I remember that the comic book industry got a huge lift from comic book shops -- because the shops, unlike drugstores and bookstores, didn't do returns.
The discount from retail price for comics vs. books was very high. If you sell only comics, the quantities you order are enough that the discount from cover price is 55% or *higher*. i.e. as the store, you pay 45% of the cover price.
For a bookstore like ours, the rate of discount varies, but it's between 40-44%, or, we pay 56-60% of the cover price to the publisher.
If book publishers were willing (or financially capable of, which should also be considered, because I believe it's cheaper to produce an average comic book per cover cost than an average book, but could be wrong about that) to give -us- the same discount that comics publishers were giving the comics stores, we'd (at least I would) buy books non-returnable too.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2004-08-05 08:50 am (UTC)The discount from retail price for comics vs. books was very high. If you sell only comics, the quantities you order are enough that the discount from cover price is 55% or *higher*. i.e. as the store, you pay 45% of the cover price.
For a bookstore like ours, the rate of discount varies, but it's between 40-44%, or, we pay 56-60% of the cover price to the publisher.
If book publishers were willing (or financially capable of, which should also be considered, because I believe it's cheaper to produce an average comic book per cover cost than an average book, but could be wrong about that) to give -us- the same discount that comics publishers were giving the comics stores, we'd (at least I would) buy books non-returnable too.