March 2006

Internal shrinkage is still a more serious problem than customer shoplifting.

This is a long series of notes from a seminar at the San Diego Comic Book Expo presented by Ron Hon of Comic Carnival and Hal Stewart, the store designer.  This is an excellent summary of the process by which Ron used Hal's services to design Comic Carnival #5. (We did the site location work for this store). It was a real beauty and did very well.

This is an article which was originally written in 1997 describing the results of more than 7,000 customer transactions involving back issue sales.  It's been refreshed and the graphics have been improved.  Read it along with "Efficient Back Issue Marketing".  Published in Acrobat Reader format.

Mel's Presentation at Diamond's Tenth Annual Retailer Sales Conference. A comprehensive look at the pros and cons of store automation.

Cash Flow is the term used to describe how cash moves in and out of a business. Your ability to predict and make effective use of cash is often crucial to the level of profit, if not the survival of the business.

This PDF file contains a speech prepared by Buddy Saunders of Lone Star Comics (an 8-store specialty comics and pop culture chain in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas) and Mel Thompson as the feature presentation at the 1992 San Diego Comic Book Expo. Much of what we said back in 1992 is still valid today. Here are 21 pages of concise analysis covering all the aspects of creating a pop culture and comics chain.(There's no discussion of the Internet, as that was in its infancy in 1992!)

This PDF document gives an overview of how to use cycle sheets to track comic inventory and how this can help you at order time. You also can download a cycle sheet PDF template that matches what we discuss in Cycle Sheeting Basics.

This PDF document is the outline we're using at San Diego for our discussion. It's an updated version of the 1995 artcle listed later on this page.

This PDF file is a three-page checklist that guides you through the process of planning and carrying out a successful in-store appearance or other event. It's an extract from an e-book that we're preparing on marketing and promotions for comics specialty retailers.

This is an article about how retailers are making money on back-issues in today's radically different back-issue marketplace.

This PDF file is a 24 page introduction to the issues you should consider when you review your current security practices and planning.

A brief introduction to the issues you should consider if you are thinking of opening your own store.

This is an outline of a panel presentation that Mel made at ProCon in 1996. His thesis is that most of the problems in the Direct Market come from fundamental structural deficiencies in the marketing channel itself and that significant growth won't come without remedying these problems.

Part of the problem in figuring out what goes on with the Direct Market is that different parts of the retail channel operate very differently from one another.

We finished a large project for a client on the Graphic Novel and Manga segments of the Direct Market this week.

From Comic Book Business, September 1995

It's generally accepted that the price of comics titles has risen much faster over the last ten years than the inflation rate. These price increases (which have’nt been matched by increases in the perceived value of the product) have had negative impacts on comics retailers.

From Comic Book Business, January 1995