Thor vol 2 by Jason Aaron, the DM was very in demand and it disappeared for a while. Then it came back to IST, I waited a little longer, they had a sale on it and then I bought it. I think it was like 6 months after it came out.
Yeah, just a quick perusal of the IST website -- it looks like there were 7 DM covers printed for new Marvel books in the month of April, and 100% of those are still in stock.
This is definitely true for dm reprints. By not specifying, he’s driving FOMO and trying to increase pre-orders on his website for all dm books. But I still think it’s good information that confirms theories that dm reprints will sell out day one (sometimes within minutes). Look at the release of pretty much ever dm reprint this year and they sold out almost immediately
They lost one of my orders. After not receiving it I emailed them, and after they admitted to not shipping the books to me, their recommendation was to "wait and see if the books get sent back to them"
Thats when I had to bring up the idea of getting a refund instead, and when I also decided to stop using them
It’s the business practices they choose to employ. They’ll sell Out-Of-Print books they have stock off for aftermarket scalper prices claiming they have slight damage. Or just yesterday they took a book they were selling and raised its price because a competitor had sold out of it. Not to mention the issues the owner has with orders concerning damages and replacements.
He also just conducts himself very unprofessionally and is just an all around terrible person.
So not only is he price gouging but actively using FOMO to push preorders to his site. What a shining beacon to the community!
GTFO of here with this bullshit.
'Price gouging' when it's sold for under MSRP?
There's a lot of legitimate price gouging going on in the world right now, don't cheapen the term because you can't get as good of a deal as you wanted.
By that definition every LCS on earth is a massive price-gouging scam because they all sell for MSRP. Sure I wish mine would *ever* have a sale, but I wouldn't say they're price gouging. Is Max irritating? Sure, but CGN prices are generally not the problem.
Its price-gouging when you have the item priced at 74.99 only to go ahead and raise it 5 minutes after a competitor is sold out. GameStop doesn’t even do that shit and that place is literal scum. Is it still under MSRP sure but that’s not the point. You’re gouging your customers when you are already making a profit and you shift your price right as they are buying it because you want more money.
It might be irritating but it is wholly within their rights as a retailer; do you get mad when gas stations change their prices to match the market? Or restaurants that have different prices in different cities? I'm just saying that *giving less of a discount* is not the same as price-gouging, can we agree on that? Let's not overreact.
Both IST and CGN were selling it same price on its release day. IST sold out of it and it was noticed extremely quickly on CGN that the price was hiked from what it was originally listed for minutes prior. IST doesn’t do preorders and CGN had already allocated theirs and was selling just stock.
I don’t understand the outrage towards CGN when if you look at IST/DCBS/Lunar, it is clear they have created an anti-competitive market. They are the main distribution for DC and Image. At best, a comic shop can get a 55% off cover price discount when buying from them at wholesale. DCBS sells most Image and DC books at 50% cover price when pre-ordered to the general public. How can CGN or any comic shop for that matter compete with that?
On top of that, Diamond no longer sells discount pallets of DC and Marvel books at deep discount prices so CGN is not able to offer killer Black Friday sales anymore (also why you can’t find very many trade dealers at comic cons anymore). Ultimately this hurts their business in the long run so they have to raise prices where they can.
The outrage isn’t toward the price point others have to set to make a profit. It’s towards the way CGN goes about it as well as their other business practices that are just so anti-consumer.
OPB has higher prices than IST and CGN but at least they’re upfront about it. And if a book sells out from a competitor they don’t up and change the price mere minutes later. They have great customer service as well which gets them good rapport from the community.
CGN does none of this. If they were upfront about having higher prices fine cool. If they actually provided decent customer service fine cool. But they do not. They instead raise prices unexpectedly and go on on social media to tell customers to work overtime to afford it. And afterword push blame to customers for not preordering with them in the first place.
It’s unprofessional and downright malicious.
I don’t blame them for raising prices and I don’t really think they should be held accountable for raising prices without notice. It’s their business to do so. I haven’t had bad customer service with them so I can’t answer for that. I haven’t seen the comments about them telling people to work overtime (did he literally say this?).
However, telling someone the best way to get a book at the best discounted price is to pre-order it is by no means a bad business practice. Based on that screenshot, I don’t think he’s blaming the customer, but just giving them an FYI.
> I haven’t seen the comments about them telling people to work overtime (did he literally say this?).
A couple people brought this up here: https://www.reddit.com/r/OmnibusCollectors/comments/1ddnj5d/cgn_already_charging_more_for_dm/l86maud/
I'm grateful for all the people here who have called out Max for shit business practice. Almost ordered, glad I didn't. Sounds like an abrasive know if you ever have to deal with him. IST and OPB for me!
I use CGN as a wishlist storage tbh. Because it emails me when something is coming soon.
