mferrario

March 29, 2012 2:12 pm Also, suppose the shop bought 5 copies because that's what he expected to sell in a month. Instead, he sold out in a day. Well, he just did a month's worth of sales in a day and he now has the rest of the month to move the rest of his inventory. If everything else performs the way he expects, the worst case scenario is he breaks even. The owner might have to report to a customer that he is sold out of Saga, but the smart owner will deliver this news along with, "But if you're interested in stories like Saga, maybe you should check out (insert in stock title here)." And then his net sales for the month have actually increased. Sure, the customer did not get exactly what he was looking for, but since so much of the buzz in this industry is driven by word of mouth, that customer may now have two titles he wants to read every month instead of one. I don't mean to sound snobbish or aloof -- it really would be best if all the shops could fill every order and not be burdened with excess inventory because in that scenario everyone wins.

March 29, 2012 2:06 pm Right, but this is a short term problem. The shops should have a much better clue now as to what the demand is. No more than two days after the release (assuming they sold out or never purchased an order and only had buzz in the store), they should be putting their orders in so the distributor can know what the need is -- there is more than enough time for Image to get a handle on how many units to produce of subsequent issues so that the unfilled demand becomes less and less over the next few months.

March 29, 2012 1:58 pm I'm kind of struggling to figure out why selling out is bad for the retailers. In the case of Saga, it sounds like most retailers bought more copies than they otherwise would have and still sold out. This means that each retailer sold more copies than he otherwise would have, which means they each made more money than they otherwise would have. Sure, lost sales are unfortunate if you don't accurately quantify the demand, but still you made more on this book than another book that could have been released at the same time, which is a net positive for the retailer. I think most customers are pretty loyal to their local comic shops -- I know I am. If a title I'm looking for is not at my LCS, I may go to another one looking for that specific title, but I'll still come back to the one I like. I also think this situation is fairly rare, since most metropolitan areas are not littered with comic book shops. In the Bay Area (which makes up the 6th largest metropolitan area in the country), I can realistically see myself going to 3-4 shops, so the LCS needn't worry about losing a customer. And furthermore, if the title is hot and I can't get the first issue straightaway, I'll put it on my pull list and catch up when I get the first issue off ebay for $2 more than cover price.