Zavvi - Retailer chat [Europe]

TonyStark64 · Apr 11, 2015

Honestly...people here keep having a go at me because i slag off Zavvi!!! Yes i buy steelbooks from them but if i can access them elsewhere i will!!

So Zavvi's NEW policy is....if you happen to miss out on a pre-order....don't worry, the only chance you'll get to obtain a copy is to get one we DELIBERATELY held back from the initial batch put up on pre-order!! And we'll kick you in the balls and charge you £50 as you need to buy a s***box too!!! UTTERLY DESPICABLE & DISGRACEFUL PRACTICE FROM THE WORST INTERNET COMPANY IN THE WORLD!!! RUN BY A BUNCH OF SHYSTERS THAT THE MAFIA COULD LEARN A LOT FROM!!!

*Watch the same thing happen to the Avengers Assemble steelbook!!!

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED - CURRENT AND ALL NEW DISNEY OR PIXAR STEELBOOKS ARE NOW GETTING THIS TREATMENT...the steelbooks people want the most and don't Zavvi just know it!!! :censored:

tenderheartbear · Apr 11, 2015

I don't want Zavvi to go out of business so much as I just want them to sort it out.

They need to work out their core values, ranges and pricing. If they want to be 'the' place for steelbooks, then they need to sort out the basics.

Firstly, get the right titles and quantities. Sort out a deal with the studios for exclusive art, extras and add-ons. Not every movie needs the steelbook treatment, it's clear that many titles don't sell and are on sale for months later. Disney are obviously a big studio and are happy to work with Zavvi, so keep up with the classics and Marvel titles. Presumably add Star Wars next year. Get the designs and finishes right, embossing etc. Bonus discs. WEA would be nice.

Secondly, sort out the pricing. Make it reasonable, and don't suddenly double it after release date.

Get a stock system that works. When something says 'out of stock', mean it. Don't suddenly make some appear (at an inflated price - as above). Be clear on how many copies can be ordered (unlike the Avengers fiasco) and stick to it.

Have clear incentives, like, you know, actually making the Fast & Furious offer relevant. Save £5 on Dracula Untold because you like F&F movies! Say what?

Try to stick to a release date. Things do change, we know that, all we ask is that you keep us informed (not just a 'one size fits all' generic email). If it's out on a Monday, charge and ship the previous Thursday/Friday for Monday delivery (not a week early!). If it's delayed, offer a replacement date so we know.

Finally, when something goes wrong, deal with it properly. Damages/lost items happen, fine, but don't make customers jump through hoops to resolve it. Keep copies available for replacements (and send them first - we will return the damaged one). Sort your customer service out. This is the worst aspect of Zavvi's business. Not just when things go wrong, but in advance. Let people update shipping addresses and credit card details. We shouldn't have to wait for 'payment problem' emails, or have to cancel entire orders (of sold out items) because we've moved. Seriously, get with the program.

Just a thought...

levi · Apr 11, 2015

yes, i detest these disagreeable sales tactics deployed by zavvi which directly demonstrate how desperate, despicable, deplorable, demeaning, dastardly and disgraceful they are... if anyone is duped by these drastic deals designed and developed to drain collectors of their dosh then they really are dumb.

Steelselecta · Apr 11, 2015

levi said:
yes, i detest these disagreeable sales tactics deployed by zavvi which directly demonstrate how desperate, despicable, deplorable, demeaning, dastardly and disgraceful they are... if anyone is duped by these drastic deals designed and developed to drain collectors of their dosh then they really are dumb.

That's a lot of words beginning with D! [emoji38]

C.C. 95 · Apr 11, 2015

levi said:
yes, i detest these disagreeable sales tactics deployed by zavvi which directly demonstrate how desperate, despicable, deplorable, demeaning, dastardly and disgraceful they are... if anyone is duped by these drastic deals designed and developed to drain collectors of their dosh then they really are dumb.

TonyStark64 · Apr 11, 2015

Flash...the problem with Amazon UK and their apparent "giving-up" of steelbook exclusives is the fact they have spunked their money up the wall on Amazon Prime & Amazon Fire!!!!