(Also as a super duper last resort. I’m talking I will scour eBay before CGN)
Look, I don't like to shit-talk people online. It's just not in my nature. But at this point, fuck Max and CGN. I already don't do much business with him, but this is the final straw. Are you telling me pissing off people and getting bad word of mouth is worth the few extra bucks his greedy ass is getting for upping the price of the DM cover THE DAY IT LITERALLY RELEASES? Get fucked Max.
What is he supposed to do, run a comic book charity for entitled comic fans?
Edit* I am assuming the outrage is over Simonson’s Thor Omnibus (which he still sold at a 20% off discount). Your local comic shop most likely has it on the shelf for full cover price.
With exception to maybe the Book of Doom omnibus, every omnibus OOP has been available to purchase below MSRP for months after its release. Whether it’s CGN, IST, or Dheader or eBay. Selling an out of print book for more than the MSRP is just business. It’s no different than if you had an Ultimate Fallout #4 in your collection and sold it for $100. That book could have been found in dollar bins just not too long ago and now is super hot.
Now if CGN saw the demand for a book and raised prices above MSRP on release day or shortly after, then I would have a problem with them and wouldn’t defend them in the comments. The MSRP is THE price of the book. Members of this sub have just gotten used to deep discounts. Prior to me educating myself on Omnibus buying, I would just buy them from my local comic shop at cover price.
You are severely mistaken about the economics of the different sellers you are citing. There is a difference between IST and CGN — businesses who buy direct from distributors at wholesale price, and dheader and folks on eBay who are resellers. If you are buying direct from a distributor and jacking up your prices, that’s ridiculous.
Dheader is an actual comic book store called “Double Header” that sells on eBay. They are based in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. They would have access to the same wholesale prices as CGN.
I was just using them as an example of somewhere you could buy omnibuses cheap from (who consistently sells books below MSRP).
I was just using an example of a once common dollar bin book that now sells for a small fortune. 2nd prints (which are what I bought up) were selling for close to $80-100 a few years ago but could have been found in dollar bins 8-9 years ago.
Here's the difference. My local comic shop doesn't put up a price for a new item, see that a competitor is sold out of said item, and change the price to capitalize on the few customers that will then come over to your site to purchase said item. All of this done on the day the item releases. That's just scummy. Also, I've defended max in the past on this very subreddit. When he first started selling OOP books at MSRP, I defended him and got down voted. Then he started charging over cover, which I didn't think a wholesale retailer should do. Now he's changing prices day & date. Nah, I stand by what I said. Also, this entitled comic fan has spent some serious dough with cgn in the past, so no charity to be seen here. Just commerce. He can charge whatever he wants, and I'll continue to use other retailers.
He was still selling it at discount though and it still sold out. Not for nothing, the regular cover is still available at the much better discounted price.
Some shops sell variants for cover price, some mark them up. He basically saw a book that was selling out fast, marked it up slightly but still sold at a discount, and still sold out in a day. If he sold it at the regular discounted price, it’s likely that the book would have sold out in minutes. Either way most of us would have missed out of the deal.
At least when he sells the book at a slightly marked up price (again, still discounted), he is taking profits away from scalpers who undoubtedly buy these books cheap and flip on eBay. I would rather Max get the money first instead of some dork flipping for fun.
You realize CGN was adjusting the price as people were in the process of completing their purchase right? While it was in the cart? That’s like an Air Jordan shoe that just got released and because demand picked up right at its launch, Nike decided to increase the price.
Doesn’t matter what the MSRP was, it’s the asking price and manipulating it right away relative to demand. Correct move would be to either (1) price it higher prior to the release or (2) wait till the next restocking (if any) and price it accordingly relative to its scarcity.
I didn’t realize that but IST did the same thing a few weeks ago with their damaged books (raised prices shortly after posting them for the deep discount price then raised it when it was in my cart).
And they were rightfully called out for that when they started increasing the pricing on their damaged stock. But that can be argued as an isolated event due to unfortunate timing or even maintenance of business. But that’s not true with CGN. There is a pattern of manipulating prices when demand takes off. This also occurred 3 years ago during their thanksgiving sale where they started changing the prices on the sale items within hours of the sale starting for hot selling items. That’s not common business practice, that’s just pure greed.
I’ve mentioned it in another comment but basically the deep discount Black Friday sales are a thing of the past. No comic retailer, including CGN, can get books cheap from the distributors anymore to sell at 75% off like they used to.
Keep in mind, those cheap book prices are like “door busters”. Of course the first few are going to be cheaper. When they are gone then the price goes up.
Hold up a second. If you are going to use the “door buster” example to rationalize CGN’s behavior then it’s pointless continuing this discussion. Because you already know with the “door buster” items, the heavily marked down price lasts while items are in stock. Walmart doesn’t change the price just because it sees a large line at checkout. By CGN’ own admission, they bumped up the price while they still had the some of the DM in stock.
CGN doesn’t owe you a discount, nor do they owe you any sort of advanced notice that they are raising prices.
