Printable View
Very true Chip. There are good AND bad distributers just like there are good and bad producers, good and bad agents, good and bad actors....you get the gist. I know a great distributor who is small but does a great job. Its not the profession, its the person
:bunny:
You usually DO disagree...
The context of this thread is that a certain middle man is not paying a certain studio. You kind of jumped in without reading.
But you did satisfy my point that direct sales to customers thru one's own website does work, and if you do distribute thru a big established dist (e.g. Marina Pacific)...
So you really did agree with me, and are living proof of how it does work.
Another telling part of the downward spiral of DVDs is how many new studios MP takes on in any giver period of time. It's assumably a lot smaller list than even the smallest of the VOD sites.
And I suppose I should qualify my remarks further - for those who don't read - that since the name of this Board is Gay Wide WEBMASTERS, the context of my remarks regarding DVDs is as a webmaster who is also a studio, but uses the web as an alternative to brick and mortar sales channels, because of various forms of passive disinterest by the Marina Pacific's of the world.
The downward spiral of DVDs the past 4 years has been due to stores that limit the distributors they work with, and the distributors that limit the studios and product lines they carry.
Thus we studios as webmasters, and webmasters as producers of content, don't always fit in to the old model. Who cares?! We created our own model that works rather well - and if the honest numbers were to come out, probably far exceeds the dinosaur DVD model.
I've never NOT been paid by a VOD portal. Have I ever NOT been paid by a sales channel, YES! Just 2 weeks ago! But that just gets back to DIY!
Dp I cry because MP didn't return my phone calls or e-mails? Of course not. I found the right fit - and it wasn't with them.
If you want the job done right, DIY, Do It Yourself, and don't look for your lost lunch money when a middle man with less entrepreneurial vision as you stumbles, because all he wanted to do was share your profit.
If someone rally wanted to make money selling DVDs - there's two DVD On Demand B2C models that work...
One is the very On Demand NaughtyBids.com thing, which can be flakey (seasonal) and can be full of bottom feeders who want $5 DVDs... but the other is a mix of the old style Replicated inventory and more modern Duplicated inventory models.
Not sure that I want to share the second success method with people who disagree with me.
I am wondering how many "Anyone else having trouble getting paid by... (fill in the blank)" threads we could all start here???
Nick,
I agree with people and I disagree with people at various times. I generally agree more than disagree. If you find me disagreeing with you a lot, it's probably because my experience is different than yours more often than others, or because your posts may be disproportionately negative and I tend to be a rather optimistic person.
You made a generalized statement about middlemen which is simply not true. (you said "middlemen are dead" and implied that all distributors fail to pay, neither of which are true.) When called on it, you reframed it to refer to one specific distributor.
The other thing people fail to realize is that there IS NOT a downward spiral of DVD sales. Ask any of the major distributors and they will tell you they are actually shipping MORE units in 2007 than 2006, in 2006 than 2005, etc. What is happening is the pie is being cut into far smaller pieces, so there are now a bazillion producers selling 200 units of a title instead of 50 companies selling 5000-20000 pieces. If you want to talk about "not reading", that particular discussion has appeared on this board a dozen times in the past 2 years.
Yes, physical sales (at least in the US) will drop substantially. But sales in numerous foreign markets are increasing dramatically. It's a little harder to direct sell units to China and many other countries where the growth is happening, but it is quite possible to do so, and, in fact, is best accomplished by partnering with the "middlemen" who are "dead" according to you.
Nick, you seem to have everything figured out and don't require any input from anyone else, since you are always right about everything, so have at it.
Actually just for your reference, I've been reading the entire thread since it was started. And we (MRC) are webmasters with several websites and an affiliate program, a pretty major DVD studio, and various other adult-related properties. We've been producing and distributing (retail and wholesale) physical video product since 2002.
Also, just for the record, Lee considers this board to be a community for DVD producers as well as webmasters/program owners/content producers, not just webmasters.
Many here i think wear 2 hats as producers and web guys. As a studio, our web revenues are an integral part of the business and physical product still continues to be very important too.... (if our distributers are here as well reading, I'll say that I agree with gaybucks_chip. We have fantastic guys in the US, Europe, UK, Australia, RSA, Mexico and Canada (If anyone knows someone in Brazil...). They always pay on time and after a bit of a dip a few years back (around the time of the big european bareback push), sales per title are steadily on the rise, although we don't expect this to hold in the long term, it is good while it lasts.)
So much for the ego tripping and self-aggrandizement... what about an answer to the maker of this thread's original posit: "Why hasn't a 3rd party paid him?"...
Indicative of... (fill in the blank)...
I offered my answer... my answer isn't the context of the thread.
I don't think the question was why they have not paid him, but why he is not able to get a response from them to find out why they have not paid him. But your original 'indicative of...' answer probably has the best chance of being right.
Nick, sorry you feel that way. People who know me know that I'm pretty far from that characterization.
As far as the cause of the White Tiger problem (which isn't limited to them), some of the distributors have had a reputation for slow pay for 10+ years according to someone I spoke with recently. With those, it's just their way of doing business.
Others have been running into cashflow issues related to the decline of bricks-and-mortar stores.
Still others probably took on too many studios, or too many units of titles that didn't end up moving well.
My impression of White Tiger, from meeting Rob and Lynton, was that they were very genuine about trying to do something right, and were trying to take steps to NOT be like some of the more established distributors. Their original idea, of sending out 12 postdated checks (one per week) to completely pay studios for titles as they were released, was a good one, but the problem was, it assumed that all titles would sell at least 1000 units and that retailers on terms would continue to pay. I think both assumptions were faulty, but I don't think there was any malicious intent.
I have no knowledge of the specifics, but I could imagine that with the repeated turnover of sales staff, there is probably a ton of product sitting on White Tiger's shelves (and floor) and that's what's screwing up the cashflow. Combine that with the collapse that's going on with the bricks-and-mortar stores and you have a recipe for serious cashflow issues.
The physical product side of the industry is definitely changing. Anyone who is really thinking way ahead is changing their strategy. As Nick said, direct-to-consumer sales is a growing channel that was pretty minimal a few years ago. But getting product into other markets, finding more creative ways to market, both to retailers and consumers, looking for ways to differentiate your physical product from other studios is equally important.
I don't know how much of this White Tiger is doing, but ultimately, for them to sell product to retailers and get paid, they have to find ways to differentiate themselves, and the products they are distributing, from their competitors. Hopefully they're doing that, and this will enable them to pay their studios. Helping them to understand that you want to work with them rather than simply beating them up for payment is usually a good strategy.
actually we sell pretty well. In particular our asian stuff usually hits # 1 on the jrl asian charts. and stays there for a month or more in that # 1 spot . Our direct online sales are healthy too.
We already have an offer from a distributor eager to take up the