From: Mike_Quigley@mindlink.bc.ca (Mike Quigley)
Newsgroups: rec.video
Subject: Re: Attention Canucks!
Date: 31 Jul 92 15:23:30 GMT
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Distribution: world

In response to query about Laserland, a video store in Mississauga, Ont., John
Hofbauer writes:
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I've visited their store a few times over the past year.  ...  Their prices are
generally about $5 higher on circa $40 discs than Sam the Record/Video Man and
another small dealer I regularly visit. ... For example, I picked up the new
letterboxed "Annie Hall" for $29.95 at Sam's today, which also happens to be
the U.S. list price, so taking the exchange rate into account, you can't get it
this cheap in the States!!
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Laserland's prices are about $5 more expensive on the disks which are sold at
Sam's in Vancouver as well. However, the Vancouver store has a policy where
they get only one copy of most new releases, and if it's bought right away, it
isn't restocked for weeks or even months. When their video department first
opened, I bought both Ben-Hur and Spartacus. These weren't restocked for at
least another six months! Although the Vancouver Sam's seems to get the new MGM
and MCA releases pretty quickly, I haven't seen too many Warner Bros. new
releases. Where are the copies of JFK for example?

The prices of laser disks in Vancouver is on the whole not cheap. (For example,
I too picked up the LBX Annie Hall for $34.95 at Sam's yesterday -- I guess it
costs $5 to ship it out here or something. Still, this is the cheapest price in
town.) One store here charges $70 for $39.95 US list price material (and
they're not dealing with Canadian distributors, like Sam's they have their own
distribution set up in the States!). However, they periodically have sales with
40% off all stock, which lowers the price to $42 and an ongoing permanent deal
where you can get up to 38% off, IF you pay cash and IF you buy 15 or more
disks!

When you take Laserland's price of $44.99 for a Warner Bros. or MGM $39.95 US
list price disk, consider the fact that I don't have to pay the Ontario or BC
sales tax (8% and 7% respectively) if ordering from them, plus their UPS
shipping rates ($5 for up to 3 disks), the price difference between Laserland
and the above-mentioned store and the fact I might get the disks quicker than
waiting for Sam's, it really isn't such a bad deal.

John also writes:
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Voyager/Criterion is another story.  They are distributed by Polygram in Canada
and the markup is ridiculous, particularly on the expensive CAV sets.
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This is hard to understand. Polydor also distributes DGG classical CDs and the
price of these is not proportionately high to that in the States. In fact, it's
often a lot cheaper. The Karajan Beethoven Symphony box has sold at A&B Sound
in Vancouver in the low $20 range (again in Canadian bucks, that's about 15-20%
cheaper than US $). I guess their pricing on the Criterion disks is motivated
by greed (seems in keeping with what I consider Criterion's "snobby" image).


--
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"TV dinner by the pool -- I'm so glad I finished school." -- Frank Zappa
From: rjn@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Bob Niland)
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 22:04:37 GMT
Subject: Re: Laser disk Players and some questions
Organization: Hewlett-Packard/WSY Ft.Collins,CO,USA