Amazon is taking steps to enter the digital comics market and there are many people shaking right now. This is a market Amazon should not even be in right now, and it is not the smartest business move they have made over the years. The buzz might be high right now in San Diego at Comic-Con about Amazon and digital comics, but take a few moments to think this through.
This is Expected
Amazon is like Wal-Mart in the fact that if there is a new market which could potentially be cornered, it will be. The comic book companies have been making noise about digital comics for a few years now, so it would make sense that Amazon would smell the potential blood and attack. I don’t think Amazon did all the homework for this assignment.
Where are the Numbers?
Yes, the comic book industry has been boasting about digital comics, but where are the hard numbers? Why haven’t the Big 2 or ComiXology given us numbers as to how many new release comics are being sold every month as compared to the number which are being illegally downloaded? What is the ratio of digital comics on sale sold to the number of new digital comics sold? Where is the logic behind the idea of digital comics being the end-all-be-all in the industry when after a few years with digital comics, the physical comic book market continues to rise? If the digital comics market was a great one to get in to, why is there so much secrecy about the numbers involved?
Who Should be Worried?
With Amazon entering the digital comics market, I don’t see a long future for ComiXology. How can there be when the largest online seller gets into the market which you believe you had cornered? Amazon will drop countless dollars behind funding the sale of digital comics just to push ComiXology out of the water.
Why Retailers Should Not be Worried
Comic book retailers should not be freaking out right now. Some might say, “Look at what Amazon did to Borders!” What did Amazon do to Borders? The online retailer sure did not put the bookseller out of business. Borders killed Borders.
Long before digital books came out, Borders struggled through a series of bad mistakes – their own and other’s. Borders spent years dealing with trying to find the correct balance between having enough staff to take care of customers and keeping overhead down. The company was years behind other companies which were selling books through their websites. They were late getting to the digital book market and introduced a horrid e-reader. They were bought out by Kmart and struggled until they spun off as another company and struggled to find its place. Borders was plagued by issues for a long time before it closed, and Amazon had little, if anything, to the ending of the company.
Amazon has Been Selling Physical for a Long Time
Amazon has not killed comic book stores at this point have they? If I am correct, there have been more new comic book stores popping up in the last few years than closing. Many comic book stores are expanding and talking about having months where profits are the best they have been in decades. Amazon has been selling physical comics, trades, and hardcovers for years. Don’t you think they would have killed the comic book stores years ago if they could? They can’t. The comic book industry is kept floating by people who love going each week to their local comic book store and by those who want physical comics to store and wait for increases in value. Digital comics don’t offer either one.
