You can judge a comic book by it's cover

Any vet in the world of publishing be it mainstream or comic books will always confirm the cover is key to capturing the attention of any potential reader and therefore potential sale in any retail establishment.

Here is proof positive the editors at DC don't follow that train of thought.

These are the upcoming covers for Superman. DC Comics number one icon. A four color, larger than life superhero that can perform any remarkable act any artist can imagine. Out of a sea of titles on any retail shelf...who the hell would look twice at these?

And yes, the storyline is a dull and interor art is as subpar as this would lead one to believe. Save your pennies. Better yet, support your local comic shop and buy a back issue from 75 years of Superman publishing.

You'll be much more satisfied in the end.

Target steps backwards to offer the Kindle to your Grandma

The big retail news of the week: Target will start selling the Kindle in it's stores for Amazon.com exclusively in the mass market.

For a retailer who prides itself on offering far trendier merchandise and marketing than most, this is a puzzling move. While the digital book reader was hot for 5 minutes last Christmas, it is already outdated technology since the arrival of Apple's ipad.

This is akin to Target touting they are the exclusive retailer of black & white television after color TV arrives.
How Target's buyers could even imagine this was a great idea is beyond comprehension. By the fall Holiday shopping season, it will be clear that the number one gift requested will be the ipad. The only ones who are going to be receiving the Kindle will be grandparents who don't know any better or pay attention to them "new fangled contraptions" and very unfortunate teens who despite asking for the ipad will get the Kindle because either the gift giver is technologically illiterate or simply because the Kindle was cheaper.

Which means at that point both Amazon and now Target will be banking on the hopes that the consumer of the Kindle will be the technically illiterate.
Amazon would continue to have far better luck trying to sell this doorstop online and not allow the consumer to have a hands on, side by side comparison of the two products. You are going to now allow a potential consumer to play with the Kindle in a Target store, and then pop over to their local Best Buy and check out an ipad. How would you expect 99% of those purchasing decisions are going to play out?

The other interesting aspect of this story is the partnership between the two companies. Target.com has for years been tethered to the Amazon.com's ecommerce platform. Last year, Target made the decision to leave Amazon and are currently spending millions of dollars constructing their own platform from scratch. The complete break and relaunch is currently set for mid to late 2011. When the economy tanked in late 2008, so did Target.com's online traffic and sales. They have been in freefall since while Amazon as seen record traffic and profits in a down economy. Amazon is indisputably on track to rival Wal-Mart domestically in sales in this decade. Target finally realized that Amazon could very well end up their number one competitor and needed to quickly get out of bed with the former partner.

So it's interesting that the two are excited about partnering up now on this particular venture. Just can't see the advantage for either side here. Target selling an out-of-date, overpriced text reader and Amazon actually letting the item be compared to the ipad at mass. Perhaps Target thinks they are sticking it to Apple...sending them a message. Not that Apple could give a shit. Apple doesn't need any one retailer out there.

So if you are in the market for a Kindle for your Grandparents, just stick around and wait until it's in Target's clearance aisle for $30.

TRU on the rise

Nothing but happy news coming out of the Toys-R-Us headquarters today.

Earnings for the 4th Quarter of 2009 were up 12% but up 43% for the entire year. On top of this, TRU was clearly carving market share out from both Wal-Mart and Target. Each lost at least a point of market share in the toy category although we would guess in specific categories the loss for each was greater in the 4th quarter. (We know for a fact that Target lost market share in the Boys Action category last year.) TRU was much more aggressive in marketing themselves during the Holidays than Target was. And unlike Target's team, TRU is likely to be just as aggressive again this fall and apply lessons learned from the past year.

Based on the details of this week's report for TRU, many analysts are high on the company's future. In fact, it's reported that TRU is very likely to finally go public with an IPO offering at some point later this year. Probably late in the second quarter to maximize the positive performance in 2009, while the toy industry is on the upswing in 2010 and before holiday competition heats up in the fall again.

Read all the juicy details of the TRU financial report here.

As we've observed before, this has been an amazing turnaround for a retailer who was on the ropes three years ago. It also remains a fact that a healthy Toys-R-Us means a healthy toy industry as a whole. It will once again be very interesting to see how the big retailers compete again in the Holiday shopping season of 2010. Hopefully, they will all get over the fear of inventory and start keeping them pegs stocked up again and keep assortment turnover rolling once more.

Best Toy Retailer of 2009 - TRU

Toys-R-Us has good reason to celebrate the 2009 Holiday shopping season. The company released their December 2009 financials today and despite difficult economic challenges in the marketplace, they had a very positive December.

