Criterion Collection Store

[Saturnome]

That place would be nothing for the people who has the whole collection already. Not that I do, just saying.

Why have the whole collection when you can have it ten times ?

[Cinephrenic]

I would walk among the aisles like a child in a candy store.

[colinr0380]

I would walk among the aisles like a child in a candy store.

I was going to make a comment about it seeming like that extra on the Traffic disc of silent footage of the warehouse where all of the drugs confiscated on the border are stored, though that would uncomfortably equate my film buying habit to a drug one!

I'm telling you that I can quit whenever I want! Just give me one...more...Rossellini film to tide me over!!

[mfunk9786]

Video of Bill Hader raiding Criterion on Facebook includes a pic of a Blu edition of Salo (or so it seems?!). Pretty cool that he's wearing the Hausu shirt, too.

[Joshuadel]

Video of Bill Hader raiding Criterion on Facebook includes a pic of a Blu edition of Salo (or so it seems?!). Pretty cool that he's wearing the Hausu shirt, too.

Nice to see the earlier speculation confirmed, then.

Or not. Depending on how you feel about Salo.

[Tom Hagen]

I think it's just a blue colored "explicit content" sticker. That would be awesome if they had a special closet of only for celebs Blu-rays though.

[matrixschmatrix]

I feel like they probably have a secret stash of Ran blus, somewhere. Well, I hope so anyway.

[Highway 61]

The blu sticker is for In the Realm of the Senses, no?

[HistoryProf]

that's not a Salo blu-ray...i have the same sticker on my dvd, and it's just an explicit content warning.

[felipe]

This is not specifically about the facebook page, but it's just that last week's sale got me wondering.

When it comes to pretty much all Criterion releases, you can find them for under 30 bucks on Amazon (and many other stores) but it's around 32 bucks on Criterion's website. Why then doesn't Criterion sell their own products at more competitive prices? If Amazon has some Criterion blu-ray for, say, 25 dollars, it means Criterion sold it for under 25 dollars to amazon. Why then can't Criterion sell it for 25 dollars on their own website, which would mean even more profit than selling it to Amazon?

[perkizitore]

If Eureka can price match Amazon, i am sure Criterion can even beat Amazon.

[scotty2]

Publishers generally don't want to compete with or undersell their retailer out of consideration for their future relationship with the retailer. In other words, is there a good outcome when you make amazon mad? But in the wild world of e-commerce, this may be changing.

[Jeff]

Amazon deals in such tremendous volume that they can afford to sell things for a much smaller profit per unit. Let's assume that they pay Criterion 20 dollars for each disc that has an MSRP of 40 dollars. If Amazon then sells those discs to consumers for an average of 25 dollars, they make a profit of five dollars per product. When they sell tens of thousands of movies, cds, books, and countless other widgets from Criterion and every other producer of goods, a five dollar profit is substantial, and more than enough to keep them operating and profitable.

Criterion's own retail operation, on the other hand, has an inventory consisting of less than 600 items. They sell a small number of specialized products to a rather tiny niche market. Amazon has sold as much as 158 items per second on busy shopping days. I would be surprised if the Criterion store sells that many items over a couple of days. Yet Criterion has their own warehouse to maintain, an inventory to manage, and they have to pay the lady that drives the forklift around. I suspect that their own average cost per disc is between 15 and 18 dollars, so they may make as much as 15-18 dollars in profit on items they sell from their own store. I think it's reasonable to assume though that only a small percentage of their overall sales come from their own store, and if they sold things at a 40-50% discount every day, they wouldn't be able to keep the lights in the warehouse on.

[felipe]

Jeff, I get what you mean and you're probably right. But in that scenario (in which the cost to produce the disc is 15-18 and they sell it to Amazon for 20-ish), they get about 5 dollars profit per each disc they sell to amazon, right? If they sold it for 25 on their own website they'd have a 10 dollar profit per disc, wouldn't they?

[mfunk9786]

I am stupid.

[Jeff]

Jeff, I get what you mean and you're probably right. But in that scenario (in which the cost to produce the disc is 15-18 and they sell it to Amazon for 20-ish), they get about 5 dollars profit per each disc they sell to amazon, right? If they sold it for 25 on their own website they'd have a 10 dollar profit per disc, wouldn't they?

Yes, but with the products that they sell through Amazon they don't have to manage the sales, management, storage, or shipping themselves. All of those things are very expensive -- especially in New York. The product that they sell through Amazon would be shipped directly to Amazon by the replicator. Criterion has no overhead to manage those discs. So in my fake scenario, they may get as much as five dollars in profit from each of the Amazon discs (which may sell 1,000 Criterion products in a day), and 15-18 dollars in profit for each of the discs from the Criterion store (which might sell 100 Criterion products on a good day), with the extra 10 to 13 dollars going toward the cost of actually running the Criterion store. They could possibly eke by on slightly less than that (and occasionally do during sales), but as has been mentioned they don't want to consistently undercut the retail partners who constitute the most lucrative part of their business.

This is all speculation on my part and is probably nonsense.

[Gregory]

All of those things are very expensive -- especially in New York.

