As a comic shop owner, my goal is to provide the highest quality product to my customers. I care about that greatly. Which is why days such as today enrage me to no end. My distributor Diamond Comics, constantly pulls stunts like this with not only me but all of their clients...on a regular basis.
This entire stack of comic books and trade paperbacks are completely unsellable. The corners are all 100% smashed up and damaged beyond belief. This is new product for the week. New product that my customers will be expecting tomorrow and I will now have to disappoint yet again. This stack is valued somewhere between $400-$450 dollars and this kind of thing happens regularly.
I know this was Diamond’s error as the books are packed in a small box. Then 2 of those small boxes are packed in a larger outer box. The outer box is flawless where as one of the small inners in completely smashed in. My guess is that the brilliant mind that packed this box, dropped it causing the damage and just decided to pack it up for shipment anyway. Instead of repacking and doing the right thing. This is what happens when employees work in an environment where they are too afraid to report a mistake or just don’t care to correct it.
I now have to waste an hour plus of my already limited time, on the phone with a representative from Diamond. Explaining to them that I need these books overnighted on their dime as this was 100% their fault. Yet again. Then they will make excuses and fight me on it. Ya see??? We’ve done this dance before and are destined to do it again in the near future.
Sad part is there is absolutely nothing that I can do about it as Diamond is a Monopoly. Yup! You read that right. As a comic shop shop owner, there is nowhere else I can go when I get the shaft on repeat. Nobody cares though as it’s just stupid comics...
Wish me luck folks!!!