Corbit Wilkins from Captain Comics in
As the holiday season has arrived, so too have the problems with shipping, damaged items, late shipments, etc. This always gets me thinking about how to improve comic distribution, timely placement of new items, and how to avoid the problems with holiday and weather delays. Having our store in
I know this has been addressed before and there have been arguments against it, but I'd really like to see one minor change to how we receive our books: Get the books to us one day before the release day. For the 15 years that Captain Comics, Inc. has been in business, we have always had to stand out in front of UPS to convince them to let us have our boxes before they open, had to truck them to our store, open and count the shipment, and begin to pull for subscriptions as we also try to open the store. For the next four hours we have to balance our attention between pulling subscriptions along with giving good customer service to the customers coming in. It is quite a task. How nice it would be if we could only receive our boxes on Tuesday. We could count them that evening and have everything ready to go when the store opens. The customers would be happier as they wouldn't have to wait for us to gather their subscriptions while they wait, we would be happier because we could focus on giving 100% attention to our customer service, and we would have a one day buffer in case the shipments are delayed due to weather or other factors.
The negative? People would be worried about those who would break the 'release day' early. I say that most of the industry would follow the release rules. And those that don't would be looked down upon by the rest of us. I know Diamond doesn't want to police comic stores, but if they received more than a couple complaints, perhaps they could take the day-early privilege away from them.
In any case, there has to be a solution to this problem. And it really is a problem! I'm sure most of the rest of the comic store owners that are three-day shipping from the nearest Diamond distribution center would agree. (If you do, please respond! We need to make this happen!)
As for damages...UPS uses an automated system that moves and separates the boxes, and it's the weight of the boxes slamming into other boxes that creates most of the damages. I don't really know what Diamond can do to fix this other than pack a more dense/durable cardboard top and bottom along in the boxes. As it is, we average one damaged box every week. That's not good!
If there are any other ideas to help this problem, I'd love to hear them!
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