Michael Hansen of Lightspeed Hobbies in Portage, Indiana read Kendall Swafford's most recent Talk the Talk, Walk the Walk column (see "Talk the Talk, Walk the Walk--Beating a Newborn Horse or... What an Interesting Week It’s Been") and had this to say:

In response to Mr. Swafford's comments, I totally agree with what he mentioned in his article about trying to be full service and wasting money!  We had to institute some of the policies he mentioned in his article, like reducing the number of shelf titles by half over the last 18 months due to the fact that no one wants to buy them.  Titles and imprints like DC/Wildstorm, Lone Ranger, Zorro and a majority of Dynamite's line, Avatar, almost all of IDW's offerings (even the marquis books like Transformers, GI Joe, Angel & Star Trek) just don't sell in my store.  We are, of course, still trying to sell down some of our shelf stock of some of those titles but no more new ones for the shelf.  Granted, my shop is in a small town, but money is money.  I want my shop to survive and if that means that I don't some of these titles on shelf, then so be it.  My budget cannot afford to pay out any more money for "toxic" product before it even hits the shelf.

The answer to still being considered full service and not have to carry "everything" is and always will be, CUSTOMER SERVICE!

There is nothing wrong with encouraging pre-orders for book that you normally would not carry.  Or asking a customer if they would like to special order a book even if the book has already come out.  If you go the extra mile and take care of your customers and help them when ask for product, they don't mind waiting a little longer to get the book they want.

Another way to combat the "toxic" product problem is Diamond's Previews catalog.  For us we offer Previews for FREE, I use this as a loss leader for sales.  It's a little expensive but the pre-orders I've generated because of this policy have paid off for us in solid order and pre-order numbers and increased sales.  It's really that easy...

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.