Isn't the whole operation based in Middle of Nowhere, Kentucky? Anyway, I believe you're generally right that it's about the economics of scale, but this raises the question of how (and why) Eureka/MoC offer such great deals on some of their releases. It's nice that Criterion offers any deals at all on their site (many publishers sell everything for SRP) but it might make sense for Criterion to offer a monthly sale page with lower prices on a few titles. It would encourage folks who still buy their DVDs as opposed to just Blu-rays to keep buying stuff from their back catalog, helping move some of the more obscure titles.

[Flike]

Just a note, all my Criterion.com orders except one have been shipped from the same SC warehouse Barnes & Noble ships my Criterions from. Not sure if that means anything, but I had just always assumed Criterion used the same distribution center as Amazon and B&N.

[Joshuadel]

All of those things are very expensive -- especially in New York.

Isn't the whole operation based in Middle of Nowhere, Kentucky? Anyway, I believe you're generally right that it's about the economics of scale, but this raises the question of how (and why) Eureka/MoC offer such great deals on some of their releases. It's nice that Criterion offers any deals at all on their site (many publishers sell everything for SRP) but it might make sense for Criterion to offer a monthly sale page with lower prices on a few titles. It would encourage folks who still buy their DVDs as opposed to just Blu-rays to keep buying stuff from their back catalog, helping move some of the more obscure titles.

For me personally, the incentive is the lingering promise of the $50 credit. I feel, ordering direct from Criterion, that the DVDs and Blus tend to be priced somewhat competitively -- I'm probably looking at the wrong titles, but in most cases it seems like BN or Amazon sells them only a few bucks cheaper -- and I like that my purchases accumulate and mean something. I'm generally not a brand loyalist or anything, but in Criterion's case, I'm willing to make an exception. A couple free movies every few months means I can investigate those obscure titles I might have passed on initially.

[perkizitore]

All of those things are very expensive -- especially in New York.

Isn't the whole operation based in Middle of Nowhere, Kentucky? Anyway, I believe you're generally right that it's about the economics of scale, but this raises the question of how (and why) Eureka/MoC offer such great deals on some of their releases. It's nice that Criterion offers any deals at all on their site (many publishers sell everything for SRP) but it might make sense for Criterion to offer a monthly sale page with lower prices on a few titles. It would encourage folks who still buy their DVDs as opposed to just Blu-rays to keep buying stuff from their back catalog, helping move some of the more obscure titles.

Eureka is a distributor, while Criterion is using Image for distribution. Still, Criterion is a much bigger company than Eureka and they should try finding ways to bypass the middle men.

[felipe]

Jeff, I get what you mean and you're probably right. But in that scenario (in which the cost to produce the disc is 15-18 and they sell it to Amazon for 20-ish), they get about 5 dollars profit per each disc they sell to amazon, right? If they sold it for 25 on their own website they'd have a 10 dollar profit per disc, wouldn't they?

Yes, but with the products that they sell through Amazon they don't have to manage the sales, management, storage, or shipping themselves. All of those things are very expensive -- especially in New York. The product that they sell through Amazon would be shipped directly to Amazon by the replicator. Criterion has no overhead to manage those discs. So in my fake scenario, they may get as much as five dollars in profit from each of the Amazon discs (which may sell 1,000 Criterion products in a day), and 15-18 dollars in profit for each of the discs from the Criterion store (which might sell 100 Criterion products on a good day), with the extra 10 to 13 dollars going toward the cost of actually running the Criterion store. They could possibly eke by on slightly less than that (and occasionally do during sales), but as has been mentioned they don't want to consistently undercut the retail partners who constitute the most lucrative part of their business.

Thanks for the answer. I think you're probably right.

[SpiderBaby]

Isn't the whole operation based in Middle of Nowhere, Kentucky?

[HistoryProf]

Just a note, all my Criterion.com orders except one have been shipped from the same SC warehouse Barnes & Noble ships my Criterions from. Not sure if that means anything, but I had just always assumed Criterion used the same distribution center as Amazon and B&N.

this. they don't run their own warehouse in NYC...they share space - probably not much more than an aisle or so, in some ginormous industrial park somewhere outside Louisville that B&N and numerous other etailers use. I'm sure Image is the one who covers that whole deal to boot.

I think the simple answer is: Because they can. they've clearly decided that $31.96 is the magic # for their products....and i'm sure they sell a lot to libraries via the website. I would bet that is actually the lions share of their sales.

[Jeff]

they don't run their own warehouse in NYC...they share space - probably not much more than an aisle or so, in some ginormous industrial park somewhere outside Louisville that B&N and numerous other etailers use..

Right you are. My first "THANKS" order arrived today from Shepherdsville, KY, and I do recall other Criterion discs coming from there. I didn't mean to imply that they had a warehouse in NYC proper (where would you put such a thing?). My notation about things costing more in New York was prompted by me noticing that the charge to my bank account came from elsewhere in New York state, where I suspected Criterion might have some retail ops. The fact that they are leasing space in a warehouse shared with other retailers is certainly much more economical. I still contend that Amazon is able to discount so much due to their enormous volume.

[lady wakasa]

Well, my 50,000 Seconds in February order of Still Walking showed up... except it's The Scarlet Empress. And as much I've enjoyed The Scarlet Empress each time I've seen it, I was looking forward to watching Still Walking in the next couple of days / weeks / months.

Not upset or anything; the paperwork clearly says Still Walking so the wrong DVD was put into the package. (And people are human, after all.) I'm just a little surprised.

(It's from Shepherdsville, KY, if anyone's keeping track.)