Yep, I have an LCS in my area that is literally going out of business because the owner refuses to get his back issues out of his storage to sell in his store. He’s legitimately the worst LCS owner in the world because aside from being lazy he’s a collector and would chase variants for his own collection. Therefore he overspends like crazy with so much backstock over the years of books that are worthless. He has these books in his storage that he’s paying hundreds a month for that he doesn’t want to sell and now has fallen behind on his rent payments and debt to Diamond and Lunar. The store is going out of business.
He’s also the guy that would pull out hot books out of his subscriber’s pull box and would get his employees to make an excuse on why there wasn’t a copy saved for them. Back issue books would not be priced so when you take it up to the counter he looks up the market price and price accordingly. Needless to say he has lost all his loyal customers and it should be no surprise why this shop is going out of business.
$10.99 isn’t that far off from typical double what you paid for something pricing. That one probably should have been in the $9.99 with subscription/preorder discounts taken off that amount for the regulars who ordered before street date. If DC can put a foil on the street for $5.99 or $6.99 and offer full normal discount, Marvel is certainly capable of it as well. Shame on Marvel for even creating this needless headache.
If a store is supporting this stupidity by Marvel to try and use it as an opportunity to suck up sales from traffic pulled in from other stores in the area doing the right thing then that just makes it a scum move on their part. It’s almost certain a lot of the people they’re pulling in to grab them at that price have no interest in turning around and selling it for what they paid for it. In some communities it’s even against the law to sell for less than you paid unless it’s a clearly marked clearance sale. That was started when Walmarts would move into an area, give milk away at the front counter to suck up the market and run the competition out of business then they would turn around and jack everything up afterwards. It’s a scum move that shouldn’t be encouraged or supported they can get away with because they have alternative revenue items to offset them until after the competition fails.
There isn’t another store around the shop. But people are driving to it. Stores are pretty well spaced out in my area. So if a store a couple of towns over is going to do this, and people are willing to drive there to pick them up and other stuff they have marked down, not sure how selling something for cover price (even if it is cost) is scummy. I don’t know, sounds to me like an opportunity for them to draw in and maybe keep some new customers.
This is a problem when you have a collector and an owner who “loves” the product too much. These are the types who should not be in business selling comics. The whole point of a retailer is to move inventory… the ones who think they need top dollar for everything are the ones who should just stick to being collectors.
Hell yes. It’s about moving inventory. What is the old saying trip over a dollar to save a dime. Thats what they are doing. If you have inventory you are sitting on, separate it out into must keep at the right price and get rid of these books asap piles.
Paying storage for books you already bought is paying for the same books monthly.
I have no doubt there’s demand. I want almost all of them myself. There are some really gorgeous ones. The question we can’t answer is are the other stores people are driving away from also boycotting the product. If that’s the case then it’s a matter of consumer knowledge as to why they aren’t stocking them which is basically an attempt to get Marvel to price the books appropriately by reducing/holding down total order sizes. That’s the only reason I said anything here since I prefer silent reading along. There’s a few good reasons for stores trying to get Marvel to act right. Saving up to $5 typically doesn’t justify someone driving a good distance to get to an out of the way location bypassing closer options. It’s usually that the closer option probably doesn’t offer it. Just like here, I’ve never turned down a regular customers order for one but I’m not ordering any for the store shelves at all until Marvel does right by all the stores. Marvel shouldn’t be the only ones making money off the book. If they’re going to insist on printing a price, print what it actually costs them, not what they feel they want stores to charge. Get the distributors on board to not add anything for their trouble and handling either.
As for the stores using the price it cheap thing to lure in customers, let them know you wouldn’t mind seeing some current/new that week DC, Image, IDW, Boom etc tossed out on the shelf every week as well at the price they paid for it, probably half cover or less for most. If you’re going to have a hook, really have it.
I also suspect if Marvel would just price them normally, you would have saved money. You could have ordered at normal preorder/subscription prices getting 25-40% off cover which if Marvel would put them at $5.99 to $6.99 like most of DC’s, your price could have only been $3.60 to $4.20. You get a better price than anyone’s getting now and everyone along the path makes their normal bottom lines.
They gave away hundreds of copies of the new Vault book for free last week. Other stores were charging full price even though they only paid for shipping. They are using these to send out email and Facebook posts offering up the deals plus to spotlight the sales they are doing. They also give away the one per stores (I just missed the Dracula one) to customers that ask and sell variants below ratio. Overall, doing a lot to drum up business (they have a huge back issue section, really the best in the area) where they make the most of their money.
Also, remember that even opposing opinions are welcome. Always feel free to join in. We love conversations and this has been great. Lots of good back and forth. No one attacking the other. Just throwing out discussion. For that, thanks.
Added some nice bronze age horror to my collection from an online sale. The House of Mystery #203 is signed by Bernie Wrightson as well. Such great comics.
Yesterday they had a hodgepodge $2 sale. I got 3 short boxes, some silver and Bronze Age books, and a Big Chappy (Alien) action figure for $2. Not at all what I went in for but was happy with what I came out with. And sorry I know this doesn’t fit the topic.
