Since I was a little kid I wanted to own a comic/game store. I’ve dabbled with the idea, almost starting one with a friend back in 2010 and continuing to carry enough back issues to stock any store upon opening. Between older card games and at one point 100,000 comics, I was basically waiting to put it all into a store and flip the sign to Open. I’ve had offers to buy two stores that were hard to pass up and I had the opportunity to get on the ground floor of two other stores that I passed on. I like my online business and I don’t like being tied down, that’s what has kept me from an actual store so far but the dream has always been there.
Because of the growth and time needed to expand CategoryOneGames, my time spent on comics has been very minimal the past few years except for adding to my collection and watching as my comics to sell/trade continued to take up space. That changed with the success of Salt Lake Comic Con and an itch I had to be a vendor in a show. I viewed this as a way to clear out some of these comics and make some money at the same time. Plus, how fun would it be at a con selling stuff, that sounded too good to pass up.
This would be an interesting route, sell comics, board/card games and extra video games. If it went well, I would then sign up to do other local conventions around Utah and grow this area of CategoryOneGames while continuing to run its online side as normal. If this really took off, a store would be in the future. I signed up for Salt Lake Comic Con Fan X, bought some fixtures and hoped that things went well.
This picture is from Day 3 when we had already sold through some of our best items.
While at the event, a local store’s buyer came into our booth and liked the comics we had there and wanted to see the rest of what we had to sell. I told him it was around 60 long boxes (around 15,000 comics) and that I would possibly be interested in selling them. I’m not sure if he looked at us as future competition waiting to happen or if he just really wanted our comics, but he told me to give him a call, handed me his card and that was the last I saw of him. I didn’t think a lot of it at the time, if I had it when packing up from the con, I probably would have sold them to him right then, but I waited and my desire to sell everything went away.
We actually did do really well for being the first time at a con, not as well as I wanted, but decent enough that I would plan on doing more of them. I planned out all the other local conventions as well as smaller city festivals and events where having a booth at would be less expensive but would provide a great way to get in front of people who normally wouldn’t see who we are with little to no competition at these events.
My Daughter with the Salt Lake City Ghost Busters group. She’s obsessed with Ghost Busters and came to the con in her own costume/uniform and was super excited to see people who were as into it as she was.
I recently received reservation information for a booth with Salt Lake Comic Con in September as well as Salt Lake Gaming Con in August. I was debating on signing up for a booth when I decided I would call the store that had talked to me at Fan Expo and see if they would be interested in my comics. While doing Cons sounds fun, it is hard work, lots of stress and it does take away from my main business, selling cards online. Was it worth it to take that time away from CategoryOneGames to make some quick side cash or was it just worth it to continue to hustle and build the site? The store owner and the store’s buyer came over the other evening, went through our stuff and decided it was worth purchasing, we worked out a deal and both sides were happy – well except the part where we had to haul over 60 long boxes of comics up a flight of stairs and try to fit them into a minivan and the back of a truck.
The only comics I have left are from my own collection and that dream of opening a comic store slowly faded that evening. While I still am sad about it, it has opened up more room in my work space and has given me a lot more drive for CategoryOneGames. I no longer have to worry about splitting any time with comics or at a convention, all focus is aimed at making CategoryOneGames.com the best online source for Classic Card Games.
I’m hungry and I’m working every day until I’m exhausted. We have hired on more employees, we are working on getting more and more cards sorted and on the site. We are working on new games and trying to bring on games that you might have loved but forgotten about. We want to have every classic game easily available for you to pickup and play at a moments notice.
This drive does not escape our Core games. Star Wars CCG is continuing to see record movement. The game is strong and the market is pushing the game forward. We are continuing to restock and move through cards at record pace. We have opened our buylist so that we are buying more cards than ever and getting them into your hands as quick as possible. We are working on fixing the Search functionality of the game, once it is completed, it will be super easy to break down cards and find exactly what you’re looking for.
Star Trek and Lord of the Rings both have huge restock coming. This is 10,000 plus Rare cards for both of these games that will be hitting the site this summer.
We are dedicated and hustling for you.
This blog doesn’t get as updated as often because the work of getting your cards out is more important to me. Getting new games on, restocking, packing, all of that comes before blog posts. I’m going to start putting aside time though to start updating more. This is going to include comic book reviews, concert reviews, TV/Games/Movies, whatever reviews in addition to talking about all the great things happening with C1G.
