Where Content Meets Collectibles: Building a Card Shop for Creators, Traders, and Fans

We're going to be the first store with drives through PAC pickup. This is like trading card McDonald's and that's what it is. It's going to be retail attainment. There's like this intersection of retail, entertainment and media and ultimately showing other people what we're doing and helping elevate the hobby through the lens of what we are doing not only with this show but also the store. Welcome to the Trading Cards and Collectibles podcast on the Radcast Network. From Jason Grails to Colin Bluffs, I'm going inside the hobby. Are you ready to collect? Let's get at it. Here is your host, Ryan Alford. What's up guys? Welcome to Trading Cards and Collectibles here on the Radcast Network. Continue to upgrade the studio here in the wonderful easily South Carolina. We're on Main Street. We got the studio. We got the store starting to rock. Starting to feel like a store and we're thankful that you're here wherever. Whenever you are listening, we appreciate you. We know you have options. So many options. You could be watching that grandma TikTok video. I don't know. I'm making up shit but you never know. There's a tension to be had anywhere with any video. So if you're listening, watching, we appreciate you. Don't forget us over there on YouTube. You can see all the glory here and are expanding studio and holding up my Kin Griffey Jr. 1989 upper deck. You know, it's only a seven, but I'm telling you, that was the first chase card that I had as a kid. If you're listening, we've got some guy in my age range. This was kind of like the big hit in the day. Kin Griffey Jr. upper deck. Man, how many packs that I ripped hoping to get that guy. Then it became like Frank Thomas and Leif and everything that came after it in the junk wax errors. It's like so many cards. So many Don Russ 1991 baseball cards worth absolutely nothing. But hey, it's not about the money. It is about collecting. That's why we do this show. We appreciate you here. We normally have a guest on our Tuesday episodes, but you got numero uno. We've got a few announcements. I want to talk a few things. We lay the agenda here on the show. First, we want to talk more about the store. We are building destination store. Destination hobby store. That's what I'd conceptually call it. We do have a name now, collector station here on Main Street. We've got a standalone building. It's kick ass. It's really cool. It's got kind of a mid-century feel to it. Maybe meets like industrial. It's got a nice pitched roof that's kind of interesting. It was an old Chevy dealer back in the 50s supposedly. If you look at it from the street, you can almost see that. Even though it's smaller, the dealerships now dealerships are gigantic. They get a place to count all that money they make. Selling your stuff. Again, we appreciate you, but it's been interesting building a store. 3000 square feet may or may not sound like a lot of space, but it's a lot of space. We've got the studio built into the concept here in the corner. We wanted it to be open. When people come in, I might be recording content for this show, my business show right about now, or my other wealth's health and wellness show. Hopefully, wealth show. A health is wealth, baby. Five science. I do three shows. Yes, I do. Always doing the content. It's what it is. You got to pay them bill somehow. But yeah, but we built the studio right here in the space because we want this to be kind of a media hub. That's where the industry's headed. You've got all the content that's in the hobby sort of happening. We're building some plans around that, which we'll talk about later, but it's been fun building the store and having the studio within the store. It's been really organic. I've been a laboratory the last couple of months, both doing touch up work, the building needed, floors and all that. Doing a lot of it myself mainly because I had the time and availability and that I didn't really know what I wanted. I didn't know what to tell someone I wanted. It's almost like been painting with a brush, like bringing the artwork to life. I had conceptually what I wanted to do with the store, which was this multimedia hub meets retail hobby store, but I didn't want to be just another trading card store. Bright lights, sports, the same old, same old that you walk in, and you've got the white lights, the glass cases. Look, the cases are necessary. I've learned that. But at the same time, I wanted it to feel different. I wanted to be somewhere that you didn't want to just come by something. We wanted to be somewhere you have an experience that you hang out. That's what we've been doing here. I've been thinking through it, been thoughtful with decisions and continue to be as we bring this to life because we wanted to be the modern place where people want to come to collect and to trade. I've been saying a few different things as I crystallize the concept, but I think it's really this notion where every day a collector station is trade night. What does that mean? Well, if you think about trade night, everybody brings their cards, they're hanging out, they're doing deals together. You might have dealers there, but you've got a blend of everyone and everyone's sort of hanging out. I wanted to have that experience where whether you were wanting to do live, whether you're wanting to trade one to one, meet up with friends or other collectors. You know, we're going to buy, sell, and trade here, just like any other card shop, but I wanted to foster that community of collectors and giving some place for people to hang out. We need to people to buy some stuff, but if you're hanging out and you're in the hobby, we're also creating sort of a safe home for that to happen, where it naturally happens, where you've got access to the supplies that you need, where you have access to new products, where you can do deals and we'll be buying and selling all day, and certainly it will have those aspects that are common in any hobby shop, but we wanted to facilitate that community where some people can trade and make some deals happen together, and that we can facilitate