Big Two Price Gouging is a Problem

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ChrisMyers
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Re: Big Two Price Gouging is a Problem

Post by ChrisMyers »

This topic strikes a chord with me. I've recently shifted from a LCS to a combination of digital (Comixology and Marvel Unlimited) and DCBS. I've also been doing some back issue shopping at Mycomicshop.com. I get to read stuff I missed the first time around and its cheap. I'm going to keep reading, it's just a matter of finding the right price point.
NDHorse
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Re: Big Two Price Gouging is a Problem

Post by NDHorse »

Over the past few years, I have shifted a lot of my comic book reading to the library. It keeps me up to date on many characters that I don't think are worth my $4 a month, but I still want to find out what happens. For characters that I truly love, I still buy them monthly, either at my LCS or through Comixology. But comics like Avengers, X-men, various Image mini series, and just random series, I can wait until the trade comes to the library.

Am I helping the industry die out since I am not putting my money into the system? Perhaps, but if I bought everything I read through the library, I would be spending probably 3-4X as much per month. And as we all know, the retained value of the single issues is horrible, as anyone who looks at the 50 cent or $1 bins at your LCS can attest.
SpideySavestheDay
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Re: Big Two Price Gouging is a Problem

Post by SpideySavestheDay »

NDHorse wrote:And as we all know, the retained value of the single issues is horrible, as anyone who looks at the 50 cent or $1 bins at your LCS can attest.
Felt this sting today when I found most of the Multiversity run in the $1 bin. I went through DCBS for those books but it goes to prove the rapidly declining value of new books (worse than driving a new car off the lot!).

While in the same shop, I had to make one of those "invisible hand" guiding choices - 2nd issue of Tokyo Ghost for $3.99 or Superman Vol. 1 #199 (low grade reader copy) for $5.89. To me the choice was easy and, when given those types of choices, I will lean away from newer material. So many great stories and art can be had at the price of a new comic.
Perseus
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Re: Big Two Price Gouging is a Problem

Post by Perseus »

SpideySavestheDay wrote:
NDHorse wrote:And as we all know, the retained value of the single issues is horrible, as anyone who looks at the 50 cent or $1 bins at your LCS can attest.
Felt this sting today when I found most of the Multiversity run in the $1 bin. I went through DCBS for those books but it goes to prove the rapidly declining value of new books (worse than driving a new car off the lot!).

While in the same shop, I had to make one of those "invisible hand" guiding choices - 2nd issue of Tokyo Ghost for $3.99 or Superman Vol. 1 #199 (low grade reader copy) for $5.89. To me the choice was easy and, when given those types of choices, I will lean away from newer material. So many great stories and art can be had at the price of a new comic.

Spidey, I'm with you on this. So many comics can be bought so cheaply that are ten, twenty, even thirty or forty years old. If you want a run that has some age, you may be able to get it cheaper than you would a run of new titles from current publishers.

Back issues of the old Dell comics are what I collect. All reader copies mind you, but not badly priced at all. I look for the cartoon characters I like. Scooby Doo's are hard to get, but most can be had at reasonable prices. I can get cheap back issues of 80's series for next to a dollar or two each. So much cheaper than today's books.
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Re: Big Two Price Gouging is a Problem

Post by clobberin_time_bs »

So I don't have any official confirmation on this, but it seems to me that in the past when the big two wanted to raise prices on their comics they would do it first on the newsstand as a kind of trial balloon and then you would see those increased prices start showing up in comic shops 6 months to a year later. Well, some of the regular $3.99 books are showing up at Barnes and Noble with $4.99 cover prices on them. The one I noticed was Harley Quinn but I think Batman and a few others are doing the same. I attached photos of Harley Quinn 20 to show the different cover prices on the same issue. DC might be testing the waters on this price, or I could be wrong. I do know that for a while when comics were $2.99 they were on sale at Barnes and Nobel for $3.99 before all of Marvel and most of DC went to that price.
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fudd71
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Re: Big Two Price Gouging is a Problem

Post by fudd71 »

I mentioned this a little on the last Mayo Report but I too find myself gravitating away from current comics for a multitude of reasons, price being one of those. Not having much to read the last few weeks I started digging through Marvel Unlimited. I found that while there is quite a lot missing from issues here and there to complete runs from the late 60s, early 70s and from the late 80s until a few years ago seemingly the mid 70s threw mid 80s is almost universally available and complete. So I decided to pick a random point (I chose Giant size X-men#1) and essentially read all the series I was interested in from that point forward like I was picking them up off the racks in the mid 70s. I didn't start reading until 1984 so this is all new to me.

