Derby Comics & Games' Tony Lakas on Building Community, Business Models, and Punitive Tariffs

This episode was recorded on April 5, 2025.

Caleb O. Brown: This is The Shelbyville Idea. I'm Caleb Brown. In this episode I speak with one of the owners of Shelbyville’s Derby Comics and Games, which opened in 2023. We discuss his background, the business of game and comic stores, how he thinks about making a business out of creating a community, and why Trump administration tariffs will disproportionately cost their customers and cause many similar stores to fail. Tony Lakas, one of the owners of Derby comics and games in Shelbyville, Kentucky. If you're not aware of where it is, you have to look it up because from the road, Mount Eden Road, it's not easy to see, but more people ought to know about it. And my family and I have been going there for a while and we were very excited when it opened because we thought, oh, great, a gathering place for nerds and geeks who are friendly and want to play games and are interested in that sort of community. So I was very excited when your store opened. Tell us about yourself.

Tony Lakas: Okay, so if we just wanna get to the store part, in about 1994 I was just finishing up some college and then I went into the workforce. I didn't like the workforce and I was playing magic the gathering at the time, along with all the nerdy stuff beforehand battle Tech, all this. And there was no stores in Anderson. And I walked into a place called Anderson Comics, and then they had folks in there around a table playing magic at the gathering in this little comic book shop. It was an 800 square foot cinder block, tar roof, gravel parking lot. Oh, scary stuff. So I said, that is awesome 'cause there was no play spaces in stores at the time. This whole thing had just started up. So event centers were not a thing. All of them were boutique stores primarily, except for in college towns.

TL: So I said, that's a cool idea. So I found out this guy was trying to sell. So I went and put a mortgage on my house with the help of my parents a little bit. So I am lucky in that regard that I did have the means to do it without taking out loans. And I bought the business for more money than was ever worth. But that was my first mistake, along with many others along the way. Even I make them now. So we started the store there and we called it The Danger Room, which is the most silly name you could ever think of, because the phone calls we would get would be the all sell guns there. And no one knew what a danger room was, other than like a very few limited, even geeks, even the magic players and stuff did not know what a danger room was.

Derby Comics & Games

COB: So what is the reference there?

TL: The danger room is the room in which the X-Men train for Marvel, where it's a safe place, but they can use all of their powers and things to full extent because the room is designed to withstand it. And then they also make dangers and obstacles and fire and everything else. So it's an obstacle course trading room for overpowered mutants and they could use, so it's safe and it's dangerous. So it's called the Danger Room. So that's what we named it.

COB: I see.

TL: I didn't know anything about comics, so I got some person in that knew comics. So my roommate from college and the... I've always tried to surround myself with people who know more than I do 'cause I know a little bit of everything, but not a master of any. So anyway, so we opened up the store, we ran that, I moved it when Pokemon hit to a much larger location. We expanded to several locations at that point. As I got older, I was looking at possible semi-retirement at the ripe old age of 40. So we started paring down the stores as a deed of necessity because there was a shrinking market and everyone was jumping into the market at that point. There was several stores opening.

COB: I wanna talk about that because you've talked about the different models of the way that these stores kind of run and some are better than others. And the community that I see at Derby comics and games, people playing magic, people playing, what's the Star Wars card?

TL: Star Wars Unlimited.

COB: Star Wars Unlimited. People play Lorcana, which is the Disney Trading card game, which my wife and I unfortunately discovered pretty early on. And we deeply regret dropping many hundreds of dollars on cards and playing constantly here. Now my wife has introduced my older son to the game, which is just terrible 'cause I think he really loves strategy games and he loves being competitive and that sort of thing. But talk about the models of different stores and why some fail and some succeed.

TL: Whoa, okay. So I've mentored probably a dozen stores and probably two still exist. The biggest obstacle when you get into one of these businesses is that you get into it for a reason. I normally have a talk, I always tell everyone, if you're interested in opening up a store my first consultation is a steak dinner and a beer.

COB: That they pay for.

TL: Yeah, of course, of course. I mean, come on.

COB: I understand that.

