Forum - View topicHow much do anime DVDs cost wholesale?
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larinon
 Posts: 992 Location: Midland, TX |
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It really depends on where you live. Some cities will have a few good places to buy anime and others not so much. And hey, there's no problem buying stuff at Best Buy (or similar places) because if you're still buying from the stores where you live, you help support the people who have jobs at that store and thus your local economy. I guess being in a slightly older generation of anime fans (not that old, 31) this is something that has become more of a concern to me than your typical fan. I live in Midland, TX which is sort of near the southeast corner of New Mexico, just to give a point of reference, so it's kind of the middle of nowhere. It's actually not easy to find a dedicated anime store. When I was visiting a friend of mine in Austin, TX, a city of roughly 1 million people, I was unable to locate a store that just sold anime. There were some comic shops of course, and fantasy/RPG type places that also carried anime, but that was it. This actually surprised me. In Lubbock, TX, a city of ~200,000 people about 100 miles north of me (still in the middle of nowhere ^_-), there's actually a dedicated anime store, so I always drop by there and buy a few things. He actually carries a lot of manga, figures, calendars, wall scrolls, posters, etc, in addition to anime, so it's really an excellent shop. He definitely charges full retail for his merchandise though. If the retail price is $29.98 (what Geneon usually sets I think), then that's what you pay. Smaller retailers unaffiliated with the larger retail chains have to charge those prices to be able to stay in business. That's just how it works: smaller operations have more overhead and they can't buy things in bulk in the same amounts. He does have a pretty good location, being right across the street from Texas Tech. I'm definitely glad to help support him whenever I'm up there to visit friends. |
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Porcupine
 Posts: 1033 |
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About 5 years ago, Jelly's re-opened one large store in a new semi-obscure location in Hawaii, same owner, but not necessarily the same kinda pricing and stuff inside. They mostly sell American comics now, they have hardly any manga and only carry a tiny handful of anime titles all at retail price. I don't find them very useful, and even many comic collectors don't find them too useful because their prices are too high compared to other comic stores here. They've managed to survive for quite a while but I wouldn't be surprised if they went out of business again at any time. As of late they've been running really odd desperate-sounding commercials on local TV, which kind of makes me fear that they may be on the verge of going out of business again, lol. Also, with Tower Records/Video all going out of business, and with some BlockBuster Videos also going out of business here in Hawaii, we've got very little left. Fortunately Suncoast and Best Buy are doing very well (although one of our two Sam Goody's also went out of business) for themselves. Although one of our Suncoasts may be having problems too, I suspect. If it weren't for the fact that they are the last one left (the other one is great but in a less populated location) I think they would be gone too. In some sense, Hawaii may be in an all-time low in regards to this area. Everyone seems to have gone out of business. Lol. All the dead Tower Records locations are still vacant, and dead Blockbuster Video locations have been vacant for like 3 years. Right now for anime DVDs I'm almost completely reliant on the one good Suncoast left in Hawaii which is in a strange location (I must drive through the mountains to get there). For manga there's plenty of great places here though. Best Buy was good when they first opened here about 4 years ago, but they've driven up most of their anime prices recently (I'm sure its the same everywhere in the USA) so they aren't as useful to me either these days. |
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Porcupine
Posts: 1033 |
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Maybe it would be better if anime distributors did NOT give favor to Best Buy and Suncoast...maybe that would help anime specialty stores actually be able to sell R1 anime DVDs at competitive prices (all the anime speciality stores here only sell anime-related memorabilia, toys, manga, and/or pirated HK DVDs).
