More on pricing strategies... I want to start off today's essay on pricing by covering a couple of topics that were suggested to me by readers. First, one reader with an especially long memory reminded me that all of the Marvel subscription comics of the 1980's were newsstand editions. Given that they were mailed to subscribers with inside a flimsy address sleeve, it is little wonder that those copies most frequently arrived damaged. A second reader asked me about whether I look at other comics websites when evaluating how to alter our prices. Strangely enough, the answer to that question is "no." I mean no disrespect to my fellow retailers, but first off, none of them offer as many different comics as we do, and most certainly none offer our diversity of variant editions. Second, even if I wanted to do so, there is simply no way that I could ever do item-by-item price comparisons using multiple sources on over 200,000 different comics and books. Third, our uniquely high costs of maintaining our vast inventory force us to operate with a completely independent pricing structure. As I mentioned in my last essay on pricing, the data which I am able to glean from our own sales has, by far, proven to be the most reliable criteria upon which I can base our price changes. Simply put, if we are still selling out on an issue at a given price (regardless of what our competitors or the convention price guides might say) then there is a need for us to raise that price even further. If, on the other hand, the sales velocity of a previously "hot" title suddenly drops off, then we should lower that price. The hard part is finding the time to evaluate all of these changes in demand in an extremely fluid marketplace. Suffice it to say, this is work that never ends for me... To give you a concrete example of what difficulties we face when establishing prices, consider for a moment that rumors are currently swirling about whether Neil Gaiman's decision to move his Angela character to Marvel for inclusion in their new GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY revival, might in some way be linked to his desire to again write Marvelman/Miracle Man stories. Whether true, or not, we have seen a number of fans quietly trying to buy us out of issues of both of those titles. We have also seen a small uptick in orders for other comics written by Gaiman, such as SANDMAN and DEATH. These kinds of creeping stripdowns create vexing problem for us, as we do not want to let ourselves be completely wiped out of all of our copies of a newly-popular title, as our website ends up looking incomplete if we have none in stock. On the flip side, however, we also end up looking bad if we raise our prices too quickly, or too high. Consider for a moment that many of our online competitors do not pay any attention to current variations in demand on given titles. That being the case, if we all have a comics title priced at $5 a copy, and then we raise our website price to $10 because we catch on that a title is gaining momentum for some reason, we frequently catch flack because our online competitors are still stuck at $5. In effect, the lack of awareness of our competitors hurts us, as much as it (eventually) does them. Returning to the Gaiman titles, the fact that he has been involved with the new AGE OF ULTRON series has fueled a lot of speculation about his involvement in next summer's Marvel storylines. Our reaction has been to hike up our prices on all Angela appearances to levels equal to what we've been seeing on eBay, while simultaneously bumping our Gaiman Vertigo books by about 30%. If those titles end up not selling, then we will simply lower them back down, with no harm having been done. If, however, we start seeing a steady pattern of purchasing, then we will ease Gaiman's Vertigo titles upward a little bit more. It's not rocket science, but it does take constant research and maintenance. I now want to veer slightly off course and give you some insights into my own personal frustrations. There are some among you who may remember an short interview that I gave to PEOPLE magazine in 1996, in which I stated that I wanted to build the world's largest comics reference website. In my naïveté, I honestly believe that I would be the only one with the desire, and the financial resources, to build such a wonderful reference tool. I was profoundly wrong on both counts. First fan-driven aggregation sites, such as the Grand Comic Book Database, had the ability to supersede much of our work, at a far more nominal cost. Of even greater importance, however, was the fact that, as vast quantities of title data and free cover scans became readily available to our smaller competitors, the cost barriers to competing with us crumbled like sand castles at high tide. We now operate in a world where anyone with a computer, and a spare bedroom, can set themselves up as a comics dealer. They may not have anywhere near our selection, but they also operate with very few of our operating costs, such as rent, insurance, labor, and taxes. The good news is that the overall comics market is now comprised of a universe of thousands of completely different niche markets. We cannot realistically compete in all of those markets, as a great many older comics are actually pretty darn common, and thus are priced by our smaller contemporaries in the comics retailing world as if they were bulk commodities. On comics (or issue variants ) when true scarcity exists, however, we are very much still able to provide great value to most collectors. In effect, only when you truly understand just how much the Internet world values (and rewards) true scarcity can you realistically understand our current inventory, pricing, and marketing strategies. I will provide you with more insights on those concepts in my next newsletter. Current Newsletter