Flash · Apr 11, 2015

TonyStark64 said:
Flash...the problem with Amazon UK and their apparent "giving-up" of steelbook exclusives is the fact they have spunked their money up the wall on Amazon Prime & Amazon Fire!!!!

I know I wished they hadn't bothered with all that. Amazon's customer service is so much better than zavi, guess it's just wishful thinking if they both had them, I'd pick amazon every time.

JackRegan · Apr 11, 2015

TonyStark64 said:
Honestly...people here keep having a go at me because i slag off Zavvi!!! Yes i buy steelbooks from them but if i can access them elsewhere i will!!

So Zavvi's NEW policy is....if you happen to miss out on a pre-order....don't worry, the only chance you'll get to obtain a copy is to get one we DELIBERATELY held back from the initial batch put up on pre-order!! And we'll kick you in the balls and charge you £50 as you need to buy a s***box too!!! UTTERLY DESPICABLE & DISGRACEFUL PRACTICE FROM THE WORST INTERNET COMPANY IN THE WORLD!!! RUN BY A BUNCH OF SHYSTERS THAT THE MAFIA COULD LEARN A LOT FROM!!!

*Watch the same thing happen to the Avengers Assemble steelbook!!!

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED - CURRENT AND ALL NEW DISNEY OR PIXAR STEELBOOKS ARE NOW GETTING THIS TREATMENT...the steelbooks people want the most and don't Zavvi just know it!!!

Exaclty - and this is why I plead with anyone NOT TO BUY ANY TITLE FROM ZAVVI at the inflated price - and DO NOT buy a Zed box at ANY PRICE!!

The sooner that happens the sooner Zavvi will be forced to wake up and start liiving in the real world!

Blu-devil · Apr 11, 2015

Theres a line spoken in the movie Tequila Sunrise by Raul Julia "I wouldn't give them the steam off my sh1t" That is just how i feel about scurvvi right now.

How I feel about Scurvy's woes?
http://www.gifbin.com/bin/052009/1242225474_attempting_to_give_a_damn.gif

javiermendoza · Apr 11, 2015

JackRegan said:
Exaclty - and this is why I plead with anyone NOT TO BUY ANY TITLE FROM ZAVVI at the inflated price - and DO NOT buy a Zed box at ANY PRICE!!

The sooner that happens the sooner Zavvi will be forced to wake up and start liiving in the real world!

Or, this will happen. They won't have a care in the world and sell them a year later for half the price and still make money on them.
For instance, Zavvi made so much money from you guys when they released Avengers Assemble 3D with the lenti magnet (classic stunt). They've made tons of profit with that stupid stunt and all of you bought in on that stunt.
But, if you wouldn't (by some miracle none of you would order it), they would've been forced to lower the price to £9.99 - £12.99 in 6 months or so and then you'd be able to buy it for a decent price and they'd still make money of you - of all of us, actually.

Just keep one thing in mind, people. Big retailers (like Zavvi) are in this "game" for profits.
I really wish an employee from zavvi (preferably from accounting) would write on this forum and tell us how much does zavvi really pay for 2000 or 3000 pieces of some steelbook release.
I'd be willing to bet that a lot of you would be amazed of how much money they actually pull out when selling out a limited edition steelbook.

JackRegan · Apr 11, 2015

javiermendoza said:
Or, this will happen. They won't have a care in the world and sell them a year later for half the price and still make money on them.
For instance, Zavvi made so much money from you guys when they released Avengers Assemble 3D with the lenti magnet (classic stunt). They've made tons of profit with that stupid stunt and all of you bought in on that stunt.
But, if you wouldn't (by some miracle none of you would order it), they would've been forced to lower the price to £9.99 - £12.99 in 6 months or so and then you'd be able to buy it for a decent price and they'd still make money of you - of all of us, actually.

Just keep one thing in mind, people. Big retailers (like Zavvi) are in this "game" for profits.
I really wish an employee from zavvi (preferably from accounting) would write on this forum and tell us how much does zavvi really pay for 2000 or 3000 pieces of some steelbook release.
I'd be willing to bet that a lot of you would be amazed of how much money they actually pull out when selling out a limited edition steelbook.

