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Visited an establishment in B'ham last week and they had some excellent titles on DVD at ?40. Considering I have seen these titles in Soho at around the ?25 mark, who actually decides the profit margins on selling stocks? Is it down to the shop owner or is it that Soho outlets are cheaper due to the competition with other stores?

when VHS was in its heyday mid 80s a shop near me was selling them at 45?,later went to 55? ,then in a few months 20? which seemed xpensive then but not now i think he made his own prices up soon put them down though,lol.Ace wrote:

> Visited an establishment in B'ham last week and they had some
> excellent titles on DVD at ?40. Considering I have seen these
> titles in Soho at around the ?25 mark, who actually decides the
> profit margins on selling stocks? Is it down to the shop owner
> or is it that Soho outlets are cheaper due to the competition
> with other stores?
>
>

Market forces do

These days you can wander into any branch of the Free Record Shop chain in Belgium or the Netherlands and get virtually any Ben Dover title you care to mention for 12 euro on DVD.

As for VHS, shops can't give it away fast enough, bulky poor quality kit that takes up kilometers of warehouse racks and who won't have 2 or 3 DVD players by this time next year? ( if you include your desktop and laptop computers ). Who's going to replace their curretn video-recorder when it breaks?

DVD's cost next to sod all to produce so just like your CD collection you're paying for the "intellectual content" rather than the material costs. I guess your man in the Midlands is relying on virtual monopoly status to keep his prices high ( until mail-order R18 is made legal ) and hoping that you'd rather pay him through the nose rather than make the trek to Soho.

Yes its amazing that shops are still charging these stupid prices, when the wholesale prices have collapsed over the last 5 years. The producers now get paid next to nothing for their product. The only people making real money in this business are the distributers, who are paying a few Euros for a finished DVD and flogging it for up to ?40.00 each. In answer to "Who decides the prices", its simple, YOU DO! If everyone refuses to pay these stupid prices, eventually the prices will fall.

I would just like to note that distributers are not the same as retailers and its the retailers that decide the RRP not the distributers.

....then the distributors dictate the minimum retail price, don't they?

Certainly most of the shops round my neck of the woods (South Coast) are ?40 for 1 DVD or ?60 if you buy 2, you only get to the ?20 mark if your going to spend ?100.

But buying off the web you are looking at ?20-?25 a title and you don't have to visit some sleaze pit of a shop! Okay you have to spend a couple of quid on postage, but my car will burn that in petrol just getting to my nearest shop. Also given the current ?:$ exchange rate, you can buy American releases of Ben Dover etc for very attractive prices off the web.

I think unless the shops clean up their image and start realising what price you can buy it off the web for, they will soon go bust!

Rednose

Probably not, as most punters are one-off customers, and even now many are not web-connected. Plus, some may prefer a nicely anonymous brown paper-bag for their purchases to having it delivered into their wife's hands by a smirking postie.........

I reckon sex shops thrive on buyer stupidity, ignorance and location,location location and what they can get away with.



?4000 a week takings? What over heads does he pay for? License, council tax etc?

Sex shops are a prime example of rip off Britain. Have they ever been investigated by the monopolies and mergers commission?

We have friends who are finding it harder & harder to earn a living from sex shops, when satilitte starts showing hardcore it will spell the end for most shops. With web-sites now selling films shops are losing more & more, yes there are greedy shop owners with prime locations but most are in normal places paying crippling fees & not earning much than ?2000 a week at a push & with film prices,rent & wages you'll be lucky to clear ?500 so i would advise anyone unless they live in big city not to even bother as the internet has killed the shops & with the adult shop retailers not being represented in their best interests at the moment things look very bleak for them.
The people we know are now putting their money into non-adult industry projects to fund their upkeep which seems sad, so for people who think the shops are coining the money in forget it as the internet wins hands down in everyway.

Kim