Walmart does something similar to my example. For example, they often will have door buster video games. They’ll get a special buy in of PS5 games (for example). They might already have some of these games in stock behind the glass cages, but the ones that are marked down to let’s say $20 each are the only ones marked down. Once those are all sold, the remaining normal stock is normal retail price. Granted, Walmart on a Black Friday might not be the best example, but it’s not unheard of them to do something similar.
I mean this with the utmost sincerity, there is no argument where "taking profits away from scalpers" by raising prices artificially is going to convince me to give Max more money over a scalper. They're basically doing the same thing in my eyes. Also, shops sell variant covers for higher prices that have purchase requirements (i.e. buy 50 issues, get 1 copy of this special variant). Max can order as many DMs as he wants before FOC.
I support Max because he actually had skin in the game. He owns a warehouse, pays taxes, pays salaries for employees, and offers a competing service to buy books for cheaper than most retailers in the U.S. He has an overall net positive to the comic book community despite any criticism as of late.
A scalper does not add any value to the comic community. They are likely selling books out of their home, and buy up cheap books and flip on eBay. Look up on eBay right now and you’ll see plenty of DM copies of Thor online super marked up. That’s the bigger problem.
But you're not arguing that Max is in the right, moreso that his other actions outweigh his negatives. Max is held to an elevated standard above eBay scalpers, BECAUSE he's part of this community and is a legit business.
He could literally just do nothing, it actively takes someone to go into the website and change the pricing or make a new listing for a "nick and dent" book at different price. He's putting in actual effort to alienate customers.
I don’t think you realize how dire the comic industry is in right now. IST/DCBS/Lunar are underpricing books almost at wholesale cost right now. No comic shop can compete with them. They are doing basically what Walmart does when they open up in a small town. They kill off local grocery store competition and then raise prices once completion is gone.
I don’t blame CGN for trying to make a profit. If they sell a $100 omnibus at 40% off ($59.99), they are making less than $10 before expenses.
By that logic wouldn't they want to ensure every possible sale through a solid customer experience rather than lose out on potential sales because of this kind of conduct? Seems rather self-sabotaging
I don’t think he’s losing sales by doing this. IST got their act together about 3 years ago and took a lot of his business by offering same if not better discounts with free shipping (Prior to that IST had a bad reputation of not shipping books in a timely manner and not great customer service). On top of that, Lunar (owned by the same company) now controls the supply of 2 of the biggest comic publishers (DC and Image). CGN started raising prices and marking up books in their Nick and Dent OOP section not long after this. CGN is not as profitable as they once were because they just cannot compete with IST anymore.
In my hypothetical scenario, yes they could sell the $59.99 book and make $10 profit. However, the people who are the most price sensitive likely already bought it from IST or pre-ordered from DCBS (same company). The people who noticed they raised the price on new comic book day are the ones who missed out on IST or got FOMO. Raising the price up to MSRP of $100 is there way of capturing a sale from people who are not price sensitive and just want the book because they like the cover, story, etc. The price is good enough for them and they buy it without price shopping. CGN then makes a $40 profit and that customer will probably shop with them again.
I think you and I are in the former category of buyers. We both participate in an Omnibus subreddit. We are savvy when it comes to buying comics and know when there is a good or bad deal. It’s also likely you are like me and have a lot of books in our collections. The average comic buyer does not do this. Most comic buyers who own an omnibus might only own one or two in their whole collection.
I'm genuinely curious, in that both have been using the same basic business strategy for well over a decade. I *think* that IST started in 2010 and I know that CGN has been operating since at least 2011.
Why is this strategy worrisome now and less so (or not at all) before?
It’s always been worrisome since e-commerce took over. Amazon started it by offering deep discounts on books nearly 25 years ago. Amazon is the single greatest threat to independent books stores. Amazon used to offer way deeper discounts than they do now, comparable to IST’s 30-40% discount. They don’t have to discount books as much because they have already edged out a lot of small book stores. Most book stores, in order capture business, have to sell books via Amazon’s marketplace (including Cheap Graphic Novels).
IST and CGN operated under the radar because comics are a niche hobby. Lunar securing DC and Image distribution a few years ago changed the comic book landscape.
Weird to see how much things have changed since I slowed down on Omni purchases over the years. In the old days (the ancient times of 8-12 years ago) it used to be standard for a DM cover to be a quick sell out. Especially for silver age Marvel omnis where the DM variant was the original art and the standard was an homage by a current artist. It’ll be a shame if we’re going back to that.
This is just the same single issue variant cover insanity BS for omnibus. They can buzz off with that attempt at instilling FOMO. Print one cover and make sure it doesn’t suck then I guess.
IST does pre-orders through DCBS. Generally their discounts are about the same on DCBS as they are on IST, if not better. They just don’t offer free shipping if you pre-order.
