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Diamond Comic Distributors Revise Minimum Order Policy
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
Diamond Comic Distributors announced in Wednesday's Diamond Daily newsletter that it has made a slight change to its minimum purchase order policy, which was last updated in January 2009. Diamond Comic Distributors is the main distributor that manga and other comic publishers use to distribute their products to comic book stores and any other retailers that do not return unsold items.
In the 2009 modifications, Diamond raised its purchase order minimum from US$1,500 to US$2,500. Publishers had to then demonstrate that an item could recoup US$2,500 in Diamond's costs in a month for the item to be included in Diamond's system.
However, under the new policy, even if an initial release offered to retailers in the Diamond magazine Previews does not meet the minimum purchase order threshold, Diamond will still honor all orders for that first release. According to Diamond's announcement, it will then "address our need to avoid unprofitable SKUs by not listing subsequent issues or like products" if they do not meet the minimum requirement. This new policy will take effect in the January issue of Diamond's Previews catalog.
In June 2009, Digital Manga Publishing created an online store to sell items returned from Diamond directly to retailers, completely separate from DMP's online store used to sell products directly to consumers. The new policy also affected "offered agains" or relistings of a product. In January, right before Diamond announced the initial modification, Diamond released a list of items that would not be available for back order or reorder from Diamond once Diamond ran out of stock. Included on this list were 1,018 items from the manga and anime publisher Viz Media, although those items are still readily available from regular bookstores and other retailers outside Diamond's distribution system.
Source: Publishers Weekly's The Beat
