The Future of the Local Card Shop with Burbank Sports Cards

We sell more TCGS than we do baseball, basketball, and football combined. Only 10% collect sports, and now Pokemon is above basketball, and it just skyrocketed this year. The Pokemon boxes are by far the most popular than the sports. Five, six years ago, I would have never dreamed that. The passion is undeniable. I think that's what it is. I'm Ryan Alford. And I'm Bella Schaefer, and this is Collector Nation. We are curating all of the content in the hobby just for you all in one place. All the videos, all the podcasts, all the reels, all those drops you want right here, right now. Hey, guys, here we are. The Collector Nation is back with another series here at the National. You got Ryan and Brian. Brian, the founder of Lud X. Brian, good to be here with your brother as always. Hey, we're going OG again, OG again. Rob Varus. He is the OG from Burbank Sports Card. What's up, Rob? Hey, just great to be here. Just enjoying my time in Chicago. And it's nothing like the national, man. Nothing like it. Like it. All right, you. You know this. Where does this. Are we at the most you've ever seen? Oh, no, it's. It's ridiculous. As someone that's been going to the national since 91 to see the growth that we're seeing here and the sheer amount of traffic, the sheer amount of kids, the diversity. I mean, 10 years ago, you would come here and not even recognize this. It's amazing. It just shows the growth and the strength of the hobby right now. Well, I want to give you some love. I think it's your leadership, your content. I think the reason a lot of these people know about it is content like yours and preaching the hobby and sharing new innovations and doing it. So as someone who grew up collecting, but just got back in the last three years, yours was some of the first content that I was literally watching two years ago. And it got me even further in because I realized, hey, this guy's a legit business guy and he's innovative and he's fun on camera. This is my deal here. So, Rob, really appreciate your leadership in bringing the hobby along to this space. You know, I appreciate it. It's something that is generational. And, you know, I started at 22 running the business, and now I'm turning 60. But I got a 31 year old and a 27 year old that are totally vested in the business. And I want to see in 30, 40 years that this still exists and it's thriving even More than it is today. So I've got some, you know, a little bit of wisdom over the years, and if I can share that with people, you know, I love it. A lot of wisdom and talking about the first, you know, getting back in the industry and meeting the first people in the industry. So I was learning during COVID and it was Jeff Wilson, and you. And I watch you, watch you, watch you. And then at the Mint Collective, I saw you, and I was like, oh, my gosh, I gotta go shake his hand. So you were basically the first social media guy that I met. And you're so welcoming and so nice, and it's just. Yu-Gi-Oh You always have a special place in my heart for that. I remember the moment was right in front of your booth, and some of your guys have been out to the shop, and they're like, you gotta meet him. And I'm like, you're great, man. You're great. And now we've known each other, like, four or five years now, so. And you guys have come a long way. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh The Ludx Lounge back there. Hey, come hang out. Got a big party tonight, if you're lucky. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh I know. The. Rob, what's. What are you excited most about that you're doing now at the shop? You know, there's been a lot of innovation, a lot of things changing in the hobby. Talk about some of that and what you're most excited about. I'm most excited about just the collector experience and the inability in a lot of stores these days to be able to put your hands on cards. Being able to have price points where you could walk into a store, spend 40 bucks, be there for two hours, and walk out with 100% customer satisfaction. And there's a lot of things in this business, whether it's repacks, whether it's Whatnot, whether it's breaking, that you don't get that hundred percent satisfaction. And I think that's been the key to our growth for decades, is never forgetting that not everybody wants to spend 300 bucks or $3,000 on a box. And a lot of people feel forgotten, which is really unfortunate. But we've never forgotten, and we just keep scaling and building singles. And that you can go through and just lose yourself and sub $10 cards is what built my business over decades. And we're not going away from that anytime soon. Yu-Gi-Oh I built an experiential store in South Carolina that's five months old, so I'm following your playbook a little bit, but I actually saw it I've been doing marketing for 25 years, so I understand market. That's why I respected the hell out of what you were doing, because saw it. But that experience, you know, gets lost in the, you know, 10 by 10 store. Like, being able to come in, you know, that's sometimes what people can afford to open. Knock on that. But I do think the experience of collecting and having a space, you know, making space for deals, making space for people to go through things where they spend $10 or $10,000, is a big opportunity in the hobby. Yu-Gi-Oh We were fortunate enough to move into a Rite Aid in, like, the best location possible, like 70 parking spots. And it gave us the opportunity with