Hobby Shop Talk

Although we are headed into the fourth quarter of our calendar year and revving up for the craziness of the holiday season that is to come, I wanted to put the brakes on for a brief moment and reflect back to some of the sports card products that have sold best for us so far this year.We have a saying in our store that football is king, so that's as good a place as any to start … [Read more...] about Shop Talk: Hottest Card Products Year to Date

I say often that I'm actually a really big fan of rain. Most people's first reaction to that is some level of bewilderment. This week even put a rain lover like me to the test and had me asking Mother Nature what the heck was going on.Between Wednesday and Thursday, we saw over seven inches of rain fall in our fair city thanks to the remnants of Hurricane Ida. That's a large … [Read more...] about Shop Talk: Rain Problems, New Product, Breaks, UPS Changes

The owner of the shop spent this past week at his beach house in the Outer Banks which left me running the show. Zach helped out a few mornings early in the week and my guy Kyle was back Wednesday through Saturday to help out. It was bittersweet seeing Kyle leave Saturday as it was his last day with us he's returning to Lancaster Bible College to finish out his senior … [Read more...] about Shop Talk: More Vacations, Large Deliveries, Friday Night Lights

I'll start this installment by saying we continued our trend of buying mid to high end rookie slabs over the course of the week.  We were able to add some nice eye candy to the showcase, including more high grade 2000 Tom Brady rookie cards, some PSA 10 2010 Topps Rob Gronkowski rookies and even some high-grade versions of Steph Curry's 2009-10 rookie cards.  Every … [Read more...] about Shop Talk: Cards, Crosscutters and Customers

I must say sitting in Central Pennsylvania last week, I had a pretty legitimate case of FOMO as the collective collectibles world converged on Chicago for the National. The only thing that kept me going was that I could live vicariously through social media and the daily coverage of the show on this website.  We've already made the decision as a store to make the trip … [Read more...] about Shop Talk: Becoming a Shop with Teeth, Basketball Bricks, National FOMO

On this week's Shop Talk, I'd like to discuss a topic familiar to a lot of business owners these days:  staffing.When I first approached Jason, the owner of Sports Zone, the Pennsylvania hobby shop where I work a little over three years ago, he wasn't certain he could add a full-time employee, but he took a chance.The pay wasn't life changing, but it was good enough to get by … [Read more...] about Shop Talk: Good Help is Great to Find