I noticed a marked difference between the amount of back issues that were in stock say around 2013 and how many are available now. Back in the day they still had Infinity 1:50/1:100 variants available months maybe a year or so after that event closed out.
Now I can’t find the issue that released last week for a lot of stuff.
P.s. I’m the best at anecdotal evidence. Facts suck. I hate data. Odoyle rules.
It’s a crap shoot on some of them. Cart drops people will hit me up and say “hey I am going to drop this let the forum know” (sometimes it’s something I need and it doesn’t make it to the forum) but 99% of the time I share it.
Let me also mention the forum is now averaging 16,000 views a day over the last 30 days. This is by far one of the most viewed threads on the forum. So that’s members and lurkers. When the rumors were circulating I was getting links early, I think that brought a lot of eyes on this here thread.
Limited supply of books + lots of viewers = missed variants for some. I could close the thread and put it in the lounge area so only registered members of level 2 or higher (check your profile to see your level) to take some of the lurkers eyes off this thread. Or I can do what some Facebook groups do and charge a monthly fee to get the info on the cheap variants (I kid I would never be that lame to charge people for info).
Yeah I figured it was the increased traffic and people coming primarily for the drops. Guess it’s time to do daily searches and wait for cart drops.
Daily searches are tough because cart drops are random. Trust me. I spend hours on tfaw a day to find one book here or there. Mostly all I find are Dynamite variants that most people do not want.
Is Dynamite making money with those? What is going on with that? I can’t understand the dozens of variants on every book every week.
Dynamite is. Yes. Think about it. They do not really pay that much more for a new cover. Maybe like $250 for a plate change fee to print a new cover. When you factor in the amount of copies they print it’s not much. Meanwhile it’s the stores that get stuck with the variants that are not making money.
The stores only get stuck with what they order.
Well that’s true. But let’s say they order 45 copies of Vampirella for subscribers and then order 15 more for the shelves. They get 6 1:10, 3 1:20, 2 1:30 1 1:50 and what ever other ratio they qualify for. Some may collect some of the covers but some are truly bad. They can keep dropping the prices until someone eventually buys them but they aren’t really making money off them the way they would off a Marvel or DC ratio.
I found a number of DC 1:25 sketch ratios in dollar bins a few months ago…I did sell a few for $10 shipped, making my money back…but I still have like 10 left and I feel like tossing them in the garbage as I’m trying to downsize…
Don’t toss them in the garbage! Donate them!
It makes the most sense to only list for sale what you’ve actually ordered ;).
As far as brand new releases go, we could also put comics up with back stock status (like we do GNs and statues and stuff) but the problem is 90%+ of those orders are going to be because an issue suddenly got hot. And there’s just not a ton of stuff that stays in stock at diamond in large amounts. So they’d sell out quick, people would get allocated, etc. Its also a crapshoot on when diamond ships the in stock orders sometimes. It may come in the next weekly shipment, or it may come in a month. New releases get higher priority. If something is still in stock at diamond and we sell out or are selling out quickly before release or the week of release we do order more pretty often, but it’s not something anyone viewing the site would know.
As for timing on variant listings, doing it at a set time each week would be hard given some weeks there’s ten incentives, some weeks there’s 50+. Its already generally known that MOST incentive quantities go up the day of FOC in the early afternoon/late morning.
Cart drops aren’t something that could be scheduled because that’s either literally when people remove it from their preorder, their shipment is processed and their credit card declines, or in he rarest cases if someone is blocked from preordering because of too many failed payments, fraud, etc. The only time I’ve ever seen notice of one happening is if people here tell other users they’re going to do it, and I assume some other communities or groups may do likewise.
They aren’t my cup of tea, but Dynamite has some of the most active and hardcore fans of any publisher. Variants are a big deal for them, and in my own personal experience some of the hardcore collectors for Vampirella and Red Sonja are some of the most polite customers I’ve dealt with. Its kind of like how metal fans are some of the best fans for live music venues and the most polite at how they treat the venue and crew despite stereotypes leading people to believe otherwise.
The only problem I have is when a book is “out of stock”, it still shows it’s orderable but cant be added to the cart. If it’s OOS, then just remove the listing as soon as it’s OOS…
That’s an indexing slowness issue…
Well, who am I to knock what people like? I’m no huge metal fan, but I love Black Dahlia Murder. I wouldn’t want people knocking my love of Star Wars and euro trash techno.
Damn missed everything out grocery shopping. oh well.