help you with many things, but allowing you to camp out in my store and steal sales is “not” one of them.
5:00 PM the game wraps up, and the guys clean up their candy and pop debris, put away their chairs, and ask if they can use the table again Friday. I book them for 3PM till 7PM. The one guy tries to pay for using the table, as I had “fussed” at them, and I kindly thank him for the offer, but recommend that he just remember to be “friendly” to questions, and perhaps he will have more opponents to play with.
5:30 PM - a kid is caught shoplifting. I see him put two Super NES games in his pocket. I ask him to have a seat and wait for the police. He begins to cry, and takes the games out of his pocket. He has a seat. We call the police. The kid is crying to the police officer and the cop asks if I “really have to insist on pressing charges”. I smile. I ask for his badge number, and inform him I will be talking to the country prosecutor in the morning about him trying to persuade me out of prosecuting a theft. The officer places the minor in his car, and drives, presumably, to the police station.
6:30 PM - a Call from the youth’s parents offering to pay for the stolen items. I decline. They are not happy, and threaten me. The parents go on to tell me their boy is a wonder student, straight A’s, athlete, does charity work on the weekends, nurses sick kittens, donates blood every other day - blah blah blah. I explain that they are crappy parents to have raised a thief, and that I will be not only prosecuting, but will be present in the courtroom and will take a personal interest in seeing him receive the harshest possible punishment, because I dislike people taking food off my children’s table. They make remarks that indicate they think I must be rich, since I own a store. I hang up.
I spend about 5 minutes retelling the story to my wife, and we laugh about this - we marvel at how misinformed most people are about shop owners.
7PM: I take my wife out to an expensive dinner: McDonalds. 7:45 or so, we make our night deposit.
Thursday
7:16 AM we wake up a bit late, due to the power having gone out during the night for no discernible reason. Instead of going to work out, we shower and get dressed and drive to work.
8:44 we arrive to the shop at what we would consider a “very late” start to the day. I am grumbly because I don’t have my morning Mocha.
9:03 we open a little late, and once our staff are in place, we go get breakfast at the greasy spoon two doors down. I take a side trip after breakfast and get my Mocha. Muuuuuuuuuuch better.
9:45 or so, we print orders and spend the day packing and shipping orders.
About 1PM or so I get a couple minutes and realize I need to follow up with the country prosecutor. I call his office. Repeatedly. I leave 3 messages over the next two hours. I get a call back, and the prosecutor kind of reluctantly agrees to speak to the officer about trying to get me to drop the matter. He asks if there were witnesses, I indicate that two people, and my video cameras caught the pocketing the items. He asks for statements, and a copy of the video. I spend most of the rest of the day getting the statements typed up, and signed in front of a notary at the bank across the street - and the copy of the video on a DVD disc. A Police Sergeant comes by and picks it all up, and assures me the patrol officer understands not to attempt to talk victims out of pressing charges. I explain to the Sergeant this is the third time, and third officer, who has done exactly that when I have caught a shoplifter.
We get all of the orders pulled, packed and shipped from the previous 2.5 days online business, and begin to plan the rest of the weekend, and next weeks schedule.
5:30 PM - The parents of the shoplifter come into my store. I am amazed that I know the father - he used to work for me, and was fired for theft. I refrain from saying “The apple didn’t fall far from the tree” but I am thinking it pretty loudly. When they attempt to talk me out of prosecuting, I say to the father - “I remember when I fired you from my quick-lube.” At that, he turns red, and grabs his wife's hand, and they leave.
6PM My staff and I play a game of Rorschach, a new game by Bucephalus Games, and we set up a “competition” to see who can sell the most by November 15th. We agree that the winner of this contest will get $20 in store credit, and a free copy of the game. My new comics guy pre-sells one copy to a customer before closing time.
7PM - Closing time. Yea!
7:25 or so, we make our night deposit and head home.
Ahhhhhhhhhhh, another week comes to a close.
We worked about 70 hours. My wife and I earned less than $10 per hour for our efforts. But, we do generally enjoy our work. It is challenging, rewarding and gives us a sense of accomplishment. It does come without health benefits, with a very modest savings account for retirement, and with no paid holidays. But, we do enjoy the time together and the fun of doing work, and sharing a laugh together.
Marcus King - Owner
Titan Games & Music
637 Capital Ave SW
Battle Creek, MI 49015