that, and then the big thing is we're going to have media, and so we do this show, we do a lot of social content, we've got a big following and growing on other channels and other mediums, you know, from business, my business show, but now we're growing in the hobby, we've got good momentum on YouTube and some other channels, and we really want to just foster the ability for people to get that content out there and to kind of document stuff, and so we're not going to force that down, anyone certainly doesn't want it, but at the same time, that's what people love to watch, and I think there's a demand and a desire for people in any community to be involved in that, they're seeing these things online, and you know, if you don't, that's cool, we've got spots in here, you can come hang out and open some packs and do your own thing, you know, buy and sell and trade, and never step in front of a camera, but it is part of the thread and the fabric of what we're building with this show, trading cards and collectibles, and the integration or organic nature with which the business and the hobby shop and, you know, collector station gets integrated within that, because it's our way of sort of authentically being in the business, we've got to, we're running a business directly in the field with which the show is about, and we want to learn, grow and share those stories and bring to life that energy that we hope we have, and you know, Bella, who's our executive producer on the show, is talking to her yesterday, you know, like I want us to, you know, be a place that people, they don't come to shop, they come to stay, and that's the goal, and so I think we're headed towards that, and I think, you know, there's some concepts bringing to life, I think one, I'll go ahead and share it, we're going to have a pack bar, so when you walk in, the place almost feels like it should be a bar or a restaurant, I've got some old tables that have been industrialized and really cool that were in my social house concept that we've kind of land the plane on, co-working, and we've brought in some of that stuff that's kind of given it, you know, like a bar and hangout field, and then we have the bar, the original bar with the barn wood, it's like a hundred-year-old barn wood here, and it feels like, hey, that's walking to a restaurant or walking to a card shop. Well, the answer's a little bit of both, but definitely more card shop, we're not going to be necessarily cooking up food, but we are going to be cooking up packs, so you know, when you walk up to the pack bar, we're going to have different flights of packs that you can order so that you can test out different things, you have blend some things, we've got some creative ideas, we are marketers here, and so it's going to be a great way for people to, I don't know, dabble in different things, maybe they haven't bought, while maybe getting some more higher-end stuff in an affordable price, you can open some packs from something that might be high priced, and you know, we're going to do some bundling of different things that'll be fun, maybe blend sports with Pokemon, hey, look out, crossing genres so that, you know, you can see what those are like, and then, you know, we are going to have some integration, we're talking to Brian Luddon yesterday, he does the Friday show with us, and we're going to have, you know, ways that, you know, their technology can be blended in this with scanning cards and getting values quickly, knowing what you have, and it's going to be really cool to watch this sort of integration of things happen, but the pack bar is going to be cool and fun, I'm kind of staring at it here, and already have some product kind of on the shelves, I'm saying you're going, we're going to do more shelves, and but it's going to be fun, and sort of bundling together different things that you would need, and then, you know, we're going to do some things digitally with ordering online, some stuff that might be harder to get, it's pre-ordering and picking up, we have some lockers here where people can store some stuff, so it's going to be sort of a collector's paradise and a hangout and a destination for people to buy, sell and trade, things in the hobby, we are going to have collectibles, that's probably going to start on the slower side, I mean, I have some stuff that will be here and on display, but the big thing that we're also going to do is have a big consignment area, so for local people or wherever they are, they want to consign some stuff and have it in a fully secure, insured place where we can consign their collectibles or cards, we are going to offer that, so that will be unique to us in a lot of ways, especially in this area, and you know, it's going to be really interesting, it's going to be an organic process for how this sort of comes to life and how it fits into the community while also attracting, we hope, and we plan, you know, a broader national and regional audience for people to come buy, sell and trade here, and to hang out and, you know, watch some content, more than anything we want to be a destination and somewhere you want to come hang out, you know, yeah, hey, we're going to make it easy for you to stop in and grab some packs, grab what you want, we've even got a drive-through window to make that happen, we're going to be the first store with drive-through pack pickup, buy online or reserve online, pick up in the window on the side, this is like trading card McDonald's here, it's going to be cool and we're going to make it easy for you to transact with us the way you want to, but ultimately the store, our physical location is meant to be that destination and we're going to do some cool stuff with the pack flights and the pack bar and, you know, bring some stuff, not just expensive, but maybe, and not necessarily even like, hyper rare, but maybe just hyper unique, so you want to open up that first year you're starting collecting an 87 tops pack combined with an 87 97 2007, you know, stuff like that, so we're going to try to collect and collect like a lot of random things, I'm got my eyes peeled when I'm out buying and doing things and putting my feeders out for stuff