Op/Ed: The Impact of Double Shipping
Don’t worry internet, I’m not going to tell you to grow the f— up.
Instead, I’ve chosen to focus on an increasing trend in today’s comic market: double shipping of monthly books. Embraced by Marvel after they saw success moving Amazing Spider-Man to bi-weekly, the practice of shipping multiple issues of a monthly series in a single month has become their go-to cash grab in recent months. Last month Marvel double shipped more than 20 of their monthly titles. Filtering out fringe series – like Powers – that represents somewhere in the vicinity of two thirds of their line. That’s staggering.
The debate around this topic has always interested me, though I must admit, I haven’t seen much in the way of debate. I’ve seen few, if any, advocates for the double shipping approach, and those voices have been far outweighed by the outraged consumers who point to this practice as one of the more damaging activities in today’s comic market. For many, double shipping monthly issues seems to be a sure fire way to overwhelm the market and drive customers from their local shops.
So, let’s take a look at the numbers.
For research purposes, I’ve chosen two series that Marvel has been using the double shipping approach on for slightly more than a year now, Avengers Academy and Thunderbolts. Beyond the length of time they’ve been double shipping, I’m also interested in these titles because they are continually in the lower tier of Marvel’s sales numbers, and I’d like to see what impact the double shipping has made there.
For Avengers Academy, I focused on the entire 30 issue run, beginning in June 2010. Marvel first chose to double ship this title in March 2011, and in total it has double shipped seven times. Let’s take a look at the sales performance:
As you can see above, after a steady decline for issues 1 through 9, the series leveled off between 20,000 to 25,000 units sold, according to the fine folks at Comichron.com. I’ve marked on the graph where you can see a slight volume spike for the Fear Itself crossover, beginning with issue 15, as well as a rather impressive jump for the Avengers vs X-Men crossover issues.
Side note: out of curiosity, I compared the drop experienced between issue 1 and issue 9 with the New 52 relaunch of Justice League. The gray line I’ve added to the chart below represents the reader retention for Justice League over it’s first nine issues (adjusted for volume):
Assuming DC’s flagship title is a decent baseline for the expectations of reader retention over a title’s first year, Avengers Academy faired pretty well. Obviously, the number of copies sold is far below the performance of Justice League, but of the audience that was initially interested in the two books, the same percentage have stuck with them through their ninth issues.
Anyways, back to the point at hand. Take another look at the trend in the sales of Avengers Academy since the title began double shipping with issue 10. Excluding the spike for the Fear Itself crossover, they’ve remained fairly steady. In fact, in comparing the sales for issue 28 with issue 10, Avengers Academy has retained approximately 94% of its readership. Despite the move to double shipping, it appears readers have stuck with this title.
Delving deeper, let’s next take a look at the benefit Marvel received by double shipping. Over the course of the 15 months since the double shipping began, Marvel has sold around 527,000 copies of Avengers Academy. If you break out the number of sales for the second book released in any of those months, it represents just over 171,000 copies. That means, without double shipping this title, Marvel could have expected to sell somewhere around 355,000 copies. For a title selling in the range of Avengers Academy, this is almost certainly the difference between continuing to be published and cancellation.
Now, granted, the money for these additional copies of Avengers Academy is coming from somewhere, and unless most readers are cutting back on food or electricity, it’s almost certainly coming at the expense of another title they were buying. But, for Marvel, the gamble is that the title you’re now leaving behind in favor of additional issues of Avengers Academy is a non-Marvel book.
Considering the rather high retention rate for Avengers Academy, and the additional volume sold using the double shipping approach, I’m going to consider this title a check in the win column for Marvel. Let’s see if that holds true for the Thunderbolts.
For Thunderbolts, I went back to issue 144, which came out the month prior to the first issue of Avengers Academy, and kicked off the Heroic Age of the Thunderbolts by placing Luke Cage in charge of the program. Like Avengers Academy, the title was also double shipped seven times over the last fifteen months, and also saw a slight spike in volumes whenever it was included in a major crossover.
However, when looking at the same statistics for Thunderbolts, the numbers tell a different story. As of the most recent issue, 173, the title has retained only 74% of its readers since Marvel began double shipping it with issue 154. That’s a fairly steep drop, especially when compared to the 94% retention rate of Avengers Academy. While correlation does not imply causation, it does raise questions around whether the practice of double shipping drove readers away from the title. With the impending change to Dark Avengers with issue 175, it will be interesting to see if readers re-engage with the title or if Thunderbolts has reached the end of its run.
