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Post by kurrgomaul on May 22, 2015 7:06:30 GMT -5
if your total comes to 35 dollars shipping is free.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on May 22, 2015 11:48:40 GMT -5
if your total comes to 35 dollars shipping is free. Only if you're buying from Amazon. If you're buying from Third-Party Retailers who are putting their stuff on Amazon that book will be a minimum of $6.26. The cheapest copy that is "Fulfilled by Amazon", which would make it eligible for the free shipping sells for $8.50. |
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Post by kurrgomaul on May 22, 2015 12:38:32 GMT -5
Or also you can send in a money order
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Post by Deleted on May 29, 2015 22:42:02 GMT -5
One way to improve comic shops...have a dealer who has some charisma and a personality and doesn't come across as an ignoramus if you (a) know enough about comics to have a different opinion of something or (b) have other sources of books too.
Someone rubs me the wrong way, they lose my business. End.of.story.
It's easy to talk about reducing prices as a customer, until you step into the comic store owner's shoes and discover the monthly overhead. We're talking about possible loan repayments, rent, fixed and variable costs which are inherent in a comic book, taxes and recuperating all that working capital that is tied up in inventory & storage costs. Some customers are woefully oblivious to this and simply want a book at bargain bin prices all of the time, and have the audacity to mull around in the store every week waiting for it to happen. For all intensive purposes, a dealer doesn't invest in a $5 cover price new issue so it can be gleefully passed on to a customer for a dollar...
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 30, 2015 6:33:45 GMT -5
You make a very good point about customers being oblivious... I work in a book store, and when we bring books to events and book signings, there are always a few people that assume a) every book on earth is immediately at my disposal if only they ask for it. b) It's utter preposterous that we could run out of something they want, because predicting the buying patterns of 600-1000 people making an impulse buy at a speaking event is so easy.
Never mind the 'Amazon can sell it for $24.47, why can't you?' Never mind Amazon is a global juggernaut, and I'm a small local bookstore, and we've gone through the expensive of bringing the books TO The customer for them to look at, and paid the staff for them to harass for a better deal.
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on May 30, 2015 16:22:02 GMT -5
The internet and communities gathered for different hobbies are really rendering paying more for something now either a luxury or financially ludicrous. I can preview a lot of reading material on amazon alone. Or I search for an author or artist or forum with information, scans and reviews. And when you are paying 5-30% off the cover price then many times that information is more than enough to take the chance on liking the material even if you can't page through it. It's not milk at the block away convenience store for $5 or the 5 mile away grocery store for $3.50. Unless you really have money to through away (and why even then?) comics aren't a necessity. If I wait 2-3 days and get free shipping for a $50 order from Lone Star for even 10% more reading material than $50 at a shop, it doesn't seem a mystery why they struggle.
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2015 23:10:59 GMT -5
The internet and communities gathered for different hobbies are really rendering paying more for something now either a luxury or financially ludicrous. I can preview a lot of reading material on amazon alone. Or I search for an author or artist or forum with information, scans and reviews. And when you are paying 5-30% off the cover price then many times that information is more than enough to take the chance on liking the material even if you can't page through it. It's not milk at the block away convenience store for $5 or the 5 mile away grocery store for $3.50. Unless you really have money to through away (and why even then?) comics aren't a necessity. If I wait 2-3 days and get free shipping for a $50 order from Lone Star for even 10% more reading material than $50 at a shop, it doesn't seem a mystery why they struggle. And again because of the joys of Diamond and the distribution monopoly they have, Amazon can afford to sell a fair number of trades at a price below what the cost of that product is to shops. The end customer may not care and their only concern is price, but there is no way shops can match the price points of Amazon or sellers of that ilk who don't buy from Diamond and can work out better deals for high volume purchases because of it. -M |
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2015 1:11:10 GMT -5
If Amazon is selling retail for less than Diamond sells wholesale, I'd just make Amazon my new supplier.
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2015 1:37:12 GMT -5
If Amazon is selling retail for less than Diamond sells wholesale, I'd just make Amazon my new supplier. Except you can't get tax exempt when buying from Amazon, and if you want to be able to show it as tax coming in, you owe the sales tax on it in most states even if you do not pay it to Amazon, which adds not only expense but lots more paperwork and time to your workload, or the risk of being fined for way more than you would save buying form Amazon if you are caught evading paying your taxes. -M |
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2015 3:11:48 GMT -5
Then it's not cheaper than wholesale.