TL: It could be a waffle and steak, steak, I mean, depending on what your budget is. But I'm more than happy. I want to talk to people about it 'cause I need to, and that first thing I have a discussion that says, wouldn't it be cool? And this is the thing, I talk to them, I go, okay, so why do you want a store? 'Cause wouldn't it be cool if, and then I have them list out what the wouldn't it be cools? It would be cool for me to have a place for my friends to hang out. It would be cool if I could play games all day. It would be cool if I could get my stuff at discount. It would be cool. Would it be cool, blah, blah. There's a whole list of reasons, there's no place here. I've never fit in just all kinds of different things.

COB: Yes, the blue sky vision, if money were not an issue.

TL: Yes. And then I have them do it “wouldn't be cool.” And then that's a lot of times they have to kind of stop and think, because they'd never even thought of the it would not be cool that I had to take a loan on my house or one of the games of the comic book industry collapses, which we might be in the middle of, but we'll get to that later. Just all types of things, that they're bad with money, their wife, there's a whole list. Again, I've done this so many times that there, if I recorded all the different answers, we'd have several pages to each.

TL: And then once we get to the wouldn't it be cool and the wouldn't it be not cool? Then I have them weigh those things. I go look at these and tell me which one, and of course most of them get through that first... And I always tell them, if you can get through this first conversation, then we'll talk about some sort of real discussion about how to open payment and things like that. So the reason why stores fail is that they get into it and they don't know. They get into it underfunded, which I started underfunded. That's a whole other story, but I got lucky. They fail because they are a one trick pony that they specialize in. And this is my belief, again, there's other stores that do this, they do it very well and they've been around for years.

Derby Comics & Games

TL: But to me, all that in one, like for many stores, wizards of the Coast is the owner and the creator of Dungeons and Dragons Magic the Gathering. And these two are like cornerstones of almost every game store nowadays. I mean, our game stores would not be so big without the advent of the collectible card game. There'd be a lot fewer stores out there. But if Wizard of the Coast was dry up tomorrow.

COB: What's it called again?

TL: Wizards of the Coast.

COB: Wizards of the Coast. And they own Magic The Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons.

TL: Yeah. And they are a wholly owned subsidiary of Hasbro. There's a lot of interesting stuff. We can talk about that too. But if that company was to dissolve today, I would dare say that one third of the stores in the country would close within a couple months simply. And two, like I said, underfunded, which also means undercapitalized, over leveraged. They don't have enough in savings or anything. Just like a standard household budget you should keep at least six months of expenses in reserve so that if something does go wrong or someone gets sick. So another reason why stores fail is because of illness or because they have partners that they're all great friends. And then that happens. And this is the first time I've had partners and I told them from the very beginning that we're gonna kick each other in the shins. We're not gonna be very friends anymore. It's just that's how it happens. But the partners I have fill a lot of my gaps and keep me grounded in what I'm doing. So I've been very blessed about that. So, other reasons why stores fail is that they can't get the credit.

TL: They make a bad decision on product. Their business model does not allow for enough margin to be able to maintain the operations in which they want it to be. They have a vision of how the store goes, and then of course they want to be friends with everybody. So that's the other thing is what we called, what was it was called, we called them a pork chop shop. Basically, it's a term that we kind of coined amongst ourselves is how do you get the neighborhood dog to play with you and you put a pork chop around their neck. So symbolically we say that the game store for some people is basically the thing that allows them to build a community around them and allows them, so their entire outlook of who they are is intertwined in that store. And if a friend or a group of friends become disillusioned, they are crushed. And of course some stores at the small easy level, simply put like pricing. I can get a cheaper online, which that's a whole nother story. 'Cause I started before online stuff was really big too.

COB: And so when my wife and I come into the store, which is frequently, too frequently I will say, we come in, we'll buy a couple of packs of Lorcana cards. Our kids will run around in the back and look at games and maybe they'll play one or you'll demo one for them. And we have a growing library of board games for our family game nights. But what we really come for is the ability to see people that we don't see very often. We see them at the store, and the store also has a bunch of stuff that we like to have. And it's way more convenient for us to buy there. So if you don't mind, tell me about, what is the community element that makes your store function well?

TL: I guess I didn't dump into all the different types of models, but...

COB: You said competing on, well, let's go back then. Competing on price.

