It Would Suck To Be A Comic Book Store

Excuse me, but I'm about to post something that will make this sound like a comic store blog: the inevitable bitching about Diamond Comic Distributors.

We are not a comic book store. But we carry a lot of comics because we like good reads.

For those of you who wouldn't normally shop at a comic book store and don't really know how it works, you should know that Wednesdays are THE day - the day new comics come in.

How can that be? Well, because there's only really ONE distributor for comics. Diamond. Most comic shops just have one distributor and that's it.

So if Diamond fucks you, you're fucked.

We, like most independent bookstores, use HUNDREDS of distributors and wholesalers. If we can't find something from one distributor we can usually find it from another.

Yes, we use Diamond. And yes, every week there's something missing. Or late. Re-orders take weeks (instead of days like with book distros).

But the worst is when we're allocated. Because that's another thing that Diamond does, like no other. You order an item months in advance and THEN they place their order for said item based on the the pre-orders they get from retailers.

It's the dumbest way to do business. Because if they don't get enough orders they just don't order it and cancel the item. So even though WE want it and put in our order, it may not ever come.

We put in our order for Angel Battle Puppets. We get a ton of pre-orders from OUR customers. You know how many Diamond gave us? One. WTF??

God, it would suck to be a comic book store.

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