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"Our Biggest Growth Area Has Been Russia" – Chuck Rozanski On The Changing Face Of Mile High Comics

Published Thu, 06 Mar 2014 13:00:21 -0600

After running an article on the changing prices at Mile High Comics, I talked to owner Chuck Rozanski on the phone about these changes… and how his market is changing. He told me,

We did a test earlier this year where we lowered prices on some of the books that we offered on lower grades to see if the effect of lowered the prices would be enough to offset the lost margin that we would have experience, the customers responded so thatthe answer was an unequivocal yes… we decided that we could could ahead and extend that across a much larger spectrum of the comics that we offer

This falls within the framework of our primary goal, always have a very very broad selection, and that's a balancing act, its very hard to simultaneous have low prices and also be able to carry over a hundred thousand different titles and issue numbers in stock all the time because there's the implied carrying cost of carrying all that inventory, so where you find the sweet spot, the best price you can but still being able to afford to offer that really wide spectrum, is very difficult. I don't say that by any means we hit that all the time were sometimes viewed as being overpriced, sometimes as understocked, I'm trying to find a place where it serves the needs of as many fans as possible.

The other causation to change the prices was that I did a buying trip to the east coast in January and found that I have several major new suppliers of back issues who've offered be deals where I can afford to sell them at the prices I have now

When my costs went down I felt more comfortable passing reductions on to the people that buy from us.

I asked about is previously stated strategy, to overcharge to so as not to flood the market.

That was the strategy that I had back in the 1970s and to a certain extent we still use that strategy with our own variants, if you do a Marvel variant, that's an $8000 upfront expense, we have the working capital to advertise that over a period of time but we don't want to flood the market with our books that some folk do, it hurts the value of the book that people buy from you.

There are thousand sites on the internet to buy comics, very few with be comprehensive in any area and we try to be comprehensive in every area. Our rent along is $35,000 a month in rental space we have to cover those costs somehow. we either have to have high margins or high volumes to cost justify that. we've been going with high margins, we're trying doing a little bit more in the way of high volumes and the response has been extraordinary.

It's been greater in a higher grade, when I put the sale in effect we sold 10,000 copies in 24 hours. That's a pretty strong response. My goal is going to try and maintain this now. Now the challenge is for restocking rather than selling.

Considering how long Mile High Comics have been in business, I asked how the comic collector market was changing today,

Today, there are no comics that are impossible to find. Maybe some obscure 1950s comic or very small underground comics that are impossible to get but 99% of comics are a known commodity, buying them like gasoline or milk, people looking to save a nickel here, a nickel there. Basically, we don't want to be the Wal Mart of comics, that is not our goal but at the aame time we don't want to be, or the Sears or JC Penny, only dealing with the elite either, we want to be somewhere comfortable, so we can stock and do a good job but we don't have to do it on a cut throat basis. If we could be the CostCo or the Target, a great selection but also with really good value.

But what grabbed the headline for me was exactly whoi Mile High Comics was selling to.

The comics industry right now is exploding overseas, something that almost no one is aware of. Prior to our changing these prices, nearly 50% of our daily volume was coming from international buyers, and these new buyers that are being stimulated by a combination of media exposure to the films, but also, and this is vastly more important, the fact that they can read comics now online for free, because they're doing downloads, some of them are paying the publishers but I highly doubt it, the majority of folks are being able to sample comics now online online in the same way when we were young people we were able to sample them at grocery stores by just standing there at the spin rack reading it for free, well, the internet has become the world's largest spinrack. You can read comics now, all day, night, long, for free.

One of our biggest growth areas has been Russia. All sorts of Russian customers that are placing orders with us. Now what the hell, where did they come from? The answer has to be that they've were able to sample online and that sampling has driven demand. The world is changing very very rapidly. We're exporting enormous numbers of comics right now.

American popular culture is being exposed to a billion or more people with each film. The majority of those don't read English, it won't create a tidal wave of demand but it's growing very, very steadily. Our biggest market for lower grade silver age and bronze age comics is overseas. And that's weird, but I go to the American East Coast where there is potential supply New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, I buy them by the truckload ship them in packages to South Africa, Russia, France, and the developing world is our biggest growth market.

It's a been a lie that's been sold to the American people that the world hates America. The truth is, the world loves America and that's probably down to the exporting of its pop culture. And comic books are as American pop culture as they can get.

And as for Russia… well, he seems to be doing a fine impression of Putin in the photograph at the top of this article.

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