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2015 3:49:55 GMT -5
Then it's not cheaper than wholesale. But that doesn't change the fact I can't match Amazon's price if I am a retailer. The fact they can sell for less than I get it means that I have to charge more than they sell it for, I cannot compete with their pricing. I can't improve my shop by selling my goods at a loss. The point wasn't I should use Amazon, the point was Amazon has a price advantage I can't match, not when I can't buy the goods at the same prices they do. Not only is my overhead more for a brick and mortar store, I couldn't match their price even without that differential in overhead, because the cost of the goods themselves are more for me than Amazon. It's easy to say, they need to be more competitive in pricing, but impossible to do given the unlevel playing field the distribution models of Diamond versus Amazon's suppliers cause. Customers who only care about price won't care, but then those are customers you are never going to get no matter what you do because you can never meet their demands for price breaks. Custom that causes you to take a loss is not custom your business needs or wants. Putting yourself out of business trying to get that custom is not going to improve your business. It will end it. Diamond's monopoly essentially allows them (and through them the publishers) to engage in price fixing for their primary market. Digital prices are as high as they are because they want to ensure the Diamond model (their primary delivery model) remains viable. The bulk of their sales are through floppies. Trades are a secondary (or even tertiary) source of income for the publishing division, and selling to places like Amazon at a lower rate is essentially a loss leader. They don't ever offer the monthly floppies at those kind of higher discounts because they have no competition for that market from anyone. Will this change-possibly. I think Marvel's experiments with a subscription model via Unlimited has the potential to impact the way comics are delivered to a wider audience, and Marvel is experimenting with price points on direct subscriptions again for actual print issues through their website, and so we will see what happens because of it. DC on the other hand, only offers its best sellers through direct subscriptions and when they do it is at a higher price point than buying them through a comic shop and has done nothing with the subscription/streaming model, so there seems to be some resistance to change. Image too has experiment with direct subscriptions through their website, but they too are at a higher price point than buying the issues via a shop serviced by Diamond. The bottom line though is that shops serviced by Diamond cannot price competitively against those who have alternate distribution because their bottom line doesn't allow them to. Any improvements to make the shop more attractive will have to come via other means. -M |
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2015 13:53:35 GMT -5
"There's nothing I can do" is not typically the attitude of a successful business.
Not being able to match Amazon's prices doesn't mean nothing can be done to make prices more attractive. And when it comes to trades, why does Diamond have to be the supplier? Why can't a comic shop use the same supplier as book stores who regularly discount new trades?
Also, they CAN be competitive in their back issue pricing, if they wanted that stock to sell. You say they can't because of overhead or labor costs, but they can because those costs exist regardless of the back issue bins. You could remove the back issue bins completely and won't save a dime on labor or overhead costs. So those sales are all extra and you only have to make a profit over purchase price. I think the real problem is most shops are run by people who were running shops before customers had easy access to the internet and have failed to adapt. When I was a kid, if you wanted a back issue, you had to buy it from the LCS, and you paid NM guide prices no matter what. Taking out an ad in the paper was expensive and might not get you any results. Same for selling a collection, it pretty much had to be sold to the LCS. They had the monopoly and they took advantage of it. Now their monopoly is gone and they don't seem to be staying competitive in the new market.
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2015 14:47:35 GMT -5
"There's nothing I can do" is not typically the attitude of a successful business. Not being able to match Amazon's prices doesn't mean nothing can be done to make prices more attractive. And when it comes to trades, why does Diamond have to be the supplier? Why can't a comic shop use the same supplier as book stores who regularly discount new trades? Also, they CAN be competitive in their back issue pricing, if they wanted that stock to sell. You say they can't because of overhead or labor costs, but they can because those costs exist regardless of the back issue bins. You could remove the back issue bins completely and won't save a dime on labor or overhead costs. So those sales are all extra and you only have to make a profit over purchase price. I think the real problem is most shops are run by people who were running shops before customers had easy access to the internet and have failed to adapt. When I was a kid, if you wanted a back issue, you had to buy it from the LCS, and you paid NM guide prices no matter what. Taking out an ad in the paper was expensive and might not get you any results. Same for selling a collection, it pretty much had to be sold to the LCS. They had the monopoly and they took advantage of it. Now their monopoly is gone and they don't seem to be staying competitive in the new market. Because most distributors have minimum order threshholds which means the shop would have to tie up too much capital to place an order of the required size, meanwhile their Diamond order would be smaller reducing their discount from Diamond making the rest of their product cost them more.... oh and the smaller order at the other distributor would also net a larger wholesale price because they don't do the volume of business with them that the other stores would. Tie up too much capital in stock that doesn't turn over immediately and you run into cash flow problems, which is the #1 killer of small businesses in America. And back issue bins are the most labor intensive part of the shop. They get wrecked by just about every browser and if not constantly straightened out make the entire shop look unkempt and disorganized, which is a major turn off to many customers. And yes, if you want to replenish your back issue stock it does cost time and overhead, even if you want to maintain the stock you have, so removing back issue would save time and overhead. If you do not have to constantly upkeep them you can retask staff to more profitable tasks (like selling and customer service) or reduce staff to cut costs. If it is a 1 man show, you can spend time on other tasks that reduces the amount of time overall you need to get everything