Comic Book Research Forum
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| Research on retailing and industry trends |
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[originally posted 6/20/2007]
Hello, I'm a college student and i'm planning ahead for my capstone economics course where the entire course is dedicated to writing an research paper on a certain problem or topic. I would like to write about the comic book industry, specifically about some of the unique retailer characteristics: only one primary distributer, non returnable product, the proliferation of mom and pops stores vs chains, increasingly changing products (multiple SKUs). I'd also like to write about the industry trends, the amount of "comic book" sales actually add to publisher's bottom line compared to licensing, movies, advertising.... I don't know if you have written anything that touches on some of these topics or if you know of any resources, please let me know. Thanks! (as a side not I'm also considering starting my own comic business, so the research will assist me on my decision.) |
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| Re: Research on retailing and industry trends |
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[originally posted 6/21/2007]
The biggest resource for printed articles on this topic was the magazine I used to edit, Comics & Games Retailer -- but not much is online at all, and they don't sell back issues. Columnist Brian Hibbs did however put about 100 of his columns into a book called Tilting at Windmills, which was published by IDW. You might try there or at his site to find a copy. My aim is to get increasingly more material onlne in the form of FAQs here, but my other deadlines have so far precluded that.
You've nailed the unique aspects -- "non-returnable" being probably the thing that sets comics retailing he furthest apart from other kinds of bookselling.
Do you have specific questions you need answers to? I or someone here could take a shot at them.
Best, John Jackson Miller • Curator, The Comics Chronicles |
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| Re: Research on retailing and industry trends |
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[originally posted 6/21/2007]
Hi John,
Thank you for the fast reply. I was looking into Tilting at Windmills, however would some of the text be slightly "outdated"? The speculator environment that was in the 1990s definitely does not appear to be here today. However, with the growth of ebay, and other non traditional (non-brick and mortar) sales, there was (is?) a boom in graded comic books, and also the odd trend of variant covers (don't retailer's have enough x-men #1 -D, or Spiderman #1 unbagged silver? haha)
In any case, I don't have any specific questions as of yet.... Except one. What is the profitability of their (DC/Marvel) comic book business in comparison to others such as licensing, movie, direct to dvd, etc. I would almost imagine that in today's marketplace they make decent revenue, but little profit, if any, from printed comic books, and significantly more profit from other ventures.
In any case, I will go over the resources you provided. Thank you again!
Alex |
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| Re: Research on retailing and industry trends |
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[originally posted 6/22/2007]
That sounds like a great subject for a research paper. I'd love to read a copy once you complete it. There are a number of things that seem to make the comic book market complete and you seem to have listed most of them.
One place that might be worth checking for how much the sales contribute to the bottom line for a publisher is the annual and quarterly reports for Marvel. Those might also have some information on how much the movies and other thi
Beyond that, I'll second JJM's recommendations of Hibbs' book and Comics Retailer magazine. CBG has run a few articles on some of this stuff from time to time as well.
If I think of any other good places to look I'll post that information here. As you find good resources, please post information on them here too. |
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| Re: Research on retailing and industry trends |
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[originally posted 6/22/2007]
Tilting -- the book version -- runs to about 2000 or 2001, as I recall, so we were well past some of the issues with the speculator market. He wrote a great deal on cycle sheets and other things having to do with keeping track of orders, some of which is still applicable.
Sadly, there's not much else from the magazine that's online -- though I did eventually get the sales charts up on CBGXtra. Bruce Costa and Bob Gray owned their columns outright -- but Bruce's site is offline and it looks from Archive.org like he never had his columns online. Bob I haven't heard from in years. I'm not sure I recall what the rights were on Preston Sweet or Don Allen or any of the other comics columnists... but I know it was a mixed enough bag that when I was there I had discouraged the interactive media department from pursuing the whole archives.
Mel Thompson has probably done more research into opening stores than anyone -- he's here. He's doen seminars as well with Dave Wallace, a retailer who's also put together a lot of essays on running a shop.
I also would agree that while there are still speculative elements to the market, that market is largely online. There are very few stores that stock slabbed comics as a product line -- and generally those that do are storefronts for larger operations that have online and convention activities.
