Thread by @ComicPerch

Yesterday I discovered that I was getting more copies of Iceman than I ordered. I posted a short thread which led to a lot of good conversation. But I wanted to take a moment to really explain "overships" and how they work. Being smarter about the business helps everyone! /1

First, what are overships? Simply put, it's when you (as a retailer) order 5 copies of a title and the publisher sends you additional copies beyond what you order. The retailer DOES NOT pay for these other than the shipping cost. Usually the shipping costs are insignificant. /2

One exception to this is when (Marvel specifically) decides to overship 10%-15% of their line. Now you're talking about hundreds of dollars of additional shipping costs. But this hasn't happened in over a year, and knock on wood won't happen again as people revolted. /3

Why would a publisher do this? Well, the tradition over overshipping goes back a long time. The earliest formal account I can find of it is when grocery retailers would overship items in the hopes of (1) dominating shelf space and (2) encouraging retailers to push the product. /4

In other words, it's marketing. At one point Marvel even had a dedicated budget they would allocate to overshipping so they could track these marketing efforts. All of the publishers have done this, but I think it's safe to say that in the last 10 years it's been 90% Marvel. /5

Now, an interesting catch to overshipping is that Diamond (the distributor) reports two numbers every month: Unit Share and Dollar Share. Both of these numbers come from B2B channel... in other words what is sold from the publisher to the store, NOT to the consumer. /6

Dollar Share is pretty straightforward. Dollars spent on orders to the publisher. It's hard to game this number, but things like a $10 Deadpool can have a bit impact on dollar share. Unit Share on the other hand ignores sales completely. It's purely the number of books moved. /7

So remember, overshipping is when I order 50 copies of a book and get 100. For the Unit Share number, it counts the total books shipped... NOT what I originally ordered. In the past this has directly led to Marvel "winning" Unit Share while losing "Dollar Share" for a month. /8

Now it's a bit unclear at this point who cares about the Unit Share number, given how much it's been gamed and manipulated over the years. But it continues to be a game played, typically with "new" titles to claim that the issue "sold" a lot more than it did. /9

In the shop, overships can be annoying because you're basically getting books you didn't ask for. Unlike the example of the grocery store, the overship is random and rarely come with any additional marketing support or promotional material. So it often feels pointless. /10

Can I refuse the over shipped books? Not really. And from Marvel's perspective it would be like looking a gift horse in the mouth. They are giving me something for free that I'm supposed to pass on to my readers and promote. Rejecting the books is rejecting their "outreach". /11

I can't really return them, so I can basically throw them in the trash or send them to someone to make collages. Many retailers take them to Half Priced Books. I tend to give them to readers or failing that, schools. That's one reason you see so many Mosaic copies out there. /12

Are overships killing the industry? No. Do they cost me a lot of shipping money? Not since spring of 2017. Is it "cheating"? Sort of... or it's just marketing. I tend to look at it as a marketing effort that feels lazy and ineffective but happens anyway. /13

I don't "hate" overships (some retailers do) but I sort of roll my eyes at them at this point. If DC wants to overship Batman or Marvel wants to overship something Cates is on then hey, would love to have those. Those I can give homes to. /14

So I hope this was informative and I'm happy to answer questions. If you were one of the people who retweeted this, consider retweeting the top post here so more people can see and get informed as to what the practice is all about. Smarter customers helps #comics. Thanks! /end