Stewart Vernon of Stewart's Comics in Raleigh, North Carolina saw other retailer comments on damages (see 'Paul Stock of Astro Books on Damages'), and says he also experiences damaged shipments regularly:
My name is Stewart Vernon (Stewart's Comics Web site), and I have been a Diamond customer since 1999. I have been reading the various posts about damages and wanted to comment on the most recent one by Paul Stock since he seemed to strongly disagree with the other posts regarding Diamond's packing methods.
Paul quotes another post 'Scott criticizes the C400 boxes, but fails to mention that these are simply outer sleeves. They are single wall, relatively lightweight, but they enclose two C200 cartons, which are both doublewall,' but does not give complete information here. Diamond does not always double-package these boxes inside of each other. If you receive an odd number of the small boxes in your shipment, at least one will ship by itself. I have had other weeks where even though I received two such boxes, they were not packaged together.
Additionally, Diamond has said that they cannot combine packages of dissimilar content. For instance if your shipment one week contains comics and toys, the toys will always be in their own box even if two smaller boxes could be combined for extra protection.
Another problem I repeatedly have is ordering supplies through Diamond. If you order a case (10 packs of 100 each) of Silver Age backing boards, for instance, this case ships in a box that has an even thinner cardboard than the boxes discussed above. Routinely these boxes arrive to me in pieces, though fortunately the supplies arrive... but often the 100-count packages are not shrinkwrap-sealed anymore and twice I have had UPS bring to me the contents after the box had almost completely disintegrated and could no longer be carried from the truck.
On several instances when reporting damages to Diamond I have also encouraged UPS to contact Diamond as well regarding the poor packaging. I understand UPS handles packages roughly sometimes, but since UPS is the carrier of choice picked by Diamond they bear some responsibility as well for continuing to use a service that they know will handle packages roughly and still not changing their packaging practices.
Incidentally, many years ago I asked for other shipping options. I was explicitly told that USPS was not an option because their packages could not be tracked. Firstly, this is not true as I ship to my customers all the time and track packages and in 8+ years of business have had less damage/loss claims to file with the USPS for my shipments than I have had just this year with Diamond and UPS! Secondly, UPS tracking is not infallible and often when packages have been lost their tracking information is relatively useless in finding out how the package went missing. I also had asked about FedEx or some other carrier and was told that was not an option unless I wanted to pay the overhead costs of establishing a pickup connection and account with another carrier. While I was willing to pay more for FedEx shipping, I was not willing to subsidize Diamond establishing an account with them so that option was not viable either.
Paul also says 'The boxes are heavy on purpose. A heavy box might be dropped, but a lighter box will be thrown. By making them heavier (and a rather unweildy shape), Diamond is reducing the likelihood that UPS personnel will be heaving them around, reducing the chances of impact damage.' I do not believe Diamond is making boxes 'heavy on purpose' as I routinely get boxes that are underpackaged. I get three boxes that could have been contained in two boxes... or four boxes that could have been contained in two! I have even had my invoice ship to me in a box by itself with nothing else inside a couple of weeks and had to ask for a freight credit since that made no sense to me whatsoever.
I also question the logic of a heavier box being 'safer' since if you drop it, the heavier box is much more likely to have damage than a lighter box. A lighter box with smarter interior packaging would actually insulate the package from drops even if UPS did throw them around. I know I package all my shipments assuming they will be handled roughly. I do not always go for two-inches around... but I always try for at least one inch on all sides of an item so that if it is bounced around in transit the impact will not directly affect the items inside.
As an aside--I would be very interested to see how product is packed from the printers and shipped to Diamond. Based on the fact that we can sometimes get books in pristine condition, I have to assume that the printers are doing a much better packaging/shipping job to get product to Diamond warehouses than Diamond is doing to get them to us.
Paul ultimately hits the nail on the head when, in response to why Diamond might prefer handling damage claims than fixing their packaging problems, he says 'Doesn't hurt them, why should they care? Are we going to shop elsewhere for X-Men?' Bottom line, and I have been told this in the past, is that we cannot go anywhere else to get new product and that is reflected in Diamond's responses (or lack thereof) in fixing repeat-offender types of problems.
The opinions expressed in this Talk Back article are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.
