Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Pre-orders

I've talked about the importance of pre-orders before but wanted to revisit the subject.

Pre-orders help us judge how many of a particular comic book, card set or game to bring in.  We have records that we look at in order to judge how well an individual new release will sell but "past performance is no guarantee of future behavior".  We have dozens of new games releasing every month and over a thousand new comics. We simple have neither the space, nor the funds to bring all of them into the store.

Generally with comics, we will bring in all the regular series of Marvel and DC, though if a title release several issues in a row that just sit on the shelve, we will likely drop it.  Mini-series we really look askance at, unless they have a track record such as Kick Ass or Watchmen.

Since we have very little interest from customers on the various Image and Dark Horse line, as indicated by subscriptions, we generally skip lines from those publishers, as well as most of the smaller publishers.  If there is a title you want, please fill out a subscription form so that we know there is interest. More often than not, when we gamble on a new title, it sits there so "once burnt, twice shy".

Same thing goes with games.  Expansions for currently popular games, sure, we will bring in the next in the line.  past experience shows it will probably sell.  However a new release from Mayfair Games that isn't Catan or a train game may not make it to the shelf. We have a couple of dozen Mayfair Games that have never sold a single copy in the store.  Same thing with Castles & Crusades from Troll Lord Games.  I like this game but people don't purchase it so we will give a very hairy eyeball at new releases unless we get pre-orders for them.

Pre-orders help us help you find new games and help us buy from the game companies, which keeps them in business.  The more pre-orders we get, the better is is for all three of us.

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