Hmm....I guess my point is that I feel there should be anime specialty stores which sell large quantities of actual anime DVDs and manga (not just memorabilia) at competitive prices to Suncoast and Best Buy and the Internet. (note that being from Hawaii, it's also hard to purchase from the Internet because many places quote us ridiculous shipping rates). I have nothing against Suncoast...but most Suncoast stores are too small and don't have enough room to carry all their anime. The Suncoast stores here are brimming with anime and its spilling all over the floor, disorganized everywhere, and it's very hard to find titles that are even 1 year old because they ran out of shelf space and can only afford to carry recent releases. I get half of my Suncoast and Sam Goody anime out of brown cardboard boxes sitting on the floor that I open up myself and dig around inside myself, lol. =D |
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Randall Miyashiro
 Posts: 2451 Location: A block away from Golden Gate Park |
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[quote="Porcupine"]
Was it 20 years ago? Gosh that makes me feel old. I think there was a shop called Space Castle UchuJo back around 20 years ago as well. I think they hosted an anime club and would send out nice holiday cards to everyone on their mailing list. The last time I went to Oahu I believe the new Jelly's had just opened. That would be the one in the same mall as that arcade (Fun Factory?) but that was indeed around 5 years ago. I spent most of my cash at Shirokiya, and that gaming/comic shop at Ward, I can't believe how the years can fly by. It's truly sad since I live a couple miles from Japan town that I don't buy much besides food there. It's just gotten so much cheaper to buy my toys and media online since HLJ, and CD Japan sells stuff at Yen price. I've bought a couple of toys/kits in the last couple of years from SF Japan town, but usually only the stuff that is out of stock online. On the other hand I buy almost all of my stuff online from anime specialty stores since they are competitive to amazon type shops/. Likewise I've never bought domestic anime from Wallmart, Suncoast, or Best Buy since TRSI can compete in prices and was founded by anime fans. I'm more than happy to support anime specialty shops if the price difference is small, but I've yet to find a small non-online operation that can come near these prices. |
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larinon
Posts: 992 Location: Midland, TX |
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Yes, that would be very awesome indeed 
For it to seriously happen though, you'd really need to have a large anime consumer base to keep you in business. Just because there are a lot of anime fans around doesn't necessarily equate to there being a lot of people who buy the DVDs, manga, soundtracks, and other merchandise. A store like this probably has a chance of being most successful in larger cities, and anywhere else is a more risky proposition. If I remember right, AnimeNation had an actual retail store somewhere in Florida. I don't know if they still do or not, but their prices are only a little lower than retail anyways, barring a sale or special deal. I'm kind of surprised you don't have a dedicated anime store somewhere in Hawaii. Don't you have a higher proportion of Japanese (and Asian people in general) there than most other places in the US? Certainly that doesn't necessarily translate to more anime fans, but there should be some correlation there. |
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Randall Miyashiro
Posts: 2451 Location: A block away from Golden Gate Park |
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This would be your best bet since I don't think that a non-online retailer can afford to compete at Wallmart/Best Buy prices. I wonder if any other companies like ADV or Funimation have physical shops. There was a Gundam/Bandai shop here in San Francisco complete with nice Gundam murals, a large 1/10 Zaku II, and a huge 1/1 F-91 head. They only sold Bandai titles, and sadly everything was retail. This was around the same time that Bandai attempted their big Gundam in the US campaign and released the US HG/MG/toys lines as well as the Gundam CCG. Gundam's failure in the US forced the shop to eventually close, but at least the Warhammer 2K shop next door is still open. |
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Porcupine
Posts: 1033 |
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The current (big, but very disorganized and not much anime-related merchandise anymore) Jelly's isn't and was never in the mall you speak of, but physically it is very close. It's in a totally hidden location in a back-area sort of thing, it's impressive that you were able to find it if you weren't actually living here.
Iari, we actually have a fairly large number of dedicated anime stores it's just that none of them really carry R1 anime DVDs. There are some that carry just HK pirate anime DVDs, others carry only toys and/or manga, etc. I think the market for anime here is larger than anywhere else in the USA, like you suspected. So it's prime time for a serious anime store selling R1 anime DVDs at competitive pricing comes into existence (especially since half the video stores here all went out of business years ago)...at least that's what I feel. I agree such a thing might have a hard time surviving, or it may be impossible, but who knows. In regards to commercial domestic manga, it's already been shown that Borders and Barnes and Noble can't compete price-wise with the local anime/comic shops here, which sell all manga at 75% to 80% of retail (while Borders sells at retail, plus the books are opened and people read them for free and bust them up, which sucks). So in Hawaii, speciality shops managed to defeat the giants for manga. But for DVD, it hasn't happened so far. Also, lately the Borders here have been gearing up and are opening up twice as many stores. The demand for manga here is so big I think that is what is fueling them. Even with the anime shops undercutting them for cheap, the anime shops don't seem to be able to order nearly enough for everyone...so actually it would be good if more anime shops opened that also sell cheap manga (75% to 80% of retail) to help drive away the Borderses. 
