IDW Insider

IDW Publishing’s weekly mass Vendor Email to retailers, usually sent on Fridays. The Insider reminds you of titles for which orders are due, promotes current bestsellers and upcoming projects, and relates general news about the company and its books. Each week’s edition is accompanied by a text file containing a customized Final Order Cut-off (FOC) attachment reflecting IDW titles that are on FOC on the following Monday. The attachment reflects quantities you have already ordered of these titles, when applicable, which helps guide you in adjusting your order before the cut-off. You can elect to receive or decline this mailing by visiting the Preferences page of the My Account section on Diamond’s Retailer Services Website.

Image FOC List

A mass Vendor Email, scheduled for sending on Thursdays or Fridays by Diamond to retailers from Image Comics, listing titles that are on Final Order Cut-off (FOC) the following Monday. Each week’s edition is accompanied by a text file containing a customized attachment reflecting Image titles that reflects quantities you have already ordered of the listed titles, when applicable, which helps guide you in adjusting your order before the cut-off. You can elect to receive or decline this mailing by visiting the Preferences page of the My Account section on Diamond’s Retailer Services Website.

Incentive/Promo Shipping Policy

A shipping policy where Diamond, in cooperation with its vendors, requires incentive items that are offered to retailers based on their orders for a product (i.e., 1 signed or variant cover edition of a comic for every 10 regular editions ordered) to ship within 30 days of the ship date of the corresponding product, otherwise those items will become fully returnable under Diamond’s Cancellation Policy. Typically, Incentives are offered in conjunction with Initial Orders or orders placed by a product's Final Order Cut-off Date, meaning that orders placed by those deadlines count towards the number of orders required to qualify for the Incentive. Advance Reorders and Reorders may also count towards Incentive qualifiers at the vendor's discretion.

Please Note: For details on how Diamond calculates incentives for customers with multiple accounts, please click here.

Independent

This catch-all phrase was initially used to describe any of the privately-owned or small publishing companies that began producing comics and competing with Marvel, Archie and the few other established vendors in the early 1970s. However, as the industry has evolved and other companies have prospered, the term is now generally used to describe any publishing company whose monthly sales are less than 5% of the total sales of all companies whose books are ordered by Comic Book Specialty Retailers in a given month.

Initial Order

This is any order for product solicited in PREVIEWS that is submitted to Diamond in writing via the PREVIEWS Retailer Order Form, or electronically using ComicSuite, the Master Data File, Diamond's Retailer Services Website, and other Diamond ordering tools. With the exception of electronic orders placed via or created on the Initial Orders section of the Retailer Services Website, all Initial Orders should be submitted through Diamond's Retailer Services Department. Due dates for Initial Orders are printed on the inside of the PREVIEWS Retailer Order Form; Final Order Cut-off Dates for titles and products solicited by participating vendors are considered to be the deadlines for Initial Orders of those products.

Barring vendor Allocations or Cancellations, product included in an Initial Order is guaranteed to ship. Product ordered after the ordering deadlines is considered an Order Increase, an Advance Reorder or a Reorder, depending on when it is submitted in relation to each product’s respective ship date.

Customers may begin placing online Initial Orders for a given month on the Wednesday following the closing date of Initial Orders for the previous month. i.e., If January Initial Orders close on Friday at 5:00 AM, retailers may begin entering February Initial Orders on the following Wednesday.

Inside Sales Rep Program

A Diamond service designed to inform you about items you may have missed in PREVIEWS. Our Inside Sales Reps frequently canvass accounts with news of various special offers and regularly contact you to keep you informed of noteworthy products you may have underordered, or of special offers connected with products being offered that month. They also provide you with a convenient way to place orders for those items.

In-Stock Merchandise Lists

Located on the Data Files page in the Downloads section of Diamond’s Retailer Services Website, these lists provide customers with individual links to in-stock lists of graphic novels, hardcovers, and trade paperbacks from each of Diamond’s Premier Vendors. The lists are available for download as Excel comma-separated values (.CSV) files, and are updated every two hours.

International Customer

A Diamond customer located outside of the United States.

International Ordering Restrictions

Restrictions noted in PREVIEWS to alert International Customers to any licensed products which Diamond is prohibited from distributing outside of the U.S. due to separate and exclusive international rights held by a vendor. When such restrictions apply to an item solicited in PREVIEWS, the notation for that item reads, for example, “This item is not available in Canada and Australia.” (On the Order Form for PREVIEWS U.K., ordering lines for items that are not available to U.K. customers read simply “N/A UK.”) A general notification of any international ordering restrictions will also be noted in the Caution Code included after an item’s title in the solicitation and in the order form.

