For the third year in a row, comics retailers graded the three distributors, Diamond, Lunar, and Penguin Random House Publisher Services (PRHPS), on a variety of different metrics in a survey administered by ComicsPRO. Preliminary results were revealed at the ComicsPRO meeting on Friday morning of Comic-Con International in San Diego.
Retailers ranked the three distributors on a scale of 1 to 5.
- PRHPS scored highest in the categories of customer service, sales and marketing support, selection of items to order, and time and ability to replenish;
- Lunar got top marks for minimizing damages to comics and graphic novels and ease of making payments;
- Diamond ranked highest in ease of damage reporting, ease of ordering from the platform, and point-of-sale integration with their data.
When all the scores were averaged, PRHPS got 3.88 and Lunar got 3.91, which ComicsPRO VP Jenn Haines said was essentially a tie; Diamond had an average score of 3.42.
Both Diamond and PRHPS had higher average scores than in 2023, while Lunar slipped lower. In terms of specific categories,
- PRHPS showed improvement in minimizing damages to comics, ease of ordering, POS integration with their data, and selection of items to order;
- Lunar also did better in ease of ordering, POS integration, and selection;
- Diamond improved in terms of shipping costs, customer service, minimizing damages to comics, and ease of ordering.
This year’s survey included responses from 166 individuals representing 230 storefronts, with respondents split evenly between ComicsPRO members and non-members. The stores varied in size and location: 34% had a single employee and 20% had over 10; 88% of respondents were in the U.S. and every region of the country was represented.
For the 2023 results, see “ComicsPRO Survey“.
Source: ICV2
