Ed Sherman of Rising Sun Creations in San Diego, California, who started the most recent debate on competing with chains (see 'Ed Sherman of Rising Sun on Anime at Best Buy'), and prompted considerable response (for example, see 'Mike Pascuzzi of Media Blasters on Anime Competition'):

I feel that I need to elaborate more on the points that I made before.  I hear what all of you are saying, and I agree completely, but let me present the following scenario to those of you that sell comics.  How would your comic specialty store do if suddenly all of the major comic publishers started selling directly to the chain book stores and other mass merchants and giving them a 10-20% better discount on comics than they give to you, as well as delivering these comics at least a week before you get your comics.  Then these merchants sold them at a minimum of 20% off of SRP.  You would have to be really creative to overcome that!  Well, if you want to sell anime, that is the situation that confronts you as a small specialty retailer.

I understand Mike Pascuzzi's outlook.  I have spoken with other anime and manga company representatives and they tell me the same thing.  But how can they expect specialty retailers to sell more of their product when the above scenario is being played out?  American anime companies have virtually insured that specialty retailers will never be able to increase their sales of anime.  How does this benefit anyone?

Mike says that specialty retailers offer things that mass merchants do not, such as better service and better selection.  I completely agree.  That is all the more reason that anime companies should treat us better by dealing direct with us and giving us competitive discounts instead of forcing us to deal with distributors who take away our profit margins and get the product to us late.

The main reason that anime companies say they do not want to deal direct with us is because of the logistical problems involved in shipping to us.  Well then why are they drop shipping directly to individual mass merchant retail locations?

In closing, I issue this challenge to American anime and manga companies.  Give specialty retailers a fair shot at increasing sales of your products with some kind of trial program allowing them to buy direct at better prices.  The downside would be that you were inconvenienced for a few months if it did not work out.  The upside would be that you create a whole new legion of retail outlets that sell a lot of your product!  You should ask Marvel and DC how much money they make off of specialty retailers.

The opinions expressed in this Talk Back article are solely those of the writer, and do not reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.