Ron C. of Ron's Comic World in Mount Holly, New Jersey writes in to share his thoughts on the negative impact that large end of month comic book shipments are having on his store:

Once again I'm presented with a huge, end of the month shipment of comics.  On average, the number of titles that I receive on Previews catalog Wednesday at the end of the month is 40 to 50% larger than any other week of the month.  I beg the publishers / distributor(s) to do something about this.

The end of the month is when pretty much everyone, retailer and reader alike, is preparing to pay all of their bills and generally has the least amount of flexibility with how much they can spend on things like comics.  Yet this is the time chosen to present them with the largest selection of products.

Retailers have asked for a long time that publishers ship their books earlier and utilize a street date.  This could kill two birds with one stone.

The next time there is an abundance of titles to ship in a single week, ship half for release in the current week and the rest with a street date of the following Wednesday.  All future shipments would arrive with a street date.  This does several things:

It allows publishers a way to start spreading release dates more evenly over the month.

It allows Diamond to set a more flexible shipping schedule, which should benefit them.  The flexibility of ship dates would also lessen the impact of holidays on new comic day (bonus).  No longer would a holiday mean that the next new comic day would have to be moved to Thursday (Monday -- 9/7/09 is Labor Day, new comic day gets changed to Thursday 9/10.  This has a big affect on the overall profit margin for the week).

This would mean that retailers would no longer be at the mercy of their UPS delivery schedule (which can vary by hours).

-- It would allow time for any problems to be dealt with before the actual sale date such as misprints or large quantity shortages/damages.

-- It would allow small retailers (which is most of us) more flexibility in preparing for the sales day and giving us more time for selling that would have been taken up unpacking boxes.

-- It would also allow retailers more flexibility in scheduling hours to prepare for new comic day.

An agreement not to sell or ship product prior to the ship date could be added to the contract that all retailers agree to in the same way as the terms about sub-distributing with similar penalties.  Enforcing this shouldn't be any more of a problem than any other part of the contract and would be vigorously policed by other retailers.

Publishers need to understand this as a math problem:
-- A customer comes in each week with money for five comics.
-- Week 1:  There are three new titles that the customer wants, they buy the three titles.
-- Week 2:  There are 12 new titles that the customer would like but they are forced to choose, and they buy the five titles they want most.
-- Week 3: There is only one new title that the customer wants, they buy that title and pick up 1 of the titles they skipped the week before.

Shipping more titles in a given week does not equate with more sales and in fact, often has the opposite effect.  When you force a customer to select among titles in a particular week, you force them to decide just how important a particular title is to them.  Forcing a reader into this position, more often than not, leads to them permanently dropping skipped titles and everybody loses.

Fewer issues sold by a retailer = fewer copies sold by the publisher = fewer items handled by the distributor = losses for all!

All I'm asking, is to make it easier for us all to pass our money up the food chain.  The retailer wants to buy what the publisher has; the reader wants to buy what the retailer has; and the more we buy, the more the distributor makes.  We want the product but because of the release schedule we are often being overwhelmed by the amount of it.

And while we're at it, let me make a wish: how about considering creating a different discount level for online retailers.  As an example... when the Watchmen movie came out I ordered a few cases of the trade only to find out that I could get it online for the same as my cost from Diamond.

For most of these "discounters," comics are not their primary business, it's just an extra buck.  To publishers, they are fair weather friends.  They'll sell your product until something else comes along but in the process they hurt the brick and mortar stores that are your bread and butter.  I include ALL book stores in this and not just comic book stores.  The same can be said for CCGs and toys.  Discounters are making the product you make appear worth less and make it harder for those that actually want to promote your product, to do so.  Something to think about.

And that's all I'm going to say about that!

The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.