done and therefore are more available to provide customer service, keep up on new and upcoming products etc. Plus there is no regular sales cycle on back issues. You cannot depend on the income form them to provide revenue when bills come due. They are sporadic sellers at best. They can generate a lot of income some months and none the next. You can't depend on products like that to meet your bottom line. Wishful thinking does not help the situation, it just sets up unrealistic expectations and strategies that don't account for the reality of doing business. They can be competitive in pricing on some things, but since the bulk of their business is on new arrivals (i.e. the only way a shop can survive is if sales of new arrivals in the first week of their arrival are enough to pay for all the stores operating costs for the week, sales of anything else is the profit margin usually because if the store does not recoup its expenses on that week's worth of product in the first week, it will not sell enough of it long term to pay for the bill when it comes due) and the new arrivals are the one thing they can be least competitive on because of the pricing structure of Diamond. -M |
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2015 15:33:49 GMT -5
"There's nothing I can do" is not typically the attitude of a successful business. Not being able to match Amazon's prices doesn't mean nothing can be done to make prices more attractive. And when it comes to trades, why does Diamond have to be the supplier? Why can't a comic shop use the same supplier as book stores who regularly discount new trades? Also, they CAN be competitive in their back issue pricing, if they wanted that stock to sell. You say they can't because of overhead or labor costs, but they can because those costs exist regardless of the back issue bins. You could remove the back issue bins completely and won't save a dime on labor or overhead costs. So those sales are all extra and you only have to make a profit over purchase price. I think the real problem is most shops are run by people who were running shops before customers had easy access to the internet and have failed to adapt. When I was a kid, if you wanted a back issue, you had to buy it from the LCS, and you paid NM guide prices no matter what. Taking out an ad in the paper was expensive and might not get you any results. Same for selling a collection, it pretty much had to be sold to the LCS. They had the monopoly and they took advantage of it. Now their monopoly is gone and they don't seem to be staying competitive in the new market. Because most distributors have minimum order threshholds which means the shop would have to tie up too much capital to place an order of the required size, meanwhile their Diamond order would be smaller reducing their discount from Diamond making the rest of their product cost them more.... oh and the smaller order at the other distributor would also net a larger wholesale price because they don't do the volume of business with them that the other stores would. Tie up too much capital in stock that doesn't turn over immediately and you run into cash flow problems, which is the #1 killer of small businesses in America. And back issue bins are the most labor intensive part of the shop. They get wrecked by just about every browser and if not constantly straightened out make the entire shop look unkempt and disorganized, which is a major turn off to many customers. And yes, if you want to replenish your back issue stock it does cost time and overhead, even if you want to maintain the stock you have, so removing back issue would save time and overhead. If you do not have to constantly upkeep them you can retask staff to more profitable tasks (like selling and customer service) or reduce staff to cut costs. If it is a 1 man show, you can spend time on other tasks that reduces the amount of time overall you need to get everything done and therefore are more available to provide customer service, keep up on new and upcoming products etc. Plus there is no regular sales cycle on back issues. You cannot depend on the income form them to provide revenue when bills come due. They are sporadic sellers at best. They can generate a lot of income some months and none the next. You can't depend on products like that to meet your bottom line. Wishful thinking does not help the situation, it just sets up unrealistic expectations and strategies that don't account for the reality of doing business. They can be competitive in pricing on some things, but since the bulk of their business is on new arrivals (i.e. the only way a shop can survive is if sales of new arrivals in the first week of their arrival are enough to pay for all the stores operating costs for the week, sales of anything else is the profit margin usually because if the store does not recoup its expenses on that week's worth of product in the first week, it will not sell enough of it long term to pay for the bill when it comes due) and the new arrivals are the one thing they can be least competitive on because of the pricing structure of Diamond. -M Most comic shops I've ever been to had a single owner/operator. And a back issue bin. How does it cost more in labor to have that bin when the single operator of the store is going to be there if there's a back issue bin or not? Pay him to work or pay him to watch paint dry. At my LCS, and I suspect several more, one day a week a couple high school kids come in and work for store credit. It costs the retailer nothing (literally. No workman's comp, no SSI tax, maybe fifteen dollars out of pocket per employee per day) to have these workers come in on busy days and fill pull boxes and stock shelves. My owner operator LCS also has about 50% of the retail space dedicated to back issues, that nobody is ever looking in, so it requires zero hours to maintain. I remember that being the case for many years, when I would make my weekly trips to the LCS, as I'm looking through the bins where I left off the week before it's obvious nobody has touched a thing since last time I was there. If you're having problems fulfilling minimum order requirements, offer an online marketplace. Why is it reasonable to have 40 boxes of floppies nobody is ever going to buy sitting in the back of the store but unreasonable to order three extra copies of Watchmen or Scott Pilgrim to meet a minimum order requirement? Remaining competitive in the marketplace is not wishful thinking. It's a requirement for all businesses to survive. |
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2015 15:37:09 GMT -5
This shop, my new favorite shop, has about 12 back issue bins (none of which I was interested in, but someone was browsing them when I went in), about the average size current floppy selection (maybe 75-100 titles?), and ceiling to floor TPB's and HC's including every single one I wanted as well as every single one I had ever heard of. EVERYTHING. He has it all. In a small LCS. I doubt Diamond provided those thousands of HC's and TPB's.  |
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