Comic Book Curator Creates Custom Crate Subscription

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

Video games, tabletop games, and other nostalgic or whimsical hobbies of old that return to life as someone gets older, this has been a theme lately and it continues today with comic books. Now in today's story, a Sacramento-based comic and collectibles owner sparks an interest in reading with a monthly comic book subscription box service. We're gonna talk about why subscription boxes are particularly a good fit for this particular business. Now also it turns out that we previously featured this guy's wife more than 250 episodes ago. You know what they say, the family that side us all stays together.

That was episode 418, by the way, Gardening Mama Monetizes Frugal Living Blog. So it seems this couple is all about gardening and frugal living and comic books, but they're also interested in making money. So that's what I'm gonna tell you about today. Now as it turns out, I learned this as I went along in the research, this episode also features some true confessions of my childhood love for My Little Pony. Do you know My Little Pony?

If you don't, after this episode, you're gonna have to go and Google search My Little Pony. It is true, when I was a boy, I really liked My Little Pony, at least for a year or two. I just kind of forgot all about that until, you know, I don't know, 100 years went by and I recorded this episode and remembered. So yeah, obviously after I finished this episode myself, I'm gonna have to go out and get something new for my desk. Maybe I can find that on eBay or mylittlepony.com, who knows?

But anyway, more to the point, more to your relevant interests, I'm gonna tell you all about this comic book curator who creates a custom create subscription. Fun times, it's all coming right up after this quick shout out to our sponsor. [Music]

Gene Farley has been reading comics since he was a little kid. They've always been a source of joy for him. He even thought how cool it would be to one day own a comic book store.

Well, Gene grew up and two years after he got married, opportunity came knocking. The owners of the comic shop he'd been going to longer than Iron Man's feud with Loki decided to sell. At the time, Gene was a graphic designer. His wife, Pam, featured inside a school episode 418, was an administrative assistant. When he asked her about buying the store, Gene imagined her slamming the hammer of Thor down on him with an emphatic no.

Instead, she said, okay, cool, let's do that. So one day in early April of 1998, they matched out their credit cards and bought the comic book store. And by the way, don't try this at home. This is not about maxing out your credit card because we're gonna fast forward to 2018, where Gene is still running the comic book store alongside his wife. Business is good.

They survived the recession. They survived countless comic and pop culture fads. And one day, Gene and Pam were reminiscing about the good old days when you used to bike down the street to your neighborhood, 7-Eleven, blow your week's allowance on a larger than life cherry flavored Slurpee, and spend the rest of your day in sugary bliss reading Avengers comic books. This thought caused Gene to wonder, what if there was a way to get kids off their electronics and I don't know, maybe open a book or something? He knew how important reading had been to his success.

He also believed that comics are a great way to spark interest in reading. Further, he knew that comic book people already know where to get their comics. However, that market is already covered. Busy parents may not have the time to make a special trip to the comic book store and figure out which comics are appropriate for their kids. In other words, his whole goal is to reach new readers.

Gene's utility belt taser struck him with an idea. What if he started a subscription box service where customers could get comics delivered to their homes once a month? His spotty sense then kicked in and he devised a plan. All the customer would have to do is choose a G-rated or PG-rated comic book crate. He'd use his knowledge of comics, what was popular that comic season, and any special information about the recipient to create a crate or a box, basically a package that comes in the mail, that will match either rating.

He didn't believe in assigning age or gender to the crates. He didn't want kids to feel weird if they're older, but they want to read Disney, or if they're boys who want to read "My Little Pony." This brings us to that side note. When I read that, I was like, "My Little Pony." I forgot about that, 'cause when I was a kid, like I said, I had a brief little phase of infatuation with "My Little Pony." It just lasted a year or two and I forgot all about it. But then, also, I mentioned mylittlepony.com, and after I mentioned that, I was like, oh man, I'm worried that that site is something really bad now. I won't say anymore because we do actually have some kids listening to the program, but you know what I mean.

And I actually went to look at that site, and no, everything is good. It's actually owned by Hasbro, which is the manufacturer that makes "My Little Pony," and they're not a sponsor of the show, by the way. I just was kind of like going down memory lane. And I saw they have a whole "My Little Pony" history timeline, beginning in 1983, which is probably about when I discovered them. And apparently, they're still going strong today.