to kind of hold back and have for these unique things and look, just because like I said, we're like, we're the trading card, trading night destination, the store that feels like trading night every night is literally going to be easy for us to then turn the dial for those events, so we're going to host events, trading card nights, we have a huge parking lot in area where we can do outside sales where we can bring and do shows here and so people can show their collection sale, setup tables, again, lots of stuff for kids, lots of stuff for adults, all the different collectors, and of course, Pokemon's huge right now in trading cards, we're going to have a great selection of that for bicell trade, packs of that, and welcoming in that whole core audience to ultimately place where you can collect and trade anything, and that's why, you know, it's the collector station and it's purposeful in that name, number one, we got the train running straight through the city of easily, and we mentioned this on previous episodes, the train goes by, a people are here, we're going to do like a 10% off or something, maybe a free pack, it's going to be fun, and that's what it is, it's going to be retail attainment, it's like this intersection of retail entertainment and media, and ultimately showing other people what we're doing and helping again elevate the hobby through the lens of what we are doing not only with this show, but also the store, so again, we want it to be one of those flagship, you know, put it on your bucket list when you're coming through the state of South Carolina, you got to have collector station on your list, it's somewhere to stop in, it's been a couple hours, hanging out, talking, trading, flipping, selling, you know, bringing us some rare cards that we want to look at, and hey, let's bring them by and let us look, and we'll help you get evaluation on something, whether you saw it to us or others, and we really just want to be that beacon for collectors in the area and in the region and nationwide, is we bring to life something that reflects what's really become a staple in my life with the boys and otherwise, so the boys will be working here periodically and getting to see them interact with people and getting back into some of the live selling and stuff that we've been doing, and we're also going to open that up where we have people where they can come in and they want to do some live sales and stuff, we're going to let you set up live selling and you know, run it straight here, we'll help you do that as much as you want to, and you know, we've got the space to sort of bring that to life, we've got big screens everywhere, we've got projector theater, we're going to have hobby content, movies, all kind of stuff playing, it's really going to be an experience that I think is going to be unique and something that we sort of learn and grow with over time, we are going to have and partner with some unique retailers and collectors, we caught up some of the guys I've met on this show in the last couple of years, both the national for offering up some of their products, artwork, and access to different things, and I think this is going to be that hub for access, you know, so, you know, what are you looking for, what do you want to collect, what do you want to trade, and you know, we want to be a central point for helping bring all of that together, and I think, you know, we're going to partner with some of the biggest and best players and getting distribution, working those angles, that's some of the hardest thing to do in this business is getting that distribution, so we're going to be going to call all the bat channels, but we've got the connections to make that happen and to tap into some unique and cool stuff that not everyone else might be able to get hold of, and again, bringing that to life through some of our sections, we're going to have singles for sale, we'll have packs for sale, we'll have a little bit of everything, but again, I think it's going to be a little bit of a different flair because it's not going to be exactly what you see in almost every trading card store you go into, it is about the product, but this is going to be about the experience too, and about staying and hanging out to talk collecting to meet a friend and make some trades, and you know, again, we'll be activating new things, we're going to, a lot of people are going to be opening, well, we're going to have like a soft opening than like a grand opening, so we're working through those dates, we're probably soft opening this month to be announced, and then a full grand opening, probably January, February, work out a few kinks, get a few details in line, and get our stock up, but a few other surprises and people showing up and all that sort of stuff, so we want to make that something really fun and to do, but yeah, we're going to lean into the community, lean into having special event nights and events and all kinds of things that add on and I am really excited about where that concept's going, so again, collectibles station here in easily South Carolina, we're going to have links to all of the social media and everything getting all of that activated with where you can learn more and find out everything that we have going on with that. Secondly, today I did want to talk about a little bit, you know, we're about to turn the calendar year into 2026, so as I look into the crystal ball of like, okay, where's collectibles, the hobby, where's everything going? I mean, you've had this sort of, and I already put myself the last couple of years suddenly, like inserted into the hobby, a business guy who collected young has kids, I think you're going to see this further proliferation of non mainstream people coming into the hobby, and it's a lot of the reasons for me wanting to open this store to be accessible to those people, but I think it's going to be people that don't necessarily look, feel, smell and act like hobby people are going to be coming in and poking around either because of their kids coming into it as a potential asset, something is to collect and to, you know, put away as an investment, you've seen the bigger investment