On page 123 of the September Previews Retailer Order Form, Diamond Comic Distributors included a survey question asking retailers to rate the estimated impact on sales of changing 'new comics' day from Wednesday to Thursday.  Retailers have been debating the proposed change with some vigor over the past few days on the Comic Book Industry Forum and other trade-oriented discussion boards.  Retailer opinion, while mixed, appears to be mostly on the negative side, with many dealers certain that the change will mean reduced sales.  Cliff Biggers of Dr. No's Comics and Games in Marietta, Georgia, for example, said that his records show diminished sales when books have been delivered on Thursdays (because of holidays), and he also maintained that his sales went up when the regular release day was changed to Wednesday from Thursday some time ago.  In general, retailers opposing the change see Wednesday, now one of their best days for retailing, quickly becoming another slow day like Monday and Tuesday are now.  Many dealers aren't at all sure that they could make up the lost Wednesday sales.

 

Other retailers like Bruce Ayres of Capital City Comics in Madison, Wisconsin would welcome the change.  Ayres thinks that patrons who have just received their paychecks (which are typically handed out on Thursday or Friday), would buy more than they do now when they come in on Wednesday with their wallets depleted. Ayres also sees the Thursday release as a chance for retailers to concentrate their business, allowing them to short-staff slow days early in the week.

 

A number of other issues are involved, some raised by retailers and some that occur to us.  First, any change will have an initial negative impact until first day customers get used to the new day.  Some retailers have spoken of the difficulties they have when comics are delayed by Monday holidays and fans show up on Wednesdays looking for new books and there aren't any.  Advance notice helps somewhat, but many fans don't pay attention or forget and still show up on the wrong day. 

 

Second, in some markets Marvels reach newsstand outlets before they reach specialty stores (see 'Are Newsstand Copies of Marvels Out Before Directs?').  Unless Marvel begins holding the chains for a week like DC does (see 'Why Marvel's Newsstand Customers Beat Directs and DC's Don't'), this advantage for the chains will increase by one day.  Retailer complaints on this issue have been muted, however, so it's likely that impact on pop culture store sales would be minimal.

 

Third, customers that order products from Diamond that have street days of Monday or Tuesday (Wizards of the Coast products and videos are two groups that come to mind) would get them one day later relative to the day they go on sale at other stores.

 

Fourth, there would be unknown impacts on the reorder cycle.  For example, retailers that formerly could order a direct ship reorder to hit their store by the weekend to restock after seeing how the product sold on Wednesday might not have that option any longer.  On the other hand, retailers could probably order from Diamond one day later in the week and still get their reorders with their weekly shipments.

 

So why is Diamond proposing this change?  ICv2 talked with Diamond's V.P. of Operations Cindy Fournier, who provided three basic reasons that Diamond is interested in changing 'new comics' day.  First, Diamond feels that it will be a lot easier to recruit and maintain good people if the company didn't have to force them to work on Sunday.  This change would affect about 85% of Diamond's warehouse employees who work in the pick and pack operation.  These folks now have to work on Sunday, but would not if the release date were changed to Thursday.  Fournier indicated that Diamond's receiving staff would continue to work over the weekend to receive and prep product for Monday's packing operation. 

 

Second, the change would allow for a more consistent release date.  With the exception of Thanksgiving (when books would arrive on Wednesday) and Christmas and New Years Eve (depending on which days they fall), deliveries would be on Thursday.  There would be no need to worry about the six three-day weekend holidays that currently force changes in the delivery day.  This would greatly reduce the problems of educating first day customers on changing release days, as described above.

 

Fournier also said that Diamond would be able to include products that arrive after the current cut-off time of Friday noon.  With a Thursday delivery, product that arrived in Diamond's warehouses up until noon Monday could be included in the shipments.  We know that Monday is the heaviest receiving day of the week, so that might allow some large products to hit Diamond accounts six days faster than they do now. 

 

There has been no empirical study of a changing release day on sales in the comic business.  Comparing sales on holiday weeks to normal weeks doesn't provide useful data, for a couple of reasons.  First, just the fact that there's a change may have an impact on sales different from what a consistent Thursday release would cause.  And second, since this is a hit-driven business, the products that are released on any given week have a large impact on sales, not only of hit products but of other products released that week as well.  Likewise, trying to compare the era when comics were released on Thursday to the Wednesday release era similarly does not control for extraneous variables.

 

The only scientific study that we're aware of that compared sales of periodicals depending on release day was done in 1997 by People magazine, which was considering a change in release day from early in the week to Friday.  That study found that an issue released on Friday sells 10-15% better than the same issue released early in the week!  We believe that that's due to the effect of having fresher merchandise when consumers have more money and are more likely to shop -- causing the merchandise to arrive when customers want to buy it rather than trying to make customers come to the store on a day that they otherwise might prefer not to shop.  After an initial shakedown period, sales on comics released later in the week have a good chance of reacting the same way.  Of course, each store is different, and the ancillary effects detailed above must also be weighed.  It will be interesting to see how retailers vote, and how Diamond decides to proceed.