From: jcomeau@unixg.ubc.ca (Joe Comeau)
Subject: Re: Speculation and the market (was: Valiant sucks)
Organization: UBC Pulmonary Research Lab., St. Paul's Hospital, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 17:08:57 GMT

In article <sward.715383361@uclagsm> sward@agsm.ucla.edu (Sidne Gail Ward) writes:
>jcowling@ophelia.UVic.CA (Scowling Jim Cowling) writes:
>
>>In article <1992Aug31.192508.15700@unixg.ubc.ca> jcomeau@unixg.ubc.ca (Joe Comeau) writes:
>>>> because Diamond often fails to ship books to stores that ordered 
>>>>less than 5 copies at a time.
>>>
>>>This is not true.  Diamond (I know) and I assume all other dist.  will
>>>ship out 1 of any given title
>
>>You're just full of misinformation today, aren't you?
>
>>According to the contract agreements of both Diamond and Capital City, they
>>can refuse any item order of less than three copies (Capital limits this
>>restriction to books under $5.00 -- I can't remember Diamond's exact wording
>>as we dropped them as our distributor due to uniformly poor service).
>
>The additional bad news is that (at least locally) Capital has been
>known to ship the minimum 3 copies to stores that only ordered 1 copy
>of a book that retails for less than $5.  This has made my local store
>reluctant even to attempt to order copies of certain independent
>comics for pre-order customers.  They're certainly not making any
>money if they get stuck with 2 copies they can't sell.  Too bad
>Capital and Diamond can't see their way to relaxing these
>restrictions.  Currently, if I can't find 2 friends interested in
>something that's a little different I can't order it even though the
>distributor has it available.  

>Try telling that to Joe Comeau (I'm a retailer, Joe -- I know what I'm
>talking about).  I have a number of subscribers who order a book that no one
>else not only subscribes to, but is impossible to sell on the shelf (Disney
>comics, for example).  What do I do?  I order the minimum three copies
>anyway.  I haven't had a problem yet.
>
>However, this means that the owner of the shop loses money on the deal.  He
>recognizes that once the books are put in the discount bins, they sell, but
>on a three-issue order, he loses about 20% of his expenditure.  He also is
>nice enough a guy that he's willing to write it off as a cost of providing 
>service to the customer.

>Now, we have two stores in town, and I work at the larger of the two; however,
>we're a small store overall.  We sell about 50 copies of each X-title, about
>a dozen copies of Legion, 6 copies of Avengers, and ten copies of Cerebus
>every month (just to give you an idea of our throughput).  We're a small
>store.  The way I look at it, if the store you deal with is unwilling or
>unable to offer what we, as a small store, is able to, then you're dealing
>with the wrong store.
>
>-------
>Scowling Jim Cowling
>Creative Writing Department, University of Victoria (opinions disassociated)
>Just got my student loan.  Never been happier, thanks.
>-------

Diamond has no agreement about shipping a minimum of 3 issues of a given title.
If a store orders 1 issue they will get 1 issue.
You should not presume all distrubtors are they same.  Diamond's only restriction is the amount of dollars spent each month which must reach a minimum of $600.00 retail. (ongoing basis)

Besides, just because you are a dealer doesn't mean you always know what you are
talking about.  I was pointing out Diamond's policies.  I know exactly how they
do business.  I am learning about Heroes World, Andromeda, Capital City and
(their name escapes me... from Winterpeg..).  I am attempting to write a 
program which will handle a retailers orders including subscriptions, special
orders, shelf titles and left overs.  I have prototyped the program in Paradox
and Visual Basic.  Most things work half hazardly.  When all functions have been
completed I will rewrite the completed packing for use in windows.
I have been using Diamond as my example of a Distributor.  They are a little 
ahead of Capital as for as computer entered orders/computer received invoices.




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