How well has the new 52 shifted in your shop?

Paul Nolan · Post by **Paul Nolan** » Sun Sep 04, 2011 4:10 am

Just had a word with person in charge of ordering at my LCS.

In recent history the most they've ordered of and one comic is 55 copies of Batman and Robin.

in light of that they ordered 80 copies of Justice League (50 regular edition, 30 combined edition).

Due to the UK's public holiday on Monday Justice league didn't go out on the shelf until Midday, Wednesday; the regular edition had sold out by 4:30pm Wednesday. the combo edition by mid afternoon Thursday.

They're getting another 20 copies on Monday....

Incredible numbers for my shop.

comicm · Post by **comicm** » Sun Sep 04, 2011 7:08 am

My shop ordered 75 copies and sold out on Wednesday. He normally orders about 20 copies. Also from what I hear, it sold out the same day at all stores in the city.

I have never seen that many people in the shop 30 minutes before closing

BobBretall · Post by **BobBretall** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 11:21 am

I talked to my LCS when I was in last Weds, they ordered 300 copies of JL #1 & sold out on Sunday. That's WAAAAAY more copies than they normally ordered. Had they just ordered double usual, they'd have sold out on Wednesday like a lot of other shops.

Last week, they sold out of Batgirl & Detective by Friday (I called to check on these on Saturday). Don't know exact quantities on these but they had a LOT in stock on Weds when I was in. 100+ of each.

BobBretall · Post by **BobBretall** » Wed Sep 14, 2011 1:49 pm

So, there were sell-outs (at my LCS) of the following books last week:

Action Comics
Animal Man
Batgirl
Detective Comics
Stormwatch
Swamp Thing

I don't think they had fewer than 100 copies of any title. They had several hundred each of Action/Batgirl/Detective when I was in last week. Heck they had 50 copies of the Action Comics variant cover, all being sold for cover price on the rack.

All 4 titles that earned a slot on my pull list were among the sell-outs:
Animal Man / Batgirl / Detective / Swamp Thing

with 6 sell-outs, what about the others? When I went in today, there were pretty fair sized piles left (40+) of these:
Batwing
Justice League International
Men of War
Static Shock

and 20 or so copies each of:
Green Arrow
Hawk & Dove
OMAC

BobBretall · Post by **BobBretall** » Wed Sep 14, 2011 1:55 pm

TODAY:

Wow, I've never seen a Wednesday like today. I got there a couple of minutes before opening & there were about 30 people waiting around for the shop to open. When the doors opened, they all went in and there was actually a line of people to go along the wall & browse/pick-up the new comics.

Heavy interest in the new DC books, the ones garnering most attention were:
Batman & Robin
Batwoman
Green Lantern
Suicide Squad (having Harley on the cover in lingerie probably helped)

I had to wait in line for 30 minutes to buy my books....... Even a couple of dedicated "Marvel guys" in line proclaiming "I don't care about DC" changed their mind & were asking for copies of Green Lantern, Batwoman, & Resurrection Man between when they got in line & when they made it to the register.

Gilgabob · Post by **Gilgabob** » Wed Sep 14, 2011 4:46 pm

I know it's way to early to call the new 52 a success but the anecdotal evidence suggests things are going in the right direction. Let's hope the trend continues next month.

GABE! · Post by **GABE!** » Wed Sep 14, 2011 6:09 pm

Right now we are sold out of Batman and Robin and Batwoman. We were extremely shorted by Diamond on Batwoman and barley had enough for pulls

HassanT · Post by **HassanT** » Wed Sep 14, 2011 7:45 pm

I am just amazed to hear stories of stores actually selling out of copies. Generally, when a publisher announced a title is sold out, it doesn't mean you can't get it at a store.

DC announced that Action and Batgirl second printings have been sold out and will release a third printing.

