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I realize this isn’t something that is indigenous just to the comic book industry, but I find it interesting how much people EXPECT comic discounts nowadays. It’s to the point now where suggested resale prices are pretty pointless, and to go back to comics, putting a cover price on the book is almost silly at this point. Why not just have retailers look at their unit cost and decide what to charge on their own? You don’t see prices on video games any more, or on lots of other items that might be in competition with comic books.

It seems like comic stores can no longer survive without discounting their product deeply. I know there are exceptions to this, but the competition via the internet, through large book chains, and on eBay is so fierce that charging retail for new items is suicide. The regular book market is in a similar pickle. When a brick and mortar store has to give 20% or 30% off of their new comics, it just cuts into their bottom line, and they have to sell even more books to make ends meet–and the overhead on brick and mortars is significant.

For simplicity’s sake, let’s say the average book costs $3. That means stores are paying roughly $1.50 for that title. Discounting books 20% means that they sell said book for $2.40, meaning 90 cents profit per book. And that profit has to pay employees, advertising, telephone, lighting, and a number of other overhead-related expenses. And as the direct market has shrunk over the last decade, pennies are pinched that much more. As such, retailers end up cutting corners in a few potential directions:

1. Cut overhead.: This means laying off an employee, cleaning the store less, less advertising, fewer in-store events, worse customer service, or something similar, which hurts opportunity for future business.

2. Ordering less product:: This means fewer shelf copies, not taking chances on books from smaller publishers, and maybe eliminating some lines altogether, which puts a cap on the amount of money that can be made at a store.

3. Cutting store discounts: As we’ve seen on this board (and elsewhere) innumerable times, Screaming Mimis come out of the woodwork when their LCS does this, vying to go to DCBS or to the competition.

None of these choices is terribly good for long-term growth, and some stores do all three in spades. Frankly, I don’t know how most LCSs survive any more, and a lot of them don’t.

So what does this mean in the long run? In my opinion, more small stores are going to close, and we are going to be left with a few hundred shops, many of which are part of a chain (Lone Star, for example) or who have a significant mail order presence (which cuts some overhead). There will be a few exceptions to this, of course, but there undoubtedly will be mitigating circumstances tied thereto that make those cases unique. Maybe a store has a monopoly on the market, or meet a particular niche that people want/like (Isotope, for example). Are these good things in the evolution of the industry? I don’t know, really–I’ll leave that answer to those who are more qualified than me.

How did it start? Stores offered discounts to attract customers. Competition (which existed in the 90s when a lot of this started) met those discounts, resulting in bidding wars, so to speak. This has spiraled out of control to the point where stores and publishers are scrambling to find that next gimmick that will result in a short-term spike in sales, without realizing that things get hurt in the long run. I really fear for the market as it exists currently, and some serious adjustments are going to have to be made, and quickly, if the industry is going to survive in its existing form. That evolution might be a good thing, mind you, but I don’t have a lot of confidence in the forward-thinking of many retailers for reasons that already have been mentioned in this thread.

If you think about it logically and rationally, stores should charge MORE for providing a pull system. Hundreds, if not thousands of dollars worth of inventory sit behind a counter waiting for a customer who might show up every other week, once a month, or what have you. Many also provide free backs and boards for books also. But dammit, we want pull lists, and heavily discounted ones at that.

Before everyone starts hurling rotten fruit at me, there are a lot of stores that are doing things well, and my opinion is just that–the opinion of one person. But I’m old enough to remember when getting discounts was no big deal–just having a specialty store that sold comics was enough for me to happily pay retail for the accessibility and not blink. The spiraling cost of comics has altered this thinking for me, just like it has most of you here, and I buy my books through an online dealer as a result of this, among other things (see below).

Also, for full disclosure, I live in an area where there is no LCS within 45 minutes or so, so I do not know what discount structures are like at many stores nowadays, but I would be curious to know about discount structures at the comic stores that you all shop at. In fact, I am going to start another thread to learn a little bit about this.

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