During Wednesday's Marvel Press Conference  (see 'Marvel's October Orders Are Out of Sight') ICv2 posed a question about a new set of numbers that Diamond released which tracked comic product that actually shipped during the month of July as opposed to preorders, and which appeared to indicate that reorders have a noticeable effect on market share (see 'Diamond Releases Comic Shipment Market Shares').  Marvel President Bill Jemas had not seen this Diamond report, and asked that ICv2 forward it to him.  When he saw the figures for July, Jemas reacted by noting that DC had shipped more titles in July than did Marvel. 

Here's the text of Jemas' reply to ICv2: 'Here's what I think.  Reprinting is great for DC.  They should do a lot of it and do it forever.  With respect to these numbers (the Comic Shipment Market Share) -- they are not apples to apples because they include twice as many DC titles as Marvel titles and they include a ton of DC collectible crap.'

Obviously given the vagaries of comic publishing, the comic market share numbers would have to be collected over a period of several months to account for late books and delayed merchandise.  Diamond has just started releasing these numbers.  If they do continue, it should be interesting to compare preorders with actual comic shipped over a six-month period and see if the market share numbers and positions remain the same, and provide some concrete evidence of the importance (or insignificance) of reorders.

Retailer Reaction

ICv2 received the following message from Brian Meredith of The Comic Stop in Lynwood, Washington, who objected to Jemas' statement during the Marvel Press Conference to the effect that 'Any retailer will tell you that reorders are not a substantial part of their business except on trade paperbacks.'

Meredith wrote ICv2: 'As a very successful retailer in the Seattle area, I hate the fact that he is inadvertently putting words in my mouth.  As a retailer, reorders are VERY important to our business.  By having the luxury of putting in reorders a week, even just days prior to a shipment coming in, I can accurately order what I need for my box customers, my shelves, etc.  This allows me to adjust and grow as the months pass from the initial order. I am constantly having customers dropping or adding titles for any number of reasons, so there are times that my initial orders no longer work, that they are no longer enough to cover my demand.  Take Green Arrow.  Even with extremely heavy orders initially, I have reordered those issues so many times that I have tripled what I originally ordered.  By reordering, I didn't have to tie up my money on all those copies at once, allowing me to spread the wealth to all the books.

DC's policies on reorders with issues and trades have worked well for our store.  We easily sell five times the amount in trades and issues from DC than from Marvel.