The direct market is the dominant distribution and retail network for American comic books. The concept of a direct market was created in 1970 by Phil Seuling. It currently consists of one dominant distributor (Diamond Comic Distributors) and the majority of comic specialty stores, as well as comic book retailers and other related merchandise.
This name is no longer a fully accurate description of the model it uses, but it comes from its original implementation: a retailer who passes through an existing distributor to make a "direct" purchase from the publisher. However, the distinctive feature of the direct market is irreversible: unlike bookstores and news distribution, operating on a sales or refund model, direct market distribution prohibits distributors and retailers returning unsold goods for refunds. In return for more favorable booking terms, retailers and distributors must bet that they can accurately predict their customers' demand for the product. The monthly surplus inventory, meanwhile, can be archived and sold later, encouraging the development of an organized market for "return problems."
The emergence of a low-risk distribution system is also credited with providing an opportunity for new comic book publishers to enter the business, although two major publishers Marvel and DC Comics still own the largest share. The establishment and growth of independent publishers and self-publishers, beginning in the late 1970s and continuing to this day, is economically possible with systems targeting their retail audiences, rather than relying on the scattershot approach embodied in returning newsstand systems.
Video Direct market
Comic book store
Before the 1970s, most comics were found in newsstands, grocery stores, pharmaceuticals, toy shops, and toys. A small number of early comic book stores first appeared in the late 1960s, hoards the issues and sources of new releases of new counter-cultural kiosk and comix distributors. The oldest famous comic book shop in North America (or worldwide for that matter) is the Canadian comic book book Viking Bookshop, founded in Toronto by Captain George Henderson in the spring of 1966, a year later renamed Memory Lane Books. when moved to another place in the city. The oldest famous US comic book store is San Francisco's Comic Book Company owned by Gary Arlington, founded in April 1968 in the city of namesake. Shop no longer exists. In the 1970s, direct market developments enabled a widespread network of comic stores to flourish. The specialty store presents a number of competitive advantages:
- Time: Direct market-only stores can often get new editions a week earlier than kiosk vendors.
- Conditions: wardrobe store shelves, drugs, and toys are often only half the height of a comic book, producing thorns that bend and pages crushed. Instead, direct market retail outlets usually try to keep their inventory in good condition. Their shelves are often tall full of comic books. Many stores also include support boards and mylar handbags to protect the comics further at purchase (practices that began in the 1980s and continued in some stores today).
- Content: the live store alone can serve older and more mature audiences, and thus may market materials that are considered too offensive (due to graphic violence, nudity, language, drug use, etc.) to food/medicine/convenience/toy shop. In addition, due to the non-refundable nature of direct sales, specialty stores only contain only substantial archives of back issues. These retailers can also stock up on additional merchandise such as sculptures, posters, toys and novelties that will not be expected to be filled by newsstands, etc.
- Price: Older and more mature customers from a just-direct store are usually willing to pay several times more than the average customer of a grocery/drug/toy store. Price cover close to (or even exceed) $ 5.00 becomes common.
- Knowledge: Owners of direct stores are often collectors themselves, which means they are familiar enough with their inventory. Customers often have the option of calling their order in the future, and when customers arrive at the store directly their orders will be set aside behind the table (known as "drag and hold"). Shopkeepers often manage their inventory by publishers and/or genres, as opposed to haphazard grocery/drug/toy presentations.
Maps Direct market
History
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Before the direct market, most comic books were distributed through newspaper kiosks, pharmacies, and candy shops. Major distributors during this period included American News Company and DC Comics property Independent News. Charlton Comics has its own distributor, Capital Distribution Company (CDC). This practice lasted from the 1930s to the 1960s.
1960s and 1970s
The underground comix movement in the late 1960s was part of an alternative distribution network that also served the underground press, which mushroomed in the mid-1960s. Since underground comix is ​​not sold at newsstands or drug stores, head shops play an important role as retailers of such publications. The San Francisco-based underground comix movement and a number of Bay Area-based distributors, including Print Mint (early 1969), comic book shop already mentioned in the San Francisco Comic Book Company (copied as publisher, c.70) Bud Plant Inc. (1970), Last Gasp (1970), Keith Green/Industrial Reality (c 1970), and Charles Abar Distribution. Around 1970, underground distributors sprang up in various parts of the US, including Los Angeles - George DiCaprio and Nova - and Midwest - Donahoe Brothers Inc. (Ann Arbor, Michigan), Distribution Keep On Truckin 'Coop/Big Rapids (Detroit, Michigan), Independent Newscaster Wisconsin (Madison, Wisconsin), Isis News (Minneapolis, Minnesota), and Well News Co. (Columbus, Ohio). By the mid-1970s, Big Rapids had acquired all of its midwestern competitors; at that time, the market for underground comix has basically dried up.