TL: Competing on price is a big one. And that requires a lot of efficiencies nowadays. And many stores, like I said, are close to one trick ponies where they survive off of collectible card games and single sales. And with the advent of technology and now robots that will sort them, I could buy one now for $20,000 that would sort 1000 cards in an hour, as opposed to having someone sit there and pay and get carpal tunnel in their thumb. 'Cause I have that for years of just flipping through a card. But the technology allows to have the efficiencies where they can sell and possibly run at a 20% margin. And if they're using warehouse space and not full retail space, then their costs of their retail space is a lot cheaper as well.

TL: So, efficiencies within there and the ability to sell worldwide without needing to leave your house and shipping methods have all increased. So that's how a lot of places compete on price. Our model, the model that I've always done has been the community model where everybody knows your name. It's cheers. Everybody, our friends, or at least our little groups within the game group, our friends and we sell comic books. We sell miniatures and painting stuff and cards and board games. And we also, we have space. Luckily for us, we found a space here that is relatively inexpensive. If we had to go to an actual retail, retail space we could not exist in our current model. So, everything here is really pricey. So we got very lucky finding the spot that we did.

COB: And I want to just describe the space a little bit. You have a very large room that has a lot of games in it and tables so people can sit down and play, but you also have some smaller rooms for that people can sort of reserve for some specific game with a specific group of people that want to get together. But if they need something like a D20 die or something like that, they can just walk into the store area. And it's just really interesting to see like the different like subgroups that get together at different times. And that calendar is available on your website of all the things that are going on.

TL: On the website. Yeah, on the website we also make posts, on our Instagram and Facebook pages. We normally put something out about every day or every other day now. But to touch on the how the store layout is, it's a different layout than I ever, ever dealt with. It's a former church. So the main room you're talking about is the sanctuary 'cause there's a stage where they did. And we had a sound booth up in the corner where we stow a bunch of our comic supplies. But then we have like the youth room, that's the backpack room. And then we have a small conference room. And one of the things that we can do there that many stores cannot is that we can host up to four events simultaneously. Now, where we are we have not ever really had to do that, but a couple times, but we're still growing. Hopefully we can be able to run that. And it's just constantly going. We even allow girl scout troop to come in and use the space, all kinds of different things there.

COB: I would love to see a chess club because my son, my older son is getting into chess. And if I'm not paying attention, that guy can really make it hard for me.

TL: Like I said, we have chess variants that you might be able to stay in a chance in if you've got a guy with a chess game, we have games that'll ruin their game. So, we could talk about the chess club later, but the one thing that I've had a difficulty with, with chess clubs is how, it sounds bad, but how do I monetize it? Once you buy your chess board you might get some fancy pieces every once in a while. So then these have to be like tournament entries. And then what do you give for prizes other than cash style rewards or scholarships, which again, is a cash out and I don't like skimming where you take all the take and then you keep 20% just for that. So it's an interesting thing and I've never really set up a concept on how it truly, other than a promotional factor within schools. So the chess club, I really am looking for a really good plan, but there's not many stores to even talk about that runs them because of the same thing that I just talked about.

COB: But it seems like it's a delicate balance between fostering that community and maintaining profitability.

TL: Yes.

COB: And that's the whole ball game.

TL: Yeah. And that's where a lot of the stores I said earlier fails because they wanna be friends. They think their community demands lower prices, which there's a percentage of the community that does, but it's not terrible to allow customers to find places where they fit in better. Now, for our business that I've dealt with for so many years, our danger room will be 30 years old on August 5th, and it's still out there in Anderson. Stores come and go. And if they compete on price or they're a one trick pony, generally I'm buying their inventory a few years later at pities on the dollar going, man, I'm really sorry. How much do you need to get out of debt, type of thing. There's all kinds of interesting strategies on how to help acquire stores that are failing, which, that's probably another discussion on how you acquire these assets.

COB: So a couple of things I want to get into. One is that when you guys opened, there is a special tax in Kentucky that you pay on inventory. And that strikes me as particularly problematic for new small businesses that by virtue of how they're set up, have to acquire a lot of inventory to get going.

