I had a chance to speak with Freeman about the program. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Salkowitz: What exactly are you measuring and how is it different from other sales charts that we’ve seen in the past?
In a few months, we’ll be adding the retailer confidence rating, so that once fans have placed their orders, we’ll see what retailers are ordering for the shelf. That will hopefully provide some clarity to publishers about how much they should be marketing to retailers as well as to fans. Then, eventually, we’ll have sell-through data to complete the picture.
Where is the data coming from?
We’re working with Manage Comics, which is the second or third largest comics POS system. We have access to aggregated sales data from their users, not from any particular shop, region or ZIP code, and it’s currently about 177 stores. We’re looking at just over 300 stores by the end of the year.
So that would be something like 15-20% of the total retailers in North America?
I believe so. And some of the biggest retailers have already signed up to give us their data, and when we have that in, we’re definitely going to have some representative numbers, because we’ll have stores of so many different sizes, from mom-and-pops to multi-million-dollar chains. My concern now is that some of the data is so granular, and stores collect and report the data differently. People have been asking how we can use some mathematical formulas to normalize the data because it’s getting difficult to get your head around.
Is the goal to eventually be able to have some crosstabs, to see what’s selling well in smaller vs. bigger stores, or rural vs. urban locations for example?
I don’t know that we’ll ever get there and I’m not sure we want to be there. I want to keep this as aggregated as possible so we can talk about the industry in general and not how you market to certain stores or types of stores. We may eventually decide that’s worthwhile.
Is there a timeline element to this, so publishers can track whether different marketing activities, like a social post from a creator or a promotional push, might have impacted orders?
That’s absolutely the plan. We can do that right now for our clients, because we have access to that on a granular level. But the plan is to provide that to the industry at large in some form. We’ll be publishing a newsletter starting in the middle of next month, providing that FCR data at first, and then we’ll add new metrics and analysis as we develop them. That will be in the newsletter.
What are the clear signals people can get out of this data and what is still ambiguous?
The clearest signal I got so far is that comics are selling well. We started off in January with a dip that everyone could feel, because spending patterns were readjusting after COVID. But after that bump, we’re seeing a continuous rise, and that says a lot about the value of the comic shops as a place for these brands to grow.
Other than gaining access to more store POS data, what other sources of data are you hoping to add to make this more precise and predictive?
I’m currently working with my lawyers to come up with an agreement we can use to protect any publishers who participate with their data. Ideally, we’d live to have a solid representation of all the stops in the market share data, so we can extrapolate out from the orders to figure out something resembling those monthly sales charts we used to get. We can use various data points that we’re confident in, and if we have enough publishers willing to play along, we can bring some transparency to the whole market. We’re not selling this data – although I’ve received plenty of offers! All we’re saying is that if you contribute, we’ll give you back analysis and extrapolations as a return.
Is there a role for distributor data as well?
Historically, the industry was very dependent on that Diamond ranking, where everything was keyed off the "Batman number." Retailers who were just getting started were supposed to judge their order sizes based on how titles were doing relative to Batman. It was a colossal failure in that regard, but it became the Rosetta Stone for how Comichron and ICv2 put their numbers together.
But it was a black box, because it was whatever Diamond said it was.
Right, because Diamond was the only one who could say. Once we had the disruption of distribution caused by COVID, there is no single source to say how everything is selling. It’s a whisper network for all of us. So part of it is just to scratch my own itch, to see if we could independently pull in a large enough data set to fill in the picture. Would I like to have data from Lunar, from Diamond, from PRH? Sure, you bet. And I have appointments to talk to all of them, but I’m being very careful about having those conversations.
Are you concerned that fans having this data, seeing preorders and trying to get out in front of a "hot book" in the collectors’ market that might create an artificial bubble?
It could create a bubble, yes, if you’re not careful. But I’ve seen a lot of success come from bubbles as well as failure.
Timing is everything!
Exactly. But all I can say right now is that we’re going to be releasing the fan confidence rating in our next newsletter. Anything beyond that, we’ll be looking carefully at what we provide and if a fan gets hold of it and makes extrapolations about what is hot, or what they think they should buy, that’s on them. But I love it when people buy!
You know it will be on Bleeding Cool the moment it’s out.
Hah! That’s entirely possible. I’m not in charge of Bleeding Cool! But honestly, I’m not trying to keep this isolated. To do right by the retailers that are providing this data, and prove that we can be trusted, we have to be careful. We have to control what we can control, which is what goes into the newsletter.
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.
Rob Salkowitz is the author of Comic-Con and the Business of Pop Culture and a two-time Eisner-Award nominee.