You can shop on this website. You can explore some online videos, which they didn't have in 1983 because they didn't have online. You can check out some activities for every pony, but anyway, I should probably get back to the story because that's why you actually listen to the show. Our sponsors are going to be like, "What are you doing, Chris? Next week, a 12-part special series brought to you by "My Little Pony." All right, so did this subscription box service idea actually work?

Well, indeed it did. Gene was excited because based off of the customers he already had from his comic book shop, he got some annual subscribers right away. Comic Crate, as he called it, was a hit. His startup costs were very low since he already had the comics. He already had the comic book shop, you know.

He just needed to buy things like padded envelopes, customer survey postcards, and business cards. These materials ran him $75. He then signed up with Crate Joy, which costs $39 a month, and Gene uses the tools provided by Crate Joy, plugged all those into his existing brick and mortar website, brick and mortar website, right? And Shazam, success. He personally picks and packs the boxes while working at the shop so there's no need to hire additional labor.

After shipping, packaging, and the Crate Joy fee, Gene is seeing about a $10 profit per box. He's slowly adding more subscribers and sees this as offsetting that monthly Crate Joy fee entirely. The price varies by subscription term. Each crate holds six comics, along with an extra free goodie, like a bookmark or art print, and all the pricing tiers are paid in advance. So you can pay month by month, which is $25, six months, a prorated amount of $22.50, or a one-year prepaid subscription, which works out to $20 a month.

He doesn't just ship once a month, he ships every two to three days because he doesn't want kids to have to wait long for their orders. So if you place an order, you're gonna get it really soon. This makes things a bit crazy for him at times, but he insists that the kids get their comics faster than a speeding locomotive. Comic Crate now sends comic books to kids, parents, and teachers all over the US. Gene believes everyone can benefit from reading comics.

He's using them as literacy tools, reluctant readers, English language learners, and of course, comic book fans can all benefit. Since launching in July of this year, Comic Crate has been averaging a few thousand dollars a month in sales. Gene is focusing on organic traffic only for now. He's not doing any paid advertising since his brick and mortar store, like the actual store, is still their bread and butter. His advice to someone following the subscription box model is do not try to build everything from scratch.

There's a lot of work required up front, and Gene originally wanted to bring on the incredible Hulk to help with all that heavy lifting. Apparently, the Hulk doesn't know much about web development. So what's on the horizon for Gene and Comic Crate? Well, he has been thinking of adding another rating level to his service, a teen level, and he says this could expand his audience significantly. [Music]

Okay, so we have talked about subscription boxes a number of times.

If you're interested, you can just come to the website, statusolschool.com and search subscription box on that main podcast or episodes page. You can see a whole bunch of different stories, case studies, examples. Now, one of the things I mentioned sometimes as a challenge of this kind of business, there's lots of benefits. Benefits, you're getting paid every month, you know how many customers you have, et cetera. One of the challenges is building critical mass.

So I think in this case, this example, it works really, really well because he already has a comic book shop. And so this is an extension of that. This is allowing him to reach other customers, new customers perhaps, with the inventory he already has. It's directly related to his main business, as opposed to someone coming into this business completely fresh and new. I think this is super smart.

It reminds me of a wine shop or cafe I've been to a couple of times that does something similar. They have this monthly customer program, a monthly member program, and they are just really good at converting people, even just casual visitors to this program because the benefits are really solid. You get this free bottle of wine each month because these big discounts when you go in, they do special above and beyond things for their customers. And I haven't joined it yet myself. I'm not a big wine drinker, but the point is like, I'm not a big wine drinker, and I'm already thinking about joining it because they've done such a good job of marketing it.

And that's another example of something that's an extension. Like they have a wine shop, they have a cafe, and so they're trying to build on that loyalty, perhaps for each new people, but also just kind of bring in their people more frequently or just increase the customer loyalty to their particular business. So good for him. Congratulations, Gene, and thank you for the throwback about My Little Pony as well. That was cool.

I'm not sure our listeners love that as much as I did, but I, for one, am grateful. And listeners, I am grateful to you as well every single day. Thank you for allowing this show to continue. We make it for you. As always, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better.

Today's show notes, including links to everything I mentioned, the Comet Create service, the Create Joy service, My Little Pony, perhaps. All those things are at sidehustleschool.com/685. This has been episode 685 of the show, and so much more is on the way because of you. Again, thank you. Again, my name is Chris Guillebeau.

I'll be back with you tomorrow. Be sure you're subscribed to Side Hustle School.