NintendoAge http://nintendoage.com/forum/ -Sqooner ​Please do not give Comics Plus in Macon, GA your business. http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=5&threadid=163332 2016-09-20T00:02:02 -05.00 CZroe 32 Originally posted by: killerkobra

There is a comic shop in my neighbourhood that is simular. The guy has tons of aweosme toys and old signs(etc) but has no prices and gets mad when you ask to buy something. I have been going to his shop since I can remember so I constantly bug him. He gets right mad and yells at me lol. Half the time hes on his computer playing some game and ignores costumers completely. But I still go back and give him bussiness lol. Sounds like a classic hoarder. Haha. 

There's only a Game Xchange here and they have little to zero retro stuff,so I don't have to worry about dealing with rude store owners since I don't shop there.

  ]]> ​Please do not give Comics Plus in Macon, GA your business. http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=5&threadid=163332 2016-09-19T13:09:37 -05.00 CZroe 32 ​Please do not give Comics Plus in Macon, GA your business. http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=5&threadid=163332 2016-09-18T22:55:21 -05.00 CZroe 32
There are some people that Start off as a collector, and really enjoy a hobby. Time passes and they seemingly get the Job they always dreamed about. But then time passes.

So time passes and day after day they have to deal exclusively with there favorite hobby everyday, meeting new collectors, old collectors, and people that ask too many questions.

So slowly, they start to actually hate there own hobby, and lose all passion for it. So when genuine, nice people come in, they couldn't care less because they are already pretty well clocked out in there head and couldn't care one way or another about anything to do with there original hobby.

Ok, so while that's all well and good your story sounds awful, I've been to shops like that, (run down comic shops, coin shops, etc), and had similar experiences, (Nothing this bad though). That being said, this is *NOT* everyone who opens a store, as I've met lifelong owners who still enjoy what they do and will put genuine effort In helping customers get what they need. As they are business owners, and not burned out cynics who despise what they do as a result of owning a store. We have a store in Omaha called Ben's game zone, who the owner worked himself up from being a side business in his parents thrift store, to owning his own shop. And that is an example of a business owner who loves what he does, and cares about his customers. If you are ever in Omaha check the place out, he's a really cool dude!

On the flip side, there is a comic/card/collectables shop who is more of what your talking about, seemingly not caring about customers, and assuming everyone is a person who won't buy anything and doesn't deserve there time.

Now, there are two ways I like to handle this and it depends on the situation.

If the place has things you want and is unhelpful and rude
Act as much like you don't know what your doing at all, and just when they have already determined in there mind you are wasting there time, change personas and go super sonic with your knowledge and drop like 80 bucks and be as nice as possible about it. I wish I had a camera the three or so times I've done that.

And the second way is to just leave and never come back. If you live around there, probably tell your friends about your experience and just don't shop there. Because, in the end, it's all about the money and business is business. MLK and the civil rights movement did this tactic and it forced a complete overhaul of an entire system and changed the way the country works forever. Now that example is probably pretty extreme but you get my point.

So next time you run into this kind of store, (Make sure that you actually know this is someone who is rude, unhelpful, and couldn't care less) try one of those two tactics.

Or just go full dick mode and move stuff around in the store. Luke Skywalker is now a G.I. Joe, the flash comics apparently replaced much of the walking dead comics for some reason, and 90's action figure batman gave up the crime fighting thing for his real paasion, hanging out with my little pony plushe and becoming a bronie. ]]> ​Please do not give Comics Plus in Macon, GA your business. http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=5&threadid=163332 2016-06-12T19:15:31 -05.00 CZroe 32 Originally posted by: ZeldaMaster64

Originally posted by: CZroe
 
Originally posted by: Mega Tank

Are you trying to visit all stores in GA?  
I wish I had the time.   The three closest shops closed unexpectedly within a month's time and now I do feel like I need to visit as many as I can before it's too late.  

Stay away from Max Video Games in Woodstock, GA if you're ever near there. They offer the same service and mess up your games by breaking them upon resurfacing them. I learned that the hard way, they destroyed my copy of Smash Bros. Melee and the owner is the same unhelpful jackass you discribed.
 


Max games wasn'the that bad before it became Max games. They had fairly decent prices when it was Play n trade. After it burned down and moved the selection is horrible and over priced. ]]> ​Please do not give Comics Plus in Macon, GA your business. http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=5&threadid=163332 2016-06-12T19:05:31 -05.00 CZroe 32 Originally posted by: CZroe

Man, that encounter was so bad it almost made me forget about another vendor at Smiley's Flea Market. I don't know the shop's name but he's the biggest game vendor there and has a shop in the air-conditioned building.

Long story short: Pick something because it's a good price and this super-slow dude raises the prices for anything under PriceCharting values, no matter how minor the difference! He does this AFTER the customer has selected it based on the stated price. THAT'S NOT COOL. I understand that he doesn't want to get ripped off, but since when has PriceCharting been the minimum for ALL titles, popular or not?!