The direct market as we know it was created in the early 1970s in response to a declining market for mainstream comic books in newsstands. Fan convention organizer and comic dealer Phil Seuling approached publishers in 1972 to buy comics directly from them, rather than through traditional distribution companies. Unlike kiosks, or IDs (for market-independent distributors), which include drugstores, groceries, toy stores, department stores, and other magazine vendors, where unsold units can be returned for credit , this purchase is non-refundable. In return, comic-specific retailers receive deeper discounts on the books they order, because the publisher carries no risk of giving credit to unsold units. In contrast, distributors and retailers assume risk, in return for greater profits.
In addition, retailers order comics through Seuling Sea Distributor Distributors (and in two years, through other companies) can arrange their own orders for each edition of each title, something not permitted by many local IDs. The ability to refine commands is essential for the establishment of non-refundable systems.
Direct distributors are usually much faster in getting the product into the hands of their customers than ID: the direct distribution warehouse generally has resend the weekly comic collection or send it to a local customer within a day or two (sometimes within hours) receiving the book from the printer. Instead, most IDs typically take two or even three weeks to do so, although some of them move faster. This factor is a powerful image card for retailers whose customer base consists primarily of fans who want to see new issues every week.
Finally, another factor in creating demand for direct sales distributions is that many IDs refuse to deal with comic-specific stores or with any retailer dealing with issues back on any term, fearing that the comics used can be bought by the store -the store is from readers to pennies, and then spins back through the system as a full credit repayment with a profit.
In the mid-1970s, other direct selling distribution problems emerged, mostly regional-based (the Donahoe Brothers in the Great Lakes region, Pacific Comics Distributors in Southern California, and New Media Distribution/Irjax in the South all operating in early 1974), essentially replacing order-taking function and kiosk distributor fulfillment for the specialty market of baby comic stores. For several years, Seagate maintained its superiority over its competitors by being able to deliver "drop shipping" to its subscribers for the amount of 25 or multiples per problem, while newer distributors had to use more conventional methods, arrange customer orders and resend or deliver them from their own warehouse. The threat of legal action and the needs of retailers to order very precise (and sometimes very small) items ended the practice for all but the largest customers in the late 1970s, and expanded the ability to provide drop shipping to large customers for all direct distributors - on at that time some new distributors have several warehouses.
Distribution of Kiosks via ID continues at the same time (and does remain dominant for many years thereafter, with the terms of regular returns, low discounts).
1980s
In the early 1980s, a trade organization, the International Direct Distributor Association (IADD ) was formed, consisting of all distributors who purchased products directly from DC, Marvel, or both. The IADD held its annual conference, issued obscenity guidelines in 1987, and selected Steve 'Steve Geppi's Diamond Distributor as IADD Vice President in 1988.
In the early 1980s, Marvel Comics saw direct market growth potential, and in 1981 issued a number of titles devoted exclusively to that market (including Dazzler ). In the early 1980s, all major publishers produced special material for new markets, a series that might not be enough at a newsstand, but sold fairly well on a non-returnable base to a more dedicated, lucrative market reader.
Some of the new distributors are relatively short, and are replaced by more competitive organizations; without ownership continuity and limited personnel continuity, it is fair to say that the Comic Diamond Distributor replaces New Media/Irjax and Capital City Distribution massively replaces Big Rapids Distribution in the market.
In 1985, the number of direct distributors in North America culminated with about twenty companies, many of them multi-warehouse operations, buying products for resale to retailers directly from DC Comics, Marvel Comics, or both. There are also unknown numbers, perhaps in dozens, sub-distributors who buy DC and Marvel products from these big companies (and often products from other smaller publishers directly from the publisher), and resell them to retailers. Most of the sub-distributors are in cities where direct distributors themselves do not (at least yet) own warehouses, including Philadelphia, Boston, Columbus (Ohio), Madison (Wisconsin), Lansing (Michigan), Indianapolis and Berkeley (California). Many of them are eventually absorbed by companies that are their main suppliers.
From the mid-80s to mid-90s, almost every major urban area in the United States has at least one (and sometimes two or three) local direct distribution warehouses that function not only as a distribution point for pre-ordering of weekly deliveries, but as well as what can be described as "supermarkets for retailers", where shopkeepers can shop to order back and check and buy products that may not be ordered before.