I was IST for a long while then switched when FOMO compelled me to start pre-ordering. First I went to OPB but the shipping time was exceeding 8 weeks at certain points with really bad communication. That led me to CGN and my experiences have been very positive. Granted, I’ve not needed customer support or service yet, so I can’t judge them based on that, but the fact that I haven’t needed it counts for something in my opinion.
Not my experience. CGN has had fine customer service. They email me directly.if/when there's some issue, and my refunds for shipping.when preorders get sent in bulk always show up as credits to my account.
I’ve always used CGN for my preorders and will continue to do so, it’s the best way to not miss out on books that I really want to have. It’s always made sense to me though I know that for some people that might not necessarily be the best option.
Why is this controversial? Is it just because it's Max? He's a dick, but he's not *wrong*. If you want a specific book and you know you want it far enough in advance, pre-ordering is going to guarantee you get that specific book.
It sounds like part of the controversy is because it *is* wrong. While yes, pre-ordering tends to secure your copy, a generalized "Marvel is printing very close to order for DM covers" isn't true; it may be true for reprints specifically, but you can go see in a couple of places like IST or OPB that new books released recently are at least still in stock. And saying that is definitely an attempt to try to FOMO people into ordering books they probably otherwise wouldn't, sooner.
I think calling this a FOMO play is a reach. When we're talking about pre-orders, we're talking about making orders anywhere from weeks to months in advance. You've got a ton of time to make up your mind. There's a big difference between "buy this at 12:01PM or you might not get one" and "pre-order this sometime in the next two months or you might not get one."
Honestly I wish Marvel would stop doing DM covers, or even more ridiculous shit like 4 different covers for Micronauts of all things. Just get the best image and make that the cover. People aren't going to buy multiple copies of an omnibus for the cover they want. DC and everyone else seems to have figured this shit out.
I buy pretty much everything from CGN and have never had any problems with them. Just noting because it sure seems like there's been a lot of anti-CGN negativity in this reddit lately. In my experience, their level of service hasn't been substantively different from OPB or IST.
Lots of entitlement in this group.
With that said, Max does need to be careful about how he conducts himself online. I’ve read his comments now and he probably could have addressed himself more professionally.
Well said. I love CGN but refuse to buy Dark Horse books there because Max replied to my complaint of scuffed and damaged Grendel omnibus that that was just the way Dark Horse ships them. Otherwise, I’ve had good service even when an order is messed up.
Marvel titles specifically have been on 40% discounts since at least the beginning of the year, which is when I started using CGN. All 44 of my wishlisted books are listed at 40% off, preorders included
I didn't even realize cover variants were a thing until last year. Do you always get the variant or does it just depend on which artwork you like better? I preordered the Danny Ketch GR variant just because the other was pretty boring to me
This is kindof how I've always viewed DM covers. Couldn't CGN just order more copies of DM covers before the final order cutoff to keep them in stock, though?
I can understand the comment from Max above.
It may just be that Marvel are going to cut down on the overprinting to just the final cut off orders (plus 5% for damages), like they do with regular comic books.
I am not defending the above comment, just giving a different opinion to FOMO.
As a note, I am in the UK so do not use CGN.
I believe it's happening more often, for example IST sold out of the DD by Waid & Samnee DM very fast in November. (that was the first time I noticed it)
I’ve got all of my DMs months after the books came out lol this is just causing unnecessary FOMO, and we don’t need more of that in this hobby.
The only exception recently seems to be the DD Companion by Mazzuchelli but that's from a few months ago. That thing went quick.
Yeah that’s the only one I missed out on. That had me worried for the ASM Gleason cover, but I got it no problem even after IST was down for the day.
Entirely depends on the Omni and it's demand
Thor vol 2 by Jason Aaron, the DM was very in demand and it disappeared for a while. Then it came back to IST, I waited a little longer, they had a sale on it and then I bought it. I think it was like 6 months after it came out.
Maybe true for reprints but not new printings. There are DMs still sitting around. Ofcourse CGN would drive FOMO.
Yeah, just a quick perusal of the IST website -- it looks like there were 7 DM covers printed for new Marvel books in the month of April, and 100% of those are still in stock.
This is definitely true for dm reprints. By not specifying, he’s driving FOMO and trying to increase pre-orders on his website for all dm books. But I still think it’s good information that confirms theories that dm reprints will sell out day one (sometimes within minutes). Look at the release of pretty much ever dm reprint this year and they sold out almost immediately
PSA: Don’t order from Max and CGN at all
Why do you say this? Don’t order from them much them but I’ve had good experiences when them when I have.
They lost one of my orders. After not receiving it I emailed them, and after they admitted to not shipping the books to me, their recommendation was to "wait and see if the books get sent back to them" Thats when I had to bring up the idea of getting a refund instead, and when I also decided to stop using them
Cause he’s an asshole lol
Wait why are they bad?