players come into the industry space and make a lot of noise, I think you're going to continue to see those kind of things. You've got Tom Brady involved with the vault and fanatics and tops, now owning of licenses for all the major sports, Sam's hockey, but they've got, you know, baseball, football, basketball, so everything's going to be in their tops, it's going to be sort of tops, fanatics world next year, fanatics, vets going to be interesting. I'll be there and the national going to do the major shows and I think you're going to see a further push into this integration of sports, culture, hobby, side hustle, all of these things sort of continue to proliferate. I think that and with everything that's happening with jobs and the economy and stuff, I think people are looking for I think as much as anything outlets for their time and energy and attention and it's bringing together all of these things because you've got the athletes, you got the sport that they play and the interest in live athletics being its highest level ever. All the sort of commercialization of all of these things, you've got even the WNBA being hot and their cards being hot, you've got soccer, the World Cup, all of that stuff coming. So you're going to, I think there's a lot of things that are just going to continue to to burn the fuse of what's already lit in this that you're going to see more of it. So I don't know that you're going to see different, other than just it's going to be different having, you know, one major retailer or one major manufacturer owning all these licenses and sort of for good, better and different, they've got all the attention. We're going to have Mike Mayhan actually on the show, hopefully going to make that happen here in the next few weeks to talk about that very thing. And I think I do think you're going to start to see this push even more into not necessarily things that you might expect having trading cards and having collectibles. And I almost see this era of, if you think back to the days, I'm going to age myself, but if you're in my age back at or 30 to 50, if you're younger, you might get it, but these collectibles like McDonald's would always have. They had the California raisins, they had these glasses there, everybody want to get it. Everybody's kind of collecting, and that goes part of a retail giveaway or an add-on. I think you're going to see more of those types of things happen, where collectibles get integrated as bonus items into other products, and then you're going to see other things get cards that you might not have expected in entertainment, and movies and other things where, I don't know, I think we're going to lean into what's happening in this collectible space and how these cards, both digital and physical, are so hot as assets collecting, and it's just so ingrained in our fiber to be collectors, and the technology or things enabled plus the desire to do it is at all time high. So I think you're going to see increases in all of that, and hey, bring back those California raisins. If you're old enough, you get it. But I remember McDonald's having those get the giveaway, you're collecting every one of those things, man. And then I think some of this stuff still has pretty good value, depending on what it is. I don't know about the California raisins, but I remember that distinctly, trying to get every one of them. What a crazy marketing point, but I do think you're going to see more and more collectibles as add-on to get people enticed to different things, movies, retail, food, what can they add on? You've seen that integration already happened, like Pokemon's integrated with a few different things, and you've got obviously the natural integration with big box, special edition boxes and stuff. That's a dial turn, but the bigger dial turn, I think it's going to be sports entertainment, entertainment, music, and how collecting kind of gets swiped across all of that, you know, like again, spread across it. So I think you're going to see more and more of that, and then it's going to be, you know, we're just top take us, hopefully, in a great direction with new product, and you know, we don't just slap in the logos back on the jerseys, we're innovating with new idea, new concepts, new artistic approaches on cards and players and all that stuff. Let's keep the downtown effect going, and I think we're in the right hands with the leadership at Fanatics, but I just hope they bring it to life and they can you know, keep it all together. So we'll be talking more about all of that. And hey, that's what we're here for as a show, you know, we're a show, we're a store, and you know, ultimately here to bring it to life, to be authentic and to give you what you want and what you need in the hobby. So let us know what you think. Drop those comments. I reply that I had like 20 comments on our YouTube videos that I caught up with today. It seemed you to drop those. It means the world that you care enough to listen, to watch. I can't tell you what that means. And you know, it takes time, energy, effort, attention, and we know you have a lot of options. So keep it right here. And know that it will do it just for you. And you know, if I'm just collectables.show as the website with all the content, all the information, more news coming on collectors station and appreciate you for tuning in. So you next time I'm trading cards and collectables. about the values about what you're collecting. What means something to you? Share a story, share a video of you holding up the card that you hit last week. That was your favorite player and you nailed it. So case hits at collectables.show, send in those videos. I want to know the stories. We're going to bring it to life here on the show. We're going to do a segment each week. Once we get rolling and get some videos in, where we share that on the show with us, we'll feature you on collectables show. Thanks for tuning into the show. Don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast platform and don't miss the full video version on YouTube. You can find us at www.collectables.show or follow Ryan on Instagram at Ryanolford. Now get out there and collect yours.