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Post by wildfire2099 on Jul 23, 2014 21:37:47 GMT -5
 Here is a comic shop new issue department, with space for 120 new monthly comics, and every space is full. When one of those Cartoon Network comics gets cancelled do you think the shelf will just have an empty space? Or do you think it may be replaced with any number of new ongoing comics or miniseries released every year? Maybe, or maybe they'd ot something already there in the slot.. (In the this picture, there are two different Looney Tunes comics showing, as well as two Thors, and that's jus ton the side I can make out, and assuming the first row of all Archie are all different titles. I don't think the store owner goes over his preview order every week and says 'well, that's 117 titles I think I can sell, I better grab 3 more for those last rack spots' Nor do I think he/she says 'well, I really want to order Walking dead, but I'm up to the Ts and that's 120 titles, so I'm done this week'. I understand the point your trying to make, but I don't think it's practically applicable. |
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Post by hondobrode on Jul 23, 2014 21:40:06 GMT -5
Yes, it's interesting.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jul 23, 2014 22:18:54 GMT -5
I'm a financial planner for retail chains and know all about gross margin profit and merchandising.In the past I have worked for Liz Claiborne,Loehmanns and Saks 5th Ave.I've worked in the field for about 40 years.I've formulated store receipt plans as well as new store opening inventory
The last thing any knowledgeable retailer would do is order new merchandise based on fixtures.Your guarenteed to go bust.You order based on expected sales.That's the ONLY reason
I've never heard of any other.If its a light shipping week,you fluff out the display.If its a heavy shipping week,you figure that out as well.Thats called creative merchandising.Thats totally separate to ordering new product.
As far as I know,on a retail level,all comics bought from Diamond have the same initial mark-up.They all get the same retail price discount.The only thing that will differentiate the gross margin profit is if you wind up discounting old books that didn't sell.You always want to minimilize that possibility.For every possible new hot book you might have under-ordered,they'll be 20 books you might over-order so it pays to be conservative.You can usually catch up later with re-orders,2nd printings and tradebooks if necessary.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 23, 2014 23:22:32 GMT -5
I don't think the store owner goes over his preview order every week and says 'well, that's 117 titles I think I can sell, I better grab 3 more for those last rack spots' Nor do I think he/she says 'well, I really want to order Walking dead, but I'm up to the Ts and that's 120 titles, so I'm done this week'. You don't think when a title a shop owner stocks is discontinued he doesn't think "Okay, I have room for one more, lets see..." What do you think he does? Fill it with last month's Thor? What does he do a year later, when nine of his titles have been canned? Will he ever add a new title to his shelf? Has he ever? Or is this a perpetual thing where those titles have simply always been there? When DC completely rebooted, how does that work? All DC titles cancelled, 52 new DC titles announced. Would he stock any of them? And the "I sure wish I could stock Walking Dead but my budget is spent on this" is absolutely a real thing. Not with Walking Dead obviously, but with smaller titles sure. You think when event season rolls around at Marvel and DC and all the sudden the LCS has to add five titles from each publisher he doesn't normally stock that doesn't have some kind of negative impact on titles from Dark Horse? Does he magically get ten more spaces on his shelf and a en percent larger budget to spend on new stock? Or do you think the next Gilbert Hernandez miniseries might have to take a back seat to the Joker four issue limited series? You ever have the LCS owner say he "forgot to order" an issue of The Goon or whatever? I bet that coincided with the major Marvel and DC events. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 23, 2014 23:24:48 GMT -5
As far as I know,on a retail level,all comics bought from Diamond have the same initial mark-up.They all get the same retail price discount. Comics bought from Diamond sure. Comics bought for Diamond is a different story, right? The argument being made to me is profit margins are better for Marvel and DC than they are for a single self published comic. And it's not all that risky to cut self publishing out of the game so Marvel can expand their output by ten or fifteen percent, is it? Not any riskier than relying on Dave Sim to not go crazy, go broke, or die, right? |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 23, 2014 23:29:02 GMT -5
Prose books aren't removed from the shelf every month. You do make sure every shelf is full of books, right? If you have 15 shelves and 14 of them are full, you'd order more books? Comics aren't either. Whenever I've been to a store, there's often 6 months or even a year's worth of current titles on the rack... whatever hasn't sold yet...they don't throw them away. Just like a book store, they try to sell them at full price for a while, then discount them once they feel they can't to try to make a bit of money/free up space. Yes, there's a much greater rate of turnover, but the principles are the same, I think. My LCS will have last months issues behind this months issues in the same slot on the wall, but he's also messy with his shop upkeep. Most I've seen go directly to the back issue bins on Wednesday when the new issue comes out. I haven't seen a comic shop display six month old mainstream comics. A years worth of Spiderman? When he's got six titles and half of them double ship? There would be nothing else on the shelf. I'll sometimes see a reprint of something months old, I think I saw that with Walking Dead, one of the rare instances a title gets two slots on the wall. Otherwise, some indy comics that don't come out monthly can sit on the wall until they sell out. I've seen that too. Not with reliable monthly comics though. |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jul 23, 2014 23:31:41 GMT -5