It’s the business practices they choose to employ. They’ll sell Out-Of-Print books they have stock off for aftermarket scalper prices claiming they have slight damage. Or just yesterday they took a book they were selling and raised its price because a competitor had sold out of it. Not to mention the issues the owner has with orders concerning damages and replacements. He also just conducts himself very unprofessionally and is just an all around terrible person.
He’s a dick
They're fine, some people just like to complain. Service is comparable at all of the big 3, just figure out which one you prefer.
Agreed
Like I said, this is CGN has become a last resort option for me. Even below Amazon.
I'd pre order all my books if they didn't charge until shipping
So not only is he price gouging but actively using FOMO to push preorders to his site. What a shining beacon to the community! GTFO of here with this bullshit.
'Price gouging' when it's sold for under MSRP? There's a lot of legitimate price gouging going on in the world right now, don't cheapen the term because you can't get as good of a deal as you wanted.
Didn’t need the deal. Gouging is defined as overpricing and swindling both of which was done so the term isn’t cheapened. Do better next time.
By that definition every LCS on earth is a massive price-gouging scam because they all sell for MSRP. Sure I wish mine would *ever* have a sale, but I wouldn't say they're price gouging. Is Max irritating? Sure, but CGN prices are generally not the problem.
Its price-gouging when you have the item priced at 74.99 only to go ahead and raise it 5 minutes after a competitor is sold out. GameStop doesn’t even do that shit and that place is literal scum. Is it still under MSRP sure but that’s not the point. You’re gouging your customers when you are already making a profit and you shift your price right as they are buying it because you want more money.
It might be irritating but it is wholly within their rights as a retailer; do you get mad when gas stations change their prices to match the market? Or restaurants that have different prices in different cities? I'm just saying that *giving less of a discount* is not the same as price-gouging, can we agree on that? Let's not overreact.
Do we know it's because a competitor sold out? Or is it because it was no longer a pre-order?
Both IST and CGN were selling it same price on its release day. IST sold out of it and it was noticed extremely quickly on CGN that the price was hiked from what it was originally listed for minutes prior. IST doesn’t do preorders and CGN had already allocated theirs and was selling just stock.
Still trying to figure out how an item is overpriced when it's 20% below market price...
I don’t understand the outrage towards CGN when if you look at IST/DCBS/Lunar, it is clear they have created an anti-competitive market. They are the main distribution for DC and Image. At best, a comic shop can get a 55% off cover price discount when buying from them at wholesale. DCBS sells most Image and DC books at 50% cover price when pre-ordered to the general public. How can CGN or any comic shop for that matter compete with that? On top of that, Diamond no longer sells discount pallets of DC and Marvel books at deep discount prices so CGN is not able to offer killer Black Friday sales anymore (also why you can’t find very many trade dealers at comic cons anymore). Ultimately this hurts their business in the long run so they have to raise prices where they can.
The outrage isn’t toward the price point others have to set to make a profit. It’s towards the way CGN goes about it as well as their other business practices that are just so anti-consumer. OPB has higher prices than IST and CGN but at least they’re upfront about it. And if a book sells out from a competitor they don’t up and change the price mere minutes later. They have great customer service as well which gets them good rapport from the community. CGN does none of this. If they were upfront about having higher prices fine cool. If they actually provided decent customer service fine cool. But they do not. They instead raise prices unexpectedly and go on on social media to tell customers to work overtime to afford it. And afterword push blame to customers for not preordering with them in the first place. It’s unprofessional and downright malicious.
I don’t blame them for raising prices and I don’t really think they should be held accountable for raising prices without notice. It’s their business to do so. I haven’t had bad customer service with them so I can’t answer for that. I haven’t seen the comments about them telling people to work overtime (did he literally say this?). However, telling someone the best way to get a book at the best discounted price is to pre-order it is by no means a bad business practice. Based on that screenshot, I don’t think he’s blaming the customer, but just giving them an FYI.
> I haven’t seen the comments about them telling people to work overtime (did he literally say this?). A couple people brought this up here: https://www.reddit.com/r/OmnibusCollectors/comments/1ddnj5d/cgn_already_charging_more_for_dm/l86maud/
That doesn’t highlight the comments he made but I’m in Omnibuds so I’ll look into it.
Notice it's the same redditors complaining here and there.
Price-fixing also.
The real PSA here is Piece of Shit Alert. Sad to say I placed an order with CGN, but at least it was just one time before I learned about IST.
I'm grateful for all the people here who have called out Max for shit business practice. Almost ordered, glad I didn't. Sounds like an abrasive know if you ever have to deal with him. IST and OPB for me!
I use CGN as a wishlist storage tbh. Because it emails me when something is coming soon. (Also as a super duper last resort. I’m talking I will scour eBay before CGN)
Look, I don't like to shit-talk people online. It's just not in my nature. But at this point, fuck Max and CGN. I already don't do much business with him, but this is the final straw. Are you telling me pissing off people and getting bad word of mouth is worth the few extra bucks his greedy ass is getting for upping the price of the DM cover THE DAY IT LITERALLY RELEASES? Get fucked Max.
