Zavvi - Retailer chat [Europe]

Flash · May 27, 2014

I couldn't resist I orders a few

augustus · May 27, 2014

This is indeed a very interesting development for Zavvi. As has already been pointed out, they need to correct their listings of these titles. Only the Anchor Bay items are locked (Region A). The Warner and Universal titles are Region Free.

I assume that as Zavvi is based in Guernsey, it is this geographical location, outside of the UK, which enables them to get round the requirement that the titles be submitted to the BBFC for classification and that they bear the dreaded UK ratings symbols.

I already have a number of Warner's North American steelbook releases and any prospective purchaser should be aware that none of them came with interior artwork. Apparently, some Canadian ones do but I have yet to obtain one. The US ones don't. I can't speak for the Anchor Bay releases as I don't yet own any.

Some here have commented that the price being charged by Zavvi of £14.99 is considerably higher than that charged by Amazon.com or Amazon.ca which I believe is currently in the region of $13-$14 (average). Prices have also been considerably lower on those sites at various times. Last December I picked up 6 Warner steelbooks from Amazon.ca at CDN $8.99 each, whilst in February I picked up a further 6 from Amazon.com at US $9.96 each. The only problem was that in order to avoid UK Import VAT plus the extortionate Royal Mail handling fee, it was necessary to restrict each individual order to 2 steelbooks to keep the value of each consignment below the threshold of £15 (prior to the addition of shipping charges). Each order of 2 steelbooks would, therefore, also incur shipping charges of CDN $9.47 or US $8.97. So yes, if the price is right at Amazon's two North American sites, it is possible to get these cheaper than what Zavvi is charging but that brings me on to the next problem.

If your order is for 3 or more steelbooks, your order will probably be packed in cardboard but the value of the order will have exceeded the £15 Import VAT threshold and you will be stung with additional charges. By keeping each order to 1 or 2 steelbooks you will avoid those charges but both Amazon.ca and Amazon.com will send the steelbooks to you in Jiffybag style envelopes. Of the 12 steelbooks ordered, 2 (one from each site) arrived so badly damaged it looked as though they had been stamped on in the sorting office. I consider myself lucky that only 2 were damaged, check the respective forums for each of those sites to see how others have fared.

It's safe to assume that Zavvi would have had these shipped over in bulk and that they would have been adequately packaged. They also normally, albeit not always, send out steelbooks to their customers in cardboard boxes so the problems inherent in ordering them from Amazon.ca or Amazon.com are hopefully avoided.

So, all in all, it's a case of swings and roundabouts. Any prospective purchaser needs to weigh up the pros and cons before making a decision.

JackRegan · May 27, 2014

incorrigible said:
The topline for the entire Hut Group is about 77m pounds. To put that into perspective for you, that's about how much the busiest McDonald's, which is in Moscow, clears in revenue in a year too. So yes, their entire corporation is small-time in the etailer space. Do you realize how incredibly hard it is to make money in e-commerce? Amazon literally has not made a cent in 20 years. In fact, they have billions in accumulated deficit.

You post like a Zavvi rep so this point is probably wasted on you, but it's more than obvious Zavvi sells steelbooks in allotments.

Rubbish!

The Hut Group's first half year turnover in 2012 was £66.2 million, which was 54% up on the same period in 2011. Pre-tax profits for the same period were £4 million. 2012 full year turnover was £145.3 million

The business has been growing in leaps and bounds since then.

In April 2014 The Hut Group topped the Sunday Times 'Profit Track 100' list of Britain's private companies with the fastest growing profits. (In 2013 they made £11 million profit before exceptional costs, on sales of £185 million.
Profits since 2010 have been averaging a growth of 178% per year!

Last year Zavvi alone had (if memory serves) 62 exclusive steelbooks. At an average of 3,000 copies per title, that is 186,000 steelbooks.
At an average of £12 per copy that's £2,232,000 turnover from their exclusive steelbook titles alone.

Profit margin on Steelbooks far from being pennies is in the region of fifty percent. so you're talking approx £1,116,000 profit from those alone.