this basically this blank canvas that it looks nothing like our old store. And actually, the store right now, after 15 months, looks nothing like it did opening day. And to be honest, I should have just made the whole building retail. We did about 65% showroom, 35% inventory in the back singles offices, all of that. But it's shrunk on us like, quite a bit. I walked in originally, I'm like, we will never fill this. And it's been amazing where, you know, a store that size, if you don't have 25, 30 people in it, it can look really empty. And so that was one of the challenges that we had. And, you know, the traffic we've been able to generate in that store, where we can have as many as 1700 people come through the store in one day, has been a real blessing. And a lot of it's social media, it's Instagram. We wouldn't be in that building without Instagram and being able to show what's new in the store every single day, show the FOMO of what the showroom looks like and the vibe that's in there. And, you know, social media has just played a huge role in our growth, especially Instagram. This episode of Vibe Science is brought to you by Shopify. We talk a lot on this show about being intentional with the life you want to create. One thing I've learned is that waiting until everything feels perfect can keep you from ever taking the first step. That was something I had to get past when I started building my storefront. I had an idea for the business and knew what I wanted to create, but I definitely didn't know how to do every part of it on my own. Shopify gave me a clear place to begin with, everything I needed already there. From day one, I was able to launch my store and start selling in a few simple steps. Shopify's design templates and Yu-Gi-Oh site builder made setting up my storefront easy, and Sidekick Yu-Gi-Oh helped me along the way. Shop Pay also gives customers the easiest checkout on the market, which helped make the storefront feel complete and ready for people to use. What I appreciate now is that Shopify helps me stay up to date with my business even when life gets busy. Yu-Gi-Oh My storefront remains an active part of how I run the business without feeling like something I have to completely figure out on my own. If you've been thinking about starting a business but feel like you need to know everything before you begin, you don't. You need an idea you believe in and the right place to start building it. Start your free trial@shopify.com vibe that's shopify.com vibe Grainger knows. If you're a procurement manager at an industrial manufacturing facility, you're balancing inventory and budget while sourcing critical supplies across the operation. Too much inventory cost climb, too little production slows. Grainger's $2 billion in on hand inventory helps you get what you need when you need it. So you can help keep budgets balanced in lines. Moving, moving. Call 1-800-granger-cranger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done. It's probably. It's also just talking to you and where you are in your career. It's got to be nice to have your kids take over. I mean, I've met Ryan. He's. He's a rock star. Yu-Gi-Oh But now you get to actually enjoy it because you grind it for so many years. And like now, now you're walking around and, you know, meeting people, it's amazing. But Yu-Gi-Oh one of the greatest days of my life actually is when there was always a joke in the family with Sammy and she just didn't have an interest her whole life basically of being in the store. It wasn't her passion. She went off and got a corporate job, but there was always a family joke, you know, sweetheart, there's always a place for you at Burbank Sports Cars. And it was a joke and it was funny. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh She's living her best life with her boyfriend in WeHo and she has a great job. But one day she comes up to me and says, dad, is there still a place for me at Burbank Sports Cards? And as a father, you absolutely melt in that moment that my sweetie is going to come to work with me and she's going to do social and she's going to do events and, and she just ear to ear, grinning every single moment she's in that store. And my son Hudson's sitting right there. That will be for me. He's sitting right here, the red shirt. So yes, that would be the same. And my son, he's basically the goat. He's on a whole different plane and he grew up around it and just absorbed so much information. But he's working with artificial intelligence. He's built a dream team and it's allowed me to. I used to want to keep my arms around everything and handle everything. And all the technology that they're bringing into the business that I don't understand is absolutely amazing. So I've been really able to narrow what I'm doing in there and spend a lot more time on the showroom Fleer and meeting and greeting and being social from people from all over the world. One of their Beckett lists is to come visit Burbank Sports Cards, which is really, you know, I'm really proud of that fact. But I want to be on the Fleer you know, meeting all these people and hearing all their stories. Amazing. It's a MA and PA company that's massive. A lot of ma's, a lot of PA it's, you know, it's just decades of every single day trying to make your business just a little bit better. And that's always my advice is just never settle because your store can always be better, your organization can always be better, your technology can always be better. And you can learn from every