Sharpening the Sword is a regular column by retailer John Riley of Grasshopper's Comics, a 1,300 square foot comic and games store in
So for the past two weeks we've been talking about price, product devaluation, and along the way the concept of discounting. As I've stated, I don't discount, and yet we have a very healthy store. So why do customers come here? Well, I really found out the answer to that question in a strange way, which I'm going to talk about in a minute.
But before we go into that, I'd like to make a simple point about discounting. Ultimately, I think that comic and games retailers have a right to make a living, and I don't believe that discounting helps us achieve that simple goal. Let's face it, none of us entered this industry to get rich. Most of us probably entered it because we made a choice that we wanted to pursue a profession that we actually enjoyed. I don't think I'm going out on a limb when I say that I'm sure the overwhelming majority of us could make more money doing something else. I know I could. But I chose this profession because I didn't want to spend my work life working on something I had no interest in. I wanted to be my own boss. And I wanted the freedom that a successful business could ultimately provide.
And you know what? While that's all great, I still need to make a living and provide for my family. I may get a tremendous amount of intrinsic satisfaction from my business, but the day that I can't afford to feed my family is the day I suck it up and do something else. I work very hard, and have for fifteen years, and quite honestly, I feel that I deserve to make a decent living. And my customers have no problem with that. Ultimately, my customers want me to succeed.
Do you think the average shop owner works 60 hours a week? I would guess so. Most of us work at least 5-6 days a week, some of them pretty long. Then add in all the time you devote at home and I think 60 hours a week is probably a low estimate. But let's say the average work week for comic/game store owners is 60 hours a week. That's 3120 hours a year. Now, what's the average income of a store owner? I honestly have no idea, but I know a lot that make $30,000 a year or less. Do you realize that on a 60 hour work week that's only $9.60 an hour? Work an extra ten hours over that (not all that hard to do) and now that rate goes down to $8.25, pretty close to minimum wage.
Maybe that $30,000 number is too low. Let's go with $40,000 a year. At that rate on a 60 hour work week you're looking at $12.82 an hour. That sounds a bit better, but do you realize that a basic high school graduate working nine months at Best Buy can make $17.00 an hour as an Assistant Manager? Oh, and that includes two weeks vacation and a week sick time. And let's not forget the stock options!
So why are so many of us so willing to make less? I think we all deserve to make a reasonable living for the work we do. And only when we're making a reasonable living can we truly be able to provide outstanding service and selection to our customers. None of us can expand our selection with money we don't have. We can't provide friendly service when we're constantly worried about paying the mortgage.
But many of us believe that the only way to increase our sales is to sell for less. But is that really the prime motivation for our customers?
The thing is, almost every survey done shows that price is very rarely the determining factor in making the sale. It's usually not even in the top five considerations. I experienced this personally when I went to buy a new bike recently, my first in 18 years. In an effort to get a bit more balance in my life I started riding seriously again this past winter and felt that it was time to upgrade to some modern technology. I wandered into my 'friendly local bike shop' (yes, believe it or not they use the same language in bike retailing as we do in ours!) and found a top of the line, full carbon fiber, bike of my dreams on sale that was just within my 'in a million years I might afford this' threshold. I spoke to the owner for well over an hour going through the different models, their features, my own goals, and what made the most sense for me. I walked out of the store excited, but still not 100% sure I wanted to spend that much money on a bike.
Since this was a big purchase I felt I should shop around to make sure I was making the right decision so I visited the bike shops in the adjacent towns. That's where my learning experience started. From my long conversation with my local bike shop, I was pretty sure I knew exactly what model I wanted and initially felt that what I was really looking for was the best price. But the more shops I visited the more I realized that what I really wanted was to buy it from my local shop and know that I was paying a fair price. The more shops owners I spoke with the more I valued the information that my local shop had given me. The staff at my local shop had been friendly, very well informed, treated me like an intelligent person, and above all I felt they had been honest with me. I realized that I wanted to buy this bike from them regardless of the price.
Returning to my local shop I was startled by how similar this bike shop was to our own businesses. While I was speaking with the owner a stream of people came into the shop to talk cycling, to ask the owner for his thoughts on problems they were having with their bikes, to get advice on riding better, to check on merchandise they ordered, etc... There was an entire cycling community centered here and I found myself wanting to be part of it! Soon I was checking out cycling shoes, and a bunch of accessories to add onto the sale so that the owner would know that I valued the service he was providing and hoped to become part of this community, that I wasn't just here for the sale.
Since then I've returned many times to pick up energy gels and little odds and ends like cycling socks. These are all things that I could buy online cheaper, but I enjoy going down to the shop and 'participating' in my hobby. Like comics, cycling can be something of a solitary hobby, so having a place to talk to others about it is a real pleasure. And what's more, I want the shop to stay in business. I want the owner to be successful, and I'm more than happy to support them as I truly feel that I benefit tremendously from their success.
I wonder if the owner had any idea why I was really buying from them. They certainly hadn't stressed their knowledge, their expert ability to fit a rider to the bike, etc. They just provided me with a great experience. And I'm sure that they were just as worried about my price sensitivity as we are with our customers.
I encourage everyone to try this experiment on their own. Try investigating a new hobby. Go to a few music stores and learn about guitars. Or go to a pet store and look into starting a tropical aquarium. Just investigate something you know nothing about. Go to a few stores and see what impressions you get from each store. Because your hobby is something that you want to enjoy in your free time, and repeatedly going to a store that you don't like (even if it's cheaper) is no fun.
The opinions expressed in this Talk Back article are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.