Blustering Over Barcodes

Excellent article. I knew they were bad news but no idea it was this bad.

I mean they're strangling an all ready choking industry. Sure the little guys on an individual basis might not sell as much as one copy of X-something or Bat-dude, but grab an issue of previews and rip out all the independent pages and it will be significantly slimmer.

But what is the consumer to do? If I want tickets to my favorite band I use evil ticketmaster with more convenience fee surcharges, services charges, and guess you didn't expect this charge as well everyday. (Remember when Pearl Jam boycotted them?) Legally they are not a monopoly, but none of the competitors can compete with their money. Sure that's a business too, but I just want to hear the music.

I don't go to a bookstore and think about the business. I go to buy entertainment, art, things that will let me relax.

Do I write a letter to Diamond? Tell them I do not like there practices. I don't think they would care.

Do you give up your subscription to Superguy? Wouldn't that more negatively affect your local comic book store, where you are more than likely on a first name basis with the owners and workers.

What bugs me the most is that what if we lose out on a excellent new comic because of this. What if there is another Cerebus, Bone, or Poison Elves just waiting to be discovered?

Requiring UPC codes is common practice for many retailers and distributors. Wal-Mart (as usual) got the ball rolling on this a few years ago when they required anyone who wanted to sell through their stores to have a UPC code (the use of UPC codes is critical for Wal-Mart’s inventory tracking system). Most grocery store chains have similar requirements (and have had them for years/decades). The major bookstore chains/distributors have also required UPC codes on new books for a long time.

In many ways the comic industry is way behind the curve on this trend. Frankly I’m surprised Diamond didn’t already have such a requirement in place. From their perspective, the benefits in standardization and inventory tracking are enormous.

Even if another major distributor existed to compete with Diamond my guess is they too would require UPC codes. The system is too ingrained in the retail world at this point to be able to blow it off. My guess is part of the reason Diamond is doing this is because some of the larger retail chains they sell to (or wish to sell to) are requiring them to have UPC codes on all of their products.

Of course this article does an excellent job of pointing out the problem of requiring UPC codes. It serves as yet another cost and barrier to entry for smaller publishers.

A good thing for Diamond to do in this case would be to purchase and make available a limited number of UPC codes to small press companies. I think that would go a way towards improving Diamond’s image with small publishers that only put out a couple of titles and who already have ridiculously tight margins.

Next week on Comicscape:

We discuss the conundrum between regular cardboard vs. corrugated cardboard.

:D

I can't say that I am able to get too worked up about the bar code issue. The one thing I do know is that if I am given a choice between a comic with a bar code on it and one with a B&W picture of Cap in the bar code space, I am going with the latter.

It makes my head spin. You too? Go watch this to cleanse the palette:
http://tinyurl.com/2xcbrd

There's no excuse for "it's just business" when it hampers, weakens, and destroys smaller businesses in its wake. These companies are too large, yet we have this idea that if small businesses "just try" they're going to compete with the large chains that flatten any competition. Just the idea of only using bar codes because larger chains require them (Borders, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc.) purposefully placates to them. It's all the rich white men talking to each other and making deals to consolidate power. When will people realize that businesses aren't here to help people. They're made to send money and power up to one person, first and foremost. It's not like these large chains got to where they are just because they happened to smile at the customers a lot more and keep their floors extra clean. They did it by screwing over a little guy somewhere, usually through recent deregulation practices that get passed under the radar. Soon enough, even the employees will need bar codes, and by then, there won't be other competition to go to.

I think it's crap that Diamond can treat its customers and other publishers like that. I discovered another reason to dislike Diamond today. Shortly after checking out this column, I went to go pick up my pull for the week. Now, the comics shop I go to is closing at the end of the month. When I got there today, I found out that the owner had called Diamond to give them the heads-up about the end of the month, but instead of waiting until then, they went ahead and cancelled all of his orders now. So now he's not getting any new stuff for the rest of the time he's there and will just have to make do with selling older stuff. AARGHHH!!

Thank you for your article. It amazes me that Diamond isn't considered a Monopoly. How did that happen? So as long as a big company with exclusive contracts to the big boys keeps some small player around, that couldn't compete with them, then it's okay?

Wow, I had an aspiration to launch a comic store and build it large enough to challenge Diamond. May still try, but it'll take longer with the business I have now.

Oh, and Kurt, Atomic Comics in the Phoenix area uses scanners on their products. Have for a while now. Course they're the largest with 4 stores. But they're the only ones that I've seen use scanners.

for me, the gold standard for comic shops is golden apple- last i saw (may have changed by now, i suppose), niether their northridge nor hollywood stores make use of scanners.

i'll gladly agree to hate bar/UPC codes if their usage smacks of bad business. but i have an even better reason- they take away room for cover artwork, and make my comic collection just a little uglier than i'd like.

Not a big deal but barcode readers don't actually read the black lines. They read the white spaces between the lines. The barcode is printed on a white surface so that when the laser scans the area the white surface reflects part of the light back to the reader. So it's the white area that actually holds the code.

Comic shop in Steven's Point, Wisconsin and one that recently sold it's inventory in Plover both use/used scanners for the comics.

I sell comics and want to use a scanner eventually, but that's because I'm spoiled by working at chain retailers and know the ease of just mindlessly scanning product.

I'll join the "how-the-hell-is-Diamond-not-a-monopoly" bandwagon.

Adding scanning barcodes is not a bad thing. Making the codes unique yet universal is a good thing if you are going to use them.

But anything that hurts smaller businesses is bad, especially anything that gives unfair advantages to huge businesses. Having huge amounts of capital and recognition is enough advantage - those controlling the market and distribution should not make it worse.