Beez Entertainment Discussion

I do hope Code Geass comes uk as ive said

im really looking forward to Gurren laggaan

also at the expo it was discussed blue ray isnt really worth it at the time.
 
I'm still on my time off and resolved to sort some of these answers out when I got back to work at start of New Year (we take until the 4th off) but figure I'll be busy++ then so will deal with this large one that's been lingering until now.

Firstly allow me to explain that I do this in my own time and off my own back. It is not part of my job description, nor is it anyone's in this job as we're all so busy (as of late has demonstrated by my only partial presence) that those of us who do it (Hugh @ LDMS ocasionally and myself) are doing so purely as we feel there is a great deal of benefit explaining. Not to mention as fans if our positions were reversed we'd hope for the same thing in return!

Answering the original question first then expanding:

Dave said:
Just wondering beez_andrew why Beez are not putting much effort to encourage sales through their own Website. The UK sales page which is handled by the Bandai uk is not laid out that well and has not even got some of the latest title for sales on there.

http://www.bandai.co.uk/title-page.aspx?BR_ID=13

With single dvds selling 1000 each or less, box sets from selling around 500 each and limitied edition set to only 500 also. I can't see why not in future a big chunk of those anime dvds could be made through beez website increasing the profitability and hopefully making it cheaper for buyers.

Beez cannot put much push into the Bandai UK shop because simply it isn't ours! As Bandai is split into many parts the anime sold there is a part of our sister-company in the UK which handles toys primarily. We agreed to sign on our anime catalog as it's beneficial to everyone but this means advertising the shop is their responsibility or we'd be advertising it over other retailers we supply to like Play.com or HMV - which would naturally cause a lot of trouble!

While your suggestion is indeed a good one the problem lies with the number of fans who'd find and make use of an official Beez shop if opened in the UK directly as opposed to picking up titles on Play.com is lower than you'd think, it'd certainly never exceed 100 sales per title probably which on the grand scheme of things is a drop in the ocean especially with some of the plans for next year which follow exactly what all of you have requested (i.e. 1.3rd season sets like the US with a Limited Edition version with premium extras AND a Regular Edition version at a budget price).

These kind of units you'd expect to do a larger number at the likes of HMV and Play.com for lower rates and unsurprisingly they will get more than a bit peeved if I start showing up all over and writing ads with no HMV tag or such but a "Buy from Beez-shop.com for cheaper today!" etc.

MVM are indeed a clever company and earn my great respect for what they have built up but you must keep in mind - they outsource almost all their PR, marketing and production tasks - acting as overseers for that side of things whilst running the shop and licensing demands fills their day-to-day tasks often barring making executive decisions on their own label. This allows them to stock EVERYONE's goods, Beez, ADV, Manga and their own.

They've had years to do so (long enough to give their very good sales group Elevation material to persuade people like HMV etc that they're not in competition with one another greatly) and the only way to run an online shop that would sell a bulk of titles is to do so really. Being honest when you filter that in then there's only room for one really there.

It's not to say that things aren't in the works (such as the Bandai Channel) that rewrites the rule books slightly but is of a digital angle so not really the same. However we are constantly re-evaluating how to run our web retail and I'll feed over any comments you or anyone else would like to PM me regarding how to arrange the Bandai UK anime section and we'll see what can be done for the positive as advertising it is naturally up to them ^^.

Hope this helps and sorry for my delayed replies, explanation will follow taking this reply:

Dave said:
Also take into account BEEZ can afford the time and money to pay Andrew to give long and well thought answers, which is a nice service. But can you think of any other UK anime companies which can the afford the time to answer people questions on a forum. If they could afford the time to answer questions in deep on a forum then they can afford a 30 mins to few hours a night to run online shop. But they maybe already doing that as it is, if the Bandai.co.uk is part beez.

Actually as I stated (and Melonpan re-asserted) before Beez does not afford the time or the money for me to give long and well thought out answers to you all. It is not done as a service from them to you but from myself to you purely off my own back. 30 minutes a night would come from my own back as well and I can assure you it'd take longer than that to fulfil any number of orders coming from people if it was to grow to the suggested size.

As stated as well the Bandai.co.uk bit isn't actually done by us too :).

Dave said:
Think about it he can't answer question on the top of his head. He need to go back to his office in work hours to get the required information, to answer the questions.

FYI, I work on the move often so my work laptop travels everywhere with me - plus my memory and knowledge of the industry is carried about in my head mostly so I don't need to go back to get information usually as it's either in my work laptop's email box or in my mental one ;)!

Dave said:
With the whole anime industry moving closer and closer to online only, it make sense over time to encourage to buy direct instead of another web shop, as it only typing in another web address not traveling several miles to a new store.

On the high street now only HMV (Who profit went down 50% in year because there high street store can't compete with online prices) and zavvi (formerly virgin mega stores) would sell a good selection of titles from beez, maybe Whsmith as well but there selection is tiny. In the years to come HMV & Vavvi will move towards website only as the cost of rent & staff make it not cost effect against just running online store.