And so, PoP!ulation, it seems that the impact of double shipping will vary on a case by case basis. What are your thoughts on the matter? Have you dropped a series over the decision to double ship? Have you dropped a DIFFERENT series to continue to buy one that is regularly double shipping? Let your voice be heard in the comments below!
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Hm. Needed more charts.
I have dropped titles in order to keep up with other titles that double ship. I put a cap on the number of titles I get a month. If a title double ships that month I have to decide what title I will drop so I can pick up the double shipped one. In some cases I decide to drop the title that is double shipping.
More of this Dan!
I continue to drop Marvel books. Double shipping isn’t the only reason, but it is a big reason. Not only can I not afford to get so many issues a month, but it’s also made me realize how little I care about some of the books. Reading a mediocre book once a month can be tolerable, but when I read it twice a month its mediocrity is more prevalent.
I used to buy around 40 or 50 Marvel books a month, and now I’m only getting 5 Marvel ongoings. Once Bendis is off the Avengers I’ll only be getting 3 (though if he’s put on 2 X-Men books then I’ll still be getting 5). The 5 Marvel ongoing books that I get are Avengers Academy, New Avengers, Avengers, Scarlet Spider, and Ultimate Spider-Man. The Avengers books consistently double ship and Ultimate Spider-Man has double shipped as well.
The double shipping really killed a lot of books for me. Marvel’s gamble that the book a reader dropped to keep up with double shipping wouldn’t be a Marvel book didn’t prove true with me. I’ve dropped many Marvel books to keep up with others double shipping.
I’m along these lines. There are a lot of books I’ve stopped reading.
But I am also thankful for the double shipping. Some stories just kill me waiting to know what happens next.
I’m kinda like Tito. I’ll drop a book for one that double ships that I really enjoy. ASM could triple ship and I would still be all over that.
WELL DONE!
I fear that Marvel’s approach to double shipping is to not even consider where the money for the second issue may come from. Additional disposable income? Other cancelled books? Baby formula?
The logic is KIND OF simple…
Wolverine is a widely recognizable character. Put him in a lot of books, and casual readers have that many more books to choose from to read about Wolverine. If you’re lucky, a new reader might even pick up more than one of those books. BUT… does Wolverine have a die-hard fanbase? Eh. I think most comic fans will read Wolverine if he’s there and won’t care if he isn’t. If Marvel cancelled every Wolverine book, would there be fan outrage? Likely not.
Books like Avengers Academy and Thunderbolts are not successful because of a giant fanbase. They’re successful because of a small but fiercely loyal fanbase. You’re almost guaranteed these people will buy these books. BUT… that number isn’t growing. So, how do you prevent entropic sales with a dwindling number of readers? Double ship.
If you have 100 die-hard readers, and you lose 1 a month, then every month you lose 1 percent of your initial sales. IF, however, you begin to double ship, you immediately double your sales. Even if your retention rate dips as a result, you’ve built in a buffer. You’re gambling that – after you lose the least die-hard of the die-hards – you’ll still be selling two books a month to your MOST loyal of readers.
If 20 people were going to give up on the book at a rate of one a month, in just under two years we’d be selling 80 copies a month.
Even if we lose twice as many readers because of double shipping, that means that in twenty months, we’ll still be selling 120 copies a month, not even accounting for the increased sales in the interim.
Marvel’s playing the numbers game very shrewdly, but the Machiavellian tactics DO hurt the industry in the long run. Single shipping meant 80 people reading Thunderbolts on a monthly basis. 80 people who might get sucked into other books through crossovers and such. Sure, now they’re selling half again as many copies of Thunderbolts, but they have 25% fewer readers to branch out into other titles.
What’s good for business now isn’t necessarily good for business in the long run, but then shortsightedness isn’t exactly uncommon in business.
Like Tito, I try to keep myself to a certain number of books every month. Double shipping is pretty low on my criteria for dropping books. First of all I keep the stories I enjoy. Then I tend to go with which creator needs the most amount of support in regards to pre-ordering.
I had the idea of only buying one of the $3.99 books, having a friend buy the other book, then trade the digital codes. I’d then hunt for the other issue later on in a discount bin or something. Of course I’d let my LCS know about that so they wouldn’t be screwed over later.