As far as I know,on a retail level,all comics bought from Diamond have the same initial mark-up.They all get the same retail price discount. Comics bought from Diamond sure. Comics bought for Diamond is a different story, right? The argument being made to me is profit margins are better for Marvel and DC than they are for a single self published comic. And it's not all that risky to cut self publishing out of the game so Marvel can expand their output by ten or fifteen percent, is it? Not any riskier than relying on Dave Sim to not go crazy, go broke, or die, right? I believe it's the other way around.Marvel and DC because of their high volume gets the most lenient deal with Diamond.They also get a lenient deal because they signed exclusive distribution contracts with Diamond.Independant comics would have higher rates applied to them because of lower expected orders.Marvel and DC have lower profit margins but the higher volume generates much higher profit $s |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jul 23, 2014 23:47:07 GMT -5
One last point I'd like to make before this horse gets totally beaten (as if it already hasn't).
It makes no sense why Diamond would not want a large,diverse group of publishers pushing the volume of the business.Theres only so much volume that super heroes from Marvel and DC can generate.Its only logical Diamond would want more publishers who reach other demographics of the public be it women,children,all minorities etc.They want to grow the market and make more money.They don't care where it comes from as long as it buys the books. It just has to be a profitable account for Diamond to handle because its a business,not a charity.As mentioned over a dozen times already if My Name Is Sheldon doesn't get enough orders,then he should partner with 2 or 3 other independants to make the minimum.Otherwise he doesn't deserve to be in business. Thats the capitalist system we operate under
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Post by Deleted on Jul 24, 2014 1:06:56 GMT -5
Comics bought from Diamond sure. Comics bought for Diamond is a different story, right? The argument being made to me is profit margins are better for Marvel and DC than they are for a single self published comic. And it's not all that risky to cut self publishing out of the game so Marvel can expand their output by ten or fifteen percent, is it? Not any riskier than relying on Dave Sim to not go crazy, go broke, or die, right? I believe it's the other way around.Marvel and DC because of their high volume gets the most lenient deal with Diamond.They also get a lenient deal because they signed exclusive distribution contracts with Diamond.Independant comics would have higher rates applied to them because of lower expected orders.Marvel and DC have lower profit margins but the higher volume generates much higher profit $s What I'm saying is it's more profitable for Diamond to distribute Marvel and DC comics, because of the high volume as well. I'm sure Marvel and DC also get better rates, as higher valued accounts. So it's a perpetual system of each part of the deal making the deal more lucrative for the other part. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 24, 2014 1:09:18 GMT -5
One last point I'd like to make before this horse gets totally beaten (as if it already hasn't). It makes no sense why Diamond would not want a large,diverse group of publishers pushing the volume of the business.Theres only so much volume that super heroes from Marvel and DC can generate.Its only logical Diamond would want more publishers who reach other demographics of the public be it women,children,all minorities etc.They want to grow the market and make more money.They don't care where it comes from as long as it buys the books. It just has to be a profitable account for Diamond to handle because its a business,not a charity.As mentioned over a dozen times already if My Name Is Sheldon doesn't get enough orders,then he should partner with 2 or 3 other independants to make the minimum.Otherwise he doesn't deserve to be in business. Thats the capitalist system we operate under You would think that, but then again you would think Marvel would want to publish a wide variety of genres if that were the case. And a wide system of distribution that didn't rely almost solely on the direct market. It doesn't seem to be the case. I don't think Diamond cares what genres the comics they distribute are, but I do think they care which accounts make them the most money. |
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ironchimp
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Post by ironchimp on Jul 24, 2014 4:46:56 GMT -5