His building was closed when I went by at 7:45AM. I went by again at 10:45AM and found no sign that it had ever been open or that he was coming back. I left wondering what kind of cool stuff I was missing out on. After my Craigslist meet and my Comics Plus incident, I stubbornly came back to the flea market and was happy to see that this vendor was now open.

First, he's not negotiable AT ALL and almost all of his prices are ridiculous. He was constantly trying to see what I was doing on my phone (checking my list) while listening to every word exchanged privately between my brother and I. For example, Ichinisan wanted to verify with me how much our sealed Pokemon Puzzle League closed for last year because this guy was charging 3x as much for a loose copy. When I told him and expressed surprise, the vendor interrupted to say that he has to pay $300 rent a month. Not only is that COMPLETELY irrelevant to what a game is worth, but so what? ALL vendors have expenses. Even personal sales on eBay need to cover expenses to be worth it.

Even though almost everything was GROSSLY over-priced, there were several things that seemed right and a few that were probably worth it. I picked out several things from the display case and asked to see a few more because their prices weren't visible. He took about 5 minutes to pull out each one from the stack but he was old and his hands were shaky (clearly due to some condition; I didn't complain). I gave him advice: you might want to put only one of each title in the display case and keep the others locked up in a more accessible case. That way you often will not have to reach in to pull games from the middle of a huge stack." He just said "I have a game shop to run." Uhh, yeah. That's why I was giving you advice. :/

Compounding him taking 3-5 minutes to pull each game out (not exaggerating), he would completely stop and start looking something up on his phone after each game. My knees were KILLING me from leaning on his concrete floor telling him "fourth one up from this column; first gray cart; sitting on top of three black carts; no, that's one of the black ones; I need the first gray one from the bottom." I swear, I repeated all that 10x for one game and had just as much trouble with others, so I was very frustrated when he'd just leave me straining down there to do whatever he was doing with each one. After about the third one I couldn't believe 20mins had passed and yet he had the nerve to say that I should pay him for all the time this was taking! D: I mean, complaining about having to retrieve the merch people want to buy from you is pretty bad business, but I shrugged it off, smiled, and said "well, they gotta come out at some point to be sold, right?"

A short time later I realized that the reason he was taking so much time between pulls was that he was on PriceCharting looking up prices and RE-STICKERING EVERY SINGLE GAME I SELECTED! He had a sign that said he reserved the right to change prices, which is BS because no one can just reserve the right to bait and switch. We had to go through an hour's worth of effort to pull out barely anything and now he's basically PriceCharting: The Videogame Store for everything?! Why don't I just buy it off price-charting?!

I haggled about how I wanted Return of the Joker for Mr. Gimmick so the value of RotJ is not so relevant to me (yeah, not the best logic on my part). I pointed out that he had another copy of Arkista's Ring stickered for the same price as before he changed this one, etc. I managed to get most things for the sticker price but had to meet him in the middle for some of the others. What got me was when he called them his lower prices "anomalies" if the price came up higher on PC than he had stickered them for, even if it was clearly a recent spike of only a few bucks on a $20 game. The only reason he seemed willing to do what he did (let me have them near sticker price) was because he was trying to close. He told me "I don't mean to rush you but I have to be closed by X:XX." I had to stifle some internal laughter because he was the reason this was taking forever. I walked in, picked 8 games I wanted, and it took him a freakin' HOUR to get them ready for me. Actually, he rung up 7 and forgot to get the 8th until I said something!

Well, I can TOTALLY see how he has trouble paying his $300 rent when it takes him that long to sell to an eager buyer... and he only has two days a week to sell... and spends half of the day closed... and he might as well not even price games since anything appearing to be worth it gets changed to a price you could get it for any day of the week right in front of your eyes... and almost everything else is at least DOUBLE PriceCharting prices.

Good luck to him though. Clearly, he needs it.
There is a store here like that... The owner and employees are too busy playing magic to actually do their jobs. The owner reprices everything at the counter. The first time I was there I bought 4-5 NES games and the next time I went in they had pulled around 400 games from the back, so I grabbed about 20 of them and the owner tried to bump all the prices to well above ebay. I told him no and walked out. I was back afew weeks later and an employee gave them to me at marked prices(which im sure were from 2001-2005). The employee told me that he wasnt going to do anything illegal(repricing) for the owner since the owner treated everyone bad including employees.
  ]]> ​Please do not give Comics Plus in Macon, GA your business. http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=5&threadid=163332 2016-06-12T18:51:15 -05.00 CZroe 32
Yard sales and estate sales around the area were very good to me there too. ]]> ​Please do not give Comics Plus in Macon, GA your business. http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=5&threadid=163332 2016-06-12T13:22:44 -05.00 CZroe 32 Originally posted by: CZroe
 
Originally posted by: ZeldaMaster64
 
Originally posted by: CZroe
 
Originally posted by: Mega Tank

Are you trying to visit all stores in GA?  
I wish I had the time.   The three closest shops closed unexpectedly within a month's time and now I do feel like I need to visit as many as I can before it's too late.  