1990s
As newspaper kiosks continue to decline, the Direct Market is the main market of two major comic book publishers (DC Comics and Marvel Comics). In the late 1980s and early 1990s, as the popularity of comics gathering increased, many new comic stores opened, and existing retailers (such as sports card shops) joined the Direct Market, bringing comics as a side business. At the moment, Diamond and Capital City each have about twenty warehouses from coast to coast, and both serve as fully national distributors. Some of their bigger rivals, especially Glenwood, Longhorn, and Bud Plant, have been sold out or out of business.
Such rapid growth (partly by speculation) is not sustainable, however. The market contracted in the mid-1990s, leading to the closure of many Direct Market shops. Diamond and Capital City began closing local warehouses, moving from a decentralized model where many local warehouses provide full service to a certain area to a centralized center with multiple delivery centers and no local walk-in service at all. In 1994, Capital City created controversy by announcing penalties for publishers not delivering their products within the promised deadline; this step follows the industry's push for a 30-day return, a practice previously used when comics are distributed in newspaper kiosks.
Marvel Comics purchased Heroes World, then the third largest distributor behind Diamond and Capital City, with the aim of distributing their own products; Heroes World also stopped bringing other publishers' books. Other distributors seek exclusive deals with other major publishers to offset the massive loss of Marvel's business. DC Comics, Comic Drawings, Dark Horse Comics, and some small publishers make exclusive offers with Comic Diamond Distributors. Most other distributors, including City Capital Distribution, Diamond's main competitor at the time, either out of business or acquired by Diamond. Others set a niche - like re-order - where they can compete. When self-distribution failed to meet Marvel's goals, they also signed an exclusive distribution deal with Diamond, which at the time became the main supplier for the Direct Market.
2000s
In early 2000, the bookstore market began to challenge the Direct Market as a channel for the growing popularity of graphic novels. Meanwhile, Diamond continues to dominate the direct market distribution, with the collapse of FM International in 2006 leaving less competition than ever before. However, the growth of comic interest among booksellers and major book publishers has led some publishers to manage the distribution of bookstores outside of Diamond (eg, Tokyopops via HarperCollins, or Fantagraphics via W. W. Norton), while Diamond has created Diamond Book Distributors.
Direct market distributors
The list below includes sub-distributors, who buy their main comics from one of the companies below but many of them are in direct contact with one or more of the small or underground publishers.
United States
Canada
- Andromeda Distributing Limited (Toronto, Ontario) - was founded in 1989
- Big Picture Distribution (Toronto, Ontario) - managed by Robert Myre
- Comex Distributors (Calgary, Alberta) - acquired by Portland, Second Genesis Distribution in Oregon in 1988
- Galileo Distributor (Edmonton, Alberta)
- Multi-Books and Times (Toronto, Ontario)
- Distribution of Robin Hood (Oakville, Ontario)
- Styx International (Winnipeg, Manitoba)
United Kingdom
- Pacific Distribution, Ltd. - a branch of the British Pacific Comics Distributors (which had been liquidated in 1984, with assets going to Bud Plant and Capital City); acquired by Diamond in 1991.
- Slab-O-Concrete - run by Peter Pavement; out of business in 2001
- Titan Distributors - part of Titan Entertainment Group (also owned by the British retailer, Forbidden Planet), was sold in 1992 to Diamond Comic Distributors.
See also
- Comic book collection
- Quarter Bin
Note
References
- Beerbohm, Robert L. "A Brief Synopsis of a Direct Market," Comics Buyers Guides # 1029 (Summer 1993).
- Beerbohm, Robert L. "Some Origins of Direct Selling Market," Comic Book Story Wars, One Hundred Year First (1995).
- Beerbohm, Robert L. "The Origin of Secrets from the Direct Market, part 2: Phil Seuling and Undergrounds Emerge," Comic Book Artist # 7 (February 2000), p. 116-125.
- Carlson, KC. "KC Column: Scaling Mount Baron," Westfield Comics (November 16, 2009) - work on the inside of Capital City Distribution in the early 1980s
- Hanley, Jim. "Comic Distribution: Historical Views and Predictive Queries," Comicon.com (September 18, 1999).
- Luttrell, Hank "Comic Book Distribution: A Simple Proposal", 20th Century
- "The Origin of the Comics Direct Market - 1994 interview with Ed Shukin". ICv2 . Retrieved 2008-03-06 .
- Stewart, Alan "A Brief History of the American Comic Book Industry"
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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