One of the stranger Bendis Board threads in recent times, as the Board considers the realities of retailing and the responsibilities of a customer…:
“I did what had to be done. Yesterday I went to the comic store for the first time in months and told them to wipe clean my pull list save for Ex Machina, Runaways (which I don’t even read), and The Escapists (ditto). For some reason I forgot to mention Y: The Last Man. They got super mad at me because I guessed they realized I haven’t been buying the comics I’ve had down on my list for like a year and a half. I probably should have just severed all ties, but what if I want to go pick up the new Godland or something? I want that option to remain open.”
“So, wait, you stiffed them with 18 months of unbought comics that you asked them to pull for you? That’s pretty weak.”
“I’d be pissed too! Without knowing how many titles that you had… I’d have told you that I was just gonna close your folder and that you could buy them off the rack. Thing is this. Pull lists serve two purposes. 1) make sure your customers get what they want… but just as important… 2) helps them know how many of every single item in Previews they have to order and helps them judge how many extra they need to order for the ‘shelf buyers’. For someone to have a folder is for them to say ‘I want this book when it comes out, please make sure you order me one’… for them to then turn around and put it on the shelf is taking money straight out of their pocket because that book was ordered for you. Say he was putting back 20 titles a month.. those books cost the store probably 30 bucks or so. That’s not much, but it adds up.. that’s taking 30 bucks from an already small profit margin… than just whiping the folder out is telling them that they need to take another 2 months worth of stuff from you on the chin. In the mood im in today, I would have kicked him out. It’s people like that that kill comic shops.”
“Any store that would hold a file for a year and a half deserves what they got, if someone doesn’t come in for 3 months I would can their file. Unless they made arrangments like gone to school.”
“i don’t see where he said he was taking things out of his pull and putting them back on the shelf (like someone alluded to). he just said he wasn’t buying the stuff in his pull for a year and a half. if a store waits 18 months to clear out a guys pull who isn’t buying his stuff, then i fault the store. hell, if someone didn’t come in after 2 months, i’d cancel their pull.”
“Jeepers. I guess I should mention that this is a store that orders a good 50 copies of every book, or at least the ones that I buy. I haven’t been making them commit to dozens of unsellable small press issues, just one more Ultimate Spider-Man to add to the three inch thick stack on the shelf. And I buy whatever I can’t add to an existing pile on a rack.”
“Comics is the only product I know where the customer has to fill out an elaborate order form, months in advance, to be sure he’ll get the item he wants. Because LCS owners are deathly afraid of having an extra issue or two on the stands, they try to keep the orders as close to the bone as possible. It’s such a weird industry, and so much work is required of the consumer.”
“Having a pull list was the worst thing ever. They put in a bunch of shit you don’t ask for and then bitch when you put it back on the shelf. Go Mark, stick it to the man. You owe them nothing, while it may be a dick move on your part, how much money have you given them in the past?”
“Yeah I hate it when comics shops make you sign your life away to be on the pull list. My comic shop doesn’t make you do that, and they will do whatever they can to get in touch with you before they give up and put your books back on the shelves. The main point is that the Reservists (as I like to call them) are the bread and butter of the comic shop.. They are the people the owners can count on to come in. So when Reservists just drop off the face of the Earth with no notice or suddenly drop 20 books after not being in for 2 months, it hurts their business. As if it’s not hard enough staying open when Barnes and Noble sell the same trades?! Bottom line: Respect your comic shop, your time and money are just as important as their time and money.”
And that’s not even getting into the part of the thread where the definition of “year-and-a-half” is discussed.
October 30th, 2006 at 12:36 pm
“And that’s not even getting into the part of the thread where the definition of “year-and-a-half” is discussed.”
I WAS going to click on the link, but I’m still trying to wrap my head around that concept. What the hell?
October 30th, 2006 at 12:44 pm
“Having a pull list was the worst thing ever. They put in a bunch of shit you don’t ask for and then bitch when you put it back on the shelf. Go Mark, stick it to the man. You owe them nothing, while it may be a dick move on your part, how much money have you given them in the past?”
If you didn’t request it, you don’t have to buy it. Just tell the retailer that, for God’s sake.
My shop has a very very clear policy on its pull lists, including a statement that they can and will cancel your box without notice if you’ve not been in the store for a few months. Saves them from eating it too hard.
