It's not just comics, either. Retail is taking a beating in general where big-name brand stores are shutting down. There is a used CD, DVD, record, etc, store near me that I am just shocked is still open. I almost wonder if the owner is some otherwise wealthy person who just does this for fun.

I always maintain a pull list, even if it's only one book, and even if it's one I don't particularly want. I'm paying for the culture/climate more than the book, and $4 a month is worth it. Same reason I'll buy a $4 cup of coffee at a coffee shop. I'm paying for the right to sit on the couch and read moreso than for the coffee.

That being said, I do not buy trades or high mark-up items from my LCS. The savings through Amazon are too damn tempting. But I absolutely do impulse buys at the store, especially when a fresh stack of back issues comes in.

I too used to do this Shax and maintain a pull box to show my LCS owner my dedication. But over time the staff have ruined this by either pulling issues from my box for others or placing MORE stuff into my box that I never requested or wanted. One time I actually had one of the "staff" (not the owner or the manager) calling me and "demanding" I purchase everything that was in my pull box when I was in to get my stuff. The staff member was "ANGRY" that I had taken out of the pile ALL the extra crap which he or someone else had loaded my box with. Because I am an Avenger Fan they had stuck in every variant and every comic which was "related" to Avengers but were not on my pull list. I actually left the LCS and called the owner (longtime guy of 10 years I have known from several shops who started his own) to let him know what this staff employee was trying to do. Owner came right over since he lived a few blocks away and went in and fired the employee right then and there. But of course the owner never had very good staff because the pay is nothing and several months pass and the same exact thing occurs. 

Now, that shop has closed up and the nearest LCS to me is a newer family run (for about 5 years) shop which I support by going in once a month and digging through back issues and paying full cover price for those few new monthly comics I buy (rather than get 10% off with a pull list) and pre-ordering toys and or prints and such and keep a strong connection with the owner and his wife. My time in their store I do try to make important for them by taking my time, visiting with them, searching for new and interesting comics, talking comics new and classic) with them or other shoppers and making sure that my spending isn't just a token $20 purchase. I want them knowing I appreciate their shop and that I CHOOSE to go to them for most of my comic book needs. They understand they cannot compete for TPB/Omnibus costs on Amazon so they do their best to appeal to the monthly and independent and toys crowd of shoppers.

If there are multiple shops in the area, and one asks for a deposit and the other doesn't, guess where people are going? Deposits also discourage people from having pulls to begin with, and it makes ordering much more difficult if you don't know what people want, and a mistake in ordering of non-returnable books can be just as costly as a pull list not picked up. Order too few, your customers go other places and lose incentive to come to your shop, order too many and you eat the unsold copies just like if someone doesn't pick up their pull. Either way costs the shop far more in the long run than a deposit might save them. Now some shops do require a deposit on high ticket items like statues or hard to get variants that have little chance of selling if someone doesn't pick them up, but deposits for pull lists often creates a barrier to retaining customers.

My shop will sometime put suggestions in the box, but he is cool if you put it back. Sometimes it is related to a property he knows I like or a creator I like, sometimes it's a back issue he knows I have been looking for, and sometimes it's a book he is trying to get more eyes on and promote, or sometimes it's something like the 25 cent DC Nation book DC did a while back or other quarter promo books publishers do but he never requires you buy it. And he usually points out what he added when you come in, so you can make a decision on it. I don't really do a pull list anymore, I instead fill out the pre-order form each month from Previews with exactly what I want each month. This way if I decide to drop a book, he hasn't ordered copies for me 2-3 months ahead of time because that's how Diamond works. You drop a book, the retailer has already ordered the next 2-3 issues for you, and very few customers, even the good ones, are willing to make good on those books and not stick the retailer with them because they do not realize when they set up a pull, they are requesting books 2-3 months in advance of when they are picked up and the retailer has already had to order them for them to make sure copies were available. Same with people who cancel their pulls, 2-3 months of their books have already been ordered and the retailer is stuck with them because that is how the direct market works. It guarantees the publishers and Diamond get their money at zero risk, and places all the risk in the shoulders of the retailers, and then people wonder why so many shop struggle or don't carry extra copies of things or order everything in the catalog and have it available to browse through, etc.

The entire model of the system is based on getting comics in the hands of customers who already know what they want. There's little or no flexibility in it for customers changing their mind about what they want or for carrying stock for potential new customers or for dealing with customers who don't buy what they said they wanted. It does what it is supposed to do fairly well, the problem is the industry as a whole now relies on it to do things it was not designed to do and cannot do well, and then wonders why shops fail and there is little to no growth in the readership base and potential customers. It's an out of date business model that puts too much risk on the end seller in a market that is already difficult for such sellers, and it gets not supplemental support from publishers growing and grooming potential customers and bringing them to the marketplace. It has becomes a zero sum game, where one publisher or shop's growth comes at the expense of another publisher or shop. And the more publishers and shops that lose and fall out of the game, the smaller the overall pie they play for gets. And if/when one of the big publishers or Diamond decides it has had enough and pulls out of the game, the whole thing will come crashing down like a house of cards, and unlike when it happened with mass market outlets like newsstands, there is no alternative in place to take up the slack, as digital hasn't gotten to a point where it is viable enough to carry the industry the way the direct market did when newsstands evaporated. The direct market can survive and thrive for a good long while if it doesn't have to carry the burden of the entire industry and if all the risk is not on the retailers, but currently that is how it is set up, which is problematic. But no one with skin in the game seems to want to change it. Retailers bitch when alternate distribution streams are set up (like the Wal Mart books or books intended for the book trade), fans bitch when new formats are tried or when reader-friendly books designed to attract new customers are made and the industry doesn't exclusively cater to the hardcore fan, publishers want to double down and get as much revenue from existing customers through variants, double shipping books, events, x-overs, etc rather than doing the work of creating more new customs, etc. etc. and well eventually output will match input, and if nothing new is being inputted into the system, nothing new will come out of it and the law of diminishing returns will speed up entropy.

Until then we simply watch the industry wither away as shop after shop, publisher after publisher shutter its doors and potential new customers get their comic book-based stories in other mediums and spend their money elsewhere, as people remain too stubborn or too blind to make the kind of changes and innovations needed to evolve with the changing times and marketplace. It's easier to just make another notch in your mylar bag to commemorate a fallen comic shop or defunct publisher.

-M

I rarelygo to LCS, so I guess the answer to “Why are they closing?” Is “me and my ilk.” I follow no ongoing series. I buy almost exclusively trade collections, only resorting to used floppies in rare cases. Eisner was right. The floppy format is a strong negative that exists for historical reasons related to folded newsprint.

This is a major part of the problem, isn't it? LCSes work on small margins, so they can't hire the best. Most people who will work there are there because they love the comics, but that doesn't necessarily make them good at working with customers or running a shop. Sometimes, you get lucky and get someone great who is willing to work hard for far less than they are worth, I suppose.

The way my LCS handled it was they found a really quality guy who loved comics, loved customer service, understood the business side, AND knew he was worth far more than they could pay him, so they did a sort of "work-to-own" situation where a portion of each of his pay-checks over ten years was a down-payment towards buying the shop from them. They were in their 50s and were ready to get out.

It worked beautifully. And, for the time being, he mostly works the store himself now that he owns it. He has all the incentive in the world to work hard and be proud of the work he does.