Ilan Strasser of Fat Moose Comics in Whippany, New Jersey saw Rich (Dreamland) Biedrzycki's recent comments on reorder strategy ( see 'Rich Biedrzycki of Dreamland Comics Responds') and wanted to clarify the way he does things:
I wanted to clear up something I said when I responded to Rich from Dreamland Comics. I did not mean to imply that any and all books I sell have a shelf life of 7-10 days. What I was trying to get across was that most titles show the greatest amount of movement during that initial ten-day sales period. There are many titles that can sell in my store for months afterward, mostly DC titles that are routinely available for reorder for significant periods of time. For example, as Flash sales have increased over the last year, I keep reordering the previous 5 issues (relative to the current one) in increments of 2 and they keep selling as new readers keep jumping on the Flash bandwagon!!
This sounds similar to Rich's situation, and too bad Marvel doesn't understand this particular truth about the direct market. I know I could be doing incremental increases on half the Marvel line or more on a regular basis; it's too bad Marvel only wants my money all at once on the front end when I'm the only one taking a risk and showing faith in their product.
On an unrelated note: I have complained to Diamond for months that the 'Marvel First Look' books ALWAYS arrive in my store either late Wednesday or in most cases, on Thursdays or Fridays. The group of books due last Wednesday just came in yesterday, which was the Monday after - a full 5 days late. This truly makes it difficult for me to further promote Marvel's titles - wasn't the idea of the program to hook some readers the week before? I have suggested to Diamond that they have Marvel include the books with our Wednesday delivery as DC does, instead of sending them under separate cover, but so far, to no avail. Marvel is wasting its time, money, and resources with the inefficient way they run this program. It's long past time for a change.