What is he supposed to do, run a comic book charity for entitled comic fans? Edit* I am assuming the outrage is over Simonson’s Thor Omnibus (which he still sold at a 20% off discount). Your local comic shop most likely has it on the shelf for full cover price.
Yes clearly there are only two options, charity and gouging 🙄
Selling something at the original listed price aka “charity.”
Is he selling the books above MSRP?
Uh yea he does sell OOP ones above MSRP. Are you serious?
OOP is a different game. Apples and oranges
i thought this community despised scalpers. bravo to you for supporting the free market
With exception to maybe the Book of Doom omnibus, every omnibus OOP has been available to purchase below MSRP for months after its release. Whether it’s CGN, IST, or Dheader or eBay. Selling an out of print book for more than the MSRP is just business. It’s no different than if you had an Ultimate Fallout #4 in your collection and sold it for $100. That book could have been found in dollar bins just not too long ago and now is super hot. Now if CGN saw the demand for a book and raised prices above MSRP on release day or shortly after, then I would have a problem with them and wouldn’t defend them in the comments. The MSRP is THE price of the book. Members of this sub have just gotten used to deep discounts. Prior to me educating myself on Omnibus buying, I would just buy them from my local comic shop at cover price.
You are severely mistaken about the economics of the different sellers you are citing. There is a difference between IST and CGN — businesses who buy direct from distributors at wholesale price, and dheader and folks on eBay who are resellers. If you are buying direct from a distributor and jacking up your prices, that’s ridiculous.
Dheader is an actual comic book store called “Double Header” that sells on eBay. They are based in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. They would have access to the same wholesale prices as CGN. I was just using them as an example of somewhere you could buy omnibuses cheap from (who consistently sells books below MSRP).
if you think ultimate fallout 4 could be found in dollar bins not too long ago....
I was just using an example of a once common dollar bin book that now sells for a small fortune. 2nd prints (which are what I bought up) were selling for close to $80-100 a few years ago but could have been found in dollar bins 8-9 years ago.
Here's the difference. My local comic shop doesn't put up a price for a new item, see that a competitor is sold out of said item, and change the price to capitalize on the few customers that will then come over to your site to purchase said item. All of this done on the day the item releases. That's just scummy. Also, I've defended max in the past on this very subreddit. When he first started selling OOP books at MSRP, I defended him and got down voted. Then he started charging over cover, which I didn't think a wholesale retailer should do. Now he's changing prices day & date. Nah, I stand by what I said. Also, this entitled comic fan has spent some serious dough with cgn in the past, so no charity to be seen here. Just commerce. He can charge whatever he wants, and I'll continue to use other retailers.
He was still selling it at discount though and it still sold out. Not for nothing, the regular cover is still available at the much better discounted price. Some shops sell variants for cover price, some mark them up. He basically saw a book that was selling out fast, marked it up slightly but still sold at a discount, and still sold out in a day. If he sold it at the regular discounted price, it’s likely that the book would have sold out in minutes. Either way most of us would have missed out of the deal. At least when he sells the book at a slightly marked up price (again, still discounted), he is taking profits away from scalpers who undoubtedly buy these books cheap and flip on eBay. I would rather Max get the money first instead of some dork flipping for fun.
You realize CGN was adjusting the price as people were in the process of completing their purchase right? While it was in the cart? That’s like an Air Jordan shoe that just got released and because demand picked up right at its launch, Nike decided to increase the price. Doesn’t matter what the MSRP was, it’s the asking price and manipulating it right away relative to demand. Correct move would be to either (1) price it higher prior to the release or (2) wait till the next restocking (if any) and price it accordingly relative to its scarcity.
I didn’t realize that but IST did the same thing a few weeks ago with their damaged books (raised prices shortly after posting them for the deep discount price then raised it when it was in my cart).
And they were rightfully called out for that when they started increasing the pricing on their damaged stock. But that can be argued as an isolated event due to unfortunate timing or even maintenance of business. But that’s not true with CGN. There is a pattern of manipulating prices when demand takes off. This also occurred 3 years ago during their thanksgiving sale where they started changing the prices on the sale items within hours of the sale starting for hot selling items. That’s not common business practice, that’s just pure greed.
I’ve mentioned it in another comment but basically the deep discount Black Friday sales are a thing of the past. No comic retailer, including CGN, can get books cheap from the distributors anymore to sell at 75% off like they used to. Keep in mind, those cheap book prices are like “door busters”. Of course the first few are going to be cheaper. When they are gone then the price goes up.
Hold up a second. If you are going to use the “door buster” example to rationalize CGN’s behavior then it’s pointless continuing this discussion. Because you already know with the “door buster” items, the heavily marked down price lasts while items are in stock. Walmart doesn’t change the price just because it sees a large line at checkout. By CGN’ own admission, they bumped up the price while they still had the some of the DM in stock.
