The Price of Joy

Gavrev

Gavrev

Dandy Guy, in Space
Is it just me or has the price of anime sets gone up slightly of late? Granted it's coincidentally been a few months since I bought any, but now that some titles of interest are surfacing it seems as though they've risen beyond the usual mark up which you expect from high street retailers such as HMV, and behind a quick scan in the wake of a consumer humph from me, it seems that rise seems is mirrored in the cost of new sets on Amazon.. :(
 
For starters, HMV will always be more expensive than Amazon - usually by around £5 by estimation. The cost of bricks and mortar I suppose.

The Amazon price rise you mention is interesting, and something I've noticed too - I believe Amazon pre-order prices are interlinked with how many pre-orders are received, hence why super popular stuff like the DBZ movie has already come down quite a bit.

So perhaps the issue is that so few people are buying UK anime releases now that the prices stay high by association. Naturally, if less people are buying too, this is the only way the distributors will make their money back - if the prices per unit are higher.
 
A quick look at the usual suspects (Amazon/BASE etc.) and I don't think that prices have gone up. There's more collectors and "collectors" sets which have a higher price point, but prices for UK anime releases look to be as cheap as they've always been.
 
I agree that normally the prices at HMV are inflated, and to be expected yet of late I've picked up some better deals there of late. That isn't my concern so much as the prices online though. The latest ones I've looked to are A Lull in the Sea and Captain Earth, both of which seem to be on the high side to say they're parts 1 of 2. Then looking to the anticipated prices for other upcoming series such as A Certain Magical Index and this too seems to be in the high side. True, if the buying public aren't buying then the prices aren't going to come down by much, but I suppose it just felt as though things were a little on the high side, and I'm hoping it's not a trend..
 
Thinking more generally about blu-rays, Amazon seems to have stopped trying to lower prices unless they're being beaten by HMV or a major supermarket. Quite often you'll see blu-rays that would normally be £12/3 on release, going for £15/6 until the day of or after release, because none of the supermarkets have dropped their price yet.

It seemed to start a few months before Amazon upped their free postage requirement to £20, so I'm guessing Amazon is now starting to use it's market dominance for it's own ends.


This entire scenario is not helped by certain distributors grossly overestimating how much their products are worth. Paramount sold Nebraska to HMV for £18 a copy (HMV sold it at a loss), a plain blu-ray with a 90 minute film and a 30 minute documentary. Sorry, Alexander Payne fans it isn't worth that much, especially not when Warner Bros. can do an extended edition of the Hobbit with 3 hours of film, and 9 hours of bonus material for £20-22...
 
Funnily enough, I noticed Captain Earth was down to £21.50 for the Blu-ray parts the other day and thought that was a decent price. I think that'd be about the same as the cheapest half series new release I've bought in the last three months or so and seems to be fairly standard for MVM releases (sometimes they don't drop below £25). To be fair, with delays and such I haven't bought too much in the last few months.

Looking ahead, the picture looks similar. Maybe there are a few more £25 or above releases and not so many below, although that could change (plus, as Mangaranga mentioned, there are a fair few collector's releases and such).

Index/Railgun are both £36 at the moment but since they're 24 episodes that's equivalent to two £18 sets (Index was also slightly lower earlier). That doesn't seem so bad.

The other online shops often have slightly better deals than Amazon. I find that Amazon tends to have better prices for pre-orders or new releases and then they tend to rise once they've been out for a while. Anime Limited releases seem to vary a bit more and be more likely to drop from time to time, while MVM, Manga and so on tend to stay about the same or increase significantly (at least on Amazon). I think Movie releases in general also tend to vary more in price and are more likely to come down after release.

I tend to consider about £25 standard for 11-13 episode releases these days. Still, with prices like that there's less incentive to wait and pick up the UK release since it may only barely be cheaper than importing from the USA (plus they're often much the same release anyway).
 
Mangaranga said:
A quick look at the usual suspects (Amazon/BASE etc.) and I don't think that prices have gone up. There's more collectors and "collectors" sets which have a higher price point, but prices for UK anime releases look to be as cheap as they've always been.
Click to expand...

I've noted an increase. It's usually just a matter of a few pounds, maybe up to a fiver on top of what I used to regularly pay for a series.

I certainly feel like I have to hunt around to get anime for (what I consider) a decent price now a lot more than I used to. But that may well be simply down to the kinds of shows I'm picking up?
 
Smeelia said:
Funnily enough, I noticed Captain Earth was down to £21.50 for the Blu-ray parts the other day and thought that was a decent price. I think that'd be about the same as the cheapest half series new release I've bought in the last three months or so and seems to be fairly standard for MVM releases (sometimes they don't drop below £25). To be fair, with delays and such I haven't bought too much in the last few months.

Looking ahead, the picture looks similar. Maybe there are a few more £25 or above releases and not so many below, although that could change (plus, as Mangaranga mentioned, there are a fair few collector's releases and such).

Index/Railgun are both £36 at the moment but since they're 24 episodes that's equivalent to two £18 sets (Index was also slightly lower earlier). That doesn't seem so bad.

The other online shops often have slightly better deals than Amazon. I find that Amazon tends to have better prices for pre-orders or new releases and then they tend to rise once they've been out for a while. Anime Limited releases seem to vary a bit more and be more likely to drop from time to time, while MVM, Manga and so on tend to stay about the same or increase significantly (at least on Amazon). I think Movie releases in general also tend to vary more in price and are more likely to come down after release.

I tend to consider about £25 standard for 11-13 episode releases these days. Still, with prices like that there's less incentive to wait and pick up the UK release since it may only barely be cheaper than importing from the USA (plus they're often much the same release anyway).
Click to expand...


The shows out there certainly do seem to be maintaining a new threshold of about £25 or so as you say. I grabbed a copy of the Mardock Scramble boxset from HMV for £24.99 reasoning that I was happy to fork out the extra offline £3 or so - frankly there's just not enough of a difference in prices. The frustration bit comes in when places such as HMV simply don't stock many titles off the beaten track. Somehow it used to be a little sweetener when you could buy something online for a significant saving against such stores which don't stock your chosen title, except now they're almost as much. Of course one might argue that because we bought them online instead of ordering in store, that this is why we never see them on the shelves.. That price difference is a shame though. Still, as was pointed out above by Buzz201, Amazon are well positioned to dictate whetever the hell they feel like doing against in store competition, and if HMV and their like aren't going to (or can't?) stock stuff then there isn't any competition at all!
 
I've been inclined to wonder that Amazon's higher prices of late could be directly linked to declining anime sales in the UK - ie. the more people that pre-order, the lower the price goes.
 
Lutga said:
I've been inclined to wonder that Amazon's higher prices of late could be directly linked to declining anime sales in the UK - ie. the more people that pre-order, the lower the price goes.
Click to expand...

It makes logical sense, but behind it I suspect is the emperor.. sorry, behind it I suspect is Amazon recognising their position in the market as a major online retailer.
 
Back
Top