The only places in the future to possible to buy anime on the high street in the future will be supermarkets which will big studio ghibi movie or some MANGA releases, no space for MVM or BEEZ. So no longer browsing the ailes of high street shop for anime titles.

Sending titles back and forth between retailers all the time aren't exactly cheap either, paying the delivery costs to sending out 1000 volumes with at least 300 of them coming back (in case of red garden volume 3 55 sold you can guess how many would be sent back) . Also the volumes are being sent back to several different retailers so you not even getting a great price of selling the items in bulk.

That's an interesting argument and one I've had myself with others :). The great problem of digital versus physical retail is a well trodden one really so I'll not bore everyone raising old topics. What I would say is that it may move from HMV -> HMV.com but their names still remain and instill trust in buyers for the most part. Physical retail in some form will also continue for some time yet I would hope as if it recedes to the web only then sales will again take a blow in the UK sadly as part of what helps anime is its presence in the retail sphere thanks to companies like Beez and more importantly Manga over the past few years.

You'd be surprised about where some of the following year's titles from Beez may well end up as well so I'd wait before consigning only Manga and Ghibli titles to the wider audiences too ;). But generally the shipping costs for returns etc are calculated in advance so losses shouldn't happen except like in unfortunate cases like Red Garden.

Dave said:
You can get intrest if the price is right, When ADV did the fire sale on the anime titles for 1-2+ pound there was massive interest and got at least 200 as i recall maybe even 500 orders in fee days and it would have been more if the stock didn't run out. They would made nothing on the 1 pound dvd but the ones sold for 2 pound how ever would probably made the same as the adv titles been currently being sold at play.com for 3.99 each.

It make sense for titles which are soon lose there licenses to be sold off cheaply on there own website so the whole remaining stock is sold and not thrown away and reward fans.

I agree though on principle doing something similar with stock you needed cleared would be good for attracting buyers though or to be used to reward fans though but ultimately it wouldn't do enough to ever seriously rival retailers in general just observing how it worked for other companies too.

Dave said:
There is no sale currently on bandai.co.uk for anime dvds, the prices of anime dvds have been the same for ages. The layout is still poor, it still missing many of the box sets they offer and no mention of newer titles.

Unless andrew got anything to add i will make this final post on the matter as i have made my argument in full and other people got other question to ask.

I'll take above comments on to the relevant people at Bandai UK - if you have anything specific drop me a PM and I'll forward it to the correct people ^^. Again thanks for bringing it up and very sorry I took so long to reply -_-, have been so hectic that even my outside work time has been taken up dealing with one work thing or another!

Hope everyone had a good Christmas by the way and you got some shiny things ^^! I'll speak to everyone again soon and get caught up on these questions in my time off if I can...
 
Wow, just got my Wolf's Rain set (asked for it as a Christmas present when the high street failed me) and what a beautiful set it is. I hope this one has done well, it deserves to! It is a shame that most retailers seem to hide it away instead of display it for people to see. This kind of top quality release in between the worldwide release ideas and high episode count mini-sets for new shows are all very exciting ideas. Good luck in the coming year, Beez.

Listening to the soundtrack now :)

R
 
Rui said:
Wow, just got my Wolf's Rain set (asked for it as a Christmas present when the high street failed me) and what a beautiful set it is. I hope this one has done well, it deserves to! It is a shame that most retailers seem to hide it away instead of display it for people to see. This kind of top quality release in between the worldwide release ideas and high episode count mini-sets for new shows are all very exciting ideas. Good luck in the coming year, Beez.

Listening to the soundtrack now :)

R

The wolf's rain set is pretty amazing. Having grouped the TV series and the OVA's in a single set made me really happy, adding the gorgeous book itself and the dvd made this the best package for anime (and possibly for dvds) of the year.

I was pleasantly surprised by Coração Selvagem in the OST.

My question is, whe will we see Lucky star aroung here? will we have the special editions as we did with Haruhi?
 
Hi andrew, i've noticed (just as was bout to break and buy it too XD) that play.com has stopped selling the Gundam Seed collection boxset part 1

http://www.play.com/DVD/DVD/4-/5210625/ ... oduct.html

does this mean it's not going to be possible to get it anymore?

chaos said:
My question is, whe will we see Lucky star aroung here? will we have the special editions as we did with Haruhi?

as much as it sounds good, please for the love of god, leave the t-shirts out if you do :D
 
Ryo Chan said:
Hi andrew, i've noticed (just as was bout to break and buy it too XD) that play.com has stopped selling the Gundam Seed collection boxset part 1

http://www.play.com/DVD/DVD/4-/5210625/ ... oduct.html

does this mean it's not going to be possible to get it anymore?

First off Happy New Year everyone :D!

Just answering this question for now quickly as it may be relevant to everyone else too :). You'll see that kind of message for a chunk of our stock if not from Amazon.co.uk just now (they have some of our stock as they work on a system they take stock direct and only pay when they sell it).

Basically it's nothing to worry about, we have stock of that set left and the second just now (not a *great* deal but enough for a bit of this year anyway), it is however tied up with Pinnacle just now. We're in the process of dotting the i's and crossing the t's on our new distribution deal - which I'll hopefully announce in the first week of business 2009 :). Just obviously the process required a lot of due diligence given the turbulence in the entertainment industry just now ^^;.

