Hello there Phoenix Friends! Nick here with a some updates for everyone about some important store updates. If you're a subscriber or a long-time customer, please give this post a quick read so that you can stay informed and up to date on the situation as it evolves.

Upcoming Changes and Downtime

First things first - in order to facilitate some employee training, new hardware implementation, and testing of said new hardware, Phoenix will be closed all day Monday, March 24, 2025. We'll be back open with regular hours the following day, including all the usual events such as Tuesday Night Magic and our Flashback Drafts.

The hardware changeover is a long time coming, and very necessary for a variety of reasons. If you truly want to know, I'll go into details a bit further in. We'll also have some software changes coming alongside them which are going to be pretty important to any subscribers out there, so if that's you, keep reading a bit longer.

Subscriber Changes and Updates

Alongside changes to our point of sale software, we'll also be implementing a new comic subscription software package - Manage Comics. This service integrates the catalogs from a variety of distributors, including Diamond, Penguin, and Lunar to provide a large, easy to access catalog that's available to both us and to our subscribers through the store's own website. This service should be live as of the posting of this blog, so if you're keen to see the interface, you can go check it out here.

If you're an existing subscriber - good news! Your subscriptions have already been imported alongside any special orders for upcoming products you may have had. To access them, simply log into the site using the email we have on file. Heads up - you will want to reach out to us individually to enable access right now. Just email us or call us at the store, and we can easily send over the activation email.

Once you're into the subscription page, you should see all upcoming special orders and subscriptions. You'll also be able to look at any and all upcoming stuff in our catalogs, subscribe, or preorder items with the click of a button. We'll get automatic notifications on the store's side and approve the changes, or email you back if there's anything about the order that needs to be discussed.

So...What's the story behind the updates?

For those of you who want a peak behind the curtain as it were, here's the rundown of why we decided to do this.

That answer's pretty simple - the creator and supporter of our current point of sale solution, Diamond, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protections back in January. And while we have been assured that the point of sale would continue to be supported, this was sort of the thing that clinched a long-time desire to find something better in my head. In fact, not a week prior I had gone down to visit family in Texas, stopped off to see one of my industry peers (shoutout to Randy and his wonderful crew at Rogue's Gallery in Round Rock, TX), who proceeded to show off this exact setup.

And the more I stared at it, the more just straight upsides I saw. Integrated website store credit and gift certificates. A ton less workflow issues between in-store sales and website sales. Easier preordering, and integrated card processing. All of these things added up until the math was just overwhelmingly in favor of the upgrades.

As with any point of sale switch-out, I'm sure this one will have its bumps. There will definitely be things we missed when moving over, and the team may move a little bit slower at first on the new system as we get acclimated to it. I can only ask folks for their  patience while we navigate these changes, and promise that we're committed to getting everything sorted out as quickly and smoothly as possible.