TL: Well, our model requires a lot of inventory because we are so varied. Like I said, the one trick, I hate to call them one trick ponies because that's a business model and it is kind of derogatory to call them one trick ponies. And I apologize to all my friends out there that do these types of stores, but they can have a narrow inventory and if it's all collectible, like individual cards, the government, there's no way to solidify a value to individual single cards unless you're going to their website and taking their retail and then figuring out a percentage that which they pay. But the inventory thing you were talking about from Indiana we used to have an inventory. We had an inventory tax, and all the car dealerships would do last day liquidation sales 'cause they had to get all those cars off the lot.

COB: That's right. We gotta make room for the 26s.

TL: Well, that's what they say, but it's also the fact that they were gonna pay a percentage on every car. And can you imagine paying a sitting tax on $4, $5 million worth of cars on your lot?

COB: And like intuitively my sense is, look, the government is charging a tax for businesses that have things they want to offer to the public and that seems counterproductive to me.

TL: And the percentage tax in here after I talked to the CPA last week, it's only like a quarter of a percent. But in Indiana they eliminated the inventory tax because they seen it was sort of a burden, especially to things like car dealers or high-end farming equipment dealerships because those carry over and they'll have a slow turnover a lot of times. Now, cars could turn over quickly, so they got rid of that for so many years. So when I moved here, I had the first time the taxes come around, of course, I did not do all of my due diligence because I know everything. Like every other person who starts a business, they, I still claim I don't know. So that took me by surprise is that when we made money the first year, yes, we were profitable our very first year out the door. It was mainly an inventory growth and then we were taxed on it. And as a pass through LLC, that money goes directly to our personal tax returns. There's no corporate barrier there where the company is required to pay this. So that was an interesting thing that came up.

COB: So to our state lawmakers who may be listening eliminate the inventory tax. I'll put my soapbox away now. Go ahead.

TL: Yeah. Well also, now that I'm prepared for it, I can deal it. That was just a surprise to me. And I don't deny the fact that that is inventory. My only issue that I thought that how it should work is if I have $100000 in inventory at year end, blah, the next year, my taxes should be based upon if there's growth. Because if I take a loss on the inventory, that I should be, not only should I be taxed less, but I've already been taxed on it. That's the thing is if I have a gain that's been sitting there for a year, a lot of people would get rid of it immediately. But one of our charms and one of our things is that we have an inventory that's wide and varied. So we want to grow that inventory.

COB: Yeah. On that note I wanted to say you, because of your background in games especially, you are aware of games that a lot of stores would not never have an opportunity to carry.

TL: Or choose not to.

COB: Or choose not to. But like you get a lot of games before a lot of other people do.

TL: Yeah. And how that works is that I've always talked to people and I say, you're gonna see games on our shelves that no one else that you're not gonna see on shelves very often. Because when I go to trade shows or I go to a consumer show like Origins or the Gama Trade Show, which Origins is owned by Gama as well. I don't go to the big, I never have stepped into a wizards of the Coast Booth ever even at, other than like GenCon 1993, '94 I have never been in a Wizards of the Coast Booth because I already know. So a lot of people roll there because they're that fundraiser focused on a couple products. I go and I look for the booths that has two people at it, or the ones that could afford the back row 'cause that's where the next game is, the story is, and my story is, is that, in '93 Badge of the Gathering, if you're not familiar, it's a fantasy collectible card game, similar in the same fantasy vein as Lord of the Rings and things like that.

TL: But you buy packs of cards to produce a deck that you create and you play with. Now in '93, none of this existed. So we're going from a D&D stance where you have books and dice and any other games. So one of the things that we cracked up about is that you know the most stupid game of the world just came out. They want you to buy baseball card packs to play a role playing game. Isn't that the most stupid thing you ever heard of? There's no dice, there's no books, there's no pencils. And I left that show going, that is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. And then a year later I come back from college after getting married, and suddenly no one's gonna play D&D with me. No one's playing Robotech. No one's playing Starfleet battles because they're all playing this really crazy stupid game where you buy baseball card packs to play. So that's one of the basises of where all of our game people are going right now.

COB: I said the same thing about the McGriddle when it came out. I said this is...

TL: Oh, you were insane. That is the amazing...

COB: I said it's a terrible product. I can't believe McDonald's screwed it up this bad. And I was obviously very wrong about the public's appetite for that particular product.

