EXPERTS LANE n SMALL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
Fighting the
Infinity War
By Malaya Dantzler-Bryan, Principal
Small Business Contracting Source
M
y husband loves comic book
movies. I think one of his favor-
ite pastimes is to drag me to see
every Marvel movie that comes
out each year. And there are many, many
that release. Of course, I loved "Black Pan-
ther" like everyone else, and enjoyed how
"Avengers: Endgame" tightly wound up the
stories that I have been forced to follow for
the past decade. While I’m not a huge com-
ic book fan I can tell the difference between
Spider-Man and Antman. But I couldn’t tell
you anything about Thanos, other than he’s
the big, blue guy with a fetish for sparkly
gloves. I’ve never held a comic book before,
much less read one. So, imagine the irony
when I received a call from a potential cli-
ent last month who needed help opening
a comic book store. I didn’t know anything
about comic books, but I understand the
problems that small businesses face. As an
expert in the field of business development,
I knew that I could be a valuable partner in
his business’ success.
I love the challenge of finding strategic
solutions for businesses, and so we met for
lunch and discussed his situation. His plan
was to sell some of his personal collection
of comic books and collectible figures to
turn a profit, and to reinvest some of the
funds into new products. He had a pretty
good plan, but he just needed the adviso-
ry services of Small Business Contracting
Source to steer him in the right direction.
The first thing we had to do was develop
an action plan, and at the top of that list,
was to decide on a commerce platform.
As we wanted to keep overhead costs to
a minimum, we decided that an online
store would maximize profits while keep-
8
IBA Success Magazine
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VOL 5, Issue 4
ing costs to a minimum. Of course, there
were several to choose from. Amazon has
the largest consumer base, but they do
have monthly fees that could severely im-
pact a startup. There are several websites
dedicated to comic book sales, such as
mycomicshop.com, but these tend to take
most of the profits for their services. In do-
ing my research I found that some dealers
even use Etsy to sell their comics, how-
ever this could be considered a violation
of their policy, and that community tends
to be more focused on purchasing hand-
crafted items. After much research and
deliberation, we agreed that eBay would
have the largest customer base, as well as
multiple options for selling.
So, my client set up his business, Sonny
Comics, on eBay. We opted not to pur-
chase the storefront option as the asso-
ciated monthly fees of $20+ were a little
much. Perhaps once his business grows
this could be a good option, as there are
many benefits to having an eBay store-
front, such as lower final transaction fees
and better exposure.
He sold quite a few comics in the first few
weeks, but wanted more exposure to in-
crease sales and establish his business
brand. We found that eBay offers a “pro-
motion” option where they will give prior-
ity to your listing for a percentage of the
final selling fee. He used an average of 5%
which is not bad for marketing. This really
boosted sales and he was quite pleased.
Until his monthly eBay invoice was due.
You see, eBay doesn’t take their cut with
each sale. They bill you for all your fees
monthly, so it looks like your profits are
way higher than they are. eBay takes 10%
for each sale. Plus, whatever percentage
you set for their marketing, in this case
let’s say 5%. On top of that, PayPal, the
only method that eBay now accepts for
payment, takes 6% per transaction. So,
that’s roughly 22% of total sales going to-
wards fees. I advised him to round up to
25% to allow variability of fees.
Armed with extensive research, a strate-
gic plan and growth projections, we were
able to establish competitive online prices
for his products. He knew that if he wanted
to make 100% profit on an item, he need-
ed to calculate it at 125% to account for
all the seller fees. Like Thanos snapping
his fingers at the end of "Infinity War,"
Sonny Comics is now doing a killing in
online sales. With the influx of new found
success, he has started to import products
from overseas to sell on his e-shop. But
navigating the sea of international bulk
purchasing is best left for another article.
There is money to be made in any type of
online retail business—the key is knowing
where to market and how much to charge
to maximize sales and profits. We here at
Small Business Contracting Source, Inc.
(SBCS) pride ourselves in helping our cli-
ents realize their dreams with unmatched
precision and tailored assistance, no mat-
ter what type of business you may have.
Contact us today for a free consultation.
Malaya Bryan
Principal
Small Business
Contracting Source
1-833-ASK-SBCS
www.SBCSinc.com
https://www.facebook.com/sbcsinc
https://www.instagram.com/sbcs_inc
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