Posted in: Comics | Tagged: fcbd, free comic book day

Comic Store In Your Future – Being Unique On Free Comic Book Day

Rod Lamberti of Rodman Comics writes weekly for Bleeding Cool. Find previous columns here.

Rich, in a previous article, brought up the cost to host Free Comic Book Day along with what I had written about us not having Free Comic Book Day this year. The bare minimum cost is $60 not counting freight.

I never said the cost was the factor for why we are not doing Free Comic Book Day.

If we only spent $60 it would be worse than not having Free Comic Book Day at all. Come get free comics but get here early, stand in line before we open or we will be out of the $60 worth of comics! Too bad so sad would not go over well.

From what I wrote "After talking with customers about trying something new on Free Comic Book Day in May, we have not heard anything positive about Free Comic Book Day in itself. We are being told that they are coming in for Rod Deals, not the free comics. The sales that are a part of Rod Deals is what brings them in. It was quite surprising that not a single person said anything positive about the free comics offered for Free Comic Book Day."

I have continued to ask our customers for their opinion on if we do not have Free Comic Book Day this year. I have yet to hear anyone say anything close to being disappointed if we do not.

I even got this quote emailed to me about Free Comic Book Day after I wrote the article about FCBD: " People forget what it was originally supposed to do. Bring in new customers! Customers that would buy every week. The offerings are trash!"

From what I wrote about Free Comic Book Day: "Invincible is being reprinted for FCBD, why?" The character has not been in a comic for a long time and is not getting a new title. To take it even another step when Image reprinted issues of Savage Dragon and Spawn did that really move the sales needle on those titles at all? Spawn sales did well last year thanks to it hitting issue 300 and Todd McFarlane promoting the heck out of it.

"Why have Free Comic Book Day in 2020? Because other stores do? That is not a good reason. Our plan? To offer an alternative to Free Comic Book Day. A day to get people into comics, to actually buy comics, to return again to buy comics after the day is done."

Being different helps a comic store stand out. Who says we are not going to spend more having an alternative to Free Comic Book Day? We are more than willing to do that to get new repeat customers. We treated FCBD as a customer appreciation day. Now we are going to have a different way on that day to get repeat customers along with showing all our customers we appreciate them.

Years ago, Magic the Gathering had a day each year where Magic packs were given out for free, at no cost to the store that held the event. It was truly free. Just like on Free Comic Book Day lots of people showed up and we had a crowd. Sales were dismal. A few people bought a bottle of water for a dollar and maybe a handful of packs were bought but that was it. This went on for years and suddenly with no announcement it ended. I remember calling Wizards of the Coast (the company who owns Magic the Gathering) asking if they were still having their yearly free magic day that September and was told we can neither confirm nor deny if we are having it this year. I was puzzled by that answer. I thought the Magic players would be upset that there would not be a free magic day that year. Much to my surprise, it seemed I was the only person who remembered Magic had a day for free Magic packs. I reminded some of the Magic players and was basically met with oh yeah. No one said even something like that is too bad it is not going to happen. It was easily forgotten. Were sales affected? Wizards of the Coast never brought it back. Our sales were not negatively impacted.

In previous years' columns, I wrote about various ideas to expand and help Free Comic Book Day. One idea was people get a coupon on Free Comic Book Day and come back for an exclusive comic the following week. By not having Free Comic Book Day we are free to experiment as much as we would like and try new things such as a coupon idea.

Free was a bigger deal before the Internet blew up. Younger people who grew up with the Internet think free is more common than older people. There is plenty of free stuff so FCBD is not that big of a deal to younger people. Many feel the quality of books has gone down overall for FCBD over the years.

If Free Comic Book Day works for you and your store, more power to you. For us it has gotten stagnate over the years. As I have stated in a previous column, our first Rod Deals sales after FCBD in the summer does better for us than the actual FCBD. Again, every store is unique and has its own customer base. There are stores that will have Free Comic Book Day in our area and each one does it differently. Am I worried about losing business by not having Free Comic Book Day? No, each year one store at a time, us included runs out of a title and people go to the other stores trying to hunt it down. Years ago, I had people coming in wanting the first Doctor Who that came out on FCBD because the other stores had run out. I am sure when we run out of a title it causes people to go to other stores. Even if every store ordered a ton there still would be scalpers who will start hunting down free comics because they are going for ten bucks or more online. Sadly, there are people not within driving distance of a local comic store so they buy the FCBD comics on online. I understand this. How else are they going to get the comics?

I printed last year's report on Free Comic Book Day again. Boy do those numbers look good. The sales were also helped by a new release of Magic material that weekend. Then some digging. In a sign I have done this too long by reviewing the receipts for FCBD, it confirmed even worse than I thought it would. People who came in for free comics rarely bought anything. My employee and I looked at the receipts and we named and matched the regulars that came in, to the receipts. A large majority of customers who actually bought something for that day were our regulars. Even one comic being bought while picking up free comics by a person who had never been in was a rarity. This proved my thoughts even more than I first believed. A few people picked up the 25 cent DC comic that came out the Wednesday before Free Comic Book Day and got it for twenty percent off. These people coming in and not buying anything or close to nothing are not doing anything wrong. They have been told it is national free comic book day and they are taking advantage of it. We are making money off having Rod Deal sales, not by giving out Free Comic Book Day comics. The sale is what is generating money.

Say something is free and the average person's mindset is to go to the business and not spend a dime and get the freebies.

Show those same people a group of people getting material for free and those same people think it is even more alright to do. Why spend money when you get comics for free?

If there is a sale at a business, people come with the mindset of buying something and spending money.

Will there be people that do not come at all because we do not have Free Comic Book Day? Yes, the ones that only show up once a year for all the free comics they can get and not spend a dime. Oh my, that is going to force us out of business, not.

I have customers that avoid Free Comic Book Day. Some dislike dealing with crowds. Some even find it distasteful there are people just showing up to take a store for all they can.

Free Comic Book Day once was a brand new, never-tried idea. Why not let stores or even encourage stores to try new ideas and ways to bring people in? It is better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all. Free Comic Book Day may not be able to adapt or evolve or even be flexible, we can.

Free Comic Book Day worked better for us before our old movie theater closed. We would give the left-over copies to the movie theater. It worked better than the comics being given away in store on Free Comic Book Day for getting people interested in coming to our store. I even once asked the manager, so when you having free movie day? He laughed.

Right now, I have a plan for what we will do in place of Free Comic Book Day. We are working on smoothing out the plan. Currently explaining it takes too long and makes it sound like it is something else. We have months to work on it. The goal of course is for us to make an even better day for us and the customers.

What I myself have right now is renewed excitement for the first Saturday in May. I hope Free Comic Book Day makes every store that still has it a ton of money. I would encourage store owners to directly talk with their customers. I thought mine were enjoying the free comics way more than what they actually were. In May we will see how everything goes.

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