CSA can import and leverage a lot of data that a distributor or publisher can supply. But without good data, it can be difficult and time-consuming for retailers to ingest your product. The more time they spend dealing with missing or incorrect data, the less time they've got to sell your product.
 
MONTHLY CATALOG OR FOC LIST
 
The BEST thing you can supply us with is a file that conforms with the COMET standard
 
I know that's a heavy lift, so while you work on getting your COMET exports together, here are some best practices.
 
The VERY minimum we need for a monthly catalog file is
  • Barcode (full barcode, never duplicated, never changed after data is released)
  • SKU they expect to be used when ordering from them (separate column, even if it's the same as the barcode)
  • Title
  • Category
  • MSRP
These are very important and will absolutely increase your sales:
  • Product description
  • Image URL
  • Publisher
  • Release date
  • FOC date
  • Direct Market Series Code (What is this? It's an invaluable sales tool for the direct market. Check out this link for best practices.)
  • Variant cover designation (main cover is 0, first variant is 1, second variant is 2)
  • Issue number
  • Printing
  • Writers (first name last name, comma separating multiple creators)
  • Artist (first name last name, comma separating multiple creators)
  • Cover Artist (first name last name, comma separating multiple creators)
  • Country of origin
We can sell more comics easier with these:
  • PageCount
  • Weight
  • Mature content (Y/N)
  • Adult content (Y/N)