WHAT I LEARNED FROM SELLING 200 GRADED COMICS [INFOGRAPHIC]

When I first started this humble little online comic book shop, I had exactly ZERO graded comics in my possession to stock the virtual shelves with. Not necessarily the best look for a store that had aspirations to be your HQ for purchasing high grade comics. But hey, you gotta start somewhere, right?

Well now I’m happy to say that the Certified Comic Shop recently sold and delivered its 200th graded comic. I’m not trying to pat myself on the back here, but considering where I started from I do feel that’s a pretty impressive milestone.

So to celebrate the occasion — in true Certified Comic Shop fashion — I created this detailed infographic that will take you inside the numbers and give you all the relevant stats about the sales. Hopefully, if you’re like me, and are on your own journey of comic-preneurship you’ll find some eye opening takeaways here.

Before we get into the data, I just wanted to remind you that when I started this venture not only did I have no graded comics on hand, but I had zero dollars in my pocket. Everything was bootstrapped by selling off what was left of my meager personal comic collection to provide the necessary funds to begin acquiring and grading comic books to make them available for sale here on the shop, my eBay store and other shopping platforms.

Here are all the relevant numbers related to selling 200 graded comics. Please note that these stats do not include graded comics that were sold via my consignment service, just the ones from my own inventory.

SO WHAT DID I LEARN?

Quite a bit if I’m honest here. I think my biggest takeaway is I’m glad that I’ve been keeping diligent track of not just my overall income and expenses, but the associated costs and profits for each individual comic as well. Not only does that help me recognize certain trends, but it also helps me learn from my mistakes.

Data is only good if you use it to make smart business decisions, and having almost three years worth of sales data to refer to is critical in helping me forecast the financial outlook of the Certified Comic Shop going forward. As I mentioned at the beginning of this blog, I bootstrapped myself this far, not taking out a line of credit or maxing out credit cards. However I’m to the point now where I feel I could take a small business loan to acquire more key comics, have them pressed, submit them for grading and be confident that I can turn a profit with enough velocity to pay back the loan and end up with a positive ROI.

And lastly, I learned that if I truly want to make this venture financially viable I’m going to have to diversify my income streams even further by expanding my consignment and CGC facilitation services more aggressively while also look to develop other profit centers such as *gasp* selling new comics. I’m still undecided on whether or not to pursue selling new comics online, as there was a time that I really had zero interest in doing so. But if I feel it will help me achieve my business goals, I think I have to seriously consider it.

I hope you enjoyed taking this deep dive into my business and appreciate my transparency. If you have any questions about anything related to being a comic-preneur, feel free to drop them in the comments section below. Talk to you soon!