Mike Sterling's Progressive RuinWhere legends live since 1969

At least I didn’t have to rearrange the entire store.

§ July 22nd, 2020 § Filed under free comic book day § 4 Comments

So it dawned on me that I haven’t really said anything about Free Comic Book Day this year…or, rather, Free Comic Book Day Summer, where a few free books are being released to retailers every Wednesday over a period of several weeks.

In terms of cost, this does make things a little easier on me, in that 1) I had the opportunity to adjust orders downward, given that we weren’t going to have the usual huge single day event, and 2) I’m getting charged for these items per week, rather than in a lump sum or two after the end of the event.

One thing that’s a little harder to determine is…well, I always like to say “I’ve never lost money on Free Comic Book Day,” which would sometimes surprise people (and some comic book professionals, whom I hear are like people) given that I order piles and piles of the things and would hand them our willy-nilly to anyone who came in that day. In a single day event, it’s a lot easier to figure “well, I spent this much on FCBD, and I made this much on FCBD, and the second number is much higher than the first, therefore Step 3: Profit.”

I’m giving away several of the freebies this year, but because of the short time we had to get the word out, and given I got the FCBD display poster last week, and the window decal (all crunched up in a box, thanks Diamond) this week, it was harder to get the word out. Sure, I posted it all over my social media, but the average person who maybe just shows up for FCBD isn’t necessarily going to see that. But word is getting out, slowly and surely, and I suspect as the summer wears on more people will be dropping by to get their goodies. Since my expenditures are down this year for the event, I’m kind of “eyeballing” ( mean, best I can) the purchases from people who primarily came in for the free stuff (as opposed to regulars who pick up the free stuff along with what they usually buy) and…I think I’m doing okay in the ratio of money spent versus extra money earned.

I haven’t yet done a “special sale event” to coincide with this FBCD/Summer because that works best in the Big One Day Event Setting, when everybody shows up, excited about the free stuff, and more likely to open their wallets and coin purses to buy more items. Doing a big sale now would just cannibalize the regular day’s sales without the extra, extra traffic to make it worthwhile. However, I’m trying to work on something for later in the summer, once more people are aware FCBD is even happening in this altered form. We’ll see how it goes.

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I’ll respond to your comments on the last post re: reprint series and the success thereof in short order. Also, I promise I’ll get back to talking about intercompany crossover comics. No, really. I haven’t forgotten.