Mixed bag here I'm afraid.

I did NOT buy into the 'Avengers Assemble'

I have the original title version from Italy and have never felt the need to have the retitled version - lenticular or not lenticular. we're not ALL mad completists, or utterly thick.

Zavvi are selling a good few of these steels at a loss - and make no mistake about that. At what point they turn a profit is open to question, but you can be pretty damned sure that if a steel reaches £5-99 to £6-99 the profit margin is zero.

Sure Zavvi are in this for profit - but their present approach to the steelbook market is very much ass-backwards.

Overall, as I, and many others have said previously, they don't understand the market at all, and the words 'Saturation Point' or 'Overkill' don't enter their lexicon

alphatyrant · Apr 11, 2015

I'm fortunate in that I rarely order from Zavvi these days and when I have done I've never had any serious issues. My major issue is the fact that they just slap any old piece of tat in steelbook and charge £20 for it. Even when they do pick decent/entertaining movies the artwork is a mixed bag. The Fast & Furious movies for example, the artwork is bloody awful.

NoDingsNoScratches · Apr 11, 2015

After hearing of so many bad experiences others had with Zavvi, I myself am going through it with them now.

My last 3 steels arrived damaged. They want me to ship them back. Which is a first because they have never required me to do that before because I live in the US. This is really inconvenient for me, and not something I want to have to go through repeatedly with damaged steels.

I'm really considering saying "Screw them" and taking my business elsewhere. I've cancelled half of my pre orders (2 of 4 pages), and I'm only keeping the ones I absolutely need.

They only thing that's keeping me from parting ways with Zavvi completely is because they have some nice steels coming out that is worth chancing it.

I would really like to just cancel everything and have nothing to do with them because so feel like they crossed me on my last few deals and their trying to make me go out of my way to the post office to return them, which they have never made me do before

SlyFondle · Apr 11, 2015

javiermendoza said:
Or, this will happen. They won't have a care in the world and sell them a year later for half the price and still make money on them.
For instance, Zavvi made so much money from you guys when they released Avengers Assemble 3D with the lenti magnet (classic stunt). They've made tons of profit with that stupid stunt and all of you bought in on that stunt.
But, if you wouldn't (by some miracle none of you would order it), they would've been forced to lower the price to £9.99 - £12.99 in 6 months or so and then you'd be able to buy it for a decent price and they'd still make money of you - of all of us, actually.

Just keep one thing in mind, people. Big retailers (like Zavvi) are in this "game" for profits.
I really wish an employee from zavvi (preferably from accounting) would write on this forum and tell us how much does zavvi really pay for 2000 or 3000 pieces of some steelbook release.
I'd be willing to bet that a lot of you would be amazed of how much money they actually pull out when selling out a limited edition steelbook.

Scanavo have previously confirmed that a 4000 print run costs €2 per steelbook, so you could take an educated guess that Zavvi would be paying under £5 per unit for the fully packaged steelbook + disc (probably more for Disney titles), plus overheads (transportation, storage, postage etc).

cheetah · Apr 11, 2015

Mr Y Fronts said:
This was a moment I, and many others feared, the moment a retailer bites off more than it can chew, and it was all it's own making.

From the greed it craved when Play.com decided to quit selling Steelbooks direct, in obtaining the unsold stock, to declaring itself the 'Home of Steelbookz', they thought they had just won the lottery, and for a year or so, they were correct. Zavvi even tried to ease the worries of the community by using white boxes and foam for its steelbooks.

We lapped it up, but then it started to go wrong, customer service wasn't quite up to standard, the thick foam in the white boxes changed to a very thin type, then they started to run out of boxes altogether, shipping steelbooks in carboard A1 mailers.....alarm bells began to ring...

Then the rate of steelbooks they released skyrocketed, multiple releases announced every week, it became a flood.

So many releases, but sales began to fall as customers began to lose faith, floods of catalogue releases, constant delays, cancellations, poor quality control and lack of customer service all mounted.

