Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably noticed those funky vinyl toys called Pops, everywhere you turn. They are a giant in the collectibles scene, and in my shop Conquest Comics…it’s no different. With thousands of IP’s and licenses under their belt, there seems to be something for everyone.
We started carrying these badboys early in 2011, have grown from housing just a smattering to over 7000 different ones to choose from on our sales floor. All while working alongside Funko to produce a couple of Exclusives only available at our shop. Ah…the good ol’ days.
These days it’s about turning and burning em though. The clientele is so rabid and hardcore, that some of the more rare and hard to locate pieces literally last minutes at times. For example, we posted this pic on our Instagram Tuesday evening after hours of these 2 Spidey Pops, and about 20 minutes into Wednesday morning, both sets we had were long gone. Rabid I tell you!!!!
This background on Pops is why we strive to have the very best selection under one roof. That means an ever changing inventory to keep things fresh. One of my favorite ways to grow the stick is by purchasing collections from folks. There are are a gazillion different reasons people sell their Pops these days. Most aren’t even exiting the hobby but instead, narrowing a focus. Sometimes it’s a baby on the way, a needed emergency car repair, or they are moving to Texas. Whatever the reason, we are there with open arms to welcome in the new additions.
The issue for us lately is that there are so many Pop collections walking through our door, that we can afford to be very choosy and even a tad frugal when it comes to shelling out cash for collections. Most folks don’t come to us with grail pieces worth hundreds each. It happens, but I’d say 90% of collections we see are filled with average pieces & lower tiered exclusives. That stuff is awesome and I love getting it in, but we have a TON of that stuff already on the floor and in the back room. Therefore we have a rough rate that we pay per piece when it comes to Pops of that ilk, and if the seller balks…I’m ok if the seller walks. Especially since I know another collection of similar stature will walk through the door in a jiffy.
What’s even funnier to me are the times when multiple folks arrive at the same time to unload, which is exactly what happened yesterday. Two separate dudes arrived within minutes of each other and yup…I bought them both. One for $200 and the other for $175. So for the total of $375 bucks, I ended up with 77 pieces total of which we needed 56 on the sales floor. This breaks down to $4.86 a Pop. Not too shabby if ya ask me!
Below are the 56 that we needed on the floor. There are a few Chases, and a nice batch of Star Wars pieces.
Here are the remainder that we didn’t need as we already had em on the floor.
Our goal when buying these collections now is to try to hover around that $5.00 per piece mark although we have swung as low at $3.75 and as high as $10 depending on the lot. Obviously if the collection is full of grail pieces, the conversation changes drastically. But for average stuff like this, those are the numbers we aim for.
That might seem super low considering what the seller could potentially earn by selling online, but this is the bulk unload/no work route. Most folks are busy/lazy and have no time to deal with the pitfalls of selling online. I always tell them that they can make significantly more moving it online themselves, and once in a while they take my advice. But most just want to unload which I guess is my gain.
Oh, one of the guys also had these mixed in. Two McFarlane DC Multiverse figures along with a bag of around 100 loose (and filthy) Star Wars 3.75 figures. I didn’t rummage through that fully yet but the loose ones will end up in our Loose Figure Bins that get ransacked daily. While we will only get a few bucks a piece on those, I should be able to make back the entire purchase in this crappy little bag over some time ultimately making this lot completely risk free.
All in all, these collections will net us well over a grand which is a nice little chunk of change.
Thanks for reading my drivel!
Blewitt