Beez Entertainment Discussion

I was wondering Andy, for the next expo coming up will you be selling sets of Hurahi again? (it'd be my highlight :3)
Or if not that, whether you know what other products maybe at the stale
 
Good to see Gundam 00 has a release date atlast (15/06 according to play incase anyones interested) and a limited edition too.

however i noticed that vol 1 has 2 disks, does this mean Beez are planning to copy Bandai's Code Geass launch and release it as 3 parts per series, or is it just an extra's disk?
 
Ryo Chan said:
Good to see Gundam 00 has a release date atlast (15/06 according to play incase anyones interested) and a limited edition too.

however i noticed that vol 1 has 2 disks, does this mean Beez are planning to copy Bandai's Code Geass launch and release it as 3 parts per series, or is it just an extra's disk?
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Hey Ryo, check this out =)

http://forums.animeuknews.net/viewtopic.php?t=10588
"The list of extras on the special edition includes a 12 cm action figure, a PVC badge, a key holder and an embroided blazon, all symbols from the series. It also includes vol.1 of the series and a box with an exclusive artwork made to contain the other 2 volumes of the series. "

Andrew, can you tell us the list of extras in the Gurren Lagann limited edition?
 
As awesome as a double volume release plan seems to me, I'm still going to wait until a blu-ray version happens, and the special edition freebies are still the kind of of stuff I'd not go out of my way to own (The action figure sounds a bit more interesting - though unlikely to one-up the Fix Figuration Model I already have - but badges and key rings? That RRP on play.com seems excessive for that kind of stuff. I hope they're just being creative with how much they're claiming to save their customers).
 
Thanks for the reply Andrew about directly selling online, a few points to pick you up on.

beez_andrew said:
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.
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Well I disagree with this as anime in the eyes the major retailers is very minor item they sell. Apart from high selling Manga products titles the rest are only selling 1000 copies each, which is nothing compared to the mainstream dvds which sell from 10,000-1,000,000 copies each.

With Online retailers having no worries about shelf space and necessary to stock biggest variety of titles possible otherwise people will tend to shop elsewhere for more choice. The retaliers don't care about how cheaply dvd are sold directly, you see none of the retailers stop selling mvm titles when they selling them for £1 directly. In matter affact it easier to find these MVM title instore/online as I rarely ever see beez title instore and hard to find them in stock online (online has been badly effect by distributor administration granted) . The retailers are in no lose situation as they can simply return unsold stock.

With high street zavvi going down it only matter of time until a massive majority of anime sales will be online simply because the price difference and little choice instore.

Dave said:
beez_andrew said:
You can get interest 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.
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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.
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Quite simple just open a free ebay account called “BEEZ Entertainmentâ€
 
With high street zavvi going down it only matter of time until a massive majority of anime sales will be online simply because the price difference and little choice instore.
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I assumed that was the case already. What with free delivery offers here and there, that's always been the standard way for me to get R2 titles. (My only exceptions are a GitS boxset which I bought with a HMV voucher, and New Dominion Tank Police when it was going cheap in Zavvi.)
 
You are forgetting the fact that these online stores still need to be manned, and if you don't go the Ebay way (which in reality is the least professional method from a distributor) you also need to purchase decent eCommerce software and have a server that's going to have the database and bandwidth to cope with the introduction of an online store that could possibly have hundreds of titles plopped onto it.

The online method is only cheap because you don't have to pay ridiculous rents for prime spots like hmv, Zavvi and whoever else is left do. The man power still needs to be there, for shipping and ordering, customer service, maintenance of the site, updating the site and then you need an IT department on call. Not to mention the fact that you also need to get some form of software in place to stop yourself from being defrauded by fake credit cards. From a consumer's point of view fraudulent transactions on credit cards are easy, you just advise the credit card company and they refund you - from a business point of you it's terrible. Every refund that the card company gives because your site was insufficient is a black mark against your name, and after so much value of fraud in one year occurs they can stop you accepting their card. Which ultimately means you can't accept a Visa or Mastercard - which is a costly option as it means cheques or Amex. Cheques require time to go through and Amex charge a fortune to the retailer (up to 5% of the value of the product) for the right to use them.

It's much more complex than just "setting up shop".

In reality many animes do sell less than 100 copies, let alone 1000, but the majority of either are going to be done through online stores or shops like hmv, sendit, Amazon or Play.co.uk just because they are large companies who have access to mailing lists of millions and can afford to offer anime at discounted prices once they've had it for a while. Not to mention they are major names, and not this random Ebay store or Bandai shop. People like us might prefer to go to those places, but the mass consumer (and therefore "normal" anime fan) is more likely to make their purchase through a retailer than direct from the distributor.

The only exception to this is MVM, as they set up shop before they went into licensing business - but even then I'd take a good guess and say they sell more through Amazon, Play and hmv than their own shop for any one title (unless it's their £1 sales, and they're only there because they need to shift stock - stock in a warehouse is dead money).
 