TL: Oh, yeah, there's always the anomalies and then again, that's the outlier that changes and does a paradigm shift in a current system, whether it be finance or an industry like our, or even cars. I mean, just the invention of like airbags or the requirement for seat belts and things like that. It changes everything and how that goes and creates industries around it. So, that's kind of how that worked out.

COB: So, something that your industry has been dealing with, and I think a lot of people have been talking about, we're recording this on April 5th, which is just a few days after president Trump's so-called Liberation Day, where he using dubious emergency powers imposed tariffs on dozens of countries, with which the United States trades and some with which the United States doesn't trade, some that are unpopulated islands that belong to Australia, where the only residents are penguins. These tariffs are punitive.

TL: Really?

COB: They're huge. Yes. I'm sorry.

TL: Islands. I'm Sorry. I'm really...

COB: Yeah, no, it's true.

TL: The penguins pay tariffs to...

COB: Well, I don't know what...

TL: Is it tourism that they have to pay on?

COB: I don't know. I don't know what Americans trade with the penguins, but these tariffs are punitive. They are exceedingly high. They are vastly more than reciprocal, which is what the president has claimed they are. And in your industry, a disproportionate amount of the products that you use, or even the raw materials used to make the products in the United States come from other countries. So paper from Canada, printing in Germany or Canada. And I just saw a story on CBS evening news from my friends at Phantom Comics in Washington, DC, hello Matt. And the prices are gonna go much, much higher in your industry. How are you thinking about that?

TL: There's like four basic strategies that has come up in the last 48 hours on all of our industry discussion boards. There's a percentage that says this is temporary little grin and bear it. And things will go back to normal because it is a, what is it? A negotiation tool. And that's one of them. And we've all heard that opinion all over the news anyway. The second is we're talking directly with our suppliers. And many suppliers have sent us emails out with what they plan to do, such as we're going to look at our fulfillment options. Is there a cheaper way for us to get it landed from wherever it's coming from? Is there cheaper methods or is there another factory or something that we could work out for another country whose tariffs are not as high? Although Vietnam was where a lot of people are gonna do card printing, and that's been kind of transferring over a little bit, but I think they just recently got tariffed as well. So you're gonna have to find these little corner countries that you know that don't have them. And then it's gonna take millions upon millions of dollars to set up a printing operation just to save yourself 25%. And who knows how long you'll be saving it? So manufacturing is not coming back to the United States in that regard, simply because it...

COB: Especially paper printing.

TL: Well, yeah, paper is one, but I mean the whole cost of production, if you have to build a brand new factory with the cost of millions or billions of dollars, and they could be gone in four years, these tariffs could be removed in four years or four weeks, you're not even gonna start making those plans because there is always hope there. And we'll go right back to a globalized economy and everything goes on. So our industry is definitely affected because 90% of the things that we carry in our store is made of paper, some form of paper or some form of ejection plastic molding. And all of that is... A large percentage of comic books are printed in Canada and brought over. So all those comic books, if they impose a tariff, that increases the cost to us at the retail level of 25% more. Which if you do the gradual, it's not quite 25% 'cause you're going from wholesale to distributor to you.

TL: So the prices just are not full retail. But again, if it comes to us and says it's gonna cost us 15 to 20% more overall landed in our store, then boutique models like ourselves try to survive off a keystone, which is basically you like to double your money off of something. So I buy something for five bucks, I like to sell it for 10. And many people think that that's really good, but I will be more than happy to talk about how the percentages of things break down in our type of model. But at the end of the year, these types of stores only make 5% of gross as far as profit for shareholders.

COB: And that's almost grocery store margins. That's a thin margin.

TL: Yeah. But they have guaranteed sales and most of that stuff is not a luxury. Everything we sell is a luxury, but simply put, a 30% increase is gonna increase our cost by double because we keystone it. So if a $10 game is now costing us 12, our markup is gonna be $24 instead of 20.

COB: How is your broader industry thinking about this?

