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Post by kurrgomaul on May 21, 2015 14:47:45 GMT -5
There are couple of others in my areas - but I don't go to them because of the high crime and the surrounding areas is so rundown that I feel unsafe going there. Because of that reason, I have to drive 2 hours to that store to get a general feel of the how the comic is faring and to see whether I like it or not. happened to me too I went in one shop about 5 years ago and there was nobody in there except the guy behind the counter and i could see he had his hand on a handgun behind the counter....yeah, I know packing heat is a part of life but that did not make me want to go back there ever again, I like comics but I'm not gonna lose my life over them and that's probably why a lot of people are buying theircomics online now because theyre worried about stuff like that being shot.
I don't believe the lies that shop owners can't compete with online retailers...the price of comics have gone up, on floppys it usual says 3.99... unless the shop owners are putting their own pricetags on they could put a tag that says "half off" and cut the price down to 1.99 which much more reasonable for what your getting (spend 4 dollars on a comic that takes you 5 minutes to read you might as well just read it in the store and put it back on shelf)that 4 dollars...and that's incentive for the customer to buy MORE comics which will means more money for the shop and better publicity
so any shop owners saying theyre unwilling to lower the price is instead raising the price I have news for you......I will not buy comics if theyre raised to 5 dollars. it's not worth it at that point...you'd go through a paycheck for 20 comics. that's a scam.
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Post by Deleted on May 21, 2015 15:01:30 GMT -5
There are couple of others in my areas - but I don't go to them because of the high crime and the surrounding areas is so rundown that I feel unsafe going there. Because of that reason, I have to drive 2 hours to that store to get a general feel of the how the comic is faring and to see whether I like it or not. happened to me too I went in one shop about 5 years ago and there was nobody in there except the guy behind the counter and i could see he had his hand on a handgun behind the counter....yeah, I know packing heat is a part of life but that did not make me want to go back there ever again, I like comics but I'm not gonna lose my life over them and that's probably why a lot of people are buying theircomics online now because theyre worried about stuff like that being shot.
I don't believe the lies that shop owners can't compete with online retailers...the price of comics have gone up, on floppys it usual says 3.99... unless the shop owners are putting their own pricetags on they could put a tag that says "half off" and cut the price down to 1.99 which much more reasonable for what your getting (spend 4 dollars on a comic that takes you 5 minutes to read you might as well just read it in the store and put it back on shelf)that 4 dollars...and that's incentive for the customer to buy MORE comics which will means more money for the shop and better publicity
so any shop owners saying theyre unwilling to lower the price is instead raising the price I have news for you......I will not buy comics if theyre raised to 5 dollars. it's not worth it at that point...you'd go through a paycheck for 20 comics. that's a scam.
They pay $1.99 or more plus shipping for that $3.99 book. If they sell it to you at $1.99 they lose money. It's not a lie. That's the cost of the product. Diamond is not going to lower their price (they pay half of that so $1 per $3.99 book) so Marvel (or DC or Image or whoever) is getting $1 for each $3.99 book sold, Diamond $2 and retailers $4. You want to pay less, we all do, but no business is going to sell a book for less than it costs them to get it, never mind other overhead. That's the reality of the situation. That's how distribution works in businesses. Each level has to make money to survive and publishers don't have the infrastructure to cut out middle men for print products (and it would not be cost effective for them to do so). Yes it sucks that comics cost $3.99 but it's not retailers gouging you. It's the cost of the product. Now charging $20 for a variant they paid $1.99 for, that might be gouging... -M |
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Post by DE Sinclair on May 21, 2015 16:14:02 GMT -5
happened to me too I went in one shop about 5 years ago and there was nobody in there except the guy behind the counter and i could see he had his hand on a handgun behind the counter....yeah, I know packing heat is a part of life but that did not make me want to go back there ever again, I like comics but I'm not gonna lose my life over them and that's probably why a lot of people are buying theircomics online now because theyre worried about stuff like that being shot.
I don't believe the lies that shop owners can't compete with online retailers...the price of comics have gone up, on floppys it usual says 3.99... unless the shop owners are putting their own pricetags on they could put a tag that says "half off" and cut the price down to 1.99 which much more reasonable for what your getting (spend 4 dollars on a comic that takes you 5 minutes to read you might as well just read it in the store and put it back on shelf)that 4 dollars...and that's incentive for the customer to buy MORE comics which will means more money for the shop and better publicity
so any shop owners saying theyre unwilling to lower the price is instead raising the price I have news for you......I will not buy comics if theyre raised to 5 dollars. it's not worth it at that point...you'd go through a paycheck for 20 comics. that's a scam.
