Neither Frankie’s, Black Cape, or SSCO announced print runs, from what I’ve seen. Admittedly, I’m less inclined to buy without knowing what the numbers are. Mutant Beaver and Scott’s did announce print runs.
Has nothing to do with flipping books…has to do with running a professional business.
Frankly, I’m tired of hearing the growing pains and health excuses. I’m keenly aware of how health and health matters can impact things…but you can’t use health as an excuse one moment, and in the very next breath discuss promotions/increasing sales/offering more things, etc. If you have time to post up memos promoting your sales and products…you have time to handle your business.
There was time to open up a brick and mortar store and run a massive signing.
You have peoples money…a great deal of it…be responsible…it’s that simple.
I don’t flip books…I don’t care when I get my books to be honest…but show me that my money and purchases were at least a minimal priority to you. I believe I have 8 or so open orders yet unfilled.
Has nothing to do with not wishing him the best on his health or being callous. For some reason, anytime you are a customer and simply want the product you paid for, in a good condition, in a timely manner, you’re being rude/impatient/ a “karen”, uncaring, a “flipper”, etc, etc, etc.
You just want some simple accountability for the hard earned money you gave them. It’s nonsense…do the damn job and supply the product I paid you for or get the heck out of the business.
At this point, the comic community is floating this fellow interest free short term loans.
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All of that. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
To me, it sounds like a whole bunch of excuses for biting off more than they could chew. They realized how profitable exclusives were and went overboard with them without having logistics in place to handle that extra effort needed.
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Totally agree with both @Devildog and @Joe. Frankie’s has grown too much too fast and there was no plan in place to handle all of the extra business that has been handed them. Now I wonder if he has cost himself more than it was worth because I’m sure Frankie’s has lost a lot of the customers that they had gained in the past few months, including me.
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If yo business grows and you can’t hire more people to handle the business, well, you shouldn’t be in business. It’s a very simple solution to a very simple problem.
Don’t give Frankie’s a pass while blasting others for the same shenanigans, living with double standards is not a good way to live… Sucks he has health issues and a setback but that’s the moment he should have found a solution to take care of his customers, not wait weeks or months.
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Here I am bitching about Midtown taking a month during June orders while people are defending Frankie’s… meh… If I had orders from June, I would have already had my credit card taking care of the charges in July… 
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To add another note (and I know we’ve gotten off topic)…Frankie’s is also playing the “shipping label” game. Creating a shipping label doesn’t do a whole lot of good for me if you aren’t actually shipping the product. Yet another red flag and something that tends to irritate the heck out of me.
I’m showing an item with a shipping label created on 9/24…but that is all there is to it. wasn’t picked up of course…just a label.
Also, on 9/5 I purchased an in stock item at the recommendation from a member here (Silk comic variant)…no movement on that in stock book whatsoever.
Im not going to pretend to know his situation, but I agree he has bitten off more then he can handle, im just trying to look at it optimisticly. I have only recently started ordering some of the variants that i like, and i see a few more that i would like for my own PC.
The problem here is, his personal situation is moot to be honest. You have to look at it at a business standpoint. You have customers, you take care of customers. If you run a business by yourself and you can’t fulfill the work involved, you need to hire someone to do it in your place or absence.
Yes, on a personal level, I wish Kevin all the best but at this point, you can’t use that (health or anything else) as an excuse on a business standpoint. Could you imagine if your cell phone stopped working, you call the carrier and they told you, well, our CEO is sick so until he comes back, there’s nothing we can do for now… yeah, ain’t gonna fly very well.
Sorry Poyo, but all the jobs i have had were small mom an pop owned. They did things very dif then what ur suggesting. So when they say “ i jnow im back logged but im still trying to look forward and make money” i take em at thier word. I know peoples patience is finite and i guess i havent hit my wall yet.
Even mom and pop shops had backups though… I knew plenty of people running businesses on their own but they always had some type of backup when they couldn’t make it.
But is Frankie’s a mom and pop shop? He caters to the world online… times have changed, he’s not just serving the people in his own town with a 10 mile radius…
I believe @Mike_C’s comments show why there hasn’t been more outrage up until this point. People will give “mom and pop” shops the benefit of the doubt more often than they would say a big retailer like Midtown. Hence all the uproar about Midtown’s slow shipping and hardly a peep about Frankie’s until now.
You know…he ran a poll to all of his customers asking their thoughts on slowing down or hitting it heavy with new preorders.
His customers resoundingly responded “slow it down and take care of your customers”.
He then proceeded to state that after consulting with his “business partners and wife”…he would proceed to go full steam ahead. Not the typical “mom and pop” type response I’ve ever encountered.
I don’t consider anyone who has an online presence with thousands of customers (that are likely around the globe) the traditional mom and pop shop either. Times have changed. All I’m saying is, your personal health is moot if you cater a business to any and everyone with an internet connection. If you’re the bottleneck cause your business is growing fast, then make sure you’re not the bottleneck when you can’t work…
When you get to the scale of what the bigger exclusive retailers are doing, you’re not a small mom and pop comic shop any more. There are likely weeks where they’re bringing in more sales than many of the larger established online comic shops. There’s a reason everyone has been trying to start an “exclusives only” store and capture as many sales as they can before it becomes too saturated. If more people need to be hired, and they aren’t being hired, the reason is just they aren’t willing to pay something people want or aren’t actually trying. At the very least they could hire temps to help do things like put together bags and boards for a couple of days and save a ton of hours.
That poll thing was also an awful decision. If they were going to keep going regardless of the vote outcome, don’t let people think they have an influence on the decision. I’m not sure if they hoped that more people would vote to continue releases and use that as an excuse or what.
It’s crazy to me how many people complain if Midtown, DCBS, MCS, or we are running behind by a couple of days or a week on shipping things because of following COVID guidelines, but places that are months behind on shipping things because they just won’t spend some of their profits on hiring a large enough staff to catch up or keep up get a pass because they’re new.
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I didn’t even notice the poll until it was brought up earlier in this post, so I went and checked it out. And @RipCityGamer is right, what a terrible decision that was. To be told overwhelmingly by your customers to do one thing and then to do the complete opposite… all I can say is wow. I bet he wishes he never did that poll.
I can’t bring myself to spend more than $20 on an unsigned exclusive anymore, and I bet the Orzu will be really expensive. Artificial scarcity is so off-putting for me.
A few notes…
The brick and mortar shop is not open. They delayed the opening to catch up. All they did was the one Crain signing. It’s not open to the public.
He’s also had several staff leave. Including some recently hired to replace others. I can’t imagine packing orders all day is anyone’s dream job so I get the turnover there. He’s been hiring new help but staff turnover plus his own health issues, I cut a little bit of a pass.
The poll was a bad idea. I don’t get why you do it if not going to honor it. From what he said in comments it seems that his partner stores wanted him to keep going so that’s why.
I too have orders from June…but they are preorders for books that came out weeks/months later. My oldest June preorder is the Last Ronin Momoko which isn’t even out yet. So it’s a tad deceiving. I do have a Thor 6 from July though outstanding.
That all being said, it does seem like a snowball effect of everything and spiraling a bit out of control. Definitely bit off a bit more then he can handle as well.
It looks like they’ve made a lot of progress catching up in the last couple weeks so I will give them the benefit of the doubt.
Frankies is NOT a “mom and pop” store.
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From what i understand, up until the lock down they were. Less then 10 employees with one of the employees the ownner.
Are they only a 2 person husband wife? Mom and pop stores covers a wide variety of stores.