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But to answer your "What's the point?" question, I think PREVIEWS is as benficial for retailers as for consumers--it's a way for the audience to keep the distributor up-to-speed on what the People want.
Otherwise, the retailer has only his own tastes and instincts to rely on, and those instincts are often so idiosyncratic or cowardly as to be useless.
Let me say this:
I patronize several different comics shops, and in one, in particular, pre-ordering is highly encouraged: PREVIEWS is prominently displayed at the front counter, and if you buy it and place an order, you get $3 knocked off your total when you pick up that order--$3 being the price of PREVIEWS. It's a handsome place, with a well-informed clientele, and it turns a tidy profit.
In another store, the owner seems less interested in comics than in gawdawful "memorabilia," which is probably a good thing, because he's not selling enough comics to make a living. Good luck finding PREVIEWS in this store--it's there, somehwre, but it's hidden away in the shelves. Good luck finding THE FILTH, either, or 100%, or LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN: the owner's finely-honed instincts led him to order these books either in low numbers, or not at all.
Imagine being able to go into a movie theatre and say to the manager, "You know, if you booked 28 Days Later for a week's run, I know enough people who are dying to see it that you'd make your money back easily. In fact, we'll reserve our tickets now." That's what PREVIEWS is like: it makes you an active consumer, and takes a lot of risk out of a retailer's precarious existence. Win-win. |
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