A looong time ago I worked at a comic book store and the owner had a table of freebies at the front of the store. The distributors were always sending marketing material with cool artwork, so instead of throwing it in the trash when it piled up, he figured why not give it away?
No one touched it. Then he started packaging it into $5 “grab bags”. That crap was gone in a week. The lesson? “You can’t give shit away, but put a price on it and it’ll sell”.
Maybe that says more about comic book store patrons than pricing, I’m not sure.
Recently I was moving and had some furniture ("junk") to dispose of. Calling a company to come get it was really expensive considering the stuff was effectively worthless. Posting it on Craigslist for free was useless -- no one wants your crap fo free.
Posting a Craigslist ad for $20 for an otherwise free couch? Gone the next day.
It's bizarre that this works, but boy, does it work.
I recall a French website like craiglist but only for donation, a tad niche but well known enough. Everything there was free for taking.
A decent half of listing were decent IMO, but oh boy, the other half were odd stuff and/or in such conditions that I can't imagine anybody taking them (even if paid to). The adage you get what you pay for holds true.
Funny enough, it's even worse the other way around, trying to give (good) items for free. People are atrocious. They book to pick up and don't show up. When they show up, they're often empty handed and act like unbelievable idiots. "Oh it's the fridge from 3 years ago, not the newer model, nevermind not interested." Can't believe this happening if I didn't hear it with my own ears. Anyway, they came without appropriate transportation, couldn't pick up a fridge/couch no matter what.
Not being able to see the contents, customers probably assumed there was something more valuable in there than promotional items. I doubt many of them bought more than one grab bag.
I think Diamond (the distributor) frowns on stores selling items that were meant to be given away for free. To be honest, the owner doesn’t sound like the most reputable guy.
Iirc there was always at least one old comic in these grab bags, and this was 30+ years ago so it was silver age, and the bags were transparent. I just thought it was a cool story, have mercy internet stranger! This person was around 23, spent his inheritance buying the store from a WW 2 vet and was out of business within a year.
If the bag was clear that makes a big difference and means I was wrong to assume something was afoot.
I remember going to lots of different comic shops as a kid and even through young eyes it was obvious that some of the owners were fairly shady. I’m sorry for projecting that onto your story. Sorry to hear it didn’t work out for him; that sounds like it must have been a rough experience.
No one touched it. Then he started packaging it into $5 “grab bags”. That crap was gone in a week. The lesson? “You can’t give shit away, but put a price on it and it’ll sell”.
Maybe that says more about comic book store patrons than pricing, I’m not sure.