In the two and half weeks since I started here is what I have read:
Amazing Spider-Man #140-151
Avengers #131-142 Giant Size #4
Captain America #181-192
Fantastic Four #154-165 Giant Size #4
Incredible Hulk #183-194
Iron Man #72-81
Thor #213-242
Uncanny X-Men #94-96 Giant Size #1

I have discovered that I have enjoyed reading comics more these last fews weeks then I have in years. I have actually stayed up later than a wanted a few times simply because I was enjoying reading comics so much. Not only have I enjoyed reading more than I have in years I read 88 comics all for aprox. $7 (three weeks worth of a $10/month subscription). I have gotten ten times the enjoyment I would have from 100 new comics and all for less than the cost of two new comics. The combination of ridiculously decompressed stories, lack of story cohesion, constant reboots, events and rising prices makes current comics a hard sell.
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Re: Big Two Price Gouging is a Problem

Post by drew »

fudd71 wrote:Not only have I enjoyed reading more than I have in years I read 88 comics all for aprox. $7 (three weeks worth of a $10/month subscription). I have gotten ten times the enjoyment I would have from 100 new comics and all for less than the cost of two new comics. The combination of ridiculously decompressed stories, lack of story cohesion, constant reboots, events and rising prices makes current comics a hard sell.
so is it normally $120 a year, was there an intro price of 60 bucks or so maybe last year or two?
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fudd71
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Re: Big Two Price Gouging is a Problem

Post by fudd71 »

drew102e wrote: so is it normally $120 a year, was there an intro price of 60 bucks or so maybe last year or two?
There are a few plans, I haven't (probably should) take advantage of by buying in bulk. The current options are $9.99/month, $69/year and then there is a year+ that is $99 that includes the year plus an action figure, some other trinkets and 15% on Marvel digital comics you buy.
ChrisMyers
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Re: Big Two Price Gouging is a Problem

Post by ChrisMyers »

fudd71 wrote:
drew102e wrote: so is it normally $120 a year, was there an intro price of 60 bucks or so maybe last year or two?
There are a few plans, I haven't (probably should) take advantage of by buying in bulk. The current options are $9.99/month, $69/year and then there is a year+ that is $99 that includes the year plus an action figure, some other trinkets and 15% on Marvel digital comics you buy.
Marvel also has an occasional deal, I know they did one around Fathers day this year that knocked 20% off the annual $69 price.
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Re: Big Two Price Gouging is a Problem

Post by NiklasJ »

I´m more concerned about the number of new titles that pop up rather than higher price. Reading 30-40 comics per month is pretty much the limit (or past it actually) for how much time i can spend reading comics.

Being a marvel fan I´m sad to say I wont be reading as many of the all-new-notsodifferent marvels as Id like and the same goes for Image and all their new #1s. DC continues to axe titles I read (JLU) so I guess my wallet are thankful to them, more so since they havent put up anything new to my interest. My interest being SpiderMan/Woman/Gwen trumps all except Vader and Lazarus... and even then i wont be getting new spidey, milespider or spm2099.

That being said I dont think a price of $4.99 for an ongoing regular comic is acceptable, that would see my pull-list shrinking considerably.
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Re: Big Two Price Gouging is a Problem

Post by NDHorse »

I think the high prices are also just a result of the decline of sales in the last 20 years. Sure, when the average book sells 100,000 copies of a book, you can sell it at $2 for total revenue of $200,000. But when your average book sells around 35,000, you would have to sell it at $5.71 to get the same amount of revenue (not to mention inflation).

The more the comic industry dwindles, the more prices will go up.
drew
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Re: Big Two Price Gouging is a Problem

Post by drew »

And that will lead to lower sales - it's a sad decline
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Re: Big Two Price Gouging is a Problem

Post by HipHopHead »

I started collecting comics when they were 20 cents and increased to 25 cents, which was a 25% increase. This percentage increase will be the same as a $3.99 book going to $4.99.

Now I have scaled back significantly when the cover price increased from $2.99 to $3.99. Although, I have rarely ever paid cover price for comic over the last 20 years...the price increase has reduced my buying a physical comic.

