Apparently, customers not picking up stuff in their folders is killing the comic book industry...

Apparently, customers not picking up stuff in their folders is killing the comic book industry. Packrat comics posted pic related online and it blew up a month or so ago

I don't have a pull list and I don't think I plan to. I go to my comic shops about every other week to check out used GNs and back issues to find something interesting.

Here is a video from one of my LCS talking about the subject. They seem pretty "high and mighty" about this whole thing.
>"We understand people fall on tough times. we get that. but come pick up your books! "
youtu.be/o9nr3X4xbTo?t=866

Are they right or wrong, Sup Forums?
>Should people pick up the books in their folders even if its been 3 months?
>Should comic shops be allowed to cancel peoples subscriptions and cast their unbought books back out in the shop?

I'm in the process of starting my business plan to open up a comic shop and the first thing I looked into was pull lists; and the fact that I probably wouldn't have it. Too many people, just like OP stated, have shit ordered and then never come and pick it up, or they have it ordered and it's just product that sits behind the counter for months, costing time, revenue, and space.

I figure, if I were to even allow pull lists, that it'd be done in a similar way to books or games or movies; ie, you have 48 hours to come pick it up or it'll be sold.

Yes of course, if you're not going to pick them up at least call and cancel your pulls, the lcs should really cancel a pull after one month though, depending on the how the pull is set up

I'm already killing the industry by waiting for trades.

Why not make the customer pay before even making a pulllist?

>we understand people fall on rough times
>but come pick up your books
But...That's why they're not picking up their books. They're broke.

>buying floppies

Of course they're right. Literally the only time where it's acceptable to not pick up your pull is when your subscription was shifted without your permission to a book you don't want after the previous one got cancelled.

If you can't afford to pay for the books in your pull-list then you should have been responsible and not set up a pull list that you weren't sure you could afford. If other conditions like car problems or having to move or being stuck out of town for an extended period of time restricts you from being able to pick up your pull then you should just call your LCS and give them a heads up so they can account for it.

what are you going to name the shop?

Need any help with names from us?

Are comic shops stupid? Just make the people pay in advance to reserve shit, like every other kind of shop

Thought about that as well. However, as we know, the majority of people who buy comics are actually pretty fucking poor. But the idea of pre-ordering crossed my mind.

>They're broke
Then why the fuck you ordering shit you can't pay for if you're broke?

On the other hand, maybe if retailers didn't hand Diamond a monopoly in distribution, we would have seen better days in the comic book industry.

I'm not even gonna mention the faggotry of big 2 in the matter.

As a customer, I can assure you that we're the worst treated party here, and by far.

>Are comic shops stupid?
Yes. The fact that they opened a comic shop should be indication enough

For the love of God, do not open up a comic/nerd apparel store.
What the fuck is wrong with you?

My LCS makes you pay in advance for anything on your pull list or any special order

yeah, open up a comic/nerd apparel boutique!

Well, to be fair my shitty LCS would always try to sneak things in.

If I specifically got a series with Character X, she would add every appearance of Character X. Also, she would randomly just throw in things out of the blue and forget things that had been on my list for months.

Yea, I stopped going there. One to many times of having to deal with her stupid middle school kid working the register while she cooked dinner in the back room.

unless the person is a loyal customer/know on a deeper level, they should cancel their stuff after id say 3 months.

Customers should also communicate with the shops
>"Hey im going out of state for a few months. hold my stuff please"
>"Hey i dont have a car anymore so i cant come as frequently as i did. im going to try to make it as much as i can but ill keep you posted. thanks"
>"Hey situation X happened and comics arent as big of a priority as they were. You can cancel everything except for Y and Z. I really love those series"

I am too. I buy keys and first issues, but I wait for trades. I like to think im counteracting this by going in every other week and spending cash on back issues/random whatever though

>pays in advance for a book
>book ends up sucking
>cant return the books because the money is already spent

I go once a month every single month and when something I'm reading ends I'm always sure to add another book to my list
I don't know how it's so hard for some people, I see other people's bags and they're fucking stuffed as if they haven't been picked up in several months

I wouldn't dream of ever selling "nerd" apparel. And most comic shops blow dick, especially in my state, because they refuse to deal in trades because "comics our collectors items!!!". That and they have a bunch of idiots polluting the store with Magic and other turn-based card games that literally spend no money there or other nerd board games.

