Comments on: December’s skip week: Who cares if you don’t get your comics?

By: FunkyGreenJerusalem

FunkyGreenJerusalem — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 04:59:33 +0000

Well, why doesn’t everyone go into their local shop and try something new that week?
I’ve always got something I’m meaning to pick up on a quiet week – a book I think might be good but don’t know, or something I like but just doesn’t grab me as much or as immediately as some other books do – I’ll probably just grab one of them.

a great many shop owners are former fans that don’t run their businesses like real store with real inventory stratesgy, marketing plans, and cash flow controls.

I dunno man, I was at EB yesterday as I thought the Batman game had come out because reviews were online, and the clerk was trying to convince me to pre-order them game, because it comes out on a Thursday – late night shopping – and due to lots of pre-orders and the late night shoppers, they probably won’t have any left by Saturday.
Now I just left, and he just wanted me to pre-order, but that just sounds like the worst run shop ever – they know the pre-sale numbers, they know it comes out on a night there will be a few shoppers about, just before a weekend… and yet he thinks there will be a shortage?
That’s just bad business.

And that’s at an international chain, not a sole trader… I’m not sure there is grown up businesses in this world anymore.

By: Greg Hatcher

Greg Hatcher — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 17:44:58 +0000

And it’s not a crisis moment but it is indicative of the kind of immaturity in the business of main stream comics.

Exactly. Retailers who run their businesses like grownups have nothing to worry about. This is a circumstance that is taking place in December. As I type this, it’s still August. Any other successful shop owner in any other business in the world understands that sometimes there are going to be slow sales periods and so on. Most adult businesses look at income on a monthly or quarterly basis anyway, and act accordingly. One would hope that the holiday shoppers a smart owner would be trying to lure into his shop for the month of December would spend enough to carry that owner one week.

But the catch is that said smart retailer has to be a grownup and run the comics shop like a real business and not as the thing that subsidizes his Heroclix habit. The guys that will be ‘hurt’ by this are the ones that can’t manage their money properly in any case.

Yeah, Diamond sucks, we all know it, but in this particular case I’m just not seeing the bad call. It’s a holiday week that pretty much any other business in America that’s not retail staffs light and lets people spend time with their families. Diamond isn’t retail, they aren’t dealing with ravening hordes of shoppers begging them to stay open late, and they’ll have shipped four weeks’ worth of comics in December already. (Which, as Greg points out, is a non-issue for scheduling but for an accountant four weeks’ worth of sales is a month.) There’s no there there.

The only reason this is a story at all is because a great many superhero fans are addicted to new books on Wednesday and a great many shop owners are former fans that don’t run their businesses like real store with real inventory stratesgy, marketing plans, and cash flow controls. . Which is more of an embarrassing commentary on the comics community than it is any kind of business-slash-financial issue.

By: Dan Bailey

Dan Bailey — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 15:43:26 +0000

About every 6 weeks or so (including, as it happens, last week) I skip a trip to my LCS anyway, just because I don’t have enough titles I buy (&/or that I’m in a real hurry to read) coming in, plus about half the stuff I get I sub to through HeavyInk, so like more than one person here I’m not really affected.

(Indeed, on the off chance the post office holds up under the holiday rush, there’s every good chance I’ll get a nice HeavyInk package in the mail that week anyway … optimistically assuming that the economy hasn’t collapsed & spun the nation, or at least the industry, into a state of chaos that Mad Max would find daunting, or that I haven’t been hit by a truck or kidnapped by my creditors or whatever.)

But yeah, the possible impact on retailers having no new product in a week where people (a) are off school or work & more likely to swing by, or (b) have Xmas money burning holes in their pockets … that’s somewhat concerning.

Sounds like the guys who’ve mentioned plans for special sales are on the right track.

By: Stephen C

Stephen C — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 10:17:00 +0000

Wow!, a week without books. Whatever will people do??
I live 45 miles from the closest CBS and only go to pick up books every 3-4 weeks.
So a missed week means nothing to me.
On the retail sound of things this is a chance to give staff a day off or have a big ‘Clean up the Shop’ sale.

By: Craig

Craig — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 22:06:37 +0000

My store is also pushing for a big sale week. Rather than complaining (because, as it seems, it won’t be changed regardless of how negative the buzz gets), we’re looking at it as an opportunity to solve our always-nagging backstock problem.

By: Alan Coil

Alan Coil — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 06:47:09 +0000

Diamond will do whatever it takes to destroy the comics industry.

By: BP

BP — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 06:12:46 +0000

I don’t think most of us are concerned from a reader perspective, but again, from a retailer perspective. And it’s not a crisis moment but it is indicative of the kind of immaturity in the business of main stream comics. A business wants its product visible but often times when dealing with the Diamond/Publisher creature (and I’m sure it’s both) it seems as though they have an attitude of “fuck you, take what we give you.”

Not the reps, the customer reps do what they can. And I don’t think anyone actually thinks it…

They just act like it sometimes…

By: Joe

Joe — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 04:24:36 +0000

I get my comics monthly anyways, so this doesn’t affect me at all. BOOSH.

By: Patrick Rennie

Patrick Rennie — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 03:48:55 +0000

UPS doesn’t make routine deliveries on Saturdays. They only do special Saturday delivers for which they charge an arm and a leg. I don’t believe FedEx does either. Just the USPS.

By: MarkAndrew

MarkAndrew — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 01:16:53 +0000

Yeah.

As a fan I could/couldn’t care less. It’s not like I’m gonna walk into the comic shop and NOT have hell of things to buy.

But it does seem like a fairly crappy thing to do to retailers.

I’m not gonna be the first person to say this, nor the forty thousandth, but fuck Diamond.

By: Michael P.

Michael P. — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 01:06:52 +0000

I usually skip comics Christmas week, since I’m traveling and spending time with my family. So I’ll just end up picking up the 23rd’s books on or about the 30th anyway.

By: brian

brian — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 00:58:24 +0000

I wonder if this gives the retailer who has a sale a new display area for sales items? My LCS has a particular rack where all the new books this week go. Maybe he’ll take that space and offer TPB or large dollar back issues? A theme day? The regulars will already know not to expect new books, and chances are we’ve been to the Boxing Day sale, but to get our fix, we come in looking for something different, and check the rack by force of habit.

As far as publishers go, scheduling on most books is regular enough that week 4 is week 4, regardless of the month. So not having a fifth week probably won’t make a difference; I suspect like June, though, you will see a huge increase on the 23rd, just to make quarter-end.

Cheers,

By: Matt Lzorwitz

Matt Lzorwitz — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 00:40:06 +0000

Yeah, my boss and I were talking about what we were going to do about this on Wednesday, and it looks like a big sale is the way we’re going to go. It’s going to be rough, since this is the first time in his 18 years as a retailer that there’s been this kind of week, but we’re not panicked.