If you want to talk nonsense, fine, just direct it toward someone who doesn't know any better!

Dubliner1 · May 27, 2014

JackRegan said:
Rubbish!

The Hut Group's first half year turnover in 2012 was £66.2 million, which was 54% up on the same period in 2011. Pre-tax profits for the same period were £4 million. 2012 full year turnover was £145.3 million

The business has been growing in leaps and bounds since then.

In April 2014 The Hut Group topped the Sunday Times 'Profit Track 100' list of Britain's private companies with the fastest growing profits. (In 2013 they made £11 million profit before exceptional costs, on sales of £185 million.
Profits since 2010 have been averaging a growth of 178% per year!

Last year Zavvi alone had (if memory serves) 62 exclusive steelbooks. At an average of 3,000 copies per title, that is 186,000 steelbooks.
At an average of £12 per copy that's £2,232,000 turnover from their exclusive steelbook titles alone.

Profit margin on Steelbooks far from being pennies is in the region of fifty percent. so you're talking approx £1,116,000 profit from those alone.

If you want to talk nonsense, fine, just direct it toward someone who doesn't know any better!

...don't forget to deduct the Phantom Spineslashers salary

JackRegan · May 27, 2014

Dubliner1 said:
...don't forget to deduct the Phantom Spineslashers salary

That's why I reckoned 3,000 copies mate

incorrigible · May 27, 2014

JackRegan said:
Rubbish!

The Hut Group's first half year turnover in 2012 was £66.2 million, which was 54% up on the same period in 2011. Pre-tax profits for the same period were £4 million. 2012 full year turnover was £145.3 million

The business has been growing in leaps and bounds since then.

In April 2014 The Hut Group topped the Sunday Times 'Profit Track 100' list of Britain's private companies with the fastest growing profits. (In 2013 they made £11 million profit before exceptional costs, on sales of £185 million.
Profits since 2010 have been averaging a growth of 178% per year!

Last year Zavvi alone had (if memory serves) 62 exclusive steelbooks. At an average of 3,000 copies per title, that is 186,000 steelbooks.
At an average of £12 per copy that's £2,232,000 turnover from their exclusive steelbook titles alone.

Profit margin on Steelbooks far from being pennies is in the region of fifty percent. so you're talking approx £1,116,000 profit from those alone.

If you want to talk nonsense, fine, just direct it toward someone who doesn't know any better!

Unless you are a Zavvi insider, what would be your basis for steelbook's average per unit margin? They're not a public company, and even if they were, I highly doubt they would disclose product line margins. It's certainly not required by financial reporting guidelines. I think I can safely file this source under "your butt." The Hut Group self-disclosed they have a 37% international sales mix. For steelbooks, that's likely over 50%. They are essentially eating all shipping costs. Then, you got all the OCD behavior surrounding steelbooks which causes damage losses and increased CRM costs. There is no way in hell they can come close to a 50% gross margin, let alone net.

The 77m GBP was actually the first half of 2013, instead of the full year, and even though you're decent at pasting from Wikipedia, you still don't seem to have any understanding of what scale in e-commerce looks like. Maybe I'm too used to looking at big numbers because I'm in the investment industry, but is a low 7 figure top-line for steelbooks that you estimated supposed to be impressive? I wasn't kidding at all when I say busy McDonald's can earn 9 figures annually.

You're obviously not somebody that pays attention to financial news, but here's a tip: never take grown XXX% since so and so on profit numbers seriously. They had a 12.7m loss in 2011, and while I don't care to look up what it was in 2010, I'm sure it wasn't pretty either coming off of the financial crisis.

digitalbabe · May 27, 2014

Hey guys, a few posts removed, lets keep the personal attacks out of the HDN community-thanks.

Kizza · May 28, 2014

Has anyone ordered from the imports section yet?

CasuallyDressed · May 28, 2014

I want Face Off but I'm not paying £15 for it when I've seen it on Amazon.ca for $11.

Kizza · May 28, 2014

CasuallyDressed said:
I want Face Off but I'm not paying £15 for it when I've seen it on Amazon.ca for $11.

