Sharpening the Sword is a regular column by retailer John Riley of Grasshopper's Comics, a 1300 square foot comic and games store in
In my last column, I said two things. I said that the next column would discuss signal theory, and I also urged us to all increase our professional standards because you never know when the rug is going to be pulled out from under us. The day after that column went to print Marvel announced their delays on Civil War and all its associated tie-ins. For the past two weeks I've considered whether to write about signal theory like I intended, or to postpone it to write about the issue of delays from the major publishers. Then I realized I didn't have to make that decision at all.
The only part of economics I found really interesting was signal theory, which essentially states that the value of anything is determined by the signal it sends out. The classic example of this is a college education. Say you're interviewing two candidates for a job in public relations, one from
In our stores virtually everything sends a signal to our customers, whether you want it to or not. Recently we developed a number of brochures to educate parents about comics, board games, miniature games and other facets of our store. Our intention was to educate parents and make them feel more at ease with their purchases. But it had an unintended positive side effect as well. We put these brochures in nice displays within the kids' area of the store and found that parents will browse through them while they're waiting for their kids to pick something out. What we realized is that the parents' comfort level with the store improved because the brochure sent a signal that we took the time to prepare something specifically for their children, and therefore must be a family-friendly establishment. The comfort level caused the length of stay to increase, and so did our sales.
Over the past few months I've written about our adventures with our new 'family-oriented' storefront. There are no superheroes in our storefront, in fact no comics at all, (although a big display of kids comics can be seen from the window). Instead we put family games and demo tables right up front with one of those children's carpets that looks like the streets of a town to play with Matchbox cars. While the results have been great, we were really floored when the whole town converged on the store next door to us to pick up school supplies this past week. Suddenly we had become a treat for the kids as an endless stream of moms brought their children through to pick up a book or game or two before school started. Even though virtually nothing about the actual store had changed except for our window, it sent a different message to the community. We're now a 'family gaming and book' store, which suits us fine.
The painful part of this process is learning about the negative signal that we sent out for the past thirteen years. We run a very fun, professional, clean, organized, brightly lit store. In fact, we've won a few awards for comic retailing. But the signal that had gone out to our community was that our store was somewhat of an odd club, of exclusion. We weren't mainstream, but a weird niche that apparently 'regular' people didn't go to. We've recently found out that many moms were actually afraid to come in and were shocked to find that we carry family games and are nice people!
It's important to think about the signals that you're sending. Last year I bought a Scion TC. Unfortunately, the car experienced a minor recall for the moon roof. A few weeks after mine was fixed I received a package from Scion in the mail. In it was a special die-cast customized Scion TC and an apology for the inconvenience caused by the recall. Now the model has no real value to me, but it sent a signal that Scion cares about my satisfaction with their product even after the purchase. They understand the value of that signal far outweighs the value of what they gave away.
And that brings us to Marvel and the delays in Civil War.
The problem with the delay in Civil War is not the delay itself. The problem is the signal it sends, which is that Marvel did not care about meeting the deadlines of arguably their biggest line-spanning event in years. Now, there are some that would say that production schedules are not a science, but they're wrong. There is an entire profession devoted to production schedules and ample advanced software for it. Obviously things like illnesses and family tragedies can come up that would cripple the best laid plan, but there are still obvious steps that can be taken to minimize the risk of a product's lateness (especially when dealing with creators who've been known to have timeliness issues). Instead Marvel has positioned this as an artistic decision, which sends the signal that they would rather not discuss the issue. And they do this while continuing to solicit future work from the very creators who can't deliver their current projects.
While working as a consultant, whenever we signed a contract there was always a clause that involved penalties for lateness. Our products included very lengthy documents and we had to say definitively when they would be delivered. If we were late, the client owed us less money. That was a valuable signal to our customers that we were serious about delivering our product as promised. If we were late, we paid for it. So we weren't late. Can you imagine Marvel or DC having such a contract with retailers? That would send a signal as strongly as their failure to do so does.
Everything in your store sends a signal. The key is being able to recognize that signal from the point of view of your customer and increase the positive ones and eliminate the negative ones. Bring in a fresh face and get their opinion. What is their reaction to your store? Bring in someone who isn't a fan of comics and games at all. How do they feel coming in? Overwhelmed? Alienated? Examine how you feel going into stores from other industries. Do you feel welcome and excited or nervous and out of place?
Everything sends out a signal, we just need to be able to read them properly and then use them to our advantage.
Hope to see everyone at the Retailer Summit in
