(Mis)fortune Telling: Amazon Comics?: Part Five: How can comics retailers compete?

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Today, I've been exploring how Amazon can and will utilize a variety of strategies to exploit markets. Comics shops are not a specific target, but the industry will suffer collateral damage as customers opt to "get it online" cheaper and easier.

So, how to compete with a billion-dollar corporation which innovates both online and physically?

Here are some suggestions and examples I've brainstormed recently and previously. I've been a bookseller (1994-1997, 1999-2018), and as a comics evangelist, I am constantly thinking on how to connect readers and consumers with amazing comics and graphic novels!

CAVEAT: Some of these are crazy ideas. (But it's not "crazy" if it works and makes money!) Some might not work for your store. I might be naive, not privy to private discussions, or uneducated on local and federal laws. Discuss these down below in the comments. Offer your own as well!

I'll begin in the order I posted the articles from earlier today.

Amazon Travel Truck

A random truck on the streets of Manhattan. Your logo will be more legible.

This one is probably the easiest to counter. Buy a box truck, van, or SUV and have it skinned or painted with your store name and a cool graphic. Maybe that's your daily driver, that you use for both business and leisure. Maybe you're embarrassed to be driving in what you consider a "clown car"? Well, first and foremost, it's a moving billboard. People will notice it. (Add vanity plates!) True story: My father bought a Buick Rendezvous that had been used as a courtesy car at a PGA tournament. It arrived with a giant Tiger Woods adhesive cling advertising Buick and the PGA. Ten-plus years later, he still talks about strangers coming up and asking if they could take selfies with Tiger. (The cling is long gone...I think it lasted a few years before succumbing to Nebraska's climate.) With the right graphic and hashtag, strangers will advertise your business for free via social media.

Talk to your accountant; you might be able to have the store pay for the vehicle, and write it off as a business expense. But aside from advertising and picking up deliveries, you use it to sell comics and other merchandise. Like the Amazon Treasure Truck and food trucks, you'll use this vehicle to sell product locally and regionally. Toss in a canopy tent for remote locations. Add a banner. A few tables and seats. Sandbags to keep it from blowing away. 

Where do you sell offsite? Flea markets. Book festivals. Street fairs. Highway yard sales which stretch for hundreds of miles. Local, regional, and national geek festivals.

Perhaps like the Treasure Truck, your store truck offers specials, quantity ordered cheap from the Diamond clearance lists!

Want a really crazy idea? Just as Free Comic Book Day was inspired by Baskin-Robbins handing out free ice cream, why not appropriate the iconic Ice Cream truck business model and sell dollar comics from your Dollar Comics truck? Park it wherever kids and parents are likely to be. The beach. A county fair. The midnight screening of the latest blockbuster. The county sports complex, where Soccer Moms need to keep Geeky Stevies distracted while their daughters get their Hamm on.
If your store buys old comics (mine does, for thirty cents on the dollar value), segregate out the really worn copies and sell those for twenty-five cents. Maybe you've got some old Archie digests you can sell for $2.
I'm not saying you need someone to drive around neighborhoods constantly, but if you've got enough stock (and Marvel and DC are distributing new dollar titles every month), why not?

Websites

This is more difficult (otherwise more stores would have more robust sites).

At a bare minimum, retailers should have a basic website listing store locations (with a "get directions" button that redirects to Google Maps), hours, events, exterior and interior photos, social media links, and all the ways to contact the store. Ideally, the store has figured out a way to sell merchandise.
BARE MINIMUM: update your Yelp, Google Maps, and other "phone directory" listings online.

For the past five years or so, I have had this idea on how comics shops could set up an e-commerce website that would be unique to the store, but offer a wide range of merchandise without a lot of hassle. 

If only there was a giant warehouse of comics merchandise that could fulfill orders, just like Amazon does?