Yea thats true. I really want Watchmen but i dont know what to do.

Flash · May 28, 2014

I ordered a few on the import thread, don't think they are too badly priced and already in the uk. Less chance of damage.

darczap · May 28, 2014

I got an email from Zavvi saying a There Will Be Blood Steelbook was cancelled. I got another email after that one saying to ignore the previous email as Alice in Wonderland was not cancelled :wtf:

I didn't have a There Will Be Blood Steelbook on order. I got a 10% coupon out of it though lol.

UpsetSmiley · May 28, 2014

Kizza said:
Yea thats true. I really want Watchmen but i dont know what to do.

I purchased my copy from Amazon.com, you can also get it under £10 from US sellers on Amazon.co.uk. Only downside is the waiting time, which can range from about 7-14 days for the most part. Other than that great

steel888 · May 28, 2014

darczap said:
I got an email from Zavvi saying a There Will Be Blood Steelbook was cancelled. I got another email after that one saying to ignore the previous email as Alice in Wonderland was not cancelled

I didn't have a There Will Be Blood Steelbook on order. I got a 10% coupon out of it though lol.

I had the exact same scenario.

In the first email, they got the referenced order number right for Alice, but I certainly never ordered TWBB.

Who says Zavvi doesn't have great customer service? :hilarious:

tristar6 · May 28, 2014

Whats the thing about the 15% coupon on disney steels?!
Is that for my next order?!

JackRegan · May 28, 2014

digitalbabe said:
Hey guys, a few posts removed, lets keep the personal attacks out of the HDN community-thanks.

Seeing that you removed my post that said Incorrigible was out of his depth - which he quite obviously is as he changes his story to suit circumstances -
then perhaps you would be fair to me and see fit to remove the post where he calls me OCD, generally insults me, quote ''File it 'under your butt' - which is hardly any way to talk to someone; and goes on to spout even more nonsensical stuff he's made up on the hoof to satisfy his puffed up self-important ego that is also fact if you read his post closely - he's trying to impress people, not relate facts!

I quoted facts, nothing more - I cannot be held responsible if he doesn't know what he's talking about, yet feels the overwhelming need to dis the facts and make personal attacks on me.

Oh, BTW, Incorrigible - don't diss me with your alleged superior knowledge - it won't work. Also, for your information, the largest and busiest McDonalds in Moscow on Pushkin Square has a turnover on average of $3.0 million per month, that equates to an average $36 million per year gross (approx £21.5 million pounds - not the fanciful £77 million you erroneously claim!

Incorrigible by name, and by nature it seems!

Punker76 · May 28, 2014

Couldn't Zavvi offer a little more in the description field for these imports? Does Suckerpunch has interior artwork? Is it single disc? Does it include the uncut version? Wouldn't mind a couple of these imports but not going to blind buy....

Slinchafi · May 28, 2014

DodgyDave said:
As Konflick said.
No customs charges within Europe.

Not true, unfortunately. While UK is exempt from this due to an agreement between Channel Islands and UK, every other EU country still has to pay import tax on items with value of 22 EUR or higher. Not every package gets hit though, so if you're lucky you might never have to actually pay.

DodgyDave · May 28, 2014

You learn something every day. Even at my age.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Slinchafi · May 28, 2014

Yeah, but zavvi doesn't ship from within EU, but from Guernsey. I was talking specifically for them. Since Guernsey isn't part of the EU you have to pay all the import costs as you would when buying from US or Asia for example, that is if your package gets pulled of course.

Zavvi - Retailer chat [Europe]

Attachments

Flash

augustus

JackRegan

Dubliner1

JackRegan

incorrigible

digitalbabe

Kizza

CasuallyDressed

Kizza

Flash

darczap

UpsetSmiley

The Ninja with True Grit

steel888

hmmm

tristar6

Plain Archive Addicted

JackRegan

Punker76

Slinchafi

Vinyl Ninja

DodgyDave

Getting too old!!

Slinchafi

Vinyl Ninja

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