WAYNE, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--January 07, 2010-- Today, Toys"R"Us, Inc., the world's leading dedicated toy and baby products retailer, announced its comparable store sales for the month of December and the 2009 holiday selling season.

For the month of December, the Toys"R"Us, Inc. Domestic division reported a comparable store sales increase of 4.6%, while the International division reported a comparable store sales increase of 1.1%.

"We are very pleased with our December results, which reflect the successful execution of our overall strategy for the holiday selling period," said Jerry Storch, Chairman and CEO, Toys"R"Us, Inc. "This strategy focused on our breadth of product assortment, including the hottest toys, a commitment to quality products, providing good value, and offering expert service. Our toy authority position was clear, as consumers turned to us in increasing numbers for their toy buying needs this holiday season."

We watched the marketing of the major retailers closely over the 2009 shopping season and could tell TRU had finally put a very solid game plan together to compete against the likes of Wal-Mart and Target. They had it all covered.

* Competitive pricing out of the gates starting in October linked with strong marketing that never let up with compelling circular and television ads.

* Strong inventory control, finally! This is where TRU had the most difficulty over its history and just had too much of everything. This year, they planned ahead by backing off on lines that are lower in demand while pumping up the sure fire brands such as Lego. TRU was the only major retailer left with decent Lego selection still on shelf late in December. Both Target and Wal-Mart were completely wiped out by then.

* Their buyers displayed insight early when they were the only major retailer that bought into the Zhu Zhu Pets toy line. They then artfully capitalized on it all season with free press as it turned into 2009's hottest toy of the Holiday season. All other retailers played "follow the leader" on this one.

* Video Games, Video Games, Video Games. This is the gift leader that puts traffic in your store in November and December and TRU had some of the best video game deals every single week of the season. Practically every kid out there has some sort of game console (or wants one) and develops a game or accessory want list for Christmas. This is one retailer that knows how to capitalize on this need.

* TRU took a risk and aggressively expanded by opening roughly 80 temporary pop-up holiday stores in shopping malls and about 260 temporary toy stores within Babies-R-Us locations nationwide.

As a hardcore toy guy, I'm very happy for TRU and extremely pleased to see they pulled it off. This is a retailer that has struggled from time to time over the years and made very bad decisions that nearly closed its doors at one point. They have made quite a strong comeback over the past two years. Thanks in part to the leadership of Jerry Storch (A former Target leader).

Of course they still have some work to do with managing their inventory and the buyers need to be better at recognizing when to bail out of poorly selling licenses (Star Trek and Hulk come to mind). But it's absolutely vital to the health and diversity of the toy industry that the world's largest toy retailer remain strong and can compete against the big two. You can imagine how bad it would be for an entire industry if it had to shrink down its offerings to fit into a handful of aisles at a Wal-Mart, Target or even a K-Mart.

We can imagine some serious celebrating going on in Wayne NJ this week. Much deserved.

Mattel's TOYGURU...marketing whiz

Really? First time?! Oh, hell FOR SURE Grandma will drop Batman in the aisle for this treasure!

Mattel's resident fuck-up, TOYGURU, the guy in charge of (destroying, we think) the popular DC Universe brand of action figure lines, must have thought long and hard about how to market the GUARDIAN figure in DC Classics wave 9.

Now in the pecking order of comic heroes, it's hard to imagine you can find a handful of hardcore comic nerds who even know who this character is much less give a shit if he was ever made into a plastic figure.

But Guardian was a smooth body figure that Toyguru found and ol' Toyguru loves to re-use smooth body figures so he won't have to spend any sculpting money on 'em. But apparently 'Guru, knowing a peg-warmer when he sees one, must have decided that this figure needed that certain pizzazz to move him off of the pegs in the toy aisles. And unlike the shit he over shipped to the poor retailers all year like Captain Cold and Gay Blue Aquaman, he determined that this potential loser would need the extra push. So even though the tag means nothing to the moms or kids or even the collectors (they need to buy him anyway) the sticker for the shout out was made!

"FIRST TIME IN 6 INCH!"

Oh! Well is there an 8" version? 3"? 12"? 5.5"? Um, no. But who cares. Wave 9 of the series isn't making it to retailers anyway.

Another example of 'Guru wasting time in the wrong places with this brand. How the idea for such a wasted sticker wasn't laughed out of El Segundo, we'll never know. How does Mattel find 'em?