Desparation began to set in, popular titles suck as Disney or Marvel steelbooks, would be artificially made to be 'SOLD OUT', in order to give an impression of popularity and play mind tricks on the general public, then the ZBOX scam surfaced. Suddenly those popular titles increased in price, first it was £49.99 and then it crept up even further. Buy a Zbox they said, and get the steelbook for only £19.99............ It failed, the people fought back with their wallets.

More tricks followed, but the people just didn't fall for it anymore. You see, the people woke up !

Poor Zavvi couldn't afford to pay their suppliers enough to keep up the supply, and with a dwindling demand, it all began to collapse, and so began the viscous circle that led to 'The Home of Steelbookz' to become 'The Graveyard of Steelbookz'

And inevitably, once loyal customers gave up completely, leaving 100's of thousands of steelbooks stuck in a lonely warehouse in a remote island and left to gather dust for all eternity.

The warning signs were all there, LASERDISC, BETAMAX, VHS, DVD.... but £ signs blinded them to the oblivion that lay ahead.

That was the story of Zavvi. and its ultimate downfall.((c)2018)

........................well that killed 20 minutes..

What is this? ZAVVI - THE MOVIE? Sounds great, some real laugh out loud moments. I would go to the cinema to see this. Then Zavvi could release it as a LIMITED EDITION STEELBOOK just before they kick the bucket.

C.C. 95 · Apr 11, 2015

Give your customers a quality product at a fair price, and have good customer service if something goes awry in the process. That simple.
Of course they are in it to make a profit. Who the hell isn't?
Do you really think Blufans/HDzeta, etc. are only in it for the love of the beauty of cinema? Hell no!
Nor should they be. Art & commerce have been strange bedfellows since time immemorial.
Just deliver a quality product at a fair price with good custimer service.
The market 'auto-corrects' companies that suck- they lose business and dollars.

virkia · Apr 11, 2015

I personally have nothing against Zavvi apart from the more difficult than necessary returns process with the hassle of downloading photos of the damaged item, and the amount of time it takes to receive a refund or replacement - of course in an ideal world the Zavvi return would be as hassle free as the Amazon return.
There is also the matter of steelbooks showing as "Sold out" for weeks and then coming back on the site, and staying there for a while after release ending up at GBP 5 or more cheaper before really selling out. Now I've just seen the opposite of that - I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw some 8 pre-order titles that were showing as "Sold out" now being offered for a penny under GBP 50 - don't understand what's going on there exactly as nobody in their right mind would pay that for one of these surely? Cheaper to go to eBay if desperate.
That said, I feel that Zavvi have done a great job in almost single-handedly keeping alive the UK steelbook market and giving us all genres of film in steelbook format - this is something no other retailer can evidently be bothered to do. Apart from that I'm sure I'm not alone in having no interest in buying steelbooks from abroad.
In the past TWO YEARS the figures for retailer exclusive steelbooks speak for themselves:-
Amazon: 6
Entertainment Store: 24
Zavvi: 235
Let us also not forget that no other company is prepared to reduce prices on many steelbooks to the same extent as Zavvi where the patient customer can pick up some decent bargains a few months after release...if they have the nerve.
The white Zavvi packing boxes are excellent and I personally have had to return as damaged in transit less than a handful in all the time that I've shopped with them.

nkb32 · Apr 12, 2015

I know im late to the party but Im just realizing that they are actually, literally selling steels at the the INFLATED!! price of £49!!!!! Just so they can bamboozle a few people who dont know any better and make it seem like you get a special price of £19.99 if you buy their wack ZBOX. And the sad thing is that there are collectors that are desperate enough to go ahead a buy it. On top of that they arent providing any info on way past due releases that havent been dispatched yet.

I usually try to give them the benifit of the doubt as I have never had any major issues with them as they always sort me out with a replacement if damaged and I never had any orders cancelled. But theres no supporting their recent behavior. Its just glaringly wrong to do that to customers who have supported their business since they joined Steelbook flogging business. The recent outrage is well warranted.

£49!!!!!? WTF Zavvi? Who they trying to fool?

zoneism · Apr 12, 2015

virkia said:
The white Zavvi packing boxes are excellent and I personally have had to return as damaged in transit less than a handful in all the time that I've shopped with them.