TL: Well, yeah, I talked about the first two. The third one is they're looking at a model that is kind of like a club membership. And many, many, many industries have already done this. And if you're familiar with online stuff, there's a thing called Patreon and things like that where we would charge a monthly fee to be part of our group. But again, what do we offer that group? And generally whenever you do something like that, there's some form of monetary expense to that, whether it be a percentage off or more space or what, anything that costs, and the whole point of doing it would be to try to raise revenue. So you're basically gonna be given away a large portion of why you're doing it, and then you're gonna alienate the folks that normally come into your store that has all these services for free at this point, and they're gonna walk.

COB: Yeah. Reduces your options. It reduces your customer's options and...

TL: And will reduce the community because of a couple things. Some people only can afford a couple packs a day where other people can do a lot more. And then that type of a Patreon type of thing that would give a 5% discount means a lot more to this guy than it would to you guys, other people, not necessarily you guys. So that is one of the options. And then there's an interesting one that came up last night that I thought was amazingly funny, but it's never gonna happen the way he describes it. But what they want to do is get the manufacturer, the distribution and the retailer to take those tariffs and we divide them equally among the costs. So, whatever the tariffs are at the landed price in the retail store, we all pay a third of it.

TL: And what we do at the end is we take what our MSRP was before, like say it's a $40 game, and let's say the tariffs have raised the price of the game to $46. So we'll put a price tag on there for 40, and then we'll put a red price tag that we have printed that says tariff tax and add another six to it, and then you're gonna pay $46. So that's almost kind of political in nature, but it's also aggressively showing people that the price of eggs are going up. Yes. But how much did they go up until you, well, I guess, how much did the product go? No one knows exactly, but if I can tell you exactly, it's gonna cost you an extra 60 cents per booster pack or a dollar per booster pack, every time you buy a booster pack, it's gonna stick in your mind that...

COB: Yeah. It's always helpful when prices are transparent and we know what we're actually paying for. And I think customers appreciate knowing that it's not your fault that this is the case. Waffle house put a sticker.

TL: 50 cents per egg.

COB: 50 cents per egg. I think that was a really smart choice that Waffle House made to say, Hey, look, the price of eggs is higher now, we are adding a surcharge per egg, specifically because of the price of eggs. We're very sorry. And it's a sticker, so it looks temporary. And I think it's a really valuable and smart thing that they've done.

TL: But it was also insidious simply because they put out a new menu just recently and all those prices have gone up for their all star platter. It's a little bit more pricey now. I didn't calculate it 'cause I don't remember the exact price, but one, I think it was like 10 50 and now it's like 11 or like 12 even, and it's for the same meal. It's a brand new menu. You know it because we go there for breakfast meetings.

COB: I've seen you there.

TL: Yes. We go to breakfast meetings there before we open the store. That's another fun thing about the community that we build, is that community efforts outside of the store and just meals and breaking bread and talking with other people and then being invited to people's homes, which is kinda interesting. But their new menu is now more expensive. So the one thing that people on a nature can definitely should understand is that the prices are never going to should, my belief and my experience is the prices will never return to the pre inflationary tariff driven, industry driven, whether it's bird flu or not, whether they're going to the summer blends of gas or anything like that. It never really returns to where it once was.

COB: In Kentucky I think this has made some interesting bedfellows. And I'll say again that I really appreciate what you guys have built and I appreciate that my family has a fun place to go to meet other people and play games and just have a little mini community that we can go to and enjoy each other's company. But the strange bedfellows is amazingly... Rand Paul is a very consistent defender of free trade pretty much from the get go. Even before Donald Trump was inaugurated as president, he said, look, the tariffs are a bad idea. Tariffs are a limitation on freedom. Tariffs are taxes and I don't like high taxes. And now Mitch McConnell, who is also generally a free trader, but they are in some not great company in terms of their own party because the rest of their party, at least in the US Senate and largely in the US house, Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell are aligning with Democrats on this critical freedom issue. I know you wanna avoid politics generally.

TL: Yeah, there is this pretty strict rule at our store is that we are all geeks. Leave your religion, your politics, and your hot button issues at the door and be prepared to speak with and interact with people who are not aligned with all of your beliefs. And that is something that is really important for this type of community to grow or to at least be able to sit together and have a family. Like, you have church families, you have dinner party families, you have like the Masons or fraternities and things like or sororities. That's a whole bunch of different people. So this is kind of how we're trying to put this together.