As far as I know,on a retail level,all comics bought from Diamond have the same initial mark-up.They all get the same retail price discount. Comics bought from Diamond sure. Comics bought for Diamond is a different story, right? The argument being made to me is profit margins are better for Marvel and DC than they are for a single self published comic. And it's not all that risky to cut self publishing out of the game so Marvel can expand their output by ten or fifteen percent, is it? Not any riskier than relying on Dave Sim to not go crazy, go broke, or die, right? Then you should be blaming the printing presses - they will give Marvel and DC cheaper rates to print their books because they will print so many of them. It's just economies of scale. And the independent sector is growing vs majors not shrinking. That's why Image is such a good idea - you get economies of scale in printing, you get cross marketing of lots of creator owned books, you get access to Image's publicity machine, you get to own and do what you like. |
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ironchimp
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Posts: 456
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Post by ironchimp on Jul 24, 2014 4:51:07 GMT -5
One last point I'd like to make before this horse gets totally beaten (as if it already hasn't). It makes no sense why Diamond would not want a large,diverse group of publishers pushing the volume of the business.Theres only so much volume that super heroes from Marvel and DC can generate.Its only logical Diamond would want more publishers who reach other demographics of the public be it women,children,all minorities etc.They want to grow the market and make more money.They don't care where it comes from as long as it buys the books. It just has to be a profitable account for Diamond to handle because its a business,not a charity.As mentioned over a dozen times already if My Name Is Sheldon doesn't get enough orders,then he should partner with 2 or 3 other independants to make the minimum.Otherwise he doesn't deserve to be in business. Thats the capitalist system we operate under You would think that, but then again you would think Marvel would want to publish a wide variety of genres if that were the case. And a wide system of distribution that didn't rely almost solely on the direct market. It doesn't seem to be the case. I don't think Diamond cares what genres the comics they distribute are, but I do think they care which accounts make them the most money. Marvel does or did publish stuff like Dark Tower, Oz books, Jane Austen (? i think) - their problem is they wont offer the same terms for creators for diverse projects as Image and other publishers so creators go to those publishers. |
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Post by Randle-El on Jul 24, 2014 17:08:28 GMT -5
Just noticed this today... Comixology now offering DRM-free backups of selected books, in both PDF and CBZ formats: www.comixology.com/drm-free-backupRight now it looks like it's limited to Image, Thrillbent, and Monkeybrain -- no Marvel or DC -- so it's less of a game-changer than it looks like. I believe Image was already offering DRM-downloads anyway. Still, I think it's a step in the right direction and one less criticism to be leveled against digital comics if this gains traction with other publishers. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 24, 2014 17:28:11 GMT -5
You would think that, but then again you would think Marvel would want to publish a wide variety of genres if that were the case. And a wide system of distribution that didn't rely almost solely on the direct market. It doesn't seem to be the case. I don't think Diamond cares what genres the comics they distribute are, but I do think they care which accounts make them the most money. Marvel does or did publish stuff like Dark Tower, Oz books, Jane Austen (? i think) - their problem is they wont offer the same terms for creators for diverse projects as Image and other publishers so creators go to those publishers. They don't have to publish creator owned work in order to publish a variety of genres. They used to have licensed and Marvel owned properties under the regular Marvel logo falling under Western, Teen Romance, Horror, they even tried their hand at an underground. I understand why they don't anymore, but it's also why I understand greater variety doesn't equate to greater profits. Even though there is a market for those books, it's more complicated than that, and streamlining their content to their bread and butter does make sense. I don't think the industry or the medium is better for it, but the shareholders are probably happy. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 24, 2014 17:30:16 GMT -5
Comics bought from Diamond sure. Comics bought for Diamond is a different story, right? The argument being made to me is profit margins are better for Marvel and DC than they are for a single self published comic. And it's not all that risky to cut self publishing out of the game so Marvel can expand their output by ten or fifteen percent, is it? Not any riskier than relying on Dave Sim to not go crazy, go broke, or die, right? Then you should be blaming the printing presses - they will give Marvel and DC cheaper rates to print their books because they will print so many of them. It's just economies of scale. And the independent sector is growing vs majors not shrinking. That's why Image is such a good idea - you get economies of scale in printing, you get cross marketing of lots of creator owned books, you get access to Image's publicity machine, you get to own and do what you like. I would blame the printing press if I thought hardball corporate politics were at play, but I think it's simply economics. Like ordering 20,000 business cards will be cheaper per unit than ordering 200. I do think hardball corporate politics are at play with Marvel, DC, and Diamond though. They've shown that to be the case on more than one occasion, so whenever I see something just so happens to benefit them at the expense of someone else, I assume the guy on a six figure payroll to know that kind of thing knew it before I did. |
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