Inventory Hub

Diamond’s centralized warehouse and distribution center in Olive Branch, MS, where the majority of all Reorders are processed. See also Direct Ship, Prepack, Reship, Warehouse Management System (WMS).

Invoice

An itemized list detailing the quantity, Order Number, Order Type, Item Code, description, retail price, unit cost and total cost – if applicable – of the products in each shipment you receive from Diamond. This enables you to check every item in your weekly order against any charges on your Diamond account. Your Invoice also lists whether you are receiving credit for a particular product designated as a Shortage, Damage, or an Authorized Return, or for other reasons (such as for Co-Op Advertising), and debits for non-returned Overages and Damages to the Distribution Center.  It also notes if a product ships to you as part of an Overship or incentive program. Once a month, if you are participating in Diamond’s Comic Shop Locator Service, your Invoice will also contain the number of referrals that the Service has made to your store two months earlier. (e.g., The first Invoice you receive in January will contain the number of referrals your store received in November.) In addition to your Invoice, you will also receive a weekly Order Status Report, which lists all Reorder and Cancellation activity for the week. Invoices are generally available for viewing and downloading from Diamond’s Retailer Services Website at 10:00 a.m. each Wednesday the week prior to the shipment, and can be emailed to you as a text file, data file, or PDF. (Retailers not wishing to receive a printed, “hard” copy of their Invoice may opt-out of doing so by visiting the Preferences page of the My Account section of Retailer Services Website Website and taking advantage of Diamond's "Go Green" option.) When applicable, your invoicing also includes a notification that a Damage Return Form is included in your shipment at the top of the invoice immediately following the Order Status Report. As always, Damage Return Forms will be accompanied by A.R.S. labels to facilitate returns.

Invoice E-File

A service whereby Diamond makes the information from your weekly Invoice available to you in a convenient electronic format. Once you receive your Invoice via email – or you download it from Diamond’s Retailer Services Website – as a text file or data file, you can quickly input it into your computerized inventory and/or Point-of-Sale(POS) systems, and efficiently process orders for your customers

ISBN

The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a unique barcode assigned to commercially published books. The ISBN Number is necessary to import those codes into your POS and inventory tracking systems.

Item Code

Each item listed on the PREVIEWS Retailer Order Form and other Diamond publications has a unique code assigned to it that enables Diamond’s computer systems to process orders and generate Invoices. An Item Code is also essential information to have ready anytime you place Order Increases, Advance Reorders or Reorders, or when you are reporting a discrepancy on an Invoice. Each Item Code consists of the month and year in which the item is listed, a four-digit number (determined by the item’s sequence on the Order Form), and the product’s Discount Code. Thus, if an issue of Batman is the 341st item listed in the May, 2012 issue of PREVIEWS, its Item Code on the corresponding Order Form is MAY12 0341. Item Codes are also assigned to all Diamond publications that are issued to customers regularly, as well as most Promo items to ensure that they are being efficiently distributed among customers. See also Parent Code.

Item Status In-stock Indicator



A component of Diamond’s Retailer Services Website that advises you of the status of individual items carried by Diamond. This helps you ascertain not only the availability of a product you wish to Reorder, but also helps you monitor the availability of product you may have on Initial Order. The Item Status of a product is denoted by a small graphic to the left of its item code. The color & shape of the graphic corresponds to the status of the item, and reflects quantities that are present at the Diamond Distribution Center that services your account, or at Diamond’s backlist hub. The Item Status legend is visible in the far left column of the website below the menu options and Item Lookup.


KidsComics.com

Diamond’s online resource for new and upcoming kid friendly/all ages comic books and graphic novels. The mobile-friendly site functions as a web portal to get the most up-to-date news and information on kid-friendly comics & graphic novels. Features include weekly listings for new and upcoming titles, online previews of hot books, games, links to kid-friendly publisher sites, and more. Users can also download a PDF of the Kids Comics PREVIEWS Order Form, which they can complete and take to their local comic shop to place an order.

A major component of the site is the kidscomics.com shop locator, which provides young consumers with information about retailers who have designated their stores to be kid-friendly in their online Comic Shop Locator Service store profiles. To participate on kidscomics.com, retailers must: place initial orders of $200 or more per month at retail of kid-friendly comics and graphics; maintain the $200 minimum per month threshold over each quarter (three-month period); and participate in the Comic Shop Locator Service. Participating retailers are evaluated every quarter to add/delete to the kidscomics.com shop locator service. For more details on qualifying, click here. Retailers who are also kidscomics.com participating stores can have a Badge indicating their participation added to their store profile, identifying them as kidscomics.com participating stores.