Dave Salisbury of Fan Boy Three in
I agree in part with what Jay Bardyla is saying. It sucks to have to order these variant covers blind with no idea of what ratio they'll actually turn up in. But the question--and the solution--depends on why we want such things in our stores to begin with.
Do we want this item to fulfill a customer order, or do we want this item because it increases our credibility as a store? I'm going to throw this open to encompass a bigger problem; that of limited edition/variant stock in general.
As an organized play-focused game store, I'm currently dealing with a severe allocation of my Gold series order for Yu-Gi-Oh! From some distributors, I ordered 50 displays, and I'm getting three. Now, that's not going to fulfill either my customer orders or increase my credibility as a store. In fact, it's going to do exactly the opposite.
So I went online, found every single deep discounter who was selling at below my sell price, and I bought every piece of stock they were preselling. Eighteen months ago I did the same with World of Warcraft boosters; I bought every single unaccounted for Internet discounted booster box in the country, because supporting my play community and increasing the credibility of my store were more important than making my full profit margin on that one item.
I made my margin on the stock I did have. I wouldn't have been able to sell the stock I didn't have, so the margin was pretty academic, so long as I cleared my costs. And I kept my customers sweet and my store looking good.
That's the joy of the secondary market. I know most of us consider it a curse in our everyday lives, but let that Internet dealer get stuck with a hundred copies of Amazing Spider Girl #19. That secondary market variant copy is not going to cost you what ordering a hundred copies of Amazing Spider Girl #19 is going to. How much profit were you even going to make on that one item?
If a customer wants it, you're clearing your costs and you're looking good. You're making your margin on all the other things that customer buys.
If you want it to increase your credibility? At Fan Boy Three, I'd be treating these variant covers as what I like to call set dressing, and I'd write them off as the price of making my shop look the business, just as I'd write off painting, decorating and new carpets!
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