single person in this room. And that's what I've done for decades, is I don't pretend that I know it all. And I'm always absorbing, you know, great ideas from other people. Rob, towards that. Talk to me about like this intersection that we're at with technology. You know, OG collecting is a little bit anti technology, if we're being honest. You know, spreadsheets and all. I guess that is technology. But from 30 years ago, what's. What is the proper place of technology versus hands on experience versus, you know, we've got these tools like Ludox and others and you know, Yu-Gi-Oh coming along. How do you navigate that or think about it through the lens of the store? Yu-Gi-Oh 30 years ago we had cards in number order. There were 25 cents each. People would sit down for hours. And that was the business. You know, you start looking at, you know, the early 90s, late 80s, and now when databases came along and we partnered with Jim Beckett to create the Beckett Marketplace, all of a sudden now I can have all those cards at 25 and 30 cents online. Now we're not just a local store, we're an everywhere store. And now we have an app, Burbank Cards on the App Store that combines our commerce, our social, our collector's points, everything in one place. And you know, we look at the technology in the store today, how do we make it easier to collect? We have kiosks in the store. So all 2.4 million different cards we have in inventory. You come in, you type In Brian Urlocher, 800 different cards come up. I don't have an urlocker section in the store for you to go through because in LA that's probably not necessary. But you can literally pull 40 different cards off of there for, you know, 30 bucks. And we pull it while you shop. That is awesome. And that's the kind of technology that we have in place. People can come in the store now and they we have a kiosk where if you want to sell us cards, you put your name, your email and your phone number in and it'll tell you that there's 18 people ahead of you. It's an hour and 10 minute wait and we'll text you and we'll call your name when it's your turn. That's the kind of technology that can grow your business, but it enhances the consumer experience. And technology was a double edged sword in this hobby 25 years ago. People feared the Internet, they feared the competition from online sales, ebay, sellers, all of that. But it was also a sword for the positive where if you embraced it, not everybody did back then, you know, but you walk in our store, we got digital price tags for every single product in the store. And it's like there isn't post it notes, it's not written, you know, all of that. But it's been able for us to be able in real time price all these products as the prices shift all the time. We price it from the office, it changes on the wall, it changes at the register and it changes on the website. And that's kind of how we embrace things like that. Collector Nation is not just a podcast. We are your one stop shop for all things hobby. All the best creators, all the best reels, all the best content curated for you every day. And if you're interested in learning more, go to the collectornation.com or download our app on iOS or Android. We'll see you there. Guys, the wait is finally over. Football is here and so is DraftKings. DraftKings is now live in all 50 states. 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Friction removal is what I call that 100%. It's because you got to get out of the way of making the sale. The customer experience positive. Yes. And that's what technology is doing now. So that's awesome. That's why I admire what you guys are doing there. I see it and what's interesting is this and I love it. Old school look. It looks so classic, the pictures. But then I see the technology layer on top of it. You guys are finding that balance really well. Well, I think one of the things is people get. I call them Covid stores. A lot of stores have opened in the last five, six years. A lot of them look like Apple stores. They're beautiful, you know, but sometimes there's no soul. Sometimes there's no cards that you can put your hands on. Sometimes there's no staff that understands what the 60s were for baseball cards. And you know, certain companies in this industry reward companies with bigger spaces or nicer looking stores. When a lot of collectors want to go into that store that's been there 30 years, dig through, find treasures, talk to someone behind the counter that's got this passion that really can't be taught. And so there's, you know, there's two ways to look at things. In a lot of cases I'd rather go into the old school shop than to some modern looking shop that just doesn't have the inventory. Yep. I'm going to go back to something you said about incremental every day just get incrementally better as entrepreneurs. They look, they see A finished product. Right. So if you enter now, they're like, oh, Burbank, blah, blah, blah. But like that mentality of adapting and incremental every day a percent better, a percent better. And I think that's a great lesson for anyone who wants to start. It doesn't just happen. Yu-Gi-Oh It takes time and be patient. Believe in the, believe in yourself. Take time and you get to where you are. You are. Because you never dream. I doubt you ever dreamed you would have this. Man. It's ridiculous to really think about about it, but a lot of times with a store, you need to look at it from your customer's point of view. And whether it's the service, whether it's the