Couldn't have said it any better myself, Meets. I'm not at all sure what the point re: sales may be when the manga section is a public library and steal-these-books venue basically. Yes, my store's manga sales have increased some, and yes, Borders does carry more manga than absolutely any other store where I am. But to what end?

We also have nowhere the least bit effective to display and possibly sell all the manga-related crap we're getting. Some of it is really nice stuff, but it makes about as much sense for us to have all these damn t-shirts, stuffed characters, and bags as it does to sell those repulsive catapult things that are worthy only of Spencer's Grossout Stores.

::::::::shudders:::::::::::

Billy Bass!! What a fiasco! Our whole vestibule was filled with them, so whenever someone walked in the door they'd be greeted by 50 fish singing and flapping, just out of sync enough to make you :sick:.

The manga doesn't bother me because half of it is in overstock (it won't all fit) ... I think everybody in the company besides whoever's spearheading the effort to get the stuff in stores is in agreement that its a problem, so no one expects it to sell any better. Easiest shelving job in the whole store, takes about five minutes to see if it will fit and another five to throw it in overstock.

well, i can give you the answer to this one. our(heh-heh) YOUR, genius buyers worked a deal with the manga publishers(or rather had a deal worked on them) that if they wanted dj milky's new opus(with c. love no less, and i'm using this as an example, it wasn't about this particular mange, er..manga) they had to commit to say, 5 of each in the run. or 10 if it was something hot.not what you need or can sell, but what the publisher says you need to take to be able to carry this title.ah smart move.corner the manga market from ann arbor.sweet. well, with ipt's copious amounts of spare time they can constantly go through the manga backstock.

I can't tell you how many times I've rung up a over a hundred dollars worth of manga for one person (often for our employees).
We have a couple of hardcore manga fans working for us and they make sure the section has all the space it needs and is well taken care of (it's on our high shrink catagory so every third book is chickleted).
We've done so well that we are one of the test stores for untranslated manga.
I know that isn't true in every store but I assure you that if it's properly handled manga is a real money maker.
Of course that means not just taking whatever BINC slings your way but making sure there are complete sets.

the problem with manga is that the titles we carry for the most part are ment for younger children with teh few mature titles thrown in. so the taget demographic is one who maybee on average is able to afford 1 book a month. the other problem wtih manga sales is we have a very poor selection in our anime dvd section to support the growing trend of anime to manga or manga to anime. i mean i work in a store where you can read volumes 2 5 and 6 of any particular series and then have to spo the ones before or in between.same witht he anime on dvd, if we made sure to carry the first few of each series it would be better. as an anime fan myself i never jump into the middle of a series if im going to collect it,so why should we suspect people new to the genre to do so?