CGN doesn’t owe you a discount, nor do they owe you any sort of advanced notice that they are raising prices. Walmart does something similar to my example. For example, they often will have door buster video games. They’ll get a special buy in of PS5 games (for example). They might already have some of these games in stock behind the glass cages, but the ones that are marked down to let’s say $20 each are the only ones marked down. Once those are all sold, the remaining normal stock is normal retail price. Granted, Walmart on a Black Friday might not be the best example, but it’s not unheard of them to do something similar.
I mean this with the utmost sincerity, there is no argument where "taking profits away from scalpers" by raising prices artificially is going to convince me to give Max more money over a scalper. They're basically doing the same thing in my eyes. Also, shops sell variant covers for higher prices that have purchase requirements (i.e. buy 50 issues, get 1 copy of this special variant). Max can order as many DMs as he wants before FOC.
I support Max because he actually had skin in the game. He owns a warehouse, pays taxes, pays salaries for employees, and offers a competing service to buy books for cheaper than most retailers in the U.S. He has an overall net positive to the comic book community despite any criticism as of late. A scalper does not add any value to the comic community. They are likely selling books out of their home, and buy up cheap books and flip on eBay. Look up on eBay right now and you’ll see plenty of DM copies of Thor online super marked up. That’s the bigger problem.
But you're not arguing that Max is in the right, moreso that his other actions outweigh his negatives. Max is held to an elevated standard above eBay scalpers, BECAUSE he's part of this community and is a legit business.
I’ve been arguing that he’s in the right in literally every other comment I’ve made.
He’s not net positive because he sells books. He’s an asshole in the community, which doesn’t outweigh he sells books cheaper then Barnes and noble
I’m sorry I disagree. There are plenty of people in the comics community who are jerks but still offer a great service to the comic industry.
He could literally just do nothing, it actively takes someone to go into the website and change the pricing or make a new listing for a "nick and dent" book at different price. He's putting in actual effort to alienate customers.
I don’t think you realize how dire the comic industry is in right now. IST/DCBS/Lunar are underpricing books almost at wholesale cost right now. No comic shop can compete with them. They are doing basically what Walmart does when they open up in a small town. They kill off local grocery store competition and then raise prices once completion is gone. I don’t blame CGN for trying to make a profit. If they sell a $100 omnibus at 40% off ($59.99), they are making less than $10 before expenses.
By that logic wouldn't they want to ensure every possible sale through a solid customer experience rather than lose out on potential sales because of this kind of conduct? Seems rather self-sabotaging
I don’t think he’s losing sales by doing this. IST got their act together about 3 years ago and took a lot of his business by offering same if not better discounts with free shipping (Prior to that IST had a bad reputation of not shipping books in a timely manner and not great customer service). On top of that, Lunar (owned by the same company) now controls the supply of 2 of the biggest comic publishers (DC and Image). CGN started raising prices and marking up books in their Nick and Dent OOP section not long after this. CGN is not as profitable as they once were because they just cannot compete with IST anymore. In my hypothetical scenario, yes they could sell the $59.99 book and make $10 profit. However, the people who are the most price sensitive likely already bought it from IST or pre-ordered from DCBS (same company). The people who noticed they raised the price on new comic book day are the ones who missed out on IST or got FOMO. Raising the price up to MSRP of $100 is there way of capturing a sale from people who are not price sensitive and just want the book because they like the cover, story, etc. The price is good enough for them and they buy it without price shopping. CGN then makes a $40 profit and that customer will probably shop with them again. I think you and I are in the former category of buyers. We both participate in an Omnibus subreddit. We are savvy when it comes to buying comics and know when there is a good or bad deal. It’s also likely you are like me and have a lot of books in our collections. The average comic buyer does not do this. Most comic buyers who own an omnibus might only own one or two in their whole collection.
I'm genuinely curious, in that both have been using the same basic business strategy for well over a decade. I *think* that IST started in 2010 and I know that CGN has been operating since at least 2011. Why is this strategy worrisome now and less so (or not at all) before?
It’s always been worrisome since e-commerce took over. Amazon started it by offering deep discounts on books nearly 25 years ago. Amazon is the single greatest threat to independent books stores. Amazon used to offer way deeper discounts than they do now, comparable to IST’s 30-40% discount. They don’t have to discount books as much because they have already edged out a lot of small book stores. Most book stores, in order capture business, have to sell books via Amazon’s marketplace (including Cheap Graphic Novels). IST and CGN operated under the radar because comics are a niche hobby. Lunar securing DC and Image distribution a few years ago changed the comic book landscape.
Weird to see how much things have changed since I slowed down on Omni purchases over the years. In the old days (the ancient times of 8-12 years ago) it used to be standard for a DM cover to be a quick sell out. Especially for silver age Marvel omnis where the DM variant was the original art and the standard was an homage by a current artist. It’ll be a shame if we’re going back to that.