MVM also sell merchandise as well, and have since probably day one, though I'm not sure that's still profitable now that so much of that can be bought at Tokyo Toys, and the likes thereof.
 
Otaku-san said:
I was wondering Andy, for the next expo coming up will you be selling sets of Hurahi again? (it'd be my highlight :3)
Or if not that, whether you know what other products maybe at the stale
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I'll do my best and see if we have any leftover sets left :). If we have them I'll bring them along :).
 
Ryo Chan said:
Good to see Gundam 00 has a release date atlast (15/06 according to play incase anyones interested) and a limited edition too.

however i noticed that vol 1 has 2 disks, does this mean Beez are planning to copy Bandai's Code Geass launch and release it as 3 parts per series, or is it just an extra's disk?
Click to expand...

Sorry for my slow replies, a lot has been going on here of late, some of which I will talk about shortly. Just catching up on messages now though!

In response - we're following BEI's release strategy and compressing our releases down to 3 volumes now - which you'll be able to get online at a good retail price :). The other extras should be confirmed by now, I'm just waiting on the good 3D packshot then I'll send it out to you all.

- Andrew
 
chaos said:
Andrew, can you tell us the list of extras in the Gurren Lagann limited edition?
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I can indeed Chaos :)! Sorry for the delay again - there's a lot going on just now that unfortunately sucks my attention up :(.

Inside GL LE 1 (there should be a second too but its TBC based on rights for the item...):

- Box to store series, with magnetic door on front.
- Iron-on emblem of the Gurren Brigade (with thermic glue, so you just place it on the item of clothing where you want it, put a hanky on top and apply a heated iron to it).
- A PVC badge of Yoko's brooch from the show (the samples we have look amazing)
- A light up drill.

I'll confirm the 2nd LE when I know it's been greenlit but I think people will like it ;). Will see if we get any stock ready for Expo as well for pre-sales too :D.

- Andrew
 
kupocake said:
As awesome as a double volume release plan seems to me, I'm still going to wait until a blu-ray version happens, and the special edition freebies are still the kind of of stuff I'd not go out of my way to own (The action figure sounds a bit more interesting - though unlikely to one-up the Fix Figuration Model I already have - but badges and key rings? That RRP on play.com seems excessive for that kind of stuff. I hope they're just being creative with how much they're claiming to save their customers).
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The action figure should be good - but I need to confirm exactly which one we went with first - I'll get back to you on that shortly.

Regarding pricing, for the regular double I did the maths and dug up the sales figures for other titles and unless you're selling a lot more than your regular 2 DVD sets (I've seen one or two series that are out there max just now that qualify) then the price on RRP needs to be slightly higher. Those who shop online at Play.com etc are not usually impacted as the price comes down a lot due to a number of factors there though, which helps a lot :).

As far as BD goes, I'm not certain what the plans are for that yet as there are some things going on that may substantially change plans that were previously in place. I'll talk about them more in the next month I hope.
 
beez_andrew said:
there are some things going on that may substantially change plans that were previously in place.
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Most. Ambiguous. Sentence. Ever.

Andrew, at least you know if you ever get bored of anime you can take up politics! :lol:
 
Akaten said:
Firstly a belated thank you for answering so many questions, just to say that presuming if this passage quoted is a vague hint of a release for Wings of Honneamise, great news if true (not expecting any confirmation) may I offer a couple suggestions in case its being worked on within the Bandai company.
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A belated no problem for answering your questions! As for Wings of Honneamise it's a difficult one, I hope to someday see it out here on a classic release range though. Mind you just now the only way I could see myself having been able to OK bringing it over would be to buy stock from Bandai either in the US or Japan which would have a whole bundle of issues with it (cost particularly) so we'll see how things go with that - but nothing is ever ruled out :).

Akaten said:
Obviously I don’t need to mention how presuming consumers had to choose which HD format would win and bundling the DVD with it was a mistake so I’ll skip that, would add that the packaging and booklet are by all accounts excellent and should be retained if possible, even if only for a more expensive blu ray set, with a basic DVD rerelease for a lower price, much the same as with the Patlabor films.

On the otherwise dated Manga R1 DVD of the film, but glaringly omitted from the Bandai Visual version was an excellent commentary by director Hiroyuki Yamaga and assistant director Takami Akai , most likely ported from either an Japanese laserdisc of early DVD from around the same time.

Finding a way to include this even if it means increasing the RRP to account for any encoding costs needed to make that viable. Again I presume it may be possible acquire the Manga Ent translation, or create a new one with new subtitles (also BBFC submission as video extras) but the trouble would still be welcome on my part. Cannot speak for others but I wouldn’t mind if the price went up as a result, due to the invaluable insight it offers that is unavailable to most foreigners due to the Gainax book being unreleased in English. It really is too good an extra to pass up!

