But it's not exposing it to the people who are actually ordering the books and not before they place the order. Retailers already ordered Orphan Black #2 and 3 before the Loot Crate selection was announced. Those orders set the print run for #2 and #3 before anyone ever saw a copy of #1. Retailers (according to Brian Hibbs) have to sell 4 out of every 5 copies of a book they order to break even/show any profit. If they had 3 preorders on #1 they might not have ordered more than 3 copies for it, or for #2 or for #3, so they are not likely to have shelf copies beyond their pulls for it unless they know they can sell them before they ever saw the Loot Crate bump. Maybe they can get reorders, but the print run was decided by preorders, so even if someone saw Orphan Black #1 in Loot Crate, decided to try to find a comic shop and drove there, they might not be copies of #2 or #3 on the shelves as the earliest impact on preorders the Loot Crate bump could have would be for issue #4, but people who could not get #2 or #3 aren't likely to buy #4. Maybe the big name online retailers like DCBS, Midtown, et. al. might have copies available as they order to sell them to their preorders plus to online customers for a few months after release, but that just means the copies they ordered already are selling quicker, not that they ordered more copies. 

If we saw #2 and #3 of books featured in Loot Crate going to second and third printings, then I would say the exposure is increasing sales. 

So for print, Loot Crate is not likely to have any affect on sales as the orders and size of print runs are decided before anyone sees/knows about the Loot Crate factor. 

It might cause an increase in digital sales. We don't see digital sales numbers but we do get top 10 seller lists form Comixology. The only Loot Crate featured books that cracked top 10 after the feature were books that were in the top 10 before they were featured-Batman and Amazing Spider-Man, and since the only indication we have gotten is that the vast majority of books sell about 10% of the print runs in digital and sales charts in digital seem to mirror print sales charts in hierarchy of what's selling (with a few rare exceptions like Ms. Marvel from Marvel which outsold print in digital and has had 8-9 printings of #1 already but no Loot Crate bump, just word of mouth), we're not seeing any evidence of a surge in digital sales for these Loot Crate books either. 

Exposure is good, sure, but the way the market is structured for ordering currently that exposure has to come 3-4 months before the book sees print to have any impact on the first 3-4 issues of the books sales aside from the actual bump that a Loot Crate or variant cover blitz provides. And since retailer shave to be conservative in their ordering, not many are going to say hey lots of people who aren't my customers are getting #1 I should up more orders for #2 because people who aren't my customers might want it. He already has a good idea of how many he or she can sell to his customer base because of his pull list and in store sales patterns, and that will have a whole lot more impact on how many gets ordered than a Loot Crate exposure.

Sure a retailer could order a few more and try to capitalize on the Loot Crate bump by selling online via an ebay store or some such, but the added level of fees from ebay, Paypal etc. cuts the margins so he would have to sell a large volume of copies to make it worth his time and effort, and all that time and effort would not build his regular customer base, it would represent a one time spike in sales that probably won't be duplicated the following month. So more work for lower margins to make a few extra dollars. 

Until such a time that publishers find a way to make it less risky and more profitable for retailers to stock books long term and beyond what they can sell from pulls and the day the book comes out from walk in traffic, stunts like Loot Crate and multiple cover bonanzas are not going to translate into long term sales increases. Image right now has the best program for this as many of their new titles are sold on a returnable basis for the first issue and sometimes the first 3 if you hit certain sales levels. This encourages retailers (whose preorders decide print runs) to order more and keep the book available for a time to expose it to their own customer base and they can then return for a credit the unsold copies if it doesn't pan out. There's still risk for the retailer, but its ameliorated and actually encourages them to support a new book and try to sell it to their end customers rather than just being conservative and ordering what they know they can already sell plus a few variants they can make a quick buck on if they are close to the order thresholds. But until the direct market changes, retailer orders, not customer sales or exposure, will determine the sales success or failure of a book, and that is what Comichron measures, retailers orders, not final sales to customers. 

-M