Danscomics · Post by **Danscomics** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 7:10 am

GABE! wrote:Right now we are sold out of Batman and Robin and Batwoman. We were extremely shorted by Diamond on Batwoman and barley had enough for pulls

You are lucky, we didn't get any copies of Batwoman at all (despite being charged for them). Our distribution center really screwed up this week though with no copies of Batwoman and Grifter (despite being charged) and not shipping Walking Dead Weekly #37 at all. My rep told me that Plattsburgh didn't get their supply of Walking Dead Weekly #37 and looking at my invoice for next week where I am again being charged for Batwoman and Grifter I'm guessing the same happened with those. I really wish they would get their acts together because this is the 3rd week in a row that I didn't have major issues in my store to sell.

HassanT wrote:I am just amazed to hear stories of stores actually selling out of copies. Generally, when a publisher announced a title is sold out, it doesn't mean you can't get it at a store.

DC announced that Action and Batgirl second printings have been sold out and will release a third printing.

Yeah, the new DC really has been a learning experience for some of us retailers. 1st printings are selling out before shipping, 2nd printings are selling out within hours of being announced, some 3rd printings are the same. I really messed up on my own ordering and am just starting to get it right with the #2s so hopefully the trend continues.

Gilgabob · Post by **Gilgabob** » Tue Sep 20, 2011 3:56 pm

Has there been any sort of residual effect on Marvel or other publishers sales in your stores due to the increased traffic or are the new folks who are coming into your store only picking up the DC stuff?

Also, I'm a little foggy on the details but did DC every institute a commission system for the LCS for online sales? Has anyone signed up for it?

cheers

Paul Nolan · Post by **Paul Nolan** » Wed Sep 21, 2011 6:19 am

My shop sold out of Batman by 12:15 today. and they had another 6 people ask for it just in the 10 minutes I was in the shop.

Last week 2/3rds of the new 52 sold out.

Best of all, this initiative has (and I'm quoting the shop manager here) "re-invigorated comics sales across all publishers".

Danscomics · Post by **Danscomics** » Wed Sep 21, 2011 7:18 am

Gilgabob wrote: Also, I'm a little foggy on the details but did DC every institute a commission system for the LCS for online sales? Has anyone signed up for it?

cheers

No, they told us to sign up with Comixology by a certain date to be able to sell the new 52 starting with issue #1. I did and the email back from Comixology said something along the lines of "we are working on developing a system for this and will add you to the email list for updates as they become available." Here it is the 3rd week of the new 52 and I have yet to get any updates.

Paul Nolan · Post by **Paul Nolan** » Wed Sep 21, 2011 7:25 am

Danscomics wrote:
Gilgabob wrote: Also, I'm a little foggy on the details but did DC every institute a commission system for the LCS for online sales? Has anyone signed up for it?

cheers
No, they told us to sign up with Comixology by a certain date to be able to sell the new 52 starting with issue #1. I did and the email back from Comixology said something along the lines of "we are working on developing a system for this and will add you to the email list for updates as they become available." Here it is the 3rd week of the new 52 and I have yet to get any updates.

you need to chase them up Dan...

http://blog.comixology.com/2011/08/23/c ... s-program/

Trev · Post by **Trev** » Wed Sep 21, 2011 8:31 am

the big LCS near my house keeps announcing sell outs of a lot of titles and whenever they get in new printings are broadcasting it. This is a shop that generally stocks everything and prides itself on rarely running out of stock from the big 2. they don't do standing pull lists, but have a form you can fill out weekly to have them pull books for you.

Here's what their last email said:

"The past two weeks have seen multiple sellouts of the new DC books - most titles, actually. Sure, we're getting restocks of most of them in. But we don't want you to be disappointed on New Comics Day. So fill in that Weekly Pull Checklist!

Another note - we are limiting ALL customers to only one copy of each new DC book in an effort to make sure as many folks as possible get to try out the new 52!"

I've never seen them so actively encourage use of the pull system to make sure you actually get what you want. They usually just tout it as a convenience.

Glad I ordered it all from DCBS and don't have to worry about going into the shop every week.

I've heard Batgirl is particularly hard to find around Austin.

abysslord · Post by **abysslord** » Wed Sep 21, 2011 9:14 am

I think a lot of these may be people buying #1s because they are #1s, just like back in the 90s. The real test will be if these numbers continue even for #2, let alone the next few issues.