A number of comic book shop owners received a double shipment of Marvel’s [easyazon_link identifier=”B07DTXX7C8″ locale=”US” tag=”boundingintocomics-20″]Iceman[/easyazon_link] by Sina Grace and Nathan Stockman that hits comic book shelves today.
One comic book shop owner took to Twitter to discuss the overshipment of Iceman and why he thinks this is a failing strategy on Marvel’s behalf.
Like Iceman’s power set itself, I’ve received double over ships on the new Iceman. Apparently nearly everyone did. I’m not sure if this is an attempt to spike the unit number but I think this is a failing publisher strategy, particularly for a limited series. 1/3 #comics pic.twitter.com/N55NcQI012
— Perch (@ComicPerch) September 11, 2018
The marketing goal here is to give more capacity to retailers so that they hook new readers who were otherwise going to give the title a pass. Traditionally speaking I haven’t seen this ever work in my shop, but other shops have reported some success with it. 2/3 pic.twitter.com/hPEyigOPRQ
— Perch (@ComicPerch) September 11, 2018
The problem is that (1) everyone knows about the practice so any bragging rights about more units moved is suspect and (2) it INCREASES the visibility into the drop between first and second issues. The overship won’t bring new readers in so quickly it spikes issue 2. 3/3 pic.twitter.com/WdWh8gZe4a
— Perch (@ComicPerch) September 11, 2018
While ComicPerch was skeptical about the idea that this was to spike the unit number we spoke to another shop owner who also received a double shipment of Iceman. He specifically referred to these books as “more books to throw out after a month.”
We asked him about how common of a tactic it was to overship book. He also told us, “They do occasionally pick books to overship. Iceman was ordered low so they maybe are trying to increase the number of copies “ordered” through tomfoolery.”
Another shop owner told us Marvel overshipped Iceman in order “to make it look like there are much higher sales, but those comics will just end up in $.25 bins.”
This new Iceman miniseries by Sina Grace is a continuation of his 2017 series whose first issue only shipped 34,202 copies when it released in June 2017. Iceman #11 which hit shelves in March of this year only shipped 10,200 copies to retailers.
When Marvel initially announced the new Iceman run they claimed the book was coming back by “popular demand.” Could Marvel be overshipping to try and sell that “popular demand” line they used to tout this book? And as ComicPerch points out in order for this tactic to really work, they would have to overship on subsequent issues to keep up the ruse.
What do you make of this tactic by Marvel and/or Diamond to overship Iceman issues?