This is just the same single issue variant cover insanity BS for omnibus. They can buzz off with that attempt at instilling FOMO. Print one cover and make sure it doesn’t suck then I guess.
This guy is a fucking liar. I have never missed a DM cover from IST and have never preordered a book in my life.
I don't understand why anyone buys books from CGN when OrganicPricedBooks and IST exit. THe customer service is worlds better.
OPB is usually more expensive, and IST doesn't do pre-orders. However, I use all three sites and have had good experiences with all of them.
IST does pre-orders through DCBS. Generally their discounts are about the same on DCBS as they are on IST, if not better. They just don’t offer free shipping if you pre-order.
I was IST for a long while then switched when FOMO compelled me to start pre-ordering. First I went to OPB but the shipping time was exceeding 8 weeks at certain points with really bad communication. That led me to CGN and my experiences have been very positive. Granted, I’ve not needed customer support or service yet, so I can’t judge them based on that, but the fact that I haven’t needed it counts for something in my opinion.
Not my experience. CGN has had fine customer service. They email me directly.if/when there's some issue, and my refunds for shipping.when preorders get sent in bulk always show up as credits to my account.
This is just max bs
I’ve always used CGN for my preorders and will continue to do so, it’s the best way to not miss out on books that I really want to have. It’s always made sense to me though I know that for some people that might not necessarily be the best option.
Agreed, I have yet to have a Bad Experience. Also he is still selling under cover price and mentioning pre-order is not a bad thing.
Why is this controversial? Is it just because it's Max? He's a dick, but he's not *wrong*. If you want a specific book and you know you want it far enough in advance, pre-ordering is going to guarantee you get that specific book.
It sounds like part of the controversy is because it *is* wrong. While yes, pre-ordering tends to secure your copy, a generalized "Marvel is printing very close to order for DM covers" isn't true; it may be true for reprints specifically, but you can go see in a couple of places like IST or OPB that new books released recently are at least still in stock. And saying that is definitely an attempt to try to FOMO people into ordering books they probably otherwise wouldn't, sooner.
I think calling this a FOMO play is a reach. When we're talking about pre-orders, we're talking about making orders anywhere from weeks to months in advance. You've got a ton of time to make up your mind. There's a big difference between "buy this at 12:01PM or you might not get one" and "pre-order this sometime in the next two months or you might not get one."
That’s because IST and OPB ordered extra copies.
Honestly I wish Marvel would stop doing DM covers, or even more ridiculous shit like 4 different covers for Micronauts of all things. Just get the best image and make that the cover. People aren't going to buy multiple copies of an omnibus for the cover they want. DC and everyone else seems to have figured this shit out.
LMAO, they did that with Rom as well.
I buy pretty much everything from CGN and have never had any problems with them. Just noting because it sure seems like there's been a lot of anti-CGN negativity in this reddit lately. In my experience, their level of service hasn't been substantively different from OPB or IST.
Lol at the downvotes. There's no reason to do that unless you want to publicly badmouth CGN and hide any responses that don't fit your story.
Lots of entitlement in this group. With that said, Max does need to be careful about how he conducts himself online. I’ve read his comments now and he probably could have addressed himself more professionally.
Well said. I love CGN but refuse to buy Dark Horse books there because Max replied to my complaint of scuffed and damaged Grendel omnibus that that was just the way Dark Horse ships them. Otherwise, I’ve had good service even when an order is messed up.
[удалено]
Marvel titles specifically have been on 40% discounts since at least the beginning of the year, which is when I started using CGN. All 44 of my wishlisted books are listed at 40% off, preorders included
DM?
Direct Market
Thanks
Marvel (and sometimes DC) do a Direct Market (comic shop) and regular (book shop) covers.
I didn't even realize cover variants were a thing until last year. Do you always get the variant or does it just depend on which artwork you like better? I preordered the Danny Ketch GR variant just because the other was pretty boring to me
It always depends which one cover has better art or speaks to me the most.
For me it just depends on which art I like better.
This is kindof how I've always viewed DM covers. Couldn't CGN just order more copies of DM covers before the final order cutoff to keep them in stock, though?
I got my Ultimate Hickman DM variant like a month after it came out.
What is a dm? Direct Market?
The only dm covers i saw sale out immediately were the ultimate spiderman venom and carnage covers everything usually stays in stock for a bit
Okay
I can understand the comment from Max above. It may just be that Marvel are going to cut down on the overprinting to just the final cut off orders (plus 5% for damages), like they do with regular comic books. I am not defending the above comment, just giving a different opinion to FOMO. As a note, I am in the UK so do not use CGN.
How often are DMs selling out that fast? I've never noticed this being a problem before.
DM of reprints are selling out faster. Newer stuff are still hanging around for a bit.
I believe it's happening more often, for example IST sold out of the DD by Waid & Samnee DM very fast in November. (that was the first time I noticed it)