Diamond Makes First Comic Shop Shipping Charge Reductions This Week

In February, Bleeding Cool scooped the information from the ComicsPRO Summit that Diamond Comic Distributors was to supply a lower of 40% to freight and UPS transport costs to US comedian ebook shops going ahead, later confirmed by the distributor.

The preliminary 20% value discount for bins containing print items went into impact this week, showing on invoices for merchandise with an on-sale date of the twelfth of April, 2023. The extra 20% discount will happen from the third of July, for a complete discount of 40% from the present pricing. Diamond states that discounted pricing will likely be utilized to:

• Individual bins that encompass greater than 50% print materials (Diamond classes 1-5 and 13-14), calculated by piece rely. For instance, 126 print items in a field containing 250 items.
• Shipments that qualify for hundredweight pricing from UPS (see under) with over 50% of the bins being thought of print materials (utilizing the standards above). For instance, if 6 of 11 bins are thought of to be primarily print merchandise, then the hundredweight cargo will likely be priced on the discounted price. A cargo qualifies for hundredweight pricing if a number of bins weighing a complete of greater than 200 kilos are shipped to the identical handle as a part of the identical cargo. Pricing relies on the overall weight of the cargo and never the variety of bins or their particular person weights.

Diamond Comic Distributors state that they “continue to test offerings from the USPS and FedEx as we explore other ways to positively impact freight costs, and will provide further updates.”

This is, after all, up towards Lunar Distributors, famed for his or her beneficiant packing care and decrease transport costs (till now, at the very least) and Penguin Random House who supply utterly free transport. I perceive nonetheless that, given the selection, most comedian ebook retailers are sticking with Diamond Comic Distributors, with a purpose to simplify their choices. For DC Comics, they haven’t any alternative however to make use of Lunar. Unless they’re within the UK, after they haven’t any alternative for the direct market aside from Diamond. Changes made when the pandemic cancelled unique clauses with publishers and Diamond are nonetheless taking part in out and there’s nonetheless a lot to play for.