Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, entertainment

Retailers Now Know Exactly How Many Comics To Overorder, To Qualify For Those Incentives…

At ComicsPRO, Image Comics publisher Eric Stephenson talked against the practice of tiered comic book variants, where a retailer is encouraged to order X number of copies to get the right to order a more limited number of comics of another cover. Leaving stores with copies of comics they are unable to sell in search of a limited edition cover they can they sell for much more.

While ComicsPRO honoured Marvel's SVP David Gabriel, a man who has taken that practice and made it a measured artform. The defence argued is that this is way to encourage sampling, to find the upper limit on a title's sales that a retailer may otherwise order too conservatively.

But Marvel has often mocked other publishers for such activity, at one point swapping unsold copies of DC's overordered titles for a Marvel variant cover.

Well, Diamond Comic Distributors has made such practice even easier for retailers. There are certain incentives, often used for big launch promotions were retailers are encouraged to order numbers in excess of their orders for a previous comic book, in order to qualify for the right to buy another cover variant.

Well, Diamond announced at ComicsPRO that their website will now tell retailers the exact quantities they are required to order of a title in order to qualify for incentive editions, when it is bases on matching or exceeding an order of a previous comic.

The language will tell retailers that "You must order at least [Quantity] of [Item Code Number] across all accounts to be eligible to order this item."

And those with multiple stores can discover how many copies of the qualifying issue have been ordered across all of those locations.

Just don't expect to see one of Eric Stephenson's titles pop up under that system.

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