Starting January 1st, we will go back to a tiered plan like we started with when we opened in August of 2014. New subscribers will still be able to get one title or 100 or more, but their discount will be based on that number.
- 1-9 titles will get a 5% discount on those titles
- 10-19 titles will get 15% discount on those titles
- 20+ titles will get the full 20% discount on those titles
For folks that already have pulls, you are grandfathered in and will continue to get your 20% discount as long as you have titles. If you close your account and come back later, even a day later, you will get the new discounts. The only thing that will change with grandfathered accounts is that you will lose the 10% general discount and no more bags and boards.
The reason for dropping bags and boards was less about the cost but more about the amount of time spent bagging and boarding at the register. It is a huge time suck and I think that customers will appreciate a faster checkout along with the 20% off of supplies.
I, also, feel the need to go over our ordering availability of titles for new folks and a reminder for folks that might not use it as much. We ask that you be as specific as possible when asking for titles to be added to your list. As I’m sure you are aware of, there are a lot of titles that have the Avengers, the Inhumans, the Justice League, etc. in the title, so we need to know exactly which one you are wanting. Don’t ask for “anything X related.” We have no way of keeping track of what titles are mentioning, guest starring, appearing, etc. who and with over 100 subscribers it is another labor intensive task. That’s why we give our Previews catalogs to you for free. So, that you can be aware of what titles are coming out and be proactive on new titles.
One of the biggest problems we run into is customers not adding a title to their pull until the week before it comes out. There are a few dates that customers may not be aware of and those are the initial order date, the final order cutoff date, and the street date. The street date most will be familiar with because that is the date that the title hits the racks. The initial order date is the date that we place our orders for product that will be available two or more months down the line. This helps publishers gauge how much to print. The Final Order Cutoff date is the last day that we can adjust our orders before the print run begins. This usually happens a month before street date. If you come to us with a title for your list and it’s after the FOC, then we may end up not having enough copies to cover the demand, especially if several customers come to us at one time. This happens because in our search to find a sweet spot between selling all of our copies of a title and not having a lot of overstock, we sometimes don’t order a lot of a title. If we add a title to your list and it could take some time before the orders catch up.
Variants, where do I begin. Variants are offered on different levels, also. Some are offered where we can buy as many as we want. Some are offered as incentives meaning we have to buy a certain number of the original cover before we can buy one copy of the variant. But they don’t tell you that in the Previews. They tell you to talk to us. Which makes us the bearer of bad news when we can’t get them. By that, I mean that we can’t possibly order enough to satisfy the requirement. For instance, last January when the Star Wars variants came out one was a 1:50 meaning that I had to order 50 regular covers to get that one. I did and it took me six months to sell all of them. And that’s a popular title with 20 subscribers. Variants that are open to order are usually only ordered if someone has expressed an interest in them. If you want a variant, be specific and don’t be disappointed if it’s one that we can’t get. Would you believe that there are 1:5000 variants. That’s right 5000 copies just to order 1 copy of the variant.
Last of all, ordering. When placing an order with us, orders that are not picked up within 30 days of receiving will be put on the shelf to sell. Items that you pull from our shelf and ask us to hold will only be held for 48 hours. We will work with you if you have run up on hard times, but we have to sell things to stay in business. We’ll work with you, if you work with us.
I didn’t intend for this to be this long, but here you go. I hope that it’s agreeable to everyone and we hope to see you at the shop in the near future.