October 30th, 2006 at 12:55 pm
I go to a very small LCS, one of only two in my town. I submit a monthly pull list and do my best to go once a week. There have been times when I couldn’t buy everything that came in during a particularly heavy week, especially if my freelance paycheck came late or if I had unexpected repairs and such. My LCS guy has never given me grief, has never tried to pad my stack of stuff, he doesn’t even force me to buy everything I put on my pull list – although I rarely put anything back. My tastes in comics are so eclectic and include so many small press titles that I have to pre-order, it would take a massively huge comics shop to carry everything I would want. The responsibility lies both with the shop and with the customer, there must be mutual respect.
BTW, my tastes in prose books is just as eclectic and I have to special order stuff all the time. It’s a way of life for me and has been for decades.
October 30th, 2006 at 1:09 pm
I have a pretty strict 1 month policy on subscriptions. I try my hardest to get in contact with the customer, through e-mail, phone, or a letter, but after one month, I stop pulling their books, and one week later, I put them back. Any store that’s holding them for 18 months…welll…they better review their subscription policy.
Subscriptions are really the best way to get us to notice books as wel, especially for small press and indie titles. Every month, someone orders a small press title, and that makes me look at it a second time. More often than not, if ONE person orders it, I’ll order a few extra copies for the shelf. Normally, it ends up selling.
Remember, pre-ordering is the best thing EVAR.
October 30th, 2006 at 1:27 pm
After I moved to the middle of nowhere I started ordering mine online at this great retailer. I kind of miss the weekly chatter of the LCS but the closest one is half an hour drive, which is something I can’t commit to on a weekly basis.
October 30th, 2006 at 1:30 pm
“Respect your comic shop, your time and money are just as important as their time and money.”
“The responsibility lies both with the shop and with the customer, there must be mutual respect.”
Exactly. The shop fucked up with that 18-month wait but the customer is a moron. At the very least, one should have the common sense and courtesy to go to the shop as soon as you know you’re going to stop buying, pay for the comics and cancel everything else. How hard is that? That is, unless you outright want to severe all ties, screw them and move on to another shop or stop buying comics completely. But no, the fucking moron still wants to have “options”.
October 30th, 2006 at 1:45 pm
“Having a pull list was the worst thing ever. They put in a bunch of shit you don’t ask for and then bitch when you put it back on the shelf. Go Mark, stick it to the man. You owe them nothing, while it may be a dick move on your part, how much money have you given them in the past?”
“Stick it to the man”? What a fucking piece of shit. “How much money have you given them in the past?” And he got what he paid for. What’s that got to do with anything? I’m royally pissed with everyone supporting this kind of crap. What kind of abnormal brains are we dealing with? Sigh.
October 30th, 2006 at 2:03 pm
WOW… I don’t even know what to say…
October 30th, 2006 at 2:17 pm
Not all shops operate the same way. My LCS has a subscription service and I have several titles on my pull list. All the info I gave them was my name and phone number. Their “policy” is to hold for up to a month before they start calling you. Then after a few tries to contact you they close the box and put your books on the rack. I try to make it in every week but I’ll be out of town for a couple Wednesdays so I’ll have 2 weeks of books to pick up when I get back in town. I just mentioned this fact to them when I was in last week and they said no problem. Its all about communication folks. How hard is it to say “hey I’m not interested in these titles anymore”?
As for “stuffing pullboxes” my LCS pulls things I might be interested in based on my pull list. If I don’t want it I don’t have to buy it. When I get my books every week they always ask if everything looks okay before ringing me up and if they miss anything I mention it or if they add something I didn’t ask for I bring it up. I’ve gotten a few books I wanted that I forgot to have pulled that way. I also get a couple things I’m not interested in that way too. They have no problem putting a book back on the shelf if I don’t want it.
The point is communication. That’s all.
October 30th, 2006 at 2:23 pm
“The point is communication. That’s all.”
Well said.
October 30th, 2006 at 3:03 pm
I’m fairly strict with the subcription – pull list – policy at the store I run. After a month I start calling, emailing, whatever. After a week or so of that, if they still haven’t been in, I put everything back. I also don’t let subscribers that have stiffed us sign back up. I would also like to add that we offer a 15% discount and free bags and boards to our subscribers so in reality, we do it ALL for the customer and I get kinda pissed when we get stuck with a month’s worth of books because someone’s too lazy to contact us.
October 30th, 2006 at 3:48 pm
My LCS has a lot of patience with me. I told the guy up front, though, that I’d be in no more than once a month (I believe I actually do go in more than once a month, these days, but originally I didn’t). Not sure how strict they normally are, but I’ve been using them for a couple years now, and they haven’t said a word about my coming in infrequently. I’m pretty regular, though. If I weren’t, they might be a little less patient.
