Rocket Bomber - article - rankings - commentary - Categories - Classifications - and Comments

I used to do a commentary on each of the charts posts. Or at least that was the plan; did I ever manage it on a weekly basis?

Before I start the commentary (only tangentially related to the recently posted rankings, perhaps) this week, I’ll burden you with the usual 5 paragraphs (well, 5 and a half) on methodology:

I always knew that Books-a-Million takes quite a while to update their site and that they typically include quite a bit more historical data than is really necessary (Exhibit A: I Luv Halloween) but even the slooow updates were OK as long as new titles managed to filter in at the bottom. But now BAMM hasn’t updated anything in their [manga] bestsellers for three weeks. As much as I hate to part with any data, garbage data does me no good. Last week I downgraded BAMM to a top 200 (plus 100 titles at one point each) before I ran the chart; this week I went ahead and pulled all the scores for BAMM’s 300 down to 1 point each — and while I would typically load up 2 weeks worth of scores for each site there’s no point if both sets are the same.

Next week, unless someone wakes up or their dot-com guy comes back from vacation or whatever, BAMM is getting dropped. If you know of a decent sales site that might be even a partial replacement, drop a link in the comments.

Short of someone opening up the Perfect Comic Sales Site between now and Friday, it’ll just mean a hit at the top of the rankings. Amazon, B&N, and Borders become that much more important (well, incrementally more important) but actually not much will change — the top 50-60 volumes will still be Naruto, Death Note, Bleach, and Naruto with a leavening of Fruits Basket, Vampire Knight, and Warriors-stupid-cat-sorta-manga.

I could probably write a program to randomly shuffle the titles and spit out a chart —and even including the time I’d need to, you know, *learn* a programming language it’d still take up less of my week than the current spreadsheet. (Some days it seems like I’ve taken a part-time data entry job.)

In lieu of fixing what isn’t really a problem at the top, I’m going to add even more data to the bottom. As I noted in the commentary on the Q2 consolidated Rankings, my currently-favoured method for adding data to the chart is to set up a tie for last place: after entering and scoring the data that ‘matters’ I keep going through another 100 or 200 titles on a site but only score these at one point each. None of this is moving Naruto out of the top spot, but this method isn’t about the Manga Top 500 —it’s a parallel process to track the ‘long tail’. New titles get added to my cogwork computational engine, to the tune of about 100 volumes a week. I’ll be expanding the process past the Amazon-B&N-Borders core starting, well, tonight with this week’s batch of site checks.

This is the new game, I’m enjoying it quite a bit. :) Except, you know, the 7-8 hours of data entry every week.

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Needless to say, I spend a lot of time looking at online sales sites. I’m starting to get a feel for the customer base that shops online, and I’d like to share some of my impressions with you. (Attn. fellow bloggers: if you like, you can copy this shortcut link and skip the boring stuff above)

The Five (well, 5 and a half) Types of Online Manga Shoppers.

1. Trufans/Obsessives/Serious Nerds.

These are the folks who load up Amazon every week to see if the latest volume of Ecchi Omnimanga Robot or whatever has been added to the site. And when I say “latest” we’re talking about the 2009 releases. It’s takes a special, something, to like a title so much that you obsess over future volumes almost as much as you do over the ones you already own — dozens of volumes, in some cases. Having found the 2011 special hardcover release, The trufan is breaking out the plastic to make sure their copy is queued up, pre-ordered, and ready to go.

Habits: preorders 7-9 months in advance (why?)
Likes: right now — Naruto vol 33 (or maybe 34), Berserk 26, Blade of the Immortal 20

2. The Subscribers.

The subscriber has given up on trekking to the store every Wednesday; they know what they like—maybe they add a new series every 6 months or so— but for the most part they log on to buy the latest volumes of their favs, and that’s it.

Most subscribers have been fans since the beginning (or caught up quickly years ago) so they don’t mind the hard-to-find middle volumes or out-of-print early volumes that are an insurmountable curb to the rest of us. They already know the release schedule (unlike trufans they know how to use the pubishers’ web sites, not just Amazon) so they also typically buy books the same week they’re released.

Habits: buys vol n+1. And that’s pretty much it.
Likes: Kare Kano, Basara, Faeries’ Landing, Boys over Flowers, Zatch Bell, Dragon Knights, Bastard!, Flame of Recca, Fushigi Yugi, Yakitate!! Japan.

3. Yaoistas.

Either because they don’t have a Borders around the corner, or their Local Comics Shop says “ya-what now?”, or they’re just embarrassed to bring it up to the cashier — Yaoi Sells like Hotcakes online. And honestly, if you have a favourite manga-ka or like the output of, say, 801 Media and will purchase everything they put out — online may be (probably is) the only way to go.

Habits: Buys Yaoi. Just Yaoi. And a lot of it.
Likes: Androgynous bishies in compromising situations.

4. Penny Pinchers.

Your standard-issue scrooge, with a hankering for manga. A penny pincher will spend hours, checking 12 or 15 sites, just to find the one site selling volume X of First Love Heartbreak Duel for $6.34 rather than $6.52.

Penny Pinchers probably account for all the sales at Buy.com, Deepdiscount.com, Tower, Virgin, Fye, Overstock, E-Bay, any manga sales at the primarily anime-DVD sites, or anywhere else that isn’t a comic or bookstore. (tip: Hey guys, give the kids another 2-3 years, and you will probably be able find complete runs of Bleach and Naruto at garage sales for a song.)

Habits: Waits months for the latest sale at RightStuf before buying anything — then stocks up on 50 DrMaster or Netcomics titles.
Likes: Saving Money. And manga… but mostly saving money.

5. Collectors/Casual Readers.

Most of us shop for and buy manga at our retailer of choice (chain bookstore, LCS, right out of the box in the back room before the customers can even see it — but maybe that’s just me. :) ) but occasionally one will see only the latest volume on the shelves, and quite often will see, say, volume 9 of a particular series and maybe volumes 1 & 2, but bugger all for the books in between.

“This looks great, but where’s volume five?” or even “where’s volume one?”

Habits: Buys online when they have to.
Likes: Everything, I guess. This type of buying behavior is the only reason I can think of that Naoki Urasawa’s Monster vol 5 outranks everthing in the series except the most recent volume, or why any of the middle Yu-gi-oh Duelist volumes show up in my charts.

—

and the half

The lesser half.

There is a growing contingent of ‘customer’ that may window-shop at stores — or ‘shop’ at a store as much as that entails hanging out, grabbing a cup of coffee, taking advantage of the wi-fi and ample reading material and a quiet place to take a quick siesta and a commandeered outlet to charge the mobile and the occasional stoopid question for the booksellers — but for whatever reason, after wasting an afternoon (or a day) at the bookstore he then goes home to buy all of his books online.

Way to stick it to The Man, brave hipster revolutionary guerrilla! Maybe you should support your local bookseller instead — and in place of that daily $4 macchiatto you should use your mad online shopping skillz to find and buy Fair Trade coffee to support economically-oppressed family farmers.

The Man (bookstore variant) signs my paychecks. Both of us hate your guts. However, the margins on coffee are excellent, so I’ll be my usually smiling, sunny self when you come into the store tomorrow when we open at 9am. Again. You Prick.

(don’t you have a job?)

Sorry. A bit off point there.

So those are my impressions of the online shopper demographics — Do you think I missed anyone?