They pay $1.99 or more plus shipping for that $3.99 book. If they sell it to you at $1.99 they lose money. It's not a lie. That's the cost of the product. Diamond is not going to lower their price (they pay half of that so $1 per $3.99 book) so Marvel (or DC or Image or whoever) is getting $1 for each $3.99 book sold, Diamond $2 and retailers $4. You want to pay less, we all do, but no business is going to sell a book for less than it costs them to get it, never mind other overhead. That's the reality of the situation. That's how distribution works in businesses. Each level has to make money to survive and publishers don't have the infrastructure to cut out middle men for print products (and it would not be cost effective for them to do so). Yes it sucks that comics cost $3.99 but it's not retailers gouging you. It's the cost of the product. Now charging $20 for a variant they paid $1.99 for, that might be gouging... -M Even the increased price for some variants I can understand if the store had to buy extra copies of the regular cover just to qualify to get the variant. Because they may end up not selling some or all of the extra copies they had to buy. Plus supply and demand come into play. If the variant is very rare, and someone just has to have it, they'll be willing to pay for it. Also it doesn't bother me because I don't care about variants. |
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Post by kurrgomaul on May 21, 2015 21:04:31 GMT -5
happened to me too I went in one shop about 5 years ago and there was nobody in there except the guy behind the counter and i could see he had his hand on a handgun behind the counter....yeah, I know packing heat is a part of life but that did not make me want to go back there ever again, I like comics but I'm not gonna lose my life over them and that's probably why a lot of people are buying theircomics online now because theyre worried about stuff like that being shot.
I don't believe the lies that shop owners can't compete with online retailers...the price of comics have gone up, on floppys it usual says 3.99... unless the shop owners are putting their own pricetags on they could put a tag that says "half off" and cut the price down to 1.99 which much more reasonable for what your getting (spend 4 dollars on a comic that takes you 5 minutes to read you might as well just read it in the store and put it back on shelf)that 4 dollars...and that's incentive for the customer to buy MORE comics which will means more money for the shop and better publicity
so any shop owners saying theyre unwilling to lower the price is instead raising the price I have news for you......I will not buy comics if theyre raised to 5 dollars. it's not worth it at that point...you'd go through a paycheck for 20 comics. that's a scam.
They pay $1.99 or more plus shipping for that $3.99 book. If they sell it to you at $1.99 they lose money. It's not a lie. That's the cost of the product. Diamond is not going to lower their price (they pay half of that so $1 per $3.99 book) so Marvel (or DC or Image or whoever) is getting $1 for each $3.99 book sold, Diamond $2 and retailers $4. You want to pay less, we all do, but no business is going to sell a book for less than it costs them to get it, never mind other overhead. That's the reality of the situation. That's how distribution works in businesses. Each level has to make money to survive and publishers don't have the infrastructure to cut out middle men for print products (and it would not be cost effective for them to do so). Yes it sucks that comics cost $3.99 but it's not retailers gouging you. It's the cost of the product. Now charging $20 for a variant they paid $1.99 for, that might be gouging... -M look I can get Marvel secret wars #1 on amazon for little over 2 dollars www.amazon.com/Secret-Wars-First-Printing-Alex/dp/B00UGRDRSO/ref=pd_sim_14_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=151B63BNB7Z8M6RXQ96H
why would any go to a store and pay 2 dollars more? like someone said earlier there needs to be emphasis on customer appreciation nowdays you walk into a shop and the person behind the register's holding a gun. that really tells the customer you appreciate them. I understand the shops have to make money too and they have a lot of overhead but that doesn't give them the right to extort money out of customers by raising the price of a floppy to 5 dollars...that's gonna be the end of comic shops if they keep doing that because nobody in the right mind is gonna drop a 100 dollar bill for a variant cover. there was a time when customers were treated with respect and encoyrage to come back, now the clerks have guns, sorry, no one else is gonna die
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Post by Deleted on May 21, 2015 21:09:35 GMT -5
happened to me too I went in one shop about 5 years ago and there was nobody in there except the guy behind the counter and i could see he had his hand on a handgun behind the counter....yeah, I know packing heat is a part of life but that did not make me want to go back there ever again, I like comics but I'm not gonna lose my life over them and that's probably why a lot of people are buying theircomics online now because theyre worried about stuff like that being shot.
