An open letter to our pull box customers. (In-Store only)
December 31, 2019
Golden Apple just finished celebrating 40 years in business and we wanted to personally thank you, as one of our regular subscription customers, for helping us achieve this milestone. We operated for the first 30+ years without offering a pull and hold system to our customers. Golden Apple is one of the oldest comic shops, yet one of the last of our kind to implement this free subscription service for patrons. This was in part because we feared that a day would come when we would have to put strict rules in place. Unfortunately, many individuals have taken advantage of our generosity and that adds up fast for a family owned and operated business. We don’t want a few “Bad Apples” to spoil the bunch so we are writing this letter to inform you of our policies going forward. If you come in regularly and buy all of your books we greatly appreciate you and the rest of this letter will mostly serve as a reminder and be more informative than anything else.
Our service is FREE to join, gives you a 10% discount, and free bags & boards if desired. In order to qualify for this service you must maintain a minimum of 5 actively published monthly titles.
It is your responsibility to let us know what titles you want to subscribe to. You can tell us person, call and/or email us directly at the contact info below to make any changes. We try to be helpful in suggesting titles and/or reminding you of the newly offered titles at the register but ultimately, it is in your hands. Unfortunately, the industry has so many reboots and tie-ins that we can't make everyone happy by assuming things about your reading habits. For example: Thor is rebooting with a new #1 January 1st, with Jason Aaron stepping down to make room for Donny Cates. Some of you are probably very excited for this, and possibly even some who weren't previously subscribed to Thor. Conversely, many fans of Jason Aaron may take this opportunity to step away from the God of Thunder. Literally the only way for us to satisfy our 300+ sub customers is for all of you to tell us your preferences. Hopefully you will have the opportunity to manage your own subscriptions online in 2020 when the new Diamond system takes effect.
Failure to come into the shop on a regular basis to purchase your held titles may cause the cancellation of your subscription.
Ideally, we would like see you at least once a month, but we understand that life gets busy and that's not always feasible. If you are out of town, ill and/or having financial difficulties, please let us know so we can try to figure something out. This would help secure your comics and strengthen our relationship. If we don’t see or hear from you in 2-3 months that will result in a phone call or email from us to make sure you're still interested in your books. If we don't hear back from you via phone or email, and you don't come in to clear out your box within a week of that call, we will be forced to cancel your subscriptions and put your held books back out for sale to the public. Any “hot” or sold-out back issues will be priced at current market value.
Additionally, we are tightening up our policy regarding returning books to the wall that you had asked us to order for you. Put simply: If you ordered it you'll need to purchase it. We have been very relaxed in letting people put things back on the wall without asking us to remove that title from a subscription list. In many cases, this is done without our knowledge resulting in overspending, unsellable overstock and waste. We cannot keep this lax policy in place and will have to be stricter in order to continue to offer this free service.
Please keep in mind that our product orders are turned into the distributor 2 months in advance, so when you cancel a title you may still receive additional issue of that series after cancellation, especially if it is a comic that we only order for you and wouldn’t stock otherwise. If we feel we can sell an issue that you are no longer interested in, you are under no obligation to purchase it. However, if we feel we cannot, you are still responsible for buying them. These distinctions will be at our discretion.
If you are interested in a new independent title, we suggest that you place a special order the first issue rather than subscribing unless you are sure you want at least 3 issues.
The next time you visit Golden Apple, you will receive this letter in an envelope with an enclosed coupon to get a FREE COMIC (valued $3.99 or less) on us. We appreciate your business and hope to fulfill your comic subscriptions for years to come. By adopting these simple changes, you can help us stay in business for another 40 years!
PS: If you don't already have a subscription and want to start one, please ask at the front counter inside Golden Apple anytime and we would be happy to sign you up so you never miss an issue of your favorite comics.
Best Regards,
Ryan Liebowitz
Owner, Golden Apple Comics
Email: orders@goldenapplecomics.com
Shop Phone: (323) 658-6047