Randy Martin of Comics Plus in Los Banos, California read the article about Diamond's study of retailers complying with street dates (see "Diamond Study Finds 98% Compliance With Street Dates") and had this to say.

First, I would like to say that even though I am a small volume store I find day early shipping very useful.  My UPS driver does not arrive until after 3:00 p.m.  Therefore, day early delivery is very convenient.  All retailers are aware that they are not to sell these items until Wednesday.  Therefore, in my opinion, the penalty for non-compliance should be more severe.

Another thing that I am very opposed to is Diamond having the secret shoppers filling out a report on our stores.  Diamond is only our distributor.  Our stores are not owned by Diamond and we are not franchised by Diamond.  The only thing Diamond should be concerned about is if we are selling books early.  How I run my store is none of Diamond's concern.  If they think they are doing this to help our stores, I could give you a whole list of things that would help our stores better than having secret shoppers fill out a report on our stores.  I would like to say that I do not think that everything Diamond does is wrong because they do a lot of things right.  But, this report is totaling wrong.  They are Diamond Comic Distributors and not "Big Brother."

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