October 30th, 2006 at 5:05 pm
My LCS sometimes adds extra stuff to my box, too–when it’s something they know I follow but didn’t order, or when they put in both variants to let me choose a cover.
But they wouldn’t demand I buy it… and I wouldn’t refuse to buy something when I basically entered into an oral contract saying I would.
And I’m in the store pretty much every week (even when I don’t plan on it)… because let’s face it, I’m an addict.
October 30th, 2006 at 6:47 pm
I haven’t had a pull box since 1984, when you ordered your books by checking off titles on a single sheet of Xeroxed paper. One side.
How do you do this now? Do they make you fill out a Diamond sheet? Do you just write down titles. How do they know what books you want?
October 30th, 2006 at 6:08 pm
Tom -
I used to go to stores who would make you buy a copy of Previews as part of their “pull list” membership. You’d give them the Previews book with all of your check marks and you’d hope that they read more than the DC, Marvel, Image and Dark Horse sections. Eventually I learned to include a piece of paper with all of my titles written on it as well – just to make sure the obscure companies got noticed. (One store I used to go to back in the day actually gave free copies of Previews to folks with pulls – it was the only store that always got my pulls right, regardless of how obscure the title I was getting was).
My current store is great – I just tell them what titles I want and they show up in my box. If I ever want to add another one, I just tell ‘em and they add it to the list. If I want to drop one, I just tell them the next time I’m in the store (they don’t even require a 3 month notice on pulls). No muss, no dealing with Diamond’s lousy organization in Previews, and no fuss.
October 30th, 2006 at 8:46 pm
Tom:
Most stores you tell them what you want, they’ll write it down on an index card and they order it for you. You say “Detecitve Comics” and you’ll get every issue of Detective Comics (an annuals) until you say you don’t want it anymore. At that point the store will have to eat the two latest issues they may have ordered, but with FOC that shouldn’t be a problem anymore. You can also ask for specific issues and if they’re available they’ll order one of them too.
If you ask for a monthly book by a publisher without an FOC then they’ll generally agree to “eat” the two issues. Most retailers don’t try to make readers buy books they no longer enjoy. They’ll go on the racks.
It’s typically that informal, but there are some stores that do it differently.
October 30th, 2006 at 9:09 pm
The first store I used to frequent regularly had a basic form for pull lists with all the DC/Marvel/Image/Valiant stuff on it, and some extra lines for additional stuff. I don’t think I was required to purchase “Advance Comics” but I still did most of the time. I don’t remember ever having any trouble with them, and I even ordered some VHS through them.
When I worked at a different store later, comic sales were dwindling and the shop was in the middle of converting to all manga/anime. We still kept the pull lists though and we still had dedicated customers who came in to pick up their titles. A lot of people ordering Sirius Press titles, or stuff from Diamond’s Adult supplement, but they paid and were generally nice (as long as they didn’t get started talking about their fan-fiction).
The shop I go to currently has never put anything in my pull list that I haven’t asked for, but they’ve left things out tons of times. I signed up just to make sure I’d be getting 52 since I knew I wouldn’t be able to make it there weekly and half of the time they didn’t even pull it for me. Not that it mattered because I dropped the title after Week 13 anyways. It’s been about four or five weeks since I was last in there now, and I was feeling kinda guilty (even though they said they wait 8 weeks, then contact you) but everyone’s comments make me think I should be calling them up frantically, screaming “Please don’t put back my stuff!!!”
October 31st, 2006 at 1:45 am
The guy on the Bendis thread is a dick. Frankly, the comic shop should just ban his behind from ever coming into the store again.
He doesn’t seem to have any real love of comics anyway. He seems to only want to read 3 books at most and then only when he “feels” like it. Best to move him out of the shop and frankly off the Bendis board too. Why put up with commentary on comics from someone who isn’t even reading them and actively working against comic shops staying in business.
In the old country, he would have been taken out in a field and shot.
November 1st, 2006 at 3:46 am
The thread unfortunately mixes two issues. One is the guy’s rude behaviour towards his shop, violating the oral contract and going against established precedent in this area. The other is the frankly ridiculous way comics are sold. Starting with the hassle that is the management of a pull list down to the ridiculous notion that the shop deserves any compensation (except maybe a few cent) for essentially holding a mail order.
November 1st, 2006 at 12:48 pm
RE: Cancelling
The LCS’s that I’ve had pull lists at have said upfront that you have a three month delay to cancelling a title. None of them have stuck to that unless it was an unusual indy that they might have trouble getting rid of. The three I’ve used since college have each been really cool about letting me drop a title immediately. That was before Marvel and DC changed their, though, so their policies may have changed to reflect that.