Ordering Made Easy. Well, Easier...
Last week I dived into the very crowded comics marketplace and wrote about how comics shops deal with it. This week we’ll look at the other end of this equation – how publishers can help make ordering easier for the shops.
I already wrote about having finished pages from your new #1 issue in solicitations, as well as having a full PDF of that issue available for retailers to look at before orders close. Now we’ll take things a bit further.
RETURNABILITY
Suppose that I, a comics shop owner, am considering my order for POTATO MAN #1. It’s the first POTATO MAN solo comic, so I don’t have data from a previous series to inform my ordering decision – but I do have data on other comics by the same writer / artist team to look at. I also have some preorders, and the interviews on comics websites are interesting enough that my customers are talking about the series.
Still, my budget is tight, so I grit my teeth and decide to order 20 copies. Will that be enough? Maybe, maybe not.
But wait! The publisher has offered the first issue with full returnability by affidavit with no qualifying order. That means I can order as many as I want, and later – in about 90 days – I can fill out a form attesting to how many copies I have left in my store, and the distributor will issue me a credit in that amount…most likely about 50 percent of cover price. I decide to increase my order to 30 copies. I could go further, but I’m hoping to sell out after six weeks or so and not have to fill out a form.
So, issue #1 comes out, sells about 25 copies in a month, leaving me with five copies for now.
Meanwhile, five days after issue #1 went on sale, issue #2 was on my Final Order Cutoff list. I have to decide quickly how many copies of #1 we sold in the first five days and place my order for #2.
But wait! The publisher has offered the second with full returnability by affidavit with a qualifying order of 60 percent of issue #1. The publisher knows that I probably can’t sell as many of issue #2 as I did of issue #1, but that qualifying order helps to keep orders from sliding too far downhill.
By the time issue #2 goes on sale, I am prepping to order issue #3, and I have a pretty good idea of how many copies I can sell per issue. Returnability has allowed me to find what we call the sales ceiling.
Returnability is one of the most effective ordering incentives, according to retailers. However, there are a few downsides to it. One is that the retailer has to keep track of those leftover issues for 90 days – not always so easy in a crowded shop.
The other downside is the publishers’ problem, which is that Diamond Comic Distributors and Lunar Distribution both charge processing fees for returns. If a publisher takes too many returns, those charges start to eat into the series’ bottom line.
Still, returnability sends a signal to retailers that the publisher has confidence in a new title – but if a publisher throws returnability around willy-nilly, applying it to too many projects, they can end up taking a lot of returns.
EXTRA DISCOUNT
Another way to help retailers get on board with your new #1 issue is to offer it with an extra discount: Instead of a 50 percent discount, say, the publisher offers it with an extra 10 percent off, totaling a 60 percent discount to the retailer.
There are two catches here (at least): First, this may or may not entice retailers, especially if their customers don’t seem interested in the series. Second, and again, this is a problem for the publisher, not the retailer, more discount to the retailer means less revenue for the publisher – on the debut issue, which will undoubtedly have the highest order numbers for the life of the series.
FREE OVERSHIPS
This one’s easy: On a debut issue with high order numbers, the publisher decides to ship more copies at no cost. Image did this recently to great effect with Ghost Machine #1, the anthology title from the new publishing consortium led by Geoff Johns.
The downside here are things that publishers should keep in mind: Retailers don’t like to pay freight for items they didn’t order. The smart move is for publishers to pick up the freight costs for those extra copies. Another smart move is to offer the extra copies with an opt in – that is, retailers have to say “yes” or “no” when they close orders on the item to get the extra copies.
VARIANT COVERS
We looked at variant covers recently, but keep in mind that incentive variants (ones offered with a ratio like 1:20) are just that: They provide incentives for retailers to increase their orders on the non-incentive covers. If a retailer needs to order 20 copies of an issue to get one of the 1:20, and they know they can sell that 1:20 copies for more than the cover price, that’s a motivation to build up their orders to reach that qualifying order.
More to come on this subject in the future, including what NOT to do!
Next: A look at two promo campaigns — one good, one not so much…