The second idea would be to consider putting the soundtrack out, rights permitted (big if I admit). It could be done using the existing packaging design of the 2 disc sets by Bandai Visual, or it could put it out on its own as with other soundtracks by Beez.. I think it would be worthwhile as Ryuchi Sakamoto does have a western following, both for his own recordingsm film works and collaborations, such as his work with European artists.

It could be a way to help improve the prospects of the film. I’m certain magazines like The Wire (who have a section devoted to dvds and also review soundtracks) would cover it in a positive manner that would help broaden its appeal. Also that online music stores like boomkat.com (who also stock art house DVDs from the likes of the British Film Institute) and who give record of the week front page coverage to past Sakamoto albums would help the film find a new audience, one that wouldn’t be aware of it otherwise.

Apologies for the length of the post, not expecting any kind of response on this but hope some of those ideas come in handy if Wings of Honneamise is due for a new release.
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All good ideas though which I'll keep in mind for future releases in general too :). I'm certain being so close in the UK industry as we are that if we are to pick up licenses on BD that Manga UK once had rights for, we can work together to provide an AAA release of it that many of those titles deserve for a re-release!

Watch this space I say, I'm sure there's another show on BD that they released too which would be great in the UK...
 
ayase said:
beez_andrew said:
there are some things going on that may substantially change plans that were previously in place.
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Most. Ambiguous. Sentence. Ever.

Andrew, at least you know if you ever get bored of anime you can take up politics! :lol:
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I'll rewrite it for clarity ;)! In short though just some changes to the current schedule for Blu-ray I think - nothing major though for it I think - it may actually be beneficial :).

I'll keep myself ready for a life in politics if everything goes to pot :p
 
Dave said:
Thanks for the reply Andrew about directly selling online, a few points to pick you up on.
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Not a problem and away we go with my replies to this, sorry for the delay on my part!

Dave said:
beez_andrew said:
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.
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Well I disagree with this as anime in the eyes the major retailers is very minor item they sell. Apart from high selling Manga products titles the rest are only selling 1000 copies each, which is nothing compared to the mainstream dvds which sell from 10,000-1,000,000 copies each.
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It's nice that you have a different opinion, but this has actually happened already when ADV started their online shop in fact.

FYI 1000 copies is about the amount a lot of series dream of selling and Manga titles often only breach that ceiling because of low pricing, so I would debate that unless you can show me numbers to the contrary . But I digress, the point isn't that < xxxx units = small fry to retailers, any sale is good for them especially during a recession so to see someone undercutting them who should be supplying is never good business full stop even if they're only shifting a small number of units at first. Normally the result is they ask for the same price and any advantage is lost.

Dave said:
With Online retailers having no worries about shelf space and necessary to stock biggest variety of titles possible otherwise people will tend to shop elsewhere for more choice. The retaliers don't care about how cheaply dvd are sold directly, you see none of the retailers stop selling mvm titles when they selling them for £1 directly. In matter affact it easier to find these MVM title instore/online as I rarely ever see beez title instore and hard to find them in stock online (online has been badly effect by distributor administration granted) . The retailers are in no lose situation as they can simply return unsold stock.
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Except it's a loss for us, as the distributor has to pay for the return costs then and that can be a nasty sting really. So effectively its in our best interests to sell correctly the first time. Online and offline were greatly impacted for us by Pinnacle going under but I am confident in LDMS' skills in placing stock effectively, in fact last I heard HMVs in London at least were stocking up on Beez sets and jamming them on the shelves :D! In MVMs case they have the same sales agent as the likes of Disney - this makes it easier for them to shift stock.

Your example of MVM's £1 stock is not a bad one however if you look at the sale it's a clever gimmick - the £1 is usually about to expire licenses or stuff they want to shift, everything else is at usual campaign rates. This stock is often offered to other retailers to so nobody will complain because if they want it they can probably get it. The £1 may be a gimmick but it's a good hook for customers and definitely a good way to run a niche-genre shop :).

Dave said:
With high street zavvi going down it only matter of time until a massive majority of anime sales will be online simply because the price difference and little choice instore.
Click to expand...

This is potentially true too especially with the discounts the likes of Play and Amazon can offer. However it doesn't change the fact that direct selling from a shop will not usually result in cheaper prices in the offset at the very least.

Dave said:
beez_andrew said:
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.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

Quite simple just open a free ebay account called “BEEZ Entertainmentâ€
 
fabricatedlunatic said:
Official art for the first and second Eureka Seven box sets? They're not bad, I guess, but I was hoping for something resembling the stylish R1 boxes. Also, not enough Talho and Anemone.
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Hey :)! Those only show one side of the box, you'll be glad to hear one of the two boxes has Anemone on the otherside and I *believe* the other has Talho so win/win there :D!

I'll try and get alternative shots up here for you tomorrow :).
 
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