News
Diamond to No Longer Restock 1,018 Viz Items
posted on by Egan Loo
The Comics212 website has posted a list of Viz Media items that Diamond Comic Distributors says "will no longer be available for reorder or back order" after Diamond runs out of stock. The vast majority of the items are back-catalog manga volumes, including some from ongoing series such as Zatch Bell, Prince of Tennis, Bastard!!, and Case Closed. There are also DVD volumes and artbooks on the list.
The affected items are still available from other distributors and from bookstores not served by Diamond. For example, Toronto's The Beguiling store (the employer of Comics212's maintainer, Christopher Butcher) will offer all of these affected books through other sources.
Diamond announced the list through a sale notice to its direct market retailers on its website on January 12. While the sale offered a substantial discount, the Diamond noted that "this sale on these items will run until stock levels for those items are depleted. After that time, they will no longer be available for reorder or back order, so retailers are encouraged to stock up without delay."
The sale began before Diamond told publishers that it is raising its purchase order minimum from US$1,500 retail to US$2,500. With certain exceptions, all publishers must now demonstrate that an item can recoup US$2,500 in Diamond's costs in a month for the item to be included in Diamond's system. Publishers Weekly's The Beat blog reported that Diamond had laid off 13 employees late last month.