I like the way you think!

It's pointless to blame the customer. People aren't going to stop doing it just because you made an article on the internet.

If you have a service that allows people to screw you, you either deal with the drawbacks, or you change the service.

>try to sneak things in
Yeah fuck that place, it's one thing to suggest title you might want to try out it's another to just throw them in and expect your to pay for them

Maybe hes a rich entrepreneur with money to burn

>I know you don't have any money because you lost your job.
>Buy your pulls.
kek

Don't order without cash up front. Simple and easy.

So you're going to be a 100% comic shop? That's an even worse idea.

At least more and more creators understand this approach, hell I've seen some comics people admit to being trade waiters themselves.

When you attack the trade waiters for not being real fans you just come off as the shitty old man, like Peter David

Might as well just save the time and burn it on a back porch now.

What kind of retarded owner allows you to have a pull list without taking a credit card number or requiring cash in advance? That is entirely their fault not the consumers.

This.
Why on earth should customers support LCS and the companies after being fucked for so many years? What's in it for us?

I mean floppies in the format sold today are a total steal. There is a threshold indicating if a product is worth being in the market, and floppies have way exceeded this.

If floppies were a burger, it would be a saver menu macdonalds burger wrapped in newspaper, but instead of lettuce and condiments it would have adds, but it costs like a meal in a restaurant.

And? Either buy your pulls or don't have a list. It's that simple. And if you lose your job, call and inform them, much like you would have to do with your credit card company or whoever holds your autoloan.

Comics and manga, with a local retail front to put both the shitty stores in my area out of business and then an online presence as well.

If you're not sure you're gonna like the book before buying it, don't put it on your pull list before you are. Very simple thing anyone with an IQ in triple digits would do.

>comparing a "please make sure you have a copy for me because I may want to buy this but can't come on ship day" to actual loans held by your bank
You're a fucking retard. If they're not charging you or hold a CC# for your pulls list, it's merely a courtesy to do the pulls. You are under no obligation to actually buy them. You might be an asshole, but you're not breaking any rules.

An auto loan? They come and take your car if you don't pay that shit. What is a comic shop gonna repo for not buying your pulls?

>it would have adds
Are Marvel and DC the only publishers that put adds throughout the story? IDW, Dark Horse, and Image throw them all in the back

Doesn't matter, you're still buying ads.

>Comics and manga
So you want to die? You need MTG or else you are gone within a month.

>buy trades
>hey this book is pretty thick for a 4 issue miniseries..
>end of the book is "HEY HEY HERE IS THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF THE CHARACTER YOU JUST READ ABOUT AND HERE ARE SOME ADS FOR SOME MORE BOOKS YOU MAY LIKE FROM THIS COMIC PUBLISHER

There's one guy who I see at my LCS every Wednesday who spends about an hour talking to the clerk. He hasn't picked up his pull for several months because of not being able to afford it. He's asked them to stop putting new releases of the comics he was following in, although he's still planning on buying what is already in it. Sometimes he'll get a couple of the books when he can afford three or four of them, but most weeks he leaves empty-handed.

Funny enough, my local shop over the last 10 years has gradually changed from a comics/hobby shop into almost exclusively an MTG shop. Doesn't even display floppies anymore(you can still buy them though).

user, most LCSs make over half of their profits on Magic cards.

Did they really get that bad? I think the only modern marvel trades I have are Epic collections that those only devote the inside front and back cover for adds for other titles in the Epic format

I have only one thing to say when companies and retailers bitch.

GET WITH THE TIMES

It's not the customer's duty to save your shitty industry.

