From: gavigan@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Ryan P. Gavigan)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.anime
Subject: Re: Newbie question: Why does anime cost so much?
Date: 29 Aug 92 05:28:12 GMT
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network


In article <Btq8Ay.69p@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> thwang@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Tommy Hwang) writes:
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>     Sorry, but MSRP means exact what it says, "Manufacture's suggested
>retail price."  Mr. Woodhead do NOT care how much the retailers sells them for.
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>     I know a place that sells them for $25.  and he doesn't care
>how much people are chargine for them.  He already made the
>profit from retail sale.  Also, when you said $19.95, that is if 
>the retailer buys 50 or ore tapes/LDs.  Few retailers will do that.
>Retail prices can be as high as $26.00 for a $39.95 tape.  Finally,
>Animeigo is NOT the only distributor for Animeigo tapes.  Sorry if
>this sounds like a flam, but I DID NOT intend this to be one.  I
>find it necessary for people to understand the retailer's side as well.
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Get, this, the REATILERS hardly EVER buy from AnimEigo.  They buy from 
distributors.  For comic stores that means Diamond, Capitol City, etc, and
for video stores, that's Ingram, Comtron(sp?), WaxWorks, Major Video Concepts,
and over a half a dozen others. THEY buy the ### of tapes at the 50% or so 
discount.  Central Park Media through it's other video products has been 
involved with these video distributors for many years, so they have been able
to take their product (USMC) and the other companies (AE and USR) directly
to these video outlets.


Here's the basic video store food chain

Manufacturer
------------------> Video Wholesalers ----> Chains or individual stores

The WholeSalers get the $19.95 or whatever 50% discount makes it, and for
pre-ordering , the stores get about 35-40% discount.

A couple of chains have sold stuff at $25-30 going along with an experiment
to find the products price elasticity.

This summer I'd been part-time working for a video store and this is how it
works, the retailer gets in the order catalogs from a couple of distributors
they use.  Videos have a PRE-ORDER date and a STREET DATE.  Take a volume
of Kimagure Orange Road as an example.  SRP is $39.95.  Dealer price to the
retailer is about $30-$31 for KOR (lower for USMC's own titles) and the price
for buyiing it before the PRE-ORDER date is about $25-26.

Many store chains buy large sets of videos and distribute through a single
or set of warehouses to the individual stores depending on what the stores
ask for.  

Some of them (like Tower and a few others) have what's called a 
corporate level commitment to the anime videos, which means every store in
their chain will carry the products.  

Then there is BlockBuster, which is mainly franchisee independent, and there
isn't any corporate level commitment (and they don't care about any either)
and put some anime videos on a "things you might pick up if you have any money
left after you get what you MUST BUY" list.


>     Japanese Animation DO NOT sell, relatively speaking of course.
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Ahhh, but just imagine what you might have thought a mere 18-24 months ago,
I remember myself sitting at a computer on June 4, 1991, reading a r.a.a.
message and thinking, "man, how are they ever going to be able to do that
much and stay afloat, I mean , Bubble Gum Crisis is 8 tapes" 8-)


Ryan Gavigan
gavigan@gn.ecn.purdue.edu

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