I don't believe the lies that shop owners can't compete with online retailers...the price of comics have gone up, on floppys it usual says 3.99... unless the shop owners are putting their own pricetags on they could put a tag that says "half off" and cut the price down to 1.99 which much more reasonable for what your getting (spend 4 dollars on a comic that takes you 5 minutes to read you might as well just read it in the store and put it back on shelf)that 4 dollars...and that's incentive for the customer to buy MORE comics which will means more money for the shop and better publicity
so any shop owners saying theyre unwilling to lower the price is instead raising the price I have news for you......I will not buy comics if theyre raised to 5 dollars. it's not worth it at that point...you'd go through a paycheck for 20 comics. that's a scam.
They pay $1.99 or more plus shipping for that $3.99 book. If they sell it to you at $1.99 they lose money. It's not a lie. That's the cost of the product. Diamond is not going to lower their price (they pay half of that so $1 per $3.99 book) so Marvel (or DC or Image or whoever) is getting $1 for each $3.99 book sold, Diamond $2 and retailers $4. You want to pay less, we all do, but no business is going to sell a book for less than it costs them to get it, never mind other overhead. That's the reality of the situation. That's how distribution works in businesses. Each level has to make money to survive and publishers don't have the infrastructure to cut out middle men for print products (and it would not be cost effective for them to do so). Yes it sucks that comics cost $3.99 but it's not retailers gouging you. It's the cost of the product. Now charging $20 for a variant they paid $1.99 for, that might be gouging... -M You mean retailers $1 right? It sure sounds like someone is getting screwed. And it sounds like Diamond is doing the screwing if their cut is as much as retailers and publishers combined. |
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Post by Deleted on May 21, 2015 21:13:49 GMT -5
New floppies there isn't much room for leeway, I think good shops will offer 10% or 20% off for pull lists, but that's it. And that's fine. I think I get 10% off and a free bag and board for my pull list purchases.
Yeah, the real issue with my shop personally was customer service. He can't stock everything, doesn't have the room, or the interest, and that's fine. But when I preorder something I expect it to be ordered. That was my major issue. But even if the shop just sold new floppies for cover price no matter what, no big deal. It's really their back issue prices that make me laugh. I don't even look in any comic shops back issue bins anymore. Ever. I already know the prices are ridiculous and the selection is poor in every store I've ever visited. I'm wondering why they even waste the space on that stuff if nobody is buying it. I suspect in some shops it moves often enough to justify being there, but in a LOT of shops I've been in it didn't look like anyone ever bought from the bins. When I was a kid I think the bins did more volume than the new issues, but then again there was no eBay when I was a kid.
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 21, 2015 21:22:58 GMT -5
My impression is that Diamond gives a greater discount for bigger customers... IIRC, the max is 60% off retail. If the store is getting that, I don't think it's unreasonable to give even a 20% discount to a regular customer... I do so for my book store, and we only get 40-50% off retail for most things. If the price is close, a fair amount of people will be happy to patronize a local business, especially if it's a nice, clean, happy place. If it's not fun to go there AND it's more money, there's not much hope.
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Post by Randle-El on May 21, 2015 21:36:17 GMT -5
Uh, more like $6 when you factor in the shipping. Amazon is not selling it, they are listing it for a bunch of Amazon sellers who can't offer free Prime shipping, and every place is charging a minimum of $4 shipping. Unless you are a buying a bunch of other issues and there's a flat shipping charge that makes shipping negligible when spread across a lot of books, you are better off buying that book at full retail at a local shop. |
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Post by Deleted on May 21, 2015 22:38:05 GMT -5
They pay $1.99 or more plus shipping for that $3.99 book. If they sell it to you at $1.99 they lose money. It's not a lie. That's the cost of the product. Diamond is not going to lower their price (they pay half of that so $1 per $3.99 book) so Marvel (or DC or Image or whoever) is getting $1 for each $3.99 book sold, Diamond $2 and retailers $4. You want to pay less, we all do, but no business is going to sell a book for less than it costs them to get it, never mind other overhead. That's the reality of the situation. That's how distribution works in businesses. Each level has to make money to survive and publishers don't have the infrastructure to cut out middle men for print products (and it would not be cost effective for them to do so). Yes it sucks that comics cost $3.99 but it's not retailers gouging you. It's the cost of the product. Now charging $20 for a variant they paid $1.99 for, that might be gouging... -M look I can get Marvel secret wars #1 on amazon for little over 2 dollars www.amazon.com/Secret-Wars-First-Printing-Alex/dp/B00UGRDRSO/ref=pd_sim_14_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=151B63BNB7Z8M6RXQ96H
why would any go to a store and pay 2 dollars more? like someone said earlier there needs to be emphasis on customer appreciation nowdays you walk into a shop and the person behind the register's holding a gun. that really tells the customer you appreciate them. I understand the shops have to make money too and they have a lot of overhead but that doesn't give them the right to extort money out of customers by raising the price of a floppy to 5 dollars...that's gonna be the end of comic shops if they keep doing that because nobody in the right mind is gonna drop a 100 dollar bill for a variant cover. there was a time when customers were treated with respect and encoyrage to come back, now the clerks have guns, sorry, no one else is gonna die