Ryo Chan said:
chaos said:
My question is, whe will we see Lucky star aroung here? will we have the special editions as we did with Haruhi?

as much as it sounds good, please for the love of god, leave the t-shirts out if you do :D

Heh - well we're in the process of looking over the sales data for the year for Haruhi now (delayed by Pinnacle's system going down mind you) so will no doubt make some kind of decisions on if to follow up with Lucky Star or not in the near future all going well!

Watch this space :). I'm not ignoring the backlog either, I'll deal with that shortly as promised!
 
beez_andrew said:
Ryo Chan said:
chaos said:
My question is, when will we see Lucky star aroung here? will we have the special editions as we did with Haruhi?

as much as it sounds good, please for the love of god, leave the t-shirts out if you do :D

Heh - well we're in the process of looking over the sales data for the year for Haruhi now (delayed by Pinnacle's system going down mind you) so will no doubt make some kind of decisions on if to follow up with Lucky Star or not in the near future all going well!

Watch this space :). I'm not ignoring the backlog either, I'll deal with that shortly as promised!

I'm positive the sales data will be great and lucky star will come to uk, even better if on special editions as well. =)
 
Hey andrew in the latest neo mag there is a small article about Code Geass getting eyed up for realse.
Im assuimg this is Beez right =D

Code geass is a a nime that appeals to all it has mecha, PLot, Yaoi situations, pretty boys, hot women ect.
plus can get that death note crowed
 
sheentaku said:
Hey andrew in the latest neo mag there is a small article about Code Geass getting eyed up for realse.
Im assuimg this is Beez right =D

Code geass is a a nime that appeals to all it has mecha, PLot, Yaoi situations, pretty boys, hot women ect.
plus can get that death note crowed
Well since they haven't official announced that they have the license doubt that they will have a release date in mind. The announced Gurren Largen at amecon last year and there is yet to be a firm release date.
 
Hi Andrew - a general industry question if you don't mind.

Can you give us a rough idea of percentage sold online and in B&M stores for anime DVD's?
 
Andrew, are you still having problems with distribution? I'm having trouble locating a copy of Gunbuster 2. The stores I use on a regular basis (Play, Amazon, HMV) no longer list the title, and none of the others have stock.

I want to buy your DVDs!
 
fabricatedlunatic said:
Andrew, are you still having problems with distribution? I'm having trouble locating a copy of Gunbuster 2. The stores I use on a regular basis (Play, Amazon, HMV) no longer list the title, and none of the others have stock.

I want to buy your DVDs!

I having the same problems with some of Beez's other DVD sets as well. Although i'm also curious as to why shops like HMV are still selling some Beez singles are stupid prices instore.
 
fabricatedlunatic said:
Whoa, thanks a lot. £2.50 postage had me raising an eybrow, but £15 is still a decent price.

EDIT: Wasn't charged postage at checkout. Result.
Cool, glad I mentioned it now. :D Only just spotted it earlier that day and ordered some .hack. Had never ordered from them before but they're here already so that was pretty quick!

And free postage on DVDs = win.
 
fabricatedlunatic said:
Andrew, are you still having problems with distribution? I'm having trouble locating a copy of Gunbuster 2. The stores I use on a regular basis (Play, Amazon, HMV) no longer list the title, and none of the others have stock.

I want to buy your DVDs!

Just to clarify - there'll be an official press release shortly - we signed a new deal at start of January but naturally retrieving stock from Pinnacle and getting it all booked in, accounted for and the catalog initialized at our new distributor takes a bit of time.

Normal business should resume over the next week though with a press release out as soon as I'm certain it is :)! There were only two real choices of distributor anyway so I'm fairly sure everyone can guess who it is anyway!

People like Play are already beginning to show stock of our titles, full lists should be back up and running soon too :).

Hope this helps!

- Andrew
 
beez_andrew said:
fabricatedlunatic said:
Andrew, are you still having problems with distribution? I'm having trouble locating a copy of Gunbuster 2. The stores I use on a regular basis (Play, Amazon, HMV) no longer list the title, and none of the others have stock.

I want to buy your DVDs!

Just to clarify - there'll be an official press release shortly - we signed a new deal at start of January but naturally retrieving stock from Pinnacle and getting it all booked in, accounted for and the catalog initialized at our new distributor takes a bit of time.

Normal business should resume over the next week though with a press release out as soon as I'm certain it is :)! There were only two real choices of distributor anyway so I'm fairly sure everyone can guess who it is anyway!

People like Play are already beginning to show stock of our titles, full lists should be back up and running soon too :).

Hope this helps!

- Andrew

Is this including the Gundam Seed boxset collection 1 that we talked about earlier? as i've noticed the Region 1 version is getting a re-release of it too
 
Hey Andrew I just noticed that there are release dates for 2 part boxsets for Gundam Seed Destiny and Eureka Seven on play and such. Would I be right in assuming that they will follow previous boxsets and have some nice goodies with them?
 
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