Noah Broessel of Pop Culture Paradise in Tempe, Arizona read Andy Battaglia's recent Talk Back (see "Andy Battaglia of Comics Etc. on Diamond's Holiday Shipping") regarding Diamond Comic Distributors skipping a shipping week during the upcoming Christmas and New Year's holidays and has this to say:

I read Andy Battaglia's frustrated response about Diamond waving the white flag between Christmas & New Year's.  I'm not sure if there is a right/wrong take on this but here is my devil's advocate response.

Everything has an opportunity cost, especially this issue.  Yes, sales will likely be down during this special holiday week in almost all instances because of the Diamond shutdown BUT let's look at some of the positives in my store's situation which may of course not count for Andy.

1.  Diamond workers want to enjoy a holiday too.  C'mon! Tis the season.....:-)

2.  No Diamond bill.  A lot of pricey product that's ALWAYS late usually pours in 1-2 weeks after Christmas a.k.a BIG FAT Diamond bill (in the past).

3.  A large percentage of my customers are out of town/tapped out of money the week between Christmas & New Years.

4.  It's the perfect time to blow out clearance stuff before end of year inventory.  Potential for big sales with NO diamond bill.  And bored customers coming into the store will buy something with the right service and sale.

5.  No incoming product makes end of year inventory easier to perform.

6.  My wife's favorite part... we can ACTUALLY go on a vacation for gasp... a WHOLE WEEK if we want without me worrying about the store.

7.  If no vacation, we finally have time to bag/sort/price those crappy collections of 90's comics we hate but will still buy for 10 cents a book.  Also, for stores carrying gaming singles it's the perfect time to resort those Magic singles... lovely.

Now, I must assume that Andy has people in place that he feels comfortable with to run the store allowing him to have his cake and eat it too but there are a lot of dealers that run everything by themselves.  If they are single, most will probably prefer to have new product like Andy.  If they are married with children I imagine my 7 points beat to their drum.

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.