Sell-through

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Sell-through is the percentage of stock that a retailer actually sells to customers after it’s shipped by a supplier. Net sales mean roughly the same idea, but shown as a number (units or dollars). It’s usually measured over a set period, commonly one month.

Sell-through can refer to sales made directly to customers (direct sales) or to sales through a channel (like distributors). Sell-in, by contrast, is the stock a supplier ships to retailers; sell-through shows how much of that stock is actually sold to end customers.

In comic publishing, before direct-to-market distribution, publishers sent titles to newsstands through distributors. A lot of copies were returned unsold, which publishers often refunded and sometimes damaged for refunds, making returns costly. A typical break-even sell-through was about 50%.

When Marvel rose in the 1960s, its titles were tightly controlled by a distributor. Marvel’s sell-through was about 70%, while National’s was around 50%. Even though Marvel might sell fewer copies overall, they refunded the distributors less money for unsold stock and kept more profit per copy.