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State of the Comic Market Article

Started by fastballspecial,

21 posts in this topic

kimik

kimik

Posted
Posted

If the stores can sell the 1:5000 and other variants at decent enough prices to cover a good portion of their initial costs, and then sell through the regular books at cover or even a discount to cover to break even, then all is fine. At the least, they will have copies of books like DK3 to give out to customers at Halloween or on FBCD. Happy customers from the freebies will end up being returned via additional sales.

 

I can when ASM #700 came out at a big cover price. My file LCS ordered enough to get the 1:700 Ditko variant for a client, and then they sold all of their regular cover copies at cover to $25 apiece as back issues. Seeing as they would likely qualify for the top Diamond discount (59% off on Marvel?), they made a killing on it.

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thehumantorch

thehumantorch

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This is one of the few articles from Bleeding Cool that I thought was pretty well done and on target. Can't wait for the discussion from this. Who am I kidding let the arguments begin. :devil:

 

State of the Market by Store Owner

 

She makes a lot of sense. It feels eerily like the 90s right now.

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kimik

kimik

Posted
Posted
This is one of the few articles from Bleeding Cool that I thought was pretty well done and on target. Can't wait for the discussion from this. Who am I kidding let the arguments begin. :devil:

 

State of the Market by Store Owner

 

She makes a lot of sense. It feels eerily like the 90s right now.

 

If so, you are making a mistake by buying and flipping old books at shows instead of cashing in on hot moderns and variants to buy old books. :baiting::devil:

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Plantman

Plantman

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Posted
If the stores can sell the 1:5000 and other variants at decent enough prices to cover a good portion of their initial costs, and then sell through the regular books at cover or even a discount to cover to break even, then all is fine. At the least, they will have copies of books like DK3 to give out to customers at Halloween or on FBCD. Happy customers from the freebies will end up being returned via additional sales.

 

I can when ASM #700 came out at a big cover price. My file LCS ordered enough to get the 1:700 Ditko variant for a client, and then they sold all of their regular cover copies at cover to $25 apiece as back issues. Seeing as they would likely qualify for the top Diamond discount (59% off on Marvel?), they made a killing on it.

 

Unsold books are piling up at many of my local shops. The stacks of unsold Convergence tie-in books turned out to be a harbinger instead of an aberration. If your file LCS is close to 100% sell-through, then they are in great shape compared to my local shops in Eastern Ontario.

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kimik

kimik

Posted
Posted
If the stores can sell the 1:5000 and other variants at decent enough prices to cover a good portion of their initial costs, and then sell through the regular books at cover or even a discount to cover to break even, then all is fine. At the least, they will have copies of books like DK3 to give out to customers at Halloween or on FBCD. Happy customers from the freebies will end up being returned via additional sales.

 

I can when ASM #700 came out at a big cover price. My file LCS ordered enough to get the 1:700 Ditko variant for a client, and then they sold all of their regular cover copies at cover to $25 apiece as back issues. Seeing as they would likely qualify for the top Diamond discount (59% off on Marvel?), they made a killing on it.

 

Unsold books are piling up at many of my local shops. The stacks of unsold Convergence tie-in books turned out to be a harbinger instead of an aberration. If your file LCS is close to 100% sell-through, then they are in great shape compared to my local shops in Eastern Ontario.

 

They tend to follow the trends closely and not over-order on dud books. Most of their speculation was done by a former store manager that set up his own shop now. He was good at picking out spec winners.

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thehumantorch

thehumantorch

Posted
Posted
This is one of the few articles from Bleeding Cool that I thought was pretty well done and on target. Can't wait for the discussion from this. Who am I kidding let the arguments begin. :devil:

 

State of the Market by Store Owner

 

She makes a lot of sense. It feels eerily like the 90s right now.

 

If so, you are making a mistake by buying and flipping old books at shows instead of cashing in on hot moderns and variants to buy old books. :baiting::devil:

 

Don't I know it sigh

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drotto

drotto

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My LCS does not seem to participate in the variant thing. Yes, he has variants, but usually the 1:10 and occasionally the 1:25. I have never seen anything beyond that. His rack stock is also not exploding. For any given title you may see three or four issues tops left over from release day, and he often does reorders instead of carrying extra stock. He usually will not game the market on the variants either, and most of the time sells them for cover price. The occasional really hot variant may get a price bump, but it is rare.

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ygogolak

ygogolak

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Variants aren’t aimed at the reader, they are aimed at the speculator,...

 

Got it, so there are only "readers" and "speculators".

 

“If they are stupid enough to keep buying them, we will keep making them.”

 

Yup, it's like the bad sports team that keeps selling out every game. You can't stop the fact that people actually like something.

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jcjames

jcjames

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Variants aren’t aimed at the reader, they are aimed at the speculator,...

 

Got it, so there are only "readers" and "speculators".

 

Yeah that one was pretty short-sighted.

 

I like variants because of the cover-art, and try to COLLECT the ones I think look great.

 

But I guess "collectors" of variants don't fit into the two allowable holes.

 

 

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