My guess is that those are sellers who upped orders to meet minimum purchase levels for variants, sold the variants for a tidy profit that also covered the cost of the entire order of Secret Wars #1, and have zero chance of selling the number of copies they ordered in their brick and mortar shop so are selling them (still at above what they paid for them) at $2ish buck a pop of pure profit because they paid for everything by overcharging on the variants. That's not customer appreciation, that's milking the order for every penny you can by liquidating the overstock at a profit to a wider market than the foot traffic of your brick and mortar shop. Look, I don't like the high cover price of current comics, it's a big reason I stopped buying new comics last November. They were not a value for the cost for me any longer. I get the dislike for the pricing, but the simple fact is there is a minimum above cost you can sell something and still make enough to stay in business. No, the comic shops are not a charity and don't deserve your money just for being there, but you as a customer are not entitled to get things at prices that create economic hardship for others because you treat a luxury like a necessity and want it cheap. If you don't like the price, don't buy the product, but telling a retailer he has to take a loss on a product or work for no pay just so you can get the price level you want and feel appreciated is not a realistic option. -M |
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Post by dupersuper on May 21, 2015 22:39:50 GMT -5
I'm really annoyed when they insist I give them money in exchange for the comics...
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Post by kurrgomaul on May 21, 2015 22:51:02 GMT -5
Uh, more like $6 when you factor in the shipping. Amazon is not selling it, they are listing it for a bunch of Amazon sellers who can't offer free Prime shipping, and every place is charging a minimum of $4 shipping. Unless you are a buying a bunch of other issues and there's a flat shipping charge that makes shipping negligible when spread across a lot of books, you are better off buying that book at full retail at a local shop. I don't pay shipping when ordering from amazon.... don't even factor that in, so as a customer it makes more sense to order online but the only reason I keep going to shops is because I can have the titles I want same day instead of waiting weeks from them to arrive by ordering from amazon.
it's not your fault I get that shop owners need to make a profit too but blame it on economy blame it on inflation... if the price of water went up to 100 dollars tomorrow people would be drinking out of puddles, same with comics, if the price gets too high we're just gonna go else where to buy, like online retailers...there's only so much you can charge for them before the customer says enough is enough,which is why shops are doing poorly, so if you want to keep customers you got to give them incentive and a reason to keep coming back, that's how all small businesses work. |
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Post by Deleted on May 21, 2015 23:21:56 GMT -5
look I can get Marvel secret wars #1 on amazon for little over 2 dollars www.amazon.com/Secret-Wars-First-Printing-Alex/dp/B00UGRDRSO/ref=pd_sim_14_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=151B63BNB7Z8M6RXQ96H
why would any go to a store and pay 2 dollars more? like someone said earlier there needs to be emphasis on customer appreciation nowdays you walk into a shop and the person behind the register's holding a gun. that really tells the customer you appreciate them. I understand the shops have to make money too and they have a lot of overhead but that doesn't give them the right to extort money out of customers by raising the price of a floppy to 5 dollars...that's gonna be the end of comic shops if they keep doing that because nobody in the right mind is gonna drop a 100 dollar bill for a variant cover. there was a time when customers were treated with respect and encoyrage to come back, now the clerks have guns, sorry, no one else is gonna die
My guess is that those are sellers who upped orders to meet minimum purchase levels for variants, sold the variants for a tidy profit that also covered the cost of the entire order of Secret Wars #1, and have zero chance of selling the number of copies they ordered in their brick and mortar shop so are selling them (still at above what they paid for them) at $2ish buck a pop of pure profit because they paid for everything by overcharging on the variants. That's not customer appreciation, that's milking the order for every penny you can by liquidating the overstock at a profit to a wider market than the foot traffic of your brick and mortar shop. Look, I don't like the high cover price of current comics, it's a big reason I stopped buying new comics last November. They were not a value for the cost for me any longer. I get the dislike for the pricing, but the simple fact is there is a minimum above cost you can sell something and still make enough to stay in business. No, the comic shops are not a charity and don't deserve your money just for being there, but you as a customer are not entitled to get things at prices that create economic hardship for others because you treat a luxury like a necessity and want it cheap. If you don't like the price, don't buy the product, but telling a retailer he has to take a loss on a product or work for no pay just so you can get the price level you want and feel appreciated is not a realistic option. -M But it's not as if they're suggesting the comic shop sell comics for less than prices available elsewhere. When someone asks how comic shops could improve, I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to suggest they become more competitive in the evolving market. How do they do it? That's something a successful business owner should figure out. |