Anyway, everything is fine as is since Suncoast is a fairly good source in my opinion, but they are becoming a monopoly and if they raise their anime prices in the future, I'd be really sad and wouldn't be able to buy much anime anymore, so I'm afraid. Are you guys sure that no where in the USA are there anime specialty stores selling anime DVD as cheap as Suncoast and Best Buy? ($20 for an average DVD). How about Anime Jungle in Little Tokyo in Los Angeles? They just had some sort of Haruhi festival there and I saw pics of them with lots of anime DVD inside (when I was there last it was 10 years ago and anime DVD barely existed then, so they only had import anime laserdiscs). To be honest, I think if anywhere in the USA there is a chance for a serious, cheap anime DVD-selling anime specialty store to come into existence it would be Hawaii....and now is probably the prime time to start it since almost everyone went out of business in the last 3 years. Maybe I should try to open one, except I have no idea how lol. And you probably need lots of money right, like hundreds of thousands of dollars or maybe a million? (I have no money) |
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ishmael
Posts: 128 |
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I don't know for the states, buit in Canada, the wholesale price of DVDs is not that low. My gf worked in a DVD store and maybe it's because they had very good prices, but sometimes they made only a tiny profit out of any DVDs, not just anime. So my guess is, for a 25$ anime DVD, the wholesale should be around 20-22. Of course, like I said, they had really reasonable deals, the HMV the other side of the street sold the same DVD 10-15$ more. |
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ikarisama
 Posts: 32 Location: Penticton B.C. |
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Wholesale prices can vary but when ordering through my suppliers, depending on the company, we pay 35-45% off the US retail prices for our DVD's. So we pay about $18 US for a $30 US retail DVD. We sell our DVD's for 10-15% under retail and beat our local competition (Walmart, Future Shop and CD Plus) on most anime DVD's.
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Porcupine
Posts: 1033 |
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For one, selling at 15% under retail won't beat Walmart prices. At least in Hawaii, when Walmart carries anime (which is rarely) their prices are the best, even better than Best Buy ($20 to $25 for an average $30 retail DVD) and Suncoast ($20 for an average $30 retail DVD, while it's still a new release). Walmart is generally much cheaper than them on all anime. I have no idea about Future Shop and CD Plus since they don't exist here. I don't doubt what you claim about your wholesale prices, though...but it would be nice if you could provide us with more details about what type of store (not the name, which might not be good to give out) you run and what you use for your suppliers? I've noticed that comic book shops generally sell anime DVD for retail...maybe you also run a comic book shop, and maybe the suppliers they utilize are more expensive than the suppliers that Suncoast/Best Buy/Walmart utilize? Yesterday, I bought brand new Fate/Stay Night vol 4 and Shakugan no Shana vol 6 from Suncoast for $10 each because they currently have a 50% off Geneon sale. A few months back I'd also bought an earlier volume of Shana for $10 via the same sale. Several people here seem to want to claim that wholesale price for these DVDs is $17 or $18....but I have a hard time believing that is true (at least for certain suppliers) when I buy a new, popular DVD for $10 as a plain old customer. Hmm. |
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ikarisama
Posts: 32 Location: Penticton B.C. |
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I should clarify that I am in Canada. The average price on an anime DVD at Walmart is $27-29 CDN and $24-30 at Future Shop. Not including when they have their New release Period. An example would be FMA was selling at $24 a disc for the first 4 or so weeks of its release. The discs are now $33 each as they are catalog titles. The other thing that has been a help this past year is the poor American dollar. Our exchange rate has been 5-10% instead of the 20-30% it has been for the past few years. This has allowed us to sell most of our DVD's at $22-27 CDN and still turn a profit. We are closer to being on par than beating the big boys I suppose but it still feels good for the little guy to be able to compete sometimes. Also to answer your questions about suppliers Diamond, Snap Entertainment and Video1 are our major suppliers of anime currently.
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