Non Stop
A quick look at the never ending "grind" of a small business owner.
Folks, running a small business never stops.
Cascading garbage started early last week, when we found out that certain parts of our Wednesday stock would be delayed. Diamond product didn’t arrive until early Wednesday morning (which is when it should be on sale), and our Image wouldn’t arrive until mid-Thursday afternoon, due to circumstances.
The shipment, combined with a deep cold that hit our area, caused our Wednesday to be the worst sales day of the week by a significant margin.1 For those who don’t know, Wednesday is new comic book day - and each and every week, a torrent of new comics are released on that day. While we did have our Marvel and DC on hand (which saved us from a worse fate), many of our people decided to skip their regular visit until product had arrived. That said, there were still enough people popping in right at open on Wednesday to make processing the Diamond books a little zesty.2
We pushed through that, all while waiting in vain for Image to show up (which was a long shot, given the tracking), and landed that day earning less than half of a “merely okay Wednesday”.
Then came Thursday, with another school talk and some errands that took me right through to the arrival of the Image books. After our employee had the shipment alphabetized, I took the remaining bits of our pulls and attempted to sort them into files. I only got halfway done before having to head out into the wilderness once more for weekly deliveries in the south end of Edmonton. Oh, and initial orders were due, so that all had to get finalized as well.
Friday is one of my actual days off, and there weren’t much plans, but something had gone awry with the initial orders, so they had to be redone and uploaded again. I also had to chair the monthly business district meeting that was scheduled for the day, which usually puts a crimp in my Friday - so the day, like most days off, was truly filled with all kinds of extra work.
This is the life of a small business owner. Just a constant churn of happenings that require delicate scheduling to run smoothly. It doesn’t take much to throw things into disarray, like a late shipment sending ripple effects through the entire rest of the week. It can be tough sometimes, but I wouldn’t trade this life for any other.
Here’s hoping this week runs a bit better.
Tomorrow at The Beat, the next full Indirect Market column drops. This one follows up on my advice to grow big by thinking small, with practical ways a comic shop can live that mentality. Then, stay tuned here for our regular Wednesday feature, where we talk about one or two fresh releases for the week, and look at how they’re functioning in the industry.
Talk with you soon.
-B
Which for us, runs from Wednesday to Sunday.
I ended up missing a two pages of pulls that Danica thankfully caught before we sold some people’s books.