I have existing subscriptions to several Marvel titles, which equate to about $2 each for a book and I take advantage of digital sales when the books are $.99.

As a consumer, I ask myself: Do I need the physical comic or do I want to read the story? With storage being a big problem, I find myself wanting to read the story more than have the book.

From a corporate economic point of view; I see the companies having to pass increased costs to the consumer. I don't think the increased cost is due to the physical production of the book, but do to creators finally receiving proper compensation for their creations. As with most companies, they have no desire to cut their profits due to increased costs...so they pass it on to the consumer. With the comic book consumer base shrinking, it only makes sense (or dollars and cents) to pass those costs to the consumer.

I also remember gasoline/a pack of cigarettes being less than 50 cents gallon/a pack. The increase in cost of gasoline has many factors such as environmental regulations which cost the company extra to produce, state/federal tax increase. These companies passed the increase cost to the consumer.
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Re: Big Two Price Gouging is a Problem

Post by clobberin_time_bs »

clobberin_time_bs wrote:So I don't have any official confirmation on this, but it seems to me that in the past when the big two wanted to raise prices on their comics they would do it first on the newsstand as a kind of trial balloon and then you would see those increased prices start showing up in comic shops 6 months to a year later. Well, some of the regular $3.99 books are showing up at Barnes and Noble with $4.99 cover prices on them. The one I noticed was Harley Quinn but I think Batman and a few others are doing the same. I attached photos of Harley Quinn 20 to show the different cover prices on the same issue. DC might be testing the waters on this price, or I could be wrong. I do know that for a while when comics were $2.99 they were on sale at Barnes and Nobel for $3.99 before all of Marvel and most of DC went to that price.
I just listened to your Weekly Comic Spotlight for this week and my post above came up (great job as usual guys). I just wanted to add a little about my experience with newsstand comics a why I believe that this may be DC trying to test the $4.99 waters. I've collected comics for decades and have done so through many different means. At one point early in 2011 I read an article on CBR that said Barnes and Noble was going to try to fill the void in comic book sales that had been left by the recently shut down Borders chain (http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/04/23/ ... e-in-june/). They were going to devote a lot of shelf space to them and try to use them to bring in customers. At the time I was using Marvel's and DC's subscriptions services for most of my comics and filling in what I couldn't buy through those with DCBS. I didn't have an LCS close enough that I was willing to drive there once a week, but I did have a Barnes and Noble less than 5 minutes away, so I decided to give them a try. When they started receiving their comics I'd say that 75-80% of Marvel and DC titles were available on their stands. At this time most comics were still $2.99 but I noticed that all the titles showing up at Barnes and Nobel were $3.99. I was a BN member which gave me a discount on their stuff so I decided to buy them there even with the price increase. I also read a different article from a Marvel exec at the time that said they use the newsstand as their experimental ground. I tried to find that article now using Google but couldn't, unfortunately. I just figured that since the only difference between Direct and Newsstand editions was the cover price (and what the bar code looked like) the experimentation was in what the price of a comic should be. It was later that year and 2012 I think that the $3.99 price became much more popular. I continued to pick up my comics at Barnes and Noble until Marvel stopped its newsstand distribution at the end of 2013 (http://www.comicsbeat.com/marvels-david ... e-noticed/). So now I have a comic box full of Fantastic Four (or FF as it was called at the time) with $3.99 prices when the DM version all say $2.99. I switched back to subscriptions for my Marvel comics but continue to pick up Harley Quinn at Barnes and Noble to this day. When I went to get issue 20 is when I noticed the price hike and looked to see what the DM version sold for. This is what set off the alarm for me because I remembered this happening first on the newsstand when prices went from $2.99 to $3.99. You guys may be right when you speculated that the price was higher because of its returnability, but if that is the case it is a new policy as all the former issues were sold and Barnes and Noble for $3.99.

Like I said earlier, I don't know if this means DC is testing the $4.99 price point or not, but from my experience this is how prices have gone up in the past.

Thanks again for a great podcast guys!
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Re: Big Two Price Gouging is a Problem

Post by SpideySavestheDay »

Looking at the data is it really a "Big 2" problem? Here's a break down of average prices over the last 5 months:

Marvel
DC

Oct-15
$4.14
$3.45

Sep-15
$3.65
$3.65

Aug-15
$4.02
$3.45

Jul-15
$4.13
$3.61

Jun-15
$4.10
$3.49
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