organization, the cleanliness, the brightness, all of that. And it has to be inviting. And I always tell people, you need to sell mom, because once you get mom on board and she's willing to sit there for 90 minutes with her kids and she's sold on the fact that this is a healthy hobby and the husband now has a little more leeway with the finances to spend the money. But you know, it's like as a store owner, you have to look at every single part of your store. Is this maximized? Is it optimized? Are we getting the revenue from this area? Can the shelves be a little tighter? Can we use the cubic footage as well as the vertical? I mean the vertical footage as well as the square feet. And I'm always looking at it going, this just isn't performing. Nobody cares about this. And you know, sometimes you could just fail quickly or it's almost like I should light that on FL fire and make it go away because it's just, it's not doing anything for. I thought it was a good idea. I thought people would like it. But, you know, you got to listen to your customers. You know, that's awesome. What's something I have a hard time believing you get surprised very often, but tell me a story or something in the last. It can be recent or even the last few years that really has surprised you. Maybe in the hobby or in. At retail. Something good that's like you didn't see that or didn't expect that. Well, I just think it's the diversity of the customer base that we're seeing in the hobby right now. And it's funny, I think back 10, 20 years and just to see a woman come in the store that wasn't against her will, it was just unbelievable. I mean, it was. We were catering to 30 to 60 something white males. I Mean, that was the audience, that was the collector base. And now you walk in our store and my wife walks in the store, she's looking around going, we never had this many women come through the store. And it's not just, you know, older women with older gentlemen that, you know, have come to the realization that this is what my husband. We're talking 20 somethings, 30 somethings that you would see at the mall. And that's the traffic that we're seeing through the store. 35% of the women come through, or I mean, 35% of the customers come through, especially on the weekends, are women. And they're not just there with their husbands against their will. They collect, they're going through boxes, they're excited about things. And I think that right there in itself is the growth of the hobby. And it's cool. It's not just something that you do in your house by yourself. You know, technology's made it where everybody can partake and enjoy, you know, together. But it's definitely the diversity that comes in the shop that is the jarring difference that I've seen. The path to growth is the other 50% of the, you know, like, like, we want, we want. If you want the hobby to grow, you want that to be happening. And one follow up and then. Brian, I'll let you go. Like, is the balance of sports cards and tcg. Yu-Gi-Oh can. I'm finding in our shop that these worlds are blending together a bit in a way that I didn't expect expect. Where guys that are all, you know, sports card guys are dabbling in the tcg. Are you seeing the same thing? And what's your overall perspective on that? I'm glad you brought that up because five, six years we really did not have. I'm a sports guy. Old school, OG sports car, but definitely it's old. Old sports guy. There you go. I don't have that cred. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Turn 60 this year, and I've never had more fun than I'm having right now. But the TCG part of it is we sell more TCG sealed product in the store than we do baseball, basketball, and football combined. Granted, it's lower price points, granted it's not the same revenue, but to see that shift in our business where we've embraced this, I still don't understand it. I still don't understand the characters, but I've hired great people that do. But having that traffic come through and a lot of that traffic diverting into sports that might not have come into our store before. Seeing the prices that we're seeing this, the appreciation and seeing the lines around my building for the big releases that come out. We don't have that in sports. Topps flagship drops, you know, there's people that come in for it, but they're not lined up in the rain waiting for it to come up as a cultural event. We don't have that. Every kickoff, every 777, every Beckett Ace Bovada LV gets you ready for every one-of-one way you want to play. Hourly jackpots, anonymous poker events, boosted sports odds. Join today and get up to $750 in bonuses. See for yourself why players have chosen us as their online casino for over 10 years. Your best bet every day. You want to play Bovada LV ready for everything. Fix that. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Just adding some of the data that we gather on a monthly basis. So we have a half a billion cards have been scanned and 85 of the people who collect Pokemon also collect sports magic. Interesting. Only 10% collect sports. Right. And, and we just. Pokemon just overTook basketball about three months ago. So we have, we have baseball and then it goes football. And now Pokemon is above basketball and it just skyrocketed this year. Yu-Gi-Oh it's just the amount of space we keep dedicating it to the amount of amount of showcase we dedicate to the staffing. We actually got one of those machines that can sort through by price and by set, you know, and that's made our efficiency and the technology where we can put a whole bunch of stuff through and we can break a $2, $3, get it into collector's court, which has hundreds of thousands of cards you can put your hands on. And the Pokemon boxes are by far the most popular than the sports. And again, it's just five, six years ago, I would have never dreamed that. I'm glad to hear it's not just our store because ours is pretty much set up like a sports bar. It doesn't serve alcohol and it's 60% Pokemon right now. And we embrace that guy that does it front and back and. But it's crazy. The amount of the passion is undeniable. 