I know their are tiers of discounts…but what is the highest discount for a retailer? And for the incentive variants, free variant/one per store, etc?
I guess that is my thing… retailers get perks for being retailers. I don’t.
PS5’s are not collectibles.
Retailers have to pay rent, payroll, insurance, utilities. You dont.
Like I said guys im not saying they should mark up every book. But comics are a collectible, and they have value beyond that of the retail price. If a store marks up their books, dont buy from them. Im just saying that they are not scoundrels for doing so.
I resent being called “rich.”
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The way I would run my shop is that if you have a pull list with me and I have a copy of a new book available you pay cover price. No pull list you pay market price.
Edit: I’m also only talking about market price for books like, high republic, daredevil 25, asm 55.
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The problem with our usage of and reliance on “market economics” nowadays is that there is a $ 225 Billion gorilla (Amazon) and other incredibly large players weighing the scales. With their hyper competitive pricing, marketing, and delivery, the strain on normal retail businesses to choose inventory wisely is at a historic high.
To buy one extra PS5 in advance and risk it sitting on the shelf is to miss hundreds of dollars of sales in cheaper, higher volume goods on the other end of the department or store. So, the market has become inherently inefficient in its distribution. If production and subsequently distribution is based upon pre-orders (which most everything is nowadays), you will necessarily have shortages in some areas and surpluses in others with a lag in that stock evening out. It happens every wednesday at the comic shop. It’s why any comic flipper reading this forum gets any profit on Wednesday afternoon. You are a small cog in an ad hoc machine that has stepped in through ebay and other sources to fix distribution errors where multiple comic shops made an error in assessing demand in advance.
So, yes, I suppose the market would eventually fix itself as time drags on in the PS5 example as more are made and distributed where they need to be, but then there will come a time where they sit. It may not be soon, but it will come. It took years and years and years, but eventually Playstation 2s stopped selling and those shops who ordered at that time necessarily took a loss either through discounting below cost or the opportunity cost of that stock sitting and tying up capital that could have been spent on other stock.
You either order too few and sell out, missing on revenue you could have received from additional copies; or you order too many and tie up operating funds. Either way there is lost opportunity and rarely does anybody nail that demand. Either way you go, it’s probably best to preserve the good will of your customers by giving them a fair retail price rather than burn them and risk losing return business.
I have two local comic shops. One shop is extremely conservative with his orders, but he sells EVERYTHING at cover price. I’m talking 1:100s, one per stores, secret variants, whatever. Cover price. His back issue bins are sparse and if a comic heats up, the extra issues that doe exist will be picked out of there lightning fast at $2 a pop. He even clears out books early on the year they release at $0.25 to limit how much stock he’s carrying.
The other shop over orders everything. For reference, he still has multiple 1:100s for the firt Marvel Star Wars series from 2015 up to issue 20. HIs prices for back issues are slightly over cover $4-5 and he adjusts some real collectible issues (not heat of the week stuff) according to Overstreet. On day of release, ratio variants are ratio price. He maintains a GIANT back issue selection where you can always find multiples of something if you get there early enough before all the speculative hubbub reaches our little city. You’ll get your books for $4-5 each.
Each comic shop owner is missing the mark on demand but they are just selecting which problem they’d rather have: too few back issues for people to buy later or too much stock sitting for extended periods.
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I’m supposed to have 5 copies of the Hans variant waiting for me tomorrow… we’ll see 
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Perhaps the ideal way to treat it as a shop owner that wants get in on the secondary market prices would be to separate the comic store business and the speculation side of it. As Poyo said, the shop would benefit long term to sell the comics of the week at cover price by not burning his customer base, with the possibility of raising the price after short period of time like a week. Then if the owner also wants to speculate on the secondary market, he just can be his own customer and pre-order/buy how many comics he wants and sell them personally on eBay without penalizing his comic shop business and customers.
You can’t expect everyone to pre-order books though… do you pre-order everything you buy? Imagine your grocery store jacking up the price of Mac N Cheese cause it’s going crazy on the secondary market? Or perhaps your new iPhone cause everyone wants it, the ATT store is selling them for double the retail cost Apple advertised them at?
So yes, you can lock in your prices at cover but not everyone wants to commit to books they might not even want until they can see it first hand the day of release.
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I pay mortgage, insurance, utilities… I get it… but that’s the very lame excuse we hear all too often. You’re talking apples to oranges. One is a business while the other is a consumer. There’s no comparison cause the business has it’s own bills to operate compared to the consumer.
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Yeah, I’ll have to respectfully disagree. They’re scoundrels… and scallywags too. And for the record, I have yet to flip a comic book… ever - not once have I resold a comic book that I purchased. Not to say I never will, but I’ve been buying them for decades now so yeah.
I also don’t just purchase books based off of hype or spec - that’s not to say that it doesn’t influence my purchases from time to time, but that isn’t what drives this hobby for me. Wonder Woman future state? Hard Pass. Captain Marvel spec? Hard pass… picture me buying a Captain Marvel comic book, lmao - never say never, but nope.
So yeah, retail stores that hike up the prices of open order books on/before release day are run by scoundrels. If they need the funds that bad then maybe find another line of work to make ends meet.
I don’t have a pull list at any LCS because I want to pick books out on my own to ensure I get the quality I desire. Imagine being a reader/collector of ASM, buying every issue at the LCS since the most recent relaunch, without having a pull list, only to find yourself SOL when ASM 55 dropped the other week… yeah - gd dmn scoundrels! lol
I come in peace though, just saying.
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I’d argue that a PS5 is entirely as “collectible” as any comic sitting on a shelf on release day. As a youngster I didn’t ride my bike to the dime store to buy a collectible. Who deems something collectible? Is every comic a collectible? Every funko pop?
Old gaming systems and games were brand new on the shelf at one point, or Jordan Nikes…pretty collectible now. Not to me…but I know folks who collect them.
Yeah, that’s another thing to consider for sure. Don’t want the shop “picking” my books if I’m going for minty fresh best copies out of the bunch.
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It’s actually pretty simple. The amount of greasy, shitty behavior is in exact proportion to how fast “comic speculation” has grown. The amount of characters running around out there doing the “Wednesday Warrior” thing is unprecedented.
Will this last forever - nope…nothing does. Will there be unpleasant ramifications when it ends - yup…there always is.
To expect retail stores to not play in this same sandbox, but instead be the last bastion of scrutinized and ethical behavior is not only unfair but foolhardy.
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Yeah, this is what really turned me off from this hobby/domain after recently getting back into it (ie - a handful of months ago).
Grown men behaving the way they do over comic books… I mean… just wow.
So I’ve scaled back significantly. I do enjoy this forum though and will continue to lurk + participate here, as well as pick up some floppies and/or cgc pre-orders from time to time.
Hardcover collected editions is where it’s at for me now. Spider-Gwen Omnibus Vol 1 on deck!
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As have I… I started following CHU long ago not just for the spec but I figured “hot books” normally equate to great reads… So yeah, some just want to collect an issue or two while reading them. Retailers who jack the price up on release day cause they gotta “pay the bills” like every other damn American has to is just lame…
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We are all saying it without saying it: The Direct Market is a broken system for comic-books.
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So who is excited about High Republic tomorrow? What are you most looking forward to? How hard did you go after it?
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I’ve already read it… 
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