FCBD sale hauls

[BugsySig]

My shop was jammed. The manager said he saw a lot of new faces and wondered what marketing push was the cause.

Every store I go to on FCBD is jam packed from around 10-2. I think it's great. The shops offer great deals and freebies that make it even more fun and they sell a ton of stuff. It's a really great promotion all around.

I only wish they'd get more of the lesser known FCBD books for these people to try. Isn't the other major goal (besides bringing in new customers) to expose readers to new stuff? This was the 1st year I saw the VEI issue at more than one store...it was at 2! And that was a GOLD level book!!!

With all the business I saw them doing, there's no way they'd lose money by ordering a bigger variety of books.

[cjv]

Nice hauls. Unfortunately I was in the same boat as a few others and didn't get a chance to go to a store (although I was going to try to bring my daughter). Maybe next year!


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[paradise]

I only wish they'd get more of the lesser known FCBD books for these people to try. Isn't the other major goal (besides bringing in new customers) to expose readers to new stuff?
With all the business I saw them doing, there's no way they'd lose money by ordering a bigger variety of books.

That's not necessarily true. We (and any store who knows business) have a budget for FCBD. It's about $2k for books, plus another $500 or so for advertising, printing costs and so on.

Every book is discussed by myself and both store managers. We base our decision on one criteria - are we going to have, or do we already have, supporting products. There is ZERO reason to carry the FCBD book if you are not planning to carry the book it promotes. Many of them promote stuff that is not relevant to the area, store clientele, product mix, ....

We also look at previous years, what has succeeded after the FCBD versions came out, and use those patterns to place our order. This year we noticed that last year we had more girls than ever, so this year we concentrated on bringing in more girl-focused books, not just more titles but higher quantities. It worked really well.

We also look at books that we can promote. This year, besides XO which I know I will promote, we also promoted really heavily the Catalyst Prime Universe. That's a book that has a ton of UPSIDE. We gave each of our subs (250+ per store) a copy of the FCBD so that when the books come out, they know what they are.

We ordered 30% LESS titles this year than past years, and had more copies of the ones we wanted to promote. It's not necessarily about variety, if variety is not great.

[BugsySig]

I know you consider all those factors, Ed. You have a huge shop in a major area, so you know what you can sell, but you also know what you can promote (and you do a great job at it).

But why does every shop I went to sell VEI books, but only 2 had the FCBD book? 1 had Catalyst Prime, but didn't have Noble on the shelf? Would you say they are just less well informed or just not planning appropriately?

[paradise]

I know you consider all those factors, Ed. You have a huge shop in a major area, so you know what you can sell, but you also know what you can promote (and you do a great job at it).

But why does every shop I went to sell VEI books, but only 2 had the FCBD book? 1 had Catalyst Prime, but didn't have Noble on the shelf? Would you say they are just less well informed or just not planning appropriately?

lack of serious competition

[BugsySig]

I know you consider all those factors, Ed. You have a huge shop in a major area, so you know what you can sell, but you also know what you can promote (and you do a great job at it).

But why does every shop I went to sell VEI books, but only 2 had the FCBD book? 1 had Catalyst Prime, but didn't have Noble on the shelf? Would you say they are just less well informed or just not planning appropriately?

lack of serious competition

Fair enough.

Lol.

[jmatt]

We (and any store who knows business) have a budget for FCBD. It's about $2k for books, plus another $500 or so for advertising, printing costs and so on.

Jeez, I had no idea it was that expensive. The potential for new customers aside, do you find that you break even with sales of regular books, collectibles, etc that same day?