Who gets the ladies?
Sluggo gets the ladies:
In other news:
- Chris Sims presents a new chapter in the Solomon Stone saga. A laugh in every line!
- Pal Dorian takes issue with a kind of…peculiar…defense of current Spider-Man comics.
- This installment of The Rack reminds me of a similar situation from our store, many years ago.
I’ll wait until you read the strip before I continue and spoil it for you.
Hmmm mmm mmm mmm…okay, you’re back? Good.
So quite a while back, after a week where the new comics shipment had another holiday-delayed new comics shipment, a customer came into the shop and pressed what looked like a home computer-printed banner into my hands.
“This is for you to post in the window when the new comics are delayed a day,” said the customer, voice tinged with irritation.
I unfolded the banner, which read “NEW COMICS DELAYED UNTIL TOMORROW.” It was printed on a color dot-matrix printer, with a combination of hues that could have been described as “garish” if it hadn’t have been printed with a color dot matrix printer.
He continued: “Now I can drive by and see from the street whether or not the new comics are in, without having to park and look.”
Now, I was much younger then, only about 50 or so, so my response was probably something along the lines of a nearly-sarcasm-free “gee, thanks,” and not “what, is your phone broken?” or “great, this should help keep out customers on a day that’s already going to suck financially.”
We never used it. The guy never said anything about us not using it, far as I can remember. Come to think of it, I bet it’s still floating around the shop, somewhere, packed in a box in the back room.
I’m not unsympathetic…I know a new-comicsless New Comics Day is a drag for the customer. But it’s a drag for us, too, and putting a sign in the window that’s basically discouraging customers from coming into the store at all is not a good idea. I mean, I’m already telling folks on the phone that new comics aren’t in, so they’re not going to drop by. If customers expecting new comics on a comicsless New Comics Day actually show up at the store, there’s still a chance they may buy stuff…a chance that’s gone if I’m stopping customers at the door before they even step foot inside.
We have one-day special sales on those holiday-created new-comicsless New Comics Days, but even putting up sale signs may not counter the full-on comic-blocking posted in the window, telling the New Comics Day customers that the exact reason they’ve come to the shop is not in effect. As a store, we need people to walk through that front door and look around, and giving them any excuse to not do so is a bad idea.
And if you really need to know if the new comics are in, give the store a call. We’ll tell you, honest. But if I have to tell you they’re not in, I’m gonna pitch our one-day-sale to you, too. I hope you don’t mind.