Stay away from Max Video Games in Woodstock, GA if you're ever near there. They offer the same service and mess up your games by breaking them upon resurfacing them. I learned that the hard way, they destroyed my copy of Smash Bros. Melee and the owner is the same unhelpful jackass you discribed.
 

I just heard a vendor say yesterday that you should never resurface GameCube games because it usually destroys them.   

That's not entirely true, it depends on how deep the scratches are but in this case they cracked the disc. ]]> ​Please do not give Comics Plus in Macon, GA your business. http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=5&threadid=163332 2016-06-12T11:49:12 -05.00 CZroe 32 Originally posted by: HIGHscores

I thought everyone on the east coast were jackasses.
And the west coast. And... Everyone inbetween!  
  ]]> ​Please do not give Comics Plus in Macon, GA your business. http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=5&threadid=163332 2016-06-12T10:20:39 -05.00 CZroe 32 Originally posted by: CZroe
Comics Plus was not at the flea market. The guy who was at the flea market was actually inside an indoor mall area (Smiley's Flea Market actually distinguishes it from the flea market as the air-conditioned ""Smiley's Mall."). He says that he's been there 17.5 years, rings you up on a register, and charges tax, so it's safe to say that it's really a storefront.

As for being there to sell his wares to whoever will buy with no concern for repeat business: SURE DIDN'T SEEM SO! He knew I wasn't coming back because I told him: I told him how glad I was that he was open on my return trip because I lived over two hours away and would likely never be here again. I was probably the easiest buyer he's ever had and yet he put up a lot of resistance and complained that I wanted to buy his things!

I go to flea markets and yard sales every single weekend I have off so I am perfectly familiar with how they operate. You're right: a lot of these people do this because they'd never cut it if they had to answer to a boss and satisfy regular clientele. They want to be their own boss specifically so they can do what they want and not take crap from anyone. I get that, but believe me when I tell you that this guy was WAY out of line.

I never told him how to run his shop. I am VERY mindful about that. It blew my mind when he actually complained about having to pull games out that a customer wanted to buy. Rather than express shock at this, the nicest way I could respond was by sympathizing while suggesting how he could make things easier for himself. I apologized and sympathized repeatedly for each game I picked without a hint of complaint despite my hidden shock/disbelief.

There were THOUSANDS of unorganized NES games stacked from the bottom to the top all the way against the glass and hundreds (possibly thousands) more behind them that no one could see making it even harder for him to get games from the front. A display case that conceals games and prevents you from selling even the games customers can see?! It was borderline ridiculous and not the typical display you are imagining. Removing dupes would have gone a long way to making it the kind of display case you're thinking of. These were just locking customers away from browsing and making it almost impossible to sell.

For the comic shop guy: we made it clear what we were looking for and he made no attempt to help. This was not a locked drawer or a display case. This was not even a fixture for merchandise. My job for a major retailer is to spot clients who look like they need help and then dispatch a sales associate/manager/security. We have similar situation probably 50 times a week. Even when it's a situation we think requires security or additional scrutiny, we do not start with a snarky accusation (usually ask how we can help; listen to the response). In a situation like that, we've already failed by not engaging the client and offering help when they clearly needed it, but it happens even where I work and I already know how our response would have been: "I see you've found out demo units. Would you like to see our related merchandise?" He caused the situation by neglecting his clients and then responded to his own failure in the absolute worst way possible.

It was a table for a customer to sit at exclusively like it was a desk. We literally could have sat in the chair without an issue. As the eye in the sky, we approach at least 50 people a week


Never said the comic shop was at the flea market, but yeah, he could have acted better. You are, however, comparing his establishment to yours, his is a small business, probably has one other employee and makes probably 10-20 sales a day. Yours is likely a retail chain or a large well established local business, likely with a large workforce with managers and security with probably sales in the hundreds per day. You can't expect the comic shop guy to care, especially with your passive-aggressive way of coaxing an apology for giving you the shit treatment. Did you even tell him someone said you sold videogames and you were interested in buying? If you did, it wasn't implied. As for the guy at the flea market, he's just a douche shop owner, no argument, but yeah I have seen local game stores with glass cases so full of NES stacks it looks like a huge grey brick. You just go up and ask to look at them and they pull out a stack at a time and you pick what you want. It sucks, but that's how they display inventory, and it saves room in the back. All in all, it does seem you had a tough break and ended up spending your time and money dealing with douchebags. I'll give you props for that, cause I wouldn't have given them a word nor dime. ]]> ​Please do not give Comics Plus in Macon, GA your business. http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=5&threadid=163332 2016-06-12T10:06:36 -05.00 CZroe 32 Originally posted by: RegularGuyGamer

I'm still gna go there.
Don't say I didn't warn ya!  
  ]]>