More West Coast Problems

I am really feeling bad for you folks whose comic books come out of Diamond's L.A. warehouse. Last week there were a bunch of good comics that didn't get shipped. This week something's happened to the bulk of their Civil War #6 shippments. I know that people like blogger Heidi Meeley from Comics Fairplay have endured several weeks where her comic book store owner didn't get his shipments or only a part of the shipments.

Diamond likes to blame UPS or other things, but the truth is that the L.A. warehouse needs some help. They're having problems out there and they've been going on for at least 2 months. During the holiday season they seem especially pushed past their capacity to effectively serve customers. While I do think they try, the problem is that there isn't any competition for them and so they don't have to rush to fix problems. They don't have any penalty for late comics, where the retailers can see customers get frustrated and switch to mail-order or decide to give up on comics.

Last year around this same time our warehouse in New York had some shipping problems - basically they were the ones who packed up our boxes, but then instead of shipping them right from there, they were trucking them to the Memphis TN warehouse, where UPS would pick them up. This was done because it wasn't possible a few years ago for UPS to get shippments to us in the midwest from New York in time for a Wednesday release, but they could get here on-time out of TN. Unless, of course, the truck that was delivering them from NY to TN was too late and the UPS pick-up got there first. That's what happened to us last year, so for about 4 weeks our shipments were a day late. It was quite frustrating! So, I know what the folks out on the west coast are experiencing now. And of course it seems like it's always around this holiday season, when stores are trying to get lots of product in, and quickly, and everyone is a little bit more stressed than usual.

I had provided my customers with snail mail and email addresses to Diamond's service center and the warehouse manager. We did hear from folks at Diamond and they worked with us to fix the problems. While I can't say that it was my customers who got Diamond back on track, I don't think it hurt to bug them. Below are the snail mail and email for the Diamond service center and L.A. warehouse. If you are frustrated by these delays, even if you aren't in the West Coast and want to show your support of those poor, unfortunate people out there, feel free to use these addresses to contact Diamond. They have no competition, so while I do think they try to do a good job, they don't really have to rush to fix problems because retailers can't go somewhere else and get comics. So, hopefully the outcry of the public will help get them to make some fixes over at the L.A. warehouse.

Home Office
Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc.
1966 Greenspring Drive, Suite 300
Timonium, MD 21093
Phone: (410) 560-7100

service@diamondcomics.com


LOS ANGELES DISTRIBUTION CTR. #14
Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc.
2012 Abalone Avenue, Unit B
Torrance, CA 90501

Regional Mgr - James Nash
14njames@diamondcomics.com

Now, if my Diamond shipments accidentally get lost next week, I guess I'll know that they're reading my blog.