Posted in: Comics, Current News | Tagged: diamond, olive branch

Diamond Comics' Only Distribution Centre Is Temporarily Closed

Diamond Comics' only remaining distribution centre, Olive Branch in Mississippi, is temporarily closed due to weather.

Published Sat, 11 Jan 2025 07:57:07 -0600

Last updated Sat, 11 Jan 2025 08:03:06 -0600

Article Summary

Diamond Comics' Olive Branch distribution center closed due to severe weather, halting shipments.
Retailers face delays and disruptions, unable to obtain comics as swiftly as expected.
Retailers like Rod Lamberti struggle with customer retention amid Diamond's logistic woes.
Chris Powell of Geppi Family emphasizes needed changes and tests to improve distribution.

Recently, Diamond Comic Distributors closed all but one of their distribution centres, Olive Branch, in Mississippi. Yesterday, they informed retailers that they had temporarily closed Olive Branch "due to inclement weather." This is not great news for anyone, with no other centre to pick up the slack. This comes at a bad time for Diamond, which have been suffering repeated problems with comic stories, publishers, and joining the two together.

Diamond Comics Is Making Me So Stressed I Can't Sleep — Diamond Comics Logo

Rod Lamberti of Rodman Comics, Ankeny, Iowa, tells us, "I understand that, some of my customers seem to think I have lost the ability to order after a decade of doing it. My Diamond shipment from last week went from hanging out at Memphis since last week, to Kansas today, so who knows when it will finally show up. Did get Lunar yesterday for next week. One of my customers was nice enough to let me know another store in central Iowa received all of their Diamond yesterday. So now it will be a case of how many give up on me to get their comics. Hopefully, Diamond can get it together."

Then adding, "Tracking shows Diamond from last week is due in this week. Nothing at all though for tracking for next week's Diamond shipment. If Diamond does make it in today, that will be three different days of checking in comics, not exactly a good time. Need to start a pool, how many more weeks until Diamond gets back to "normal"?"

It may be a while. Chris Powell, Chief Sales & Service Officer of Diamond's owner Geppi Family Enterprises has stated, "This process is not working as it needs to, obviously, but modifying it takes time. Ideally, changes would have been planned and tested while we continued to operate as we had been at Plattsburgh. With that no longer an option, we must make changes and test them with live data and shipments while trying to minimize the impact on retailers. We are considering many options, and they will almost certainly involve additional changes from the way we have operated in the past."

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