The Play.com white boxes were excellent. The Zavvi white boxes are adequate.

As long as they get the product safely from a to b then at least the boxes have done their job.

Hamill82 · Apr 12, 2015

virkia said:
I personally have nothing against Zavvi apart from the more difficult than necessary returns process with the hassle of downloading photos of the damaged item, and the amount of time it takes to receive a refund or replacement - of course in an ideal world the Zavvi return would be as hassle free as the Amazon return.
There is also the matter of steelbooks showing as "Sold out" for weeks and then coming back on the site, and staying there for a while after release ending up at GBP 5 or more cheaper before really selling out. Now I've just seen the opposite of that - I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw some 8 pre-order titles that were showing as "Sold out" now being offered for a penny under GBP 50 - don't understand what's going on there exactly as nobody in their right mind would pay that for one of these surely? Cheaper to go to eBay if desperate.
That said, I feel that Zavvi have done a great job in almost single-handedly keeping alive the UK steelbook market and giving us all genres of film in steelbook format - this is something no other retailer can evidently be bothered to do. Apart from that I'm sure I'm not alone in having no interest in buying steelbooks from abroad.
In the past TWO YEARS the figures for retailer exclusive steelbooks speak for themselves:-
Amazon: 6
Entertainment Store: 24
Zavvi: 235
Let us also not forget that no other company is prepared to reduce prices on many steelbooks to the same extent as Zavvi where the patient customer can pick up some decent bargains a few months after release...if they have the nerve.
The white Zavvi packing boxes are excellent and I personally have had to return as damaged in transit less than a handful in all the time that I've shopped with them.

To my own experience, Zavvi is one of the worst companies I have ever known. Yes, they provide a great variety of steelbooks, exclusives and quite often affordable prices, but all things considered negative outweighs the positive. I buy steelbooks all over the world and the one giving me headache is always Zavvi. First of all, the packing boxes are quite far from excellent. I don't know what kind of Ace Ventura delivers these packages, but still, it's clear that they could improve their boxes and packing a lot. I have received a huge pile of damaged steelbooks from Zavvi. For example, when I order from Kimchidvd, steelbooks are shipped in boxes with large amount of bubblewrap. Also the whole return process is a troublesome. With other companies I just send them email saying "I'd like to return my product" and I send it back. Soon I have a replacement in the mailbox. Taking pictures of the damages, give me a break!

Then what I consider the most annoying aspect of zavvi, the customer service. Solving each problem and waiting them to answer takes ages. It's always something like this "I am sorry for any inconvenience this has caused you. Please allow up to 2 working days for us to investigate and get back in touch with you. If there is anything else that we can do, then please do not hesitate to get in touch and a member of our team will be happy to help " Kind regards. At some point somebody might give you some information, but many of the questions never get answered and solving things takes a life time. At the moment, I haven't received my refund and it's been 3 weeks. Paid in advance, later on decided to cancel the order and still haven't seen my money. Also, not a single word of compensation of all this trouble they have caused to me. How dare they treat customers like this? I think I need the help of some consumer ombudsman or something.

How about all the sold outs? If it's a sold out, then don't bring the products back on the site after a week. I don't see steelbooks that are sold out coming back to their sites elsewhere. Also Zavvi, don't try to lure some unfortunate people buying these Zboxes full of junk, as the only option to get ULTRA 3000 LIMITED SOLD OUT STEELBOOK :ohno:

. Yes, nowadays 3000 copies is ultra limited EEK!

.

Zavvi - Retailer chat [Europe]

Attachments

TonyStark64

tenderheartbear

levi

Steelselecta

C.C. 95

The Snarky Assassin

TonyStark64

Flash

JackRegan

Blu-devil

Steelbook Surgeon General

javiermendoza

JackRegan

alphatyrant

NoDingsNoScratches

OCD-Mint Ninja

SlyFondle

cheetah

C.C. 95

The Snarky Assassin

virkia

nkb32

zoneism

Steel Player

Hamill82

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