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Shop Talk: Vacations, Deliveries and New Releases

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Tony Reid offers his weekly dose of happenings inside Sports Zone, the Central Pennsylvania shop where he works.

Last week meant rallying the troops to pitch in.  The owner of the shop was away on vacation and for the most part, I had ample amount of help over the course of the week. Our longtime associate Zach comes in to help me out for two or three hours each morning to help ship out what often amounts to hundreds of orders that pour in 24/7 thanks to our internet presence. 

A few days a week, a friend of the shop owner stops in to just simply help with listing new products, relisting old products and other odds and ends around the shop. In addition to Traci, we also have a local high school student, Graiden, who will also pop in to help cover the bases in the shop when needed. When we are doing the level of business we’re doing and I’m the only full-time employee it is much appreciated help to have such great help anytime I can get it.

 
Monday is generally just a whirlwind from start to finish, as we are shipping orders that came in from Saturday afternoon through Monday morning. Generally on Mondays we ship right up until the minute that our deliveries start flowing in and then we deal with whatever that entails.
 
We carry toys and other items and a flood of orders did mean we had to actually close the storefront for a few hours to handle the skids of merchandise that needed to be shipped out.  
 
As far as topics that I seem to bring up on a weekly basis, we got a large amount of Riddell mini helmets to stock up for the holiday season.  They always seem to be big sellers and we prepared by ordering upwards of 100 cases of the new Flash helmets as well as some of the vintage helmets. Being such a stickler for organization, I am almost too embarrassed to even share the picture of what our backroom looked like after the delivery.  
 
 
We’ve listed tons of them in our eBay store, too.  Of course, collectors love adding autographs to them.
 
It was a light, but fun week for sports card releases, as we saw 2021 Optic Baseball, 2021 Pro Set Metal Football and the much anticipated 2021 Panini Origins Football hit our shelves. We received a very limited amount of Optic and it actually sold before I could put it on the shelf as a customer in store bought every box we had. The appetite for new products continues to be strong, even some of those that don’t have full licenses. 
 
 
The newest NFL release, Origins started selling really well right out of the gate but we still have some inventory. It’s a product that offers some of the first on-card autographs of 2021 NFL rookies in their team’s uniforms.

 
For what it’s worth, we haven’t sold any of the Leaf Pro Set Metal Football we have for sale at a little over $200 per box.
 
 
The week ended on a bit of a down note as because of my obligations at the shop, I was not able to attend my son’s high school football game Friday night. It will be the only game I miss all season, so I found some solace in that fact. It turns out the boys won 28-14 and my son sealed the game with a last second interception.
 
 
Back at the shop, I did manage to spend the last few hours at work Friday evening with my new co-worker. She wasn’t getting much work done. She was actually spending a lot of time watching Blippi on YouTube.  Her mom and I think we will keep her around though.
 
 
Thanks for taking a look at my week. Ill be sure to check back in again soon.
 

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About Tony Reid

From the time he was a little kid, Tony has been a huge sports fan. If he could play sports, watch sports and talk about sports it was a great day. From as early as he was drawn to sports, Tony was drawn to collecting sports cards. Not much has changed over the years. He collects RCs of star players in baseball, basketball and football. He also has a soft spot for first autographs of MMA stars. If you want to talk to Tony about the greatness of Michael Jordan, Bo Jackson or Ken Griffey, Jr. you can reach him at @reidrattlecage on all social media platforms.