COB: But your industry, at least on this issue, as a policy issue and not a political thing, although it is inevitably political, but as a policy choice it should be very clear to people that these tariffs are actively destructive to this particular community and should be gotten rid of forthwith.

TL: Yes. I mean, for our industry in itself, regardless of any kind of positive things that may come from this, although my belief is that it's very limited, but our industry, discussions within our groups are saying that we will start seeing store closures after two months of this time, especially when the tariffs hit. Luckily is many people in our industry are very aware of these things. And you've heard it on the news too. You've heard it on the news that people have tried to buy inventory to get landed before these taxes hit. The funny thing is, is now transportation costs went up almost, I don't know what the actual percentage, but it cost more to transport it because of the demand upon the containers in which they're being shipped. So they lost even some of the advantage of trying to order old inventory before the time. And then of course, we had a dock strike, didn't we recently? And then we also had the Boston one at a limited capacity. So slowed down all of that too. So it's like an interesting little perfect storm that's going to that. And it's not just hurting us, but like we said earlier, 90% of what we sell is in fact materials printed and created in the countries where the tariffs are hitting the most.

COB: Yeah. And I think about our community specifically, Shelbyville, Martinrea is a Canadian company that does heavy stamping here in Shelbyville. They sell parts to, I believe auto manufacturers who make cars in Kentucky. And I can only imagine that of the nervousness associated with being a worker or a manager at that facility. And there's a lot of pain that is being exacted. I wanna change gears just a little bit. When you guys do tournaments, for Lorcana, which we play, lamentably come in and play Lorcana.

TL: Keep complaining, you still come in and buy.

COB: We come in, people come from pretty far away. But we have a friend, Jonathan from Cincinnati. Hello Jonathan. Who comes in from northern Kentucky to tournaments at your store. And I think that speaks a lot to the kind of community that you've built there.

TL: We are definitely unique in many forms for these types of stores. And the support of the fan base or the customer base is fairly, to lack of a better word, fanatical about how things are run, which is a very, very strong indicator that we will weather a lot of this a lot better. I've been talking to the customers about, man, if this continues, we are gonna see increased prices, kind of be prepared for that. And a lot of people are very interested in leasing. And like I said, I talk about my business to anybody 'cause I'd rather have educated competition and customers than others that do not understand where things are coming from.

COB: I like the fact that you mentioned before we started recording, that your industry is thinking about this as an industry-wide push because of so much of your business and your industry is cross border business. And I love the idea of making a full-throated push against tariffs by your industry. And I hope that that's something that's in the offing.

TL: Yeah, I think it's worth mentioning to anyone who is interested or interested in opening up a store like this or just interested in how things kind of operate. Our international organization is called Gama.org is where they're based outta Columbus, Ohio. And they've sent out emails in the last 24 hours talking about how they've told everyone to call your local politicians and start making plans now. And then of course underneath that thread, that's where I got a lot of the discussions about the four different ways that many people are working on.

COB: Well, Tony, I love your store. I'm so happy it's a part of our community. And when these tariffs go away, we're gonna have you back on to celebrate. What do you wanna tell folks about the store?

TL: Well, first thing I just wanna say one thing. When we talked about the partners, my wife Laura Karem, myself, Chris and Wendy Noack opened up this store July 8th, 2023. I did wanna make sure I mentioned the partners because not only did they help us with the initial funding, but while they're not in the store all the time, they're ever present within our discussions and groups. Although sometimes I kind of go alone and I get beat down for that. But that's part of really me in. So it's a very interesting thing and we're still growing and there's just so many different aspects of how the store works. There are books written about it. I've done many seminars about just different strategies and things like that within there. So no, I'm very glad that we're here with the community and we have the support we do. So thanks so much for letting me talk to you.

COB: Thank you to Tony Lakas for joining me. And if you're able, please do drop by Derby Comics and Games here in Shelbyville. I hope you'll share this episode of the Shelbyville idea with your friends. Subscribe to our newsletter at shelbyvilleidea.com and give us your guest suggestions, comments, criticisms, feedback, news tips, unsubstantiated rumors, and anything else you'd like us to know. Email directly at Shelbyvilleidea-at-icloud.com. I'm Caleb Brown. Thank you for listening.

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