Many of you have heard that What the Rock?! Is going to be closing up their brick and mortar shop at the end of the year. If not, here is their facebook post and an article on columbusunderground.
Naturally, I knew this was coming and quietly made arrangements to close up the pop up shop I ran inside of WTR on “Black Friday.” Thanks to everybody who came out to support my little comics ‘n records nook. For those of you who never made it out… You missed something fun, but hey, I know you were probably busy and broke.
Naturally, I knew this was coming and quietly made arrangements to close up the pop up shop I ran inside of WTR on “Black Friday.” Thanks to everybody who came out to support my little comics ‘n records nook. For those of you who never made it out… You missed something fun, but hey, I know you were probably busy and broke.
Special thanks to Mike Renner and Heather Ziegler for having me in their space this year. It was great boon to have a space to sell Nix Comics titles as well as the art and music of the people who inspire Nix. (Past and present!)
Which is a nice segue to something that is exciting to me… Barring some sort of major financial set back, this will be the first year that Nix Comics has ended up on the right side of a good thing: Nix Comics is the black for the first time in six years.
Which is a nice segue to something that is exciting to me… Barring some sort of major financial set back, this will be the first year that Nix Comics has ended up on the right side of a good thing: Nix Comics is the black for the first time in six years.
My total revenue so far is $7,849 and total expenses are $5573.48. Not enough to live on, but pretty close to the average $200 net a month I was hoping for. Those totals are from the store, website, ebay, shows, advertising sales and the last bit of revenue from the sketch in the City series for the Columbus Alive.
Looking at sales, here are some things I didn’t expect:
The highest selling individual category of merchandise was original artwork. (about $1800 Gross) This was largely thanks to the three art shows I held in the space and I have my wheels turning on how I might continue to help my friends sell their artwork.
New Comics (Nix and other) outsold new records by better than a 2 to 1 ratio ($1900 to $900) For whatever reason, I think the record folks in town never quite made the connection that my shop had vinyl.
Used merchandise had kind of anemic sales compared to new stuff. Used Records marginally outsold used comics. ($860 to 630)
The worst month for sales was October by a considerable margin. I only made $367 in sales for October, which includes a day’s worth of CXC. That’s $150 less than the wintery short month of February and a May where sales suffered because Mike and Heather were on their rock festival tour. My past retail experience has been that october is usually pretty good. Where the hell was everybody?
Website sales at nix-retail.com have been slow. Like glacial. It’s weird to me given that my old mail order site used to get some fairly regular traffic.
Over all, sales month to month were a lot more spiky than I thought they would be. I had it in my head that I was making steady strides upward every month, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I haven't yet dug deep into analyzing these ups and downs, but as a casual observation, the upward spikes seem to correlate with art openings and other events held in the store. (That would make sense, yeah?)
Looking at sales, here are some things I didn’t expect:
The highest selling individual category of merchandise was original artwork. (about $1800 Gross) This was largely thanks to the three art shows I held in the space and I have my wheels turning on how I might continue to help my friends sell their artwork.
New Comics (Nix and other) outsold new records by better than a 2 to 1 ratio ($1900 to $900) For whatever reason, I think the record folks in town never quite made the connection that my shop had vinyl.
Used merchandise had kind of anemic sales compared to new stuff. Used Records marginally outsold used comics. ($860 to 630)
The worst month for sales was October by a considerable margin. I only made $367 in sales for October, which includes a day’s worth of CXC. That’s $150 less than the wintery short month of February and a May where sales suffered because Mike and Heather were on their rock festival tour. My past retail experience has been that october is usually pretty good. Where the hell was everybody?
Website sales at nix-retail.com have been slow. Like glacial. It’s weird to me given that my old mail order site used to get some fairly regular traffic.
Over all, sales month to month were a lot more spiky than I thought they would be. I had it in my head that I was making steady strides upward every month, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I haven't yet dug deep into analyzing these ups and downs, but as a casual observation, the upward spikes seem to correlate with art openings and other events held in the store. (That would make sense, yeah?)
So what’s next? I’m not super sure. I would like to keep up the momentum in 2018, but I don’t want to make any rash or impulsive commitments. If another opportunity to set up a store space comes up, I will take a good look at it. Anything I did along those lines would have to both be a reasonable financial deal and carry the same good vibes that I got working with What the Rock?!
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