Tony Reid offers his weekly dose of happenings inside Sports Zone, the Central Pennsylvania shop where he works.
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The owner was away this week at his beach house in the Carolinas, so that once again left me in charge. As I’ve mentioned before, we’re a true “hobby” shop that carries not just cards and sports memorabilia, but things remote control cars and other things and they’re a big part of our online sales. First thing Monday morning, I walked into 12 large boxes of RC car parts for our stock.
First things first, though, and that meant shipping out a few hundred orders that had come into the shop since Friday night–everything from sports card boxes to single cards and more “hobby” stuff we sell online.
Then I jumped right into those big boxes, which each contained hundreds if not thousands of parts per box. Monday definitely felt like a full day’s work and then some.
I had our new guy Evan helping me from 9:00 to 1:00, so he basically manned the front of the store the majority of the time while I processed all of our car parts in the back room. I’m sure many people think that working at a shop consists of just talking about baseball cards all day but let me assure you my Monday was a full day of work that felt like a job.
Walk in at any time and you’re liable to find a mix of graded and ungraded cards, boxes, packs, supplies, team gear, little trucks and just about anything else. If you own a sports collectibles shop, especially in a smaller community, it’s never a bad idea to diversify and serve multiple markets in store and online as long as you have the staff.
On Tuesday, we received a few versions of the debut Donruss UFC product. The blasters sold like hotcakes while the cellos and other varieties were more slow moving. It’s interesting that the Donruss UFC is still outpacing Prizm UFC in store and online for us.
We also managed to get some new 2022 Topps Gypsy Queen Baseball in hobby and blaster form, which have both been strong sellers for us out of the gate. We also had 2021 Prizm Football drop from the heavens for us on Tuesday. We scored hobby, No Huddle, blasters and mega varieties.
Even though we are near the lowest Buy It Now on eBay, surprisingly, they haven’t been super strong sellers for us to this point.
As if I didn’t get enough RC car parts earlier in the week, Wednesday had another round for us from the other company whose parts and cars we stock. Vroom, Vroom.
Thursday was really fun as we got our first bulk order of CSG graded cards returned to us. I began sorting and organizing upwards of a thousand cards that we are going to be inserting in our own brand new Mint Box.
These will be in the same vein as our Gem Mint boxes but only guarantee a graded 9 and above card which opens the doors to offer better players overall. We’ve been selling these in the shop and distributing them to other stores to meet the demand of collectors who have really embraced the idea.
It’s always exciting to open boxes of graded cards and be completely surprised by what card and grade comes next.
It must have been my lucky week as Friday offered up another double digit number of RC car part boxes to process, so by this point, I was pretty much ready for the week to be over.
As far as staffing was concerned, our new hire Evan was with with me Monday through Friday mornings to help with our large number of shipments and also with our customer service out front so that eased things up for me to a degree. Matt and Felix were in each afternoon, Thursday and Friday later in the week to help with shipments and RC car part questions, as that newer category falls way outside of my wheelhouse. There was a time not so long ago that if the owner was away I ran the store myself. That is just a physical impossibility at this point, so I appreciate Evan, Matt, Matt, Felix and their assistance.
Saturday was a pretty smooth day as days at the shop are concerned. We were a little light on orders and I had enough help to really keep the machine well oiled throughout the day. Don’t mind if I say I was counting down the hours till we locked the doors at 2 PM. I was definitely ready for my vacation to start. Ultimately, the week went smoothly, thanks in large part to our employees who did what they do best. We’re glad to be the go-to source for so many hobbyists, no matter what they love.
Hope everyone has a great week (I know I will). I’ll check back in again soon.
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