100. I think that's what it is. Rob, what are you most excited about? Is there anything coming out new or. I mean, you guys are launching things. What do you most be most excited about the rest of this year? Any big plans? Any big things coming? Well, we've started a podcast with Jeff Garland as my co host and he's a riot and so that's been pretty cool. A big documentary crew has come by our shop and wants to feature us and they have a good track record of getting things to streaming. So we're looking forward to our message going to streaming and we think that at some point we'll have a streaming series. We have an interesting story to tell multi generational business. The location, the sheer amount of store traffic that we get. You know, the Goldin series was amazing. I can't wait for the next season. But that is the polar opposite of what we do. And so I think that there might be an audience for that. So I think content and is probably the biggest thing that we're looking forward to in the next 12 months. Yu-Gi-Oh and expanding on that. I mean, it's the content game that you've been a pioneer of in a hobby. I mean, maybe just briefly touch on like the impact of that, of your business. You mentioned the Instagram effect and that's there, but maybe even, you know, broader than that. Yu-Gi-Oh I mean, Instagram, we're not in our building without Instagram. I mean, we had zero followers in March of 2020. I'm an old Facebook guy. I didn't understand the power. I didn't even understand I could push, record and shoot a video and patch auto to the platform. I had no idea, you know, And I started doing videos every single day. Our store was closed, you know, we're closed 10 weeks. And I needed something that was cathartic. And I used to do seminars all over the country and once I started getting on a roll five days a week, I was putting out 10 minute videos just talking about the industry, the history, the hobby, things like that. And we've got 135,000 followers right now, organic on IG. And every new Fleer is a new opportunity. And you watch my Instagram, you know exactly what's happening in my store. These are the premium cards that went out this morning. These are the boxes that hit collector's court. This is the store traffic in our store at opening when there's 50 people lined up to get into my store on a Friday, that's great content, you know, and it gets shared and the viralness of it, my daughter being involved in it. So no, social is a huge part of our success. Ryan, any final thoughts? No, just thank you for being such an ambassador for this hobby and role model for me and just always, just relatable and you know, I'm blessed to be friends. Friends with you. Back at you, my brother. And you know, it's the greatest hobby in the world and it's Something that's provided a livelihood for me for started in 1979 in a coin and stamp shop delivering flyers. That was my origin story. Then making a buck and a half an hour cash and things that just make no sense to kids to today whatsoever. But I've gotten to live the dream and now I get to do with my family and that's pretty awesome. Yu-Gi-Oh Rob and I've been a fan from afar. You're as advertised by yourself. Exactly what I expected. Appreciate your leadership in the hobby. Just in case they don't know drop the website, anything probably pretty self explanatory social channels, anything like that. We probably have it here but basically but but just for the Burbank cards.com we drop 500 premium cards every single day there Fanatics collect. We have 2.3 million different cards on that platform. Instagram at Burbank Cards and in the app store where Burbank cards as well so and then audio audience will thank thank us for giving that. Yes. Oh and we have our shop. It's located in Burbank, California five minutes from the airport and right across from Porto's Bakery which is an amazing. Would we ever open another shop somewhere else? No, never. I'll never have a second store. I I want to have the ultimate single destination because once you open secondary stores you're splitting your talent, you're splitting your inventory and you're kind of cannibalizing in a lot of cases. I want to keep the place special. Oh smart. Thank you Rob. Hey guys, you're gonna find us the collectornation.com will have this entire episode. Audio video links to Burbank sports car do yourself a favor, go follow them. Rob's awesome. We appreciate him. LUD X L U D E X in the app store go download that is the best art scanning app in the business. We appreciate Brian. We appreciate Rob. We appreciate you. We'll see you next time on the Collector Nation. Nice. Thanks for tuning in to the show. Be sure to follow us on your go to podcast platform and catch the full video episode over on YouTube. Visit us@collectornation.com and follow Ryan on Instagram at ryanalford. Now get out there and collect yours. 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