Because then people would stop going to your shop and go to the one that has a "free" pull list.
Unless you're literally the only comic book shop in a 50 mile radius. You're pretty much shooting yourself in the food.

They're totally complicit. Hard times aside, I bet a third of that stack is full of shit they pressured people into adding.
I've also been pressured to not close out a pull or cancel titles. Fuck the LCS. Fuck floppies.

People are mostly lazy about getting things like this. I work at a retail store and we order free socks that are $25 on a costumer appreciate night. That was in November, that last person to pick their FREE socks up was a week ago...

Bullshit, if you're a good retailer with a nice clean shop and friendly clerks that goes a long way in the LCS game.

How many titles do you pull? Some people just have enough books that in a month they can pull over 50 issues.

just make them pay half price for the reservation and put a one week delay to pick up before selling it with the normal copies

That happens to a lot of them, because cards are more profitable, you can't just download cards off the internet, and middle school and high school kids love to spend their parents' money on loads of cards.

>book ends up sucking
irelevant. It's the same if you ordered the comic without paying first.

Three months is way too long to be holding and ordering pulls with no communication whatsoever

There isn't a 'long way' to go, user. It the catfish of shops.

Jesus that's a lot. Not that user but I'm at about a dozen and feeling like I have way too many.

>you can't just download cards off the internet
Blizzard says otherwise, Hearthstone got huge for a digital card game. In 2015 they were making $20 million a month selling digital booster packs

Dynamite has like one two-page ad for an upcoming book in the middle of issues.
You think that's bad? Action Lab/Danger Zone trades have a half dozen pages of ads BETWEEN EACH INDIVIDUAL ISSUE.

And you'd rather catch the 600 lb healthy catfish or an underweight mutated one?

I meant you can't pirate cards, you have to purchase them. I mean, unless you raid a truck of cards or beat the shit out of some kids and steal them.

You can't get people to overstuff their lists if they have to pay up front.
They do it the way they do it for a reason.

youre right. i just said 3 months because thats what the Packrat picture said. 3 weeks?

Other than that Chinese bootleg, Hearthstone is purely digital. You can't sell and resell Hearthstone singles through an LGS.

No, I'll just order from Amazon, thanks.

The LCS owner from Eltingville was right

>Should people pick up the books in their folders even if its been 3 months?
either that or tell the store to stop holding those issues so they can be put up for buying.
>Should comic shops be allowed to cancel peoples subscriptions and cast their unbought books back out in the shop?
yes. my opinion is if you don't pick up your books after a month, lcs should have full right to put them on sale for the store. unless you call the store ahead of time and explain why it's been so delayed.

I have 35, including upcoming books that I've already asked to be added, and I feel like I should be reading more. Although 5 of those are minis, another 5 are ending soon, and I'm considering dropping three of them.

You mean the other nice clean shop with friendly clerks, and not "We don't trust you, so we're charging you now for your pull list" shop?

- No checks
- No credit cards
- No special orders
- No arguments
- No problems

And that's why pull lists are a mistake; having a bunch of customers saying "yeah, i want that book; order me a copy and I'll buy it" and then doing said thing for customer and 10 months later they roll in to buy said book is just shitty and shouldn't be allowed. Now if you have a stipulation, like, "all pull books must be bought within the week of their arrival or else they will be sold", people will most likely show up and pick up there shit. The game industry figured this shit out with pre-orders.

I've worked retail as well; we usually gave customers 2 weeks to pick items they ordered in or 3 days with in-store holds. If they weren't picked up, they either went into the store stock or were sent back to the distributor.

It's business 101; you can't just blindly order in copies of something hoping it'll sell based on someones word.

Real business 101
You don't make things less convenient for customers and expect them not to go to more convenient competition
Quit pulling shit out of your ass. it makes you look stupid

There was a guy like that in my city, actually, and he went out of business just a few months ago.

I'd read a comic about nerdy teenagers having gang wars over cards

What? You're retarded. Don't pull if you're not going to buy. Inform them if you won't be able to buy it. Simple.

Not that they aren't at fault since they should be getting paid in advance or getting some credit card information beforehand. A service like this is absolutely retarded if it's costing you thousands of dollars.

that guy is a jerk
but i think he is right

Every LCS I've ever had a pull list at doesn't require payment up front, or a credit card. My current one doesn't even for special orders.

I pick up my books monthly, but I have seen people with pull lists backed up enough to fill a short box. I don't know how they can let it get that bad, but I also know that my LCS makes way more from games/cards/collectibles/toys/trades than they do on floppies.

The bit about throwing a fit over keeping track of what a customer has purchased doesn't make sense. That's what a business does.

now other people are shitting on you, but depending on where you are, if trades really are a niche that hasn't been filled, you could probably carve out a nice little business

I have about 50 pulls a month
I'm rich and around $150 a month is w/e
worst thing is all the space they take up, considering putting whole runs up on ebay

These are the solution. Its sustainable.

Sounds a lot like how the housing market crash happened. Not the way to run your business.

Make people pay in advance for whatever is on their pull list. Problem solved.

>Please, keep fucking me over as I cater to your every whim, so you won't go somewhere else, even though you are still most likely going somewhere else.

>NO CHANGE

That's the joke.

the comic shop in the youtube link above is the only store in the area that has used GNs. one of the only reasons I still keep going there

You're missing the point completely. The comic shop has no recourse for courtesy pulls and a customer not buying them. The proposed purchaser can be an asshole with no consequences by never informing the store owner. But you tried to compare it to a loan, which is not the same thing at all. A loan is something you pay back on with interest for receiving it now. The two are not comparable even in the slightest.

>with a local retail front to put both the shitty stores in my area out of business

What the heck is this underhanded crap? You don't have to be an unscrupulous jerk, you know. With a bit of respect and willingness to work together, you can all mutually benefit.

my LCS is the only place in my fairly sizable city that stocks all trades on release day and they recently opened a second location in one of the hottest new locations in the city

>That and they have a bunch of idiots polluting the store with Magic and other turn-based card games that literally spend no money there
You clearly have never spent more than twenty minutes in a comic shop while there were magicfags playing

Selling print media in realspace is no way to run a buisiness, user.

this guy gets it
>"Hey, we actually dont sell X. ya know who does? user's comic shop. I go there from time to time. Nice guy. They dont have a great selection of Y though, which we have a lot of. im not sure if youre looking for Y, but yeah. user's shop has good X"
everyone wins

My LCS has customers put down how often they plan to pick up pulls.

Weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. If it was my shop and I didn't see or hear from a customer in a month after their pull day I'd just cancel the list and throw the books back on the shelves

do you live in New Orleans? that sounds like one of my shops

I could either spend 5 bucks on a floppy from a lcs, or spend $8-$10 buying a trade online.

San Diego

Save your money and start a business that isn't currently dying. You may as well open a video rental store.

>buying trades on Amazon

People should have a credit card on file that will be charged if they don't come in and get their stuff. Retailers usually order exactly how many they think will sell and get stuck with product they can't move.
Either that or publishers should buy back unsold books. The way distribution works in this industry is all kinds of fucked up.
I have a small pull list, try to go in every 2-3 weeks to pick stuff up.

holy shit you know that never crossed my mind that people pull a fuckton of books
I only pull 10 issues since I only go for things that REALLY interest me
anything else I just wait for trades

They're both already on their last legs because of poor business choices and no real selection. One of the said shops keeps anything you'd want to browse in long boxes, buried under long boxes, stashed behind long boxes, and actually has no bays to actually browse said products, without tearing apart their store of long boxes. The other LCS currently is shifting towards catering to Magic players, only, and their shelves are empty and the few bays they have are stark.

Agreed, but if you're gonna be buying floppies as the analogies say, you know I'm right

I do this too
floppies from the shop, trades from Amazon
the price difference is simply too great for me to buy trades at my LCS

I have a pull list, but only because it gets me 10% off on all purchases at my local shop