Bagged and Boarded Comics At The Store.

Algertman

OK, some of you may know I work for a comic book store. Now ever Wednesday we bag, board, and tape all of the comics. We get no complaints about this in fact I think all of our customers prefer it this way. Now if someone wants open a comic and look at it, or even read it, that's fine we even have tables and chairs except early on Wednesday when we are using them to bag and board everything.

Now I read other message boards and notice some people hate this. What is your opinion.

Robos A Go Go

Do you bag and board everything you get that week, or just the books people have pulled? Do you charge extra for the service? How much does it cost your store to do this?

Also, I personally don't like tape and would rather just tuck the flap in.

Wildcat

My store bags and boards all the back issues, and I really like it because I'm too lazy to do it myself. If they did the same thing for the current week's comics then I'd be down with it.

Algertman

Robos A Go Go wrote: »

Do you bag and board everything you get that week, or just the books people have pulled? Do you charge extra for the service? How much does it cost your store to do this?

Also, I personally don't like tape and would rather just tuck the flap in.

We bag and board all issues for that week. I have no idea how much it cost us to this cause I don't handle the money side of things concerning this.

We charge nothing for this.

As far as tape goes if you have a pull list we can pull all your comics bagged and boarded but without tape we do this for people and it is no problem at all.

Robos A Go Go

Bagging and boarding everything seems like a bit much (Why don't you put the whole world in a bag, Superman?), but bagging stuff on a pull list is definitely a service I'd enjoy.

Why not just bag and board everything people pull, then offer a bag and a board to everyone who buys something off the shelf? It'll cost you less because not everyone will ask for a bag and board and it'll save you time.

People who miss having their shelf purchases pre-bagged might also be more inclined to pull items in the future.

BigDes

I'd prefer it because boards seem to be so confusingly rare in our neck of the woods.

I suspect a lot of people dislike this practice because the store they shop at doesn't allow them to look through the comic before buying it. As long as I would be free to flip through it then yeah I'd actually prefer it. On pulled comics, doing this for all of your comics must be a hell of a task.

Lucascraft

Yeah, doing everything seems like a bit much too. And its probably fairly costly for the store.

Algertman

BigDes wrote: »

I'd prefer it because boards seem to be so confusingly rare in our neck of the woods.

I suspect a lot of people dislike this practice because the store they shop at doesn't allow them to look through the comic before buying it. As long as I would be free to flip through it then yeah I'd actually prefer it. On pulled comics, doing this for all of your comics must be a hell of a task.

It takes several hours to do this this is on average or 3-5 people doing it. Several of them are just old friends and we let work for credit and sometimes lunch.

Algertman

Lucascraft wrote: »

Yeah, doing everything seems like a bit much too. And its probably fairly costly for the store.

We actually get a lot of customers who use us because we do this and will not shop anywhere else.

ManonvonSuperock

What are the pros of doing this every Wednesday morning as opposed to doing it for each customer as they check out?

Elrosst

I actually think that's a great idea, and wish my store would bag everything, because then I wouldnt have to... Also, then i wouldnt have to pay .10 for a board and .7 for a bag! It really bugs the hell out of me when lurkers sit in the store on wednesdays and read half the comics, dont buy them, and leave them laying about.

Like, it really, really bugs me. To the point where I almost say something every day.

I can see how bagging and boarding would eliminate that to a certain point.

Then again, I know that one of our clients that reads comics just reads and tosses them all, so someone like that probably would not appreciate that kind of service.... A good middleground would be to just board people's pull lists.

143999

My store bags and boards back issues, leaves new issues on the rack unbagged, then

Certain specials/variants/etc. are racked pre-bagged, if I'm not mistaken.

DJ Eebs

If it was no cost to me, I'd love it. Every shop I've gone to has at least bagged the books for me, aside from free comics and promotional stuff, but boarding the books would be really nice.

Xaquin

I've never liked it, but mostly because the few times I've been in a store that does that, I was looking for a new comic (just something that caught my eye) and opened one and got yelled at for doing it.

I guess maybe most stores don't yell at potential customers though?

SightTDW

My store just recently stopped charging for bagging & boarding at checkout, and I've got no complaints aside from that they started this just after I had stocked up on bags & boards.

ManonvonSuperock

Xaquin wrote: »

I've never liked it, but mostly because the few times I've been in a store that does that, I was looking for a new comic (just something that caught my eye) and opened one and got yelled at for doing it.

I guess maybe most stores don't yell at potential customers though?

I think today's woot entry answers your question fairly well:

ave you ever tried to get into something new? We’ve almost all done this: You go into a bike shop, or a record store, or a comics shop, being not an expert on bikes, or comics, or the hottest new bands. And you ask the clerk a question. It’s not a stupid question; it’s just a beginner’s question. It’s something that everyone in the bike (or comics or music) scene already knows. And this clerk, this snotty little insecure punk, who has never been the big man anywhere—not at school, not with the ladies, not on the socioeconomic scale, nowhere—well, he’s the big man in this shop. He knows all about this stuff, and you don’t, and he wants to make sure you understand that, so he belittles you. He gives you this attitude.

Now, he could have acted differently. He could have been excited to share his expertise with someone who’s new to his community—who, by joining, would have enlarged and strengthened it. But nooooo. So you leave, kinda annoyed, and you never feel very much like going back, so you end up not really getting all that into cycling (or whatever it is).

At least that's what it's like at my local comic shop. It's run by a jackass that's way too much into wrestling and that I think has asperger's. At least I hope he has it to justify the socially awkward rudeness he exudes. The son of a bitch barks and yells all of the time.

But then again that might have something to do with conversations like this:

"The MSRP on this book is 75% what you're selling it for."

"It's a high-demand item."

"It's currently in print, available at MSRP at the mass bookstore in town, 40% off of MSRP with no shipping or tax through Amazon and you've had this copy for weeks."

"I have to charge that much because of the cost through Diamond Direct."

"Do they charge more than MSRP for you to stock it? Because I somehow doubt that."

Don't get me wrong, I've been to some good comic shops. But most of them I've been to have been run by condescending assholes.

Algertman

Yeah that guy is full of shit.

Iroh

The shop I've been buying from for two and half years now has their stuff bagged on the rack, and I can get recycled backing boards from them for free. I used to tape everything myself every two weeks or so, but I've gotten lazy and haven't done that in half a year or more.

Hayasa

If comics were all bagged and boarded, I doubt I'd buy them at the store; stuff I buy at the store is usually spur of the moment purchasing - the lock-in comics I have on subscription.

I just like to flick through for two seconds in a variety of issues to see if the art will make me gag before I buy them. For that, unwrapping is a complete waste of time.

durandal4532

I didn't really think there was another way to do it, actually.

I mean, my dad and I now get our comics from Jay-Ron's Seedy Comic Trailer but when we did get them in stores it was pretty much a given that they were bagged and boarded, and you could open them up to check them out because who cares?