Best, John Jackson Miller • Curator, The Comics Chronicles |
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| Re: Research on retailing and industry trends |
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[originally posted 7/14/2007]
Thank you for all the help. I have sent an email to Mel, and a few academics for some information. Also, I will probably order Brian's book soon. I do have another question that I hope you can direct me to the right place. I am looking for the number of comic book shops in the US. I have only found articles that state that a few years ago there were less than 4,000 comic shops and in the mid 90's there were over 10,000. I would like something that gives an estimated number of comic book stores for each year in the last 20-25 years. Can you think of any place to find this kind of data?
Thanks a bunch!
Alex |
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| Re: Research on retailing and industry trends |
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[orginally posted 7/15/2007]
We're pretty sure there were 11,000 stores at the peak in 1993 -- which I've heard is triple the number from the late 1980s. The 1996 figure is down in the 6,000 range -- and then the last public number I saw from Diamond was in the range of 3,000-3,500 accounts. But that was in the early 2000s, and the trick is always how they are defining accounts.
My hunch is that the number of storefronts has been increasing slightly to account for the growth in unit sales -- but that's a hunch.
As to a year-by-year census of shops, I don't think anything like that has ever existed. The route to get to it would be through looking through past interviews in places like CBG, I would suspect; the publishers and Diamond would have some internal estimates across time, as well, I should think.
Best, John Jackson Miller • Curator, The Comics Chronicles |
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| Re: Research on retailing and industry trends |
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[originally posted 9/28/2007]
Hi, guys! Sorry I'm late to the party, but I've only just discovered this site. It's hard to generalise about the industry as a whole, but Marvel Entertainment, Inc. is a public company and as such is obliged to publish its financial results. From its official SEC filings, you can find what proportion of its income derives from comic books. ("Bottom line" - by which I assume you mean profit - is too fluid a concept to be very useful: it depends so much on accounting practices, what costs are offset against what income, where the tax breaks are, etc.)
For what it's worth, then, these are the figures from Marvel's SEC filings. In its form 10-K (end-of-year filing) for the year ended 31 December 2006, it reports its net sales as follows:
Licensing $127.2m (36.2%)
Publishing $108.5m (30.8%)
Toys $116.1m (33.0%)
TOTAL $351.8m
In 2006, that is, Marvel Entertainment, Inc. made 30.8% of its income from publishing. Historically, however, this figure is very high. From the company's previous annual filings, these are the figures:
2005: Publishing $92.4m out of a total of $390.5m = 23.7%
2004: $85.9m out of $513.5m = 16.8%
2003: $73.3m out of $347.6m = 21%
2002: $64.5m out of $299.0m = 21.6%
2001: $49.5m out of $181.2m = 27.3%
2000: $45.2m out of $231.7m = 19.5%
Taking these figures, we can say that Marvel Entertainment, Inc. has derived on average 22.95% of its net sales income from Publishing since 2000 - but this figure is skewed by an exceptionally high proportion of earnings deriving from publishing in 2006. The previous high point in 2001 is attributable to the fact that some other operations, particularly toys, made big losses in that year.
The added complication in these figures is that the "Licensing" category includes income from foreign-language comics and trade paperbacks published outside the US - in other words, it's not just Spider-Man pyjamas, movies and theme parks but also an element of "comic books", and the proportion is not disclosed.
Also, do factor in that a proportion of "Publishing" income is attributable to advertising, but the exact amount is not entirely clear. To quote from the latest form 10-K filing: "In addition to revenues from the sale of comic books to the direct market and the mass market, the Publishing segment derives revenues from sales of advertising and subscriptions and from other publishing activities, such as custom comics. For the years ended December 31, 2006, 2005 and 2004, approximately 15%, 17% and 17%, respectively, of the Publishing segment's net revenues were derived from these sources."
Hope that is of some use, or at least interest! |
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| Re: Research on retailing and industry trends |
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[originally posted 10/1/2007]
Very interesting! I agree that it is sometimes hard to guess exactly what is included — and with sales and licensing we often forget about things like advertising.
Good info to have!
Best, John Jackson Miller • Curator, The Comics Chronicles |
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| Re: Research on retailing and industry trends |
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Hello,
I am stumbling upon this post almost a year later. I am researching the Industry in a similar way. I am trying to find more of a correlation between Diamond and their retailers. How can I find Diamond's revenues? How can I find the average revenue of every local comic shop? What is the most accurate way to research reader demographics? |
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