Can a promotion be too successful?

You guys are going to laugh at this. Look -- Duncan is panning a promotion because it's TOO successful? Heh.


This may seem ungrateful, but at least I'm consistent. I don't much like sales and promotions. I work hard to get the best material in the store I can get and pay my bills. What I want is everyday business that is sufficient to do that.

And I mostly stick to this plan. I say no to just about every promotion. For instance, when I made my jigsaw puzzle order, the guy offered me a 'space' on the Central Oregon map puzzle if I ordered enough. At a huge discount. He couldn't believe it when I wouldn't even pay this small amount, even though I qualified.

He lowered the rate even more, and I said yes. Hey, I ain't completely crazy.

"Sales" and "Promotions" often just muddy the waters. When you add up costs, and downsides, it seems to me that most of these things are negatives, not positives. (I count opportunity loses, extra costs, lower margins, time, space, energy ... everything.)

The only exception I make, is FCBD. I like it's simplicity.

Free comics. Really. That's all there is to it. Good comics, created for the day of the event, given away without strings.

Free Comic Book Day has probably been successively more successful every year since it's start. (8 years ago, or so?)

By successful, I mean people in the door. Last few years I've actually almost run out of comics before the day it out, even though I've been upping my orders.

At any rate, for the last couple of years, our sale totals for the day have been about double normal. That sounds like a lot, but the store will normally do this two or three times a month even without promotions.

I think the problem, ironically, is that there are TOO MANY people. The aisles get clogged, most people can't browse, and the lines get long.

Now activity is good, up to a point. But then it crosses over a busyness threshold.

Anyway, I spend quite a bit on FCBD. The comics aren't free for me, we buy them, albeit at much lower prices than normal. In other words, it isn't a money maker for me, even at twice the sales level. But I've decided it's a good will gesture and not to expect anything in return. I've been lucky in my business -- once a year I can be generous.

It certainly exposes the store to lots and lots of people. Do I see them the rest of the year? Hard to say. Doesn't matter, I like the giving aspect.

Indicative of the the event, I had some customers in on Thursday who asked me if we were having any 'Sales' on FCBD?

"Well, yeah," I said, without thinking, no irony. "We're giving comics away."

It was only after they left that I realized they wanted more.

I'm not complaining. I love seeing the interest and the fun. I like being in solidarity with the other comic shops.

But even this promotion, wildly successful as it appears to be, hasn't convinced me that promotions as a whole are beneficial to my business.