The Story So Far

So, it’s been roughly 6 months since we opened, and I get a lot of people asking how things are going. I thought it might be nice to write something talking about that, maybe a bit about our plans for the future, and what I’ve learned since opening the shop.

First off (and this is the most important bit of this whole thing), thank you to everybody who comes in, who buys books from us, who believes in shopping locally, who uses us to order things for them, who has set up a subscription or who tells their friends about us.  I know it gets said a lot, by lots of different companies, and it risks becoming trite or meaningless - but I mean it from the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU!  Running my own comic shop, next to the sea, is, genuinely, one of the best things I have done in my life.  Of course there are times when that doesn’t feel true (usually when I’m poring over a spreadsheet of book titles at 1am) but the positives outweigh the negatives by far - and I couldn’t do this without all of you.  So thank you for that.

It’s probably a bit late to talk about what the aims are for the shop.  Maybe I should have done that 6 months ago, but whatever.  We are trying to provide somewhere that people can come to learn about new things.  That’s it, pretty much.  I want to give people who are “into comics” somewhere to come and talk to other people like us, find things we like (or things we don’t) and I want to give people who think they “don’t like comics” things that make them realise that yes, actually, they do.  Comics are just books with art in them (I know, but bear with me).  “Not liking comics” is like saying you don’t like art, or books, or films.  Maybe you don’t like Batman, no worries, he can be pretty obnoxious, but we’ll be able to find something else for you.  There are a whole range of “books with art in them”, we’re trying to show you some that you might like.  Oh, and kids. I love hearing kids getting excited about comics.  So introducing kids to comics is the other thing that we’re trying to do.

And I hope it goes without saying, but the shop is a safe space for anybody.  Whoever you are, you can come here and be welcome.  I run a comic shop pretty much just so I get to read comics all day and play around with spreadsheets.  You’re good.

How Things Are Going…

Financially the shop is “healthy”.  What I mean by that is that we’re not losing money and we’re not about to close.  There are absolutely things we can do to improve (I could learn not to spend all of the takings on more stock, for a start) but it’s definitely improved as I’ve learned more about what to buy and what to leave, and got better deals with suppliers.  We more than broke even in January and February, which are the worst months of the year, and we’ve sold more in each month after that.  It will be interesting to see how things go over the Summer but this is much better than I worried about before we opened (my business plan literally has a section called “What Happens If We Don’t Sell Anything?”), so we’re not going anywhere soon.

What Are We Going to Do in the Future?

The plan at the moment is to run the shop for a year and then sit down and take stock, and decide what to do next.  We’ve done the basic stuff - we’ve set up a loyalty scheme, we’ve established relationships with lots of suppliers and built up a customer base.  We ran our first Free Comic Book Day in May, and that went really well.  So next year we’ll do it again, but maybe with more free stuff, and maybe we’ll get an artist or two in to sign some things.  At the moment I’m still feeling my way - finding out what works and what doesn’t, and that’s fine.  Once I know how busy it gets in the Summer, or at Xmas, then I can plan better for next year.

I do get a lot of people asking about vintage comics but we just don’t have space at the moment.  So we’re not planning on setting that up soon.  Eventually it would be nice to have some long boxes that people can look through and when that happens we’ll let you know.  Apart from that we’ll get some T-shirts printed up and some Tote bags at some point too.  You know, the usual shop stuff.

And finally, it is Small Press Day on 19th July.  Come and meet Nicholas Woodhead, who writes and draws “Wetnurse” and other books.  Plus, we will have some kind of create your own comic activity!

What Have I Learned?

I had no retail experience before I set the shop up.  I’d never spoken to a supplier, or bought stock, or even used Instagram.  So everything has been a learning curve.  All of it.  And I’m still learning a lot of it.  

And there are a LOT of comics.  I cannot stress this enough.  There are so many.  And now there’s manga.  And there is EVEN MORE of that.  And we are a small shop.  So if you come in and you’re thinking “God, he hasn’t even got any of The Bear by Tim Bisley” then tell me!  I try my best to keep on top of stuff but it’s impossible.  I will miss things and there will be things that I look at and think “that will never sell” and then be all surprised when there’s a queue of people asking for it.

And that leads onto the last thing I want to talk about.  Pre-ordering is so important.  I cannot send much of this stuff back.  If I buy it then I pretty much have to sell it.  So if you want to get a regular monthly comic then tell me.  I am not going to order many copies of things on the off chance that somebody buys it.  So, the chances are, that when you come in to get it somebody else will have already bought it.  So tell me.  Then I can just save a copy for you, you don’t miss anything, and I don’t have a shop full of my ordering mistakes. Everybody wins.

Anyway, well done for sticking to the end! Thank you again if you have used the shop in any way.  Our customers have been a joy to help and talk to.  Reading and talking about comics all day, what a life!  

 

I’m going to start a regular blog about books that come in - taking a bit more of an in-depth look than we can do on Instagram or Bluesky.  So please check back occasionally and see what’s new.  Or follow us on Bluesky (@lighthousecomics.co.uk‬) or Instagram (@lighthouse.comics) and I’ll let you know whenever I write something.