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I see on forums (forii?) across the webernet with people questioning how and why certain stores “only” get certain things, why things are missing, why one store gets books a week or two after another store, etc. I thought I would take this week to answer some of those questions instead of going on about how much I hate the “Christmas” season and, in kind, humanity in general during said season.
Let’s get into it, shall we?
“There were 2 covers for “Amazing Ultra-Men” but my comic shop only got the ‘B’ cover.”
“My comic shop didn’t get “All-New Fierce Guy” this week but Ted’s Comics did.”
Both of these questions have a simple answer - human error. Now, where the human error occurred, that can vary. First, there’s the store owner/manager/trained monkey who has to record the order, either in the old-fashioned pen and paper method that gets mailed or faxed to the distributor or entered into a data form that gets emailed to the distributor. They may miss a line or miss-type something that results in that book not getting ordered.
The second error could occur when the product becomes available and the peoples in the distribution warehouse are “pulling” product for stores. This is a pretty simple process, in essence, where good folk read a pull sheet and grab that quantity of a certain type of comic and put it into a box for Joe Retailer. What can get complicated is when you think about the fact there are 3500 plus stores in North America who are all getting their comics “pulled” at the same. Every week. All year long. And pull sheets aren’t sorted by title; they are generally sorted by code numbers, making the potential for boo-boo’s even greater.
It’s got to be a bit of a tedious process and I can easily see how Billy could have thought that he pulled 40 copies of “The Mighty Omegas” for Alex’s store in Wyoming but accidents happen and with several million comics a month being distributed across NA, fatigue and human error is bound to occur.
Oh, and then there’s the shipping companies. I have gotten boxes for stores in other provinces and other stores have gotten boxes for me. It happens.
“The latest trade of “Unbelievable Mutant Mommas” was supposed to be out last week but it didn’t ship. When’s it gonna be out?”
When it’s late, it’s late. We, the lowly retailers, don’t get always get updates when late product is going to finally arrive. Sometimes we do but with the sheer number of books shipping in a week/month/year that are running late, we just can’t remember them all and, no, there’s no quick reference master list with that type of info.
This kinda goes hand-in-hand with, “How much will it be when it arrives?” or “When you were selling this product 4 years ago, how much did you sell it for?” A good business person knows a lot about their product. An excellent business person knows an awful lot. But in the end, there’s only so much we can know and sometimes even less we can instantly access to give you some instant gratification. Sometimes, we need a moment or it may require some research and if it does, please be patient. If a busy business owner is willing to take the time to find it out for you, cut them some slack while s/he interrupts what they were doing to tell how much your $3 comic costs exactly (yes, it does happen).
“My store carries “The Excellent East Coast Bashers” but not “Ted Humphries - Squirrelly Avenger”. Why don’t they carry both?”
In short, there’s a lot of f***ing comics out there kid and we only have so much money to buy stock. The key to that sentence is that we BUY our product. Whatever you see on the shelf, we had to purchase and cannot return or exchange. Once it’s in our store, it’s ours forever.
Back in the day, newsstands (drugstores and the whatnot) all got their comics from regional distributors and could tear off the covers of unsold comics and return them for credit. While eliminating the risk of over ordering, the profit margins were small and with the extra paperwork to get credit for unsold product, the effort outweighed the return and many stores got out of selling comics.
From there stemmed the “Direct Market”, where retailers would buy the product outright for bigger margins. This led to stores being able to support themselves by just selling comics, assuming they were savvy enough to know what to buy and how much. These days most retailers cry out for huge margins and full returnability not realizing the absurdity of the request.
“Can you order…?”
This question can end a million different ways but the answer is generally always the same. If it had a street date of more than a couple of months ago, it’s no longer available. Most companies make their product, comic or toy, based on initial orders from distributors. Sometimes they make a little extra but there are very few distributors who “stock” merchandise. Once the product is released, that’s usually all there is. The exceptions to these tend to be trades and Manga, mainly due to their lack of collectibility, which are often reprinted and kept available.
There’s more (there always is) but you probably have better things to do. I don’t, so ask me what more you would like to know about this wacky, madcap industry called comics. Until then I shall remain your
Shepherd