fujishig

I just think it's dumb to solicit new volumes when the old ones aren't readily available, it just cuts down your audience. With something like One Piece I can understand, but if you solicit, say, Jim Lee X-men volume 2, you should at least have plans to reprint volume 1 if it's no longer available.

rocket1312

I swear I went to order Uncanny X-men volume 4 earlier this year after missing the preorder cutoff for tales of wonder by like a day or two and it was already gone. Looks like Amazon has it available now, but I definitely ended up paying more than I had for any other omnibus besides the oop x-men Inferno I bought a few years back.

slop101

Not "months". Lately, there's been more than a few book, even popular ones where you'd assume a higher print run, that are sold out within a day or two.

B5Erik

OK, I stopped using Tales of Wonder as 2021 was a major disappointment from them. They didn't send notification when they shipped my orders (mostly pre-orders), and instead of having items shipped out on or before the release date they shipped a week or two later. And when I sent e-mails asking for help it would take them 3 to 6 days to get back to me.

They were so good in 2019 and 2020. I loved them.

Cheap Graphic Novels has been OK. They take a week or so to ship the items when they're in stock, and then from the, "Shipping," date USPS doesn't actually receive the packages for 5 or 6 business days. They're only 80 miles away from me, but from their supposed ship date it still takes about 10 days to receive the order. But they do send shipping confirmation with tracking numbers, something that Tales of Wonder stopped doing early last year.

So how is InStockTrades doing? Any improvement over last year? I'd love to find a new e-tailer that discounts the books. I don't want to go through Amazon because their prices are too high.

Any other decent sources?

davidh777

I was satisfied with my order from Organically Priced Books.

Paul_SD

MAJOR improvement with my last IST order (last week). I hadn't realized they'd moved operation to Illinois, but that seems to have made a huge difference. My books were picked the next day, and while my tracking # was goofed up, the same order still arrived by that weekend.
Placed Monday, received Friday. When is the last time IST turnaround was that quick? Has it ever been?

I just got off another order an hour ago, which contains a book they took over a month trying to get, and still had to cancel, last fall. We'll see how this one goes. Though TBH, I'm in no real hurry for it anyway.

slop101

Yeah, they're a newer retailer, and I've been using them recently, and they're fantastic!
You can pre-order 'till your heart's content (the other shops have none, or weird pre-order processes), and they ship things out the second they get them in, packaged really well. They're a tiny bit more expensive than the other retailers, but, they constantly throw discount codes at you that bring their prices down to pretty much match the other guys.

https://organicpricedbooks.com/

Trevor

I still use DCBS for the 50% off most omnibuses and many other collections and singles.
Past the pre-order deadline, I tend to use their sister site, InStockTrades.

joltman

Unfortunately the Marvel stuff isn't 50% off anymore, but it's still a higher discount than IST (46% off vs 38% off)

Paul_SD

My IST order from late Tuesday/early Wednesday is now showing as picked and scanned.

It's possible that I'd made that previous order late Sunday night/ early Monday morning which is why is why it got picked and shipped so quickly.
If I had to guess, I'd say Monday is probably their slowest day for incoming orders, and Tuesday/Wednesday just the opposite.

Still a major turnaround from the last couple years. Though I'm cutting back quite a bit this year, I'm happy to see them become a more reliable source again.

The Questyen

My last 2 In Stock Trade orders have taken almost a month just to ship let alone get to me. My last order was placed on February 1st and I received half the books two weeks ago and the rest haven't even been picked yet.

Maxflier

Just ordered a few things from them this morning.
Question for future reference, do they charge right away for pre-orders? Or not until the book actually releases?
***EDIT*** Nevermind, found the answer in the FAQ, they charge immediately.

Spiderbite

I like In-Stock Trades but they could be a little better on the turnaround. Is it one guy doing it all because it sure seems like it?

My last two orders both just sat for several weeks and then I would get an email advising one of the items was not available and asking if I wanted to make a swap. I would quickly respond and then it might take another week to get the response for it back.

I never get a shipping confirmation and usually have to email them after a month to check if the order was shipped. And then again, it may just randomly show up at my door but never quickly.

That being said, their prices are usually great and their packing is outstanding. Stuff comes mint, period! It is not like ordering a book from Amazon and receiving a book loosely placed with one little bubble packet in a oversized box so every corner is bent to fuck by the time it gets to me.

B5Erik

I just ordered a Thor Epic Collection from Organic Priced Books. I'm giving them a shot. $2.00 coupon along with the free shipping made it a reasonable price if they can get it to me in a reasonable amount of time.

The Questyen

Still have only received 9 out of the 20 books I ordered even though everything is in stock and it's been over 2 months now. I've reached out to customer service twice now and both times there response was that the books hadn't been pulled yet from their warehouse so they didn't have any update on when they would be shipped.

slop101

THEY usually get it out right away, but since they usually ship using Media-Mail (unless you ask otherwise), the bottleneck can be with USPS.
They even put a note in there for postal inspectors, having to explain that these comics do qualify for media mail, as unlike regular comics, they don't contain ads. Which means there must have been instances of post office returning books, assuming they don't qualify for media-mail.

B5Erik

Yeah, I get the shipping time for Media Mail. I'm glad they're in Texas, though, as I've had really fast results (by Media Mail standards) when receiving items shipped from Texas. (TX to CA seems to be faster than any other state to state shipment for some reason.)

Maxflier

Well not a good first experience with Organic Priced Books so far. 3 of the 4 books from my order are now backordered. And I'm sure they are out of print now since they are Marvel Omnibus.

PhantomStranger

A fairly large order I placed last week with InStockTrades arrived within only a few days. I was actually surprised how quickly it shipped out.

Josh-da-man

Unless something has changed, In Stock Trades is owned by DCBS (Discount Comic Book Service), which is also Lunar Distribution, which is DC Comics' exclusive comics distributor, so I don't think it's one guy.

I've had some IST orders take a while to ship. I think the issue is that, contrary to their name, they don't actually have everything in stock and sometimes it takes a while for things to come back in stock from their distributors (Diamond or whoever). I think the "In Stock" part means things that are currently available from the publishers, not they have some kind of massive warehouse with everything that's in print. With most distributors selling on a non-returnable basis, I don't think that's feasible for a single retailer selling at deep discounts.

slop101

I've only ever pre-ordered from them, and they've always shipped out as soon as the book would be released.
I've never bought something they already had in stock. I have noticed that they don't list books they don't have on hand, but I assume that's not always the case, which I guess is what happened to you?

Maxflier

They do still list some stuff that is backordered (and labeled as such), but they obviously don't keep up with their inventory because the 3 I ordered that are now backordered were not listed as being on backorder when I ordered them.

Maxflier

I did receive all of my books today from Organic Priced Books today despite some of them being backordered, so consider me pleased. Will definitely order from them again.

B5Erik

I got my order from OPB about 10 days after it shipped (which was 3 days after I paid for it).

Not bad the way things are going these days - and it would have been delivered in 6 days (7 tops) if a local Post Office facility didn't hold the package for 3 1/2 days rather than forwarding it out on time.

Their prices aren't great, but so far they seem reliable.

I've had decent luck from Cheap Graphic Novels. It seems to take them about 3 days after creating the label to get the package to the post office, but after that it's smooth sailing. And their prices are great. And they do send out an e-mail with tracking info right away (which Tales of Wonder USED TO DO, but doesn't do anymore).

Paul_SD

Placed a small order yesterday at IST.

One item was a new release this week. The other was released about four-five months back.
Both have since been picked and scanned, and the shipping label with tracking # created.

IST had several shaky years there, but this year they've been fully on the ball.