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Post by Randle-El on May 21, 2015 23:24:10 GMT -5
I don't pay shipping when ordering from amazon.... don't even factor that in, so as a customer it makes more sense to order online but the only reason I keep going to shops is because I can have the titles I want same day instead of waiting weeks from them to arrive by ordering from amazon. And how do you pull that one off? |
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Post by Deleted on May 22, 2015 3:11:48 GMT -5
So here's a real situation that happened to a shop here in the area...Diamond shipped out their weekly order of books, but missed one book...the lone copy of Robert E. Howard's Savage Sword the shop ordered for the one pull customer shipping that week, realized their order after the books were packed, and acted to correct the shortage, by getting the one book and shipping it to the shop. Sounds great right. Except, shipping on the one book was $8 that the shop had to pay Diamond and the shipping company. That was in addition to the shipping they paid for the regular week's order (which goes up as shipping rates go up even if shops can't raise prices to cover the higher costs of shipping). It was a $7.99 cover price book that cost the shop roughly $4 with their discount structure, but with shipping cost the shop $12. The shop loses money selling that book and thee is absolutely nothing they can do about that. They can't return it to Diamond-it's non-returnable. Diamond won't pay for their mistake. So he's out $4 to sell that book at cover. This is not an isolated incident. Diamond does this quite often-you special order a trade form the Star catalog without anything else-do they add it to your next regular shipment? No they send it on it's own, oh yeah Star Catalog books get a much lower discount than new books, often only 25% off cover not the usual 50% new books get, which means the shop is paying more for it than you the customer are buying it from Amazon for because they have a higher volume and better discount structure, plus have warehouses so they can buy it in bulk when first released at the higher discount and sell it until their stock is out in which case it goes unavailable as they will not reorder a new stock from the publishers at the lesser discount. So the shop owner has to pay more than an Amazon customer and pay shipping for the single item with a small margin to begin with, but he should lower prices to be more competitive. Ok, except it's not a level playing field, and the number one killer of small businesses is lack of cash flow, so he should do the very thing that will kill his business (lessen his revenue flow) to improve his business?
If smaller shops could get books for less than Amazon sells them for, then maybe they could be more competitive even if they have smaller margins and higher overhead, but Amazon and big online sellers are able to sell books for less than the cost of those smaller businesses. There is no way to compete. Add on Diamond's crappy practices that raise costs for smaller accounts (that they consider less important because of the smaller volume) and offer no way to recoup those extra expenses. (I won't even get into things like what happens when Diamond allocates books like the first batch of lenticular covers where big accounts like say Midtown of DCBS got between 90-95% of what they ordered even with allocations while smaller accounts averaged getting only 20-25% of what they ordered because of allocations because Diamond won't short the big accounts who sell bulk online but has no problem shorting the small accounts, and then saying oops sorry, too bad, if your customers have to go elsewhere to get the books you ordered on time but we sold to someone else].
The business model for comics retailer sis different than other small businesses because they have to deal with a middle man who has a distribution monopoly on the goods that they sell taking control of pricing away from them. There is literally nowhere else shops can go to get their supply of books to sell to their customers (one owner I know a few years back even tried ordering his trades from Amazon because they were cheaper than Diamond even with shipping until he got busted for sales tax evasion doing it that way and the fine put him out of business...)
Shops can compete by offering better customer service, events, the ability to browse etc. but they cannot compete on pricing.Not with that monopoly that Diamond has mucking up the actual market for the goods. If there were actual competition in distribution again, and competitive pricing on the distributor end, then shops would have some leeway to move on the price points, but there's not. No matter how bad Diamond screws you, you can't cancel your account and go elsewhere and still be a comic shop. You have to play their game their way. And the bigger you are, the more Diamond's playing field favors you because they make more money from you in volume. The little guys, they don't care about so much. If shop in podunk town goes under his cutomers will drive 2 hours to the next closest shop or order from an online seller and Diamond still gets their money....because all those shops buy form Diamond anyways. They have to, there's no other game in town, and it's more profitable for Diamond to consolidate their sales into fewer accounts anyways, so they have no reason to cut those small accounts a break.
-M
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 22, 2015 6:22:32 GMT -5
@ Kurrgo: You don't get free shipping from third party sellers, even if you have Prime... it's a standard rate ($3.99 for regular, $6.99 for priority)
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