At least, judging by what I saw at my local comic book store, it was!
When I got there around 11:00 this morning, I was flabbergasted to see that there was a line-up out the door. I laughed, and then promptly got in line. It moved pretty well, but it was still probably 10 minutes before I actually got into the store itself.
They'd set up the free fare at the back of the store, which was a clever move because I saw a lot of people checking out the (non-free) stuff on the shelves as they waited to get to the area with the complimentary swag. When I asked the owner if he was actually making any sales, he assured me that he was. He's told me in the past that he loves Free Comic Book Day because it usually brings him a few new customers each year that end up sticking around (becoming regulars). It sounds like he spends several hundred dollars on the "free" stock each year (I think a typical FCBD issue costs the store about $0.30 - $0.40) and his perspective on that is that it's essentially his annual advertising budget. As he said to me recently, "Anytime I can spend a few hundred bucks and bring hundreds of people into the store who wouldn't have heard about us otherwise, I'll take it!"
I got the 4 freebies that I wanted as well as last week's regular haul. And for once I didn't really mind standing in line, because I love seeing that kind of activity in my favourite store! Did anyone else make it out to a comic store, and if so: any good stories?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Free Comic Book Day is GREAT!! My oldest dragged me out at 10AM to start the day...we finished around 1PM.
It' great for diversifying his interest, introducing new characters at no cost to him.
Not to mention he had damn near 20 books by the time we were done.
Post a Comment