 

• Diamond runs the servers, the IT, all the internet stuff that stores really do not have the time or money to maintain.
• Diamond maintains stock, website modules, order processing and shipping. 
• Stores selects which items will be offered on their store-specific website. 
• Diamond sells the item, bills the account with an online surcharge, and ships the item directly to the customer. 
• The store expands their selection without the risk of stocking non-returnable product. 
• The store can also list high-priced (and high-risk) items such as omnibuses, statues, and booster packs.
• The store discovers product lines which might work well at the store. 
• Diamond also supports pull lists, wish lists, and online communities.

Diamond moves more product.
Diamond makes money offering a new system and service (which can be funded by profits made from each store).
Stores sell product via a low-maintenance website and compete online with other stores and Amazon.

A customer walks in and asks for something you don't have?
"One moment, let me check our website. Yes, we do have it. I can order it for you, and if you ship it to the store, I'll wave the shipping and give you our web discount."

Note: if you use a book distributor such as Ingram, your store should already have a special orders department which has access to that distributor's entire inventory. Someone wants a cookbook? A dictionary? The latest Hunger Games novel? No problem! Pay for it now, give them a discount, and apply the purchase price to their loyalty card!

Mega-Websites

This is more difficult, as it requires cooperation among a variety of parties. Heidi MacDonald reported on Bookshop.com :

Back in January, a bunch of out of work booksellers launched a project called Bookshop.org – it was meant to raise money for indie bookstores and give readers an alternative to Amazon for buying books. Instead of going through Amazon as the middleman, indie bookstores (or anyone who signs up as an affiliate) can set up their own online bookstore. ABA-registered independent bookstores can earn 30% of the profits from online orders – and affiliates can get 10%. The orders are fulfilled via Ingram, the huge book distributor that already works with just about everyone.

For comics, that could be something similar to what I suggested with Diamond above, although with a different fulfillment partner (such as Ingram). Some comics shops are already on Bookshop.com, using it to supplement their other sales streams.

An even larger project would be a one-stop portal for all comics publishers. Again, it would require a lot of cooperation, and run by an organization with no financial interest in the medium. The generic Top Level Domain .comics has not yet been assigned. With a unified and well-funded initiative from participating publishers, this could become a web-portal which mirrors other sites. www.Marvel.comics for example. The industry group which runs this can repay the angel investors via rentals, just as Tuvalu earns $5 Million annually from their .tv top level domain.

Chain Stores and Mail Order

This is more difficult, as most stores do not have the market capital to dominate in a region.

Again, a federation of stores might be the best option, similar to a franchise model. McDonald's innovation was not in selling amazing burgers, but in creating a kitchen architecture which allowed for quick fulfillment of orders which replaced an inefficient carhop model. That's what impressed Ray Kroc to take over the franchising of the restaurants.

Perhaps someone creates a store system which includes a robust point-of-sale software suite, store signage, appearance, and cooperation. Each store owner selects what they stock locally, but also links their inventory to the nationwide system, so a customer in Peoria, Illinois, can find that rare copy of Superlative Man in a store located in Moscow, Idaho. Store owners pool their orders, so a greater discount is gained. Variants can be commissioned for the chain. A centralized warehouse handles online fulfillment, distribution, Internet, store systems, advertising, merchandising, promotion.

The Future is Not What They Say It Was 

Long time readers, retailers, comixologists, and fans know that the Death Of Comics has been discussed many times. There's always anticipation of how changes will affect various aspects of the industry. My theory: Any radical variable will cause moderate change; it won't be the worst-case scenario; it will not be positive (good) nor superlative (best), but comparative (better).

I think comics retail will continue. Short term, the collectibles market will continue to drive sales, readers still want to read comics, and kids are hungry for new stuff and will tell their friends, because we all want to be cool. However, comics shops also run the risk of becoming an insular or niche market. Record stores still exist, but at a fraction of what existed in the 1990s. On the other extreme, as comics become more popular, more outlets will begin to sell them. Barnes & Noble and Borders with the arrival of Pokemon in 1999; Target and Walmart with Wimpy Kid and Dog Man; Menard's! In the former case, comics shops become a destination for buying new product which isn't easy to find elsewhere; in the latter, comics shops offer a wider selection for fans who want more but can't find it at their local big box store. How stores anticipate those new customers will determine how well those stores survive and thrive.

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