Efficient, my ass.

So my first invoice for the July billing period comes in at TWICE the average, or three times what I originally ordered (with reorders.) Garrrrrrrr.

Kind of like starting off a diet by gaining 5 pounds. It's kind of deflating.

I'm trying to use it as a motivator to get even more serious about budgeting.

Anyway, the rest of this post is pretty inside baseball business stuff....



This outsized invoice is why, folks, I find myself needing to order for the low end of the spectrum instead of the high end of the spectrum. I could maximize my sales if I could get an even flow of product, matching sales -- to cashflow -- to orders.

But, no. The producers and distributors seem incapable of delivering on time and as promised.

So I'm more or less forced to accept negative cash flow positions, or make my pre-orders as small as possible. I hate that I have to choose the lowest common denominator.

Wait, you say. Won't it all even out in the long run?

With dated material, that's not the way it really works. I sell the vast majority of my product on the week to ten days after it arrives. I am going to average a certain moderate level of sales, no matter how much stuff comes in. Getting twice the material doesn't mean I'll sell twice as much stuff, and getting half the material doesn't mean I'll sell more of the last overflow.

I don't think the producers and distributors fully understand how they limit their own sales to the retailers -- at least, surviving retailers.

The temptation is to order at the highest average, and accept the occasional double and triple week, and figure that I'll maximize the sales. And so I may. For weeks, months, or years.

But it is the equivalent of gambling, and inevitably, some season down the road, I'll get four or five huge ordering weeks in a row, and four or five bad sales weeks in a row, and I'll pile up the red ink before I can change course. (I normally order up to 3 months in advance -- on the stuff that actually can be predicted. The other stuff -- anywhere from 3 months to 2 YEARS>)

So, I'm a guy who actually has ordered with blowouts in mind. And I still get the occasional blowout weeks. If I was actually ordering at some high average, this weeks order would have been cripplingly large. Simply put, getting twice (or triple -- or quadruple) the material might increase sales 5 or 10 or even 20%, but it won't double. And if the next week is half as much, it doesn't mean the previous weeks material will sell instead.

I've long ago adapted by making half of my orders,-- reorders. That is, I reorder half of my inventory after the release date. By getting 3 times the material I really need this week, it means that my reorders will be small or nil over the next couple of weeks to compensate. Which means that I'll have spot shortages on significant evergreen material, because Marvel, and DC, and Diamond can't be bothered to deliver their product in a timely manner.

Product dumps, usually on the last week of the month, are a constant problem in this industry, and the retailers have been quite clear about this. (Retailers managed to get a stopgap measure of being able to return "late" material if it extends into a third month. The unintended consequence is that the last week of every month is the last chance by many publishers to avoid that penalty. )

And the problem has gotten only worse.

During convention season, it becomes even more of a problem, as comic publishers hold back and release all their "New" shiny special stuff around time of the San Diego Con. Game distributors wait for the big game conventions.

I can't understand why Diamond can't assign a traffic manager, who will enforce an even flow of material. It might mean holding back on some material, (and it might mean that publishers will be forced to allow returns, but that's only fair) , but as long as everyone gets it at the same time, I'd prefer that solution to these periodic blowouts.

I always get a hoot out of people saying big business is "efficient." From my experience, the bigger the business, the LESS efficient it is.