One For The Road...

Just to prove I am an equal opportunity offender and to tide you over, here's a peek at a quickee piece I posted to ICv2 in response to a fellow retailer...

Robert Scott of Comickaze on 'Ultimate Avengers DVD
'Shocked'

March 08, 2006
Robert Scott of Comickaze in San Diego, California saw the comments by Dean Phillips on the Ultimate Avengers The Movie DVD (see "Dean Phillips of Krypton Comics on Ultimate Avengers DVD") and has several ways to turn the situation to his advantage.

Regarding comments by Dean Phillips about the new Ultimate Avengers The Movie DVD, I have to say I was shocked.

Heck yeah I chalk his complaint up to sour grapes. This is not a new development so I'm not sure why he was so surprised that the DVD would be available at retail for less than his wholesale cost from Diamond.

"The suggested retail price of $19.95 makes me and all other direct market stores look like morons."

Uh uh Dean, it's not the SRP making you look like uninformed, it's your misunderstanding of the market and the way you do business. It wouldn't matter if the SRP was $10, Diamond is still going to charge you $6.50 and ship it to you after the street date (because they can't figure out how to do Tuesday street dates) and WalMart is still going to sell it for $5 and on time.

Are you loyal to one gas station or do you pull over and fill up when you see gas a nickel cheaper than your usual stop? There are some cold hard facts in our market. There are going to be poachers who will use comic-oriented items as loss leaders to lure in families to buy from the rest of their product mix. They know you don't jockey for a space and stand in line at Wal-Mart or Costco just to save $5 on a DVD but YOU could. Go in first thing on the morning of the street date and buy a few dozen, getting them below cost (but don't buy anything else!). Have them ready for sale when you open that day and return those that haven't sold in a few weeks!

We stopped ordering DVDs for awhile to avoid your problem but many of my customers appreciated the convenience of picking them up from us at Comickaze, so we now take prepaid orders at 10% off. We pre-sold half a dozen Ultimate Avengers and still made $7 each. We also offer bigger discounts up to giving the DVD free as an incentive to buy other product, kinda like the big guys. Since we don't have the variety of high margin add-ons that the mass market boys do, we are offering $5 off the Ultimate Avengers DVD with the purchase of any Ultimates or Avengers TPB at $12.99 or more as well as giving it away FREE with the purchase of a Captain America Baseball Jersey or any Ultimates or Avengers bust or Statue at $65 or more.

We're currently selling a Zombie Pack that contains the Shaun of the Dead, Walking Dead Vol 1 and Remains TPB and a FREE copy of the Shaun of the Dead DVD. You can get a FREE or discounted Corpse Bride DVD with the purchase of Corpse Bride Action Figures and the same goes for Wallace and Gromit. It's called promotion!

It's an open market and someone is always going to undercut you and there's nothing Diamond or anyone else can do about it. But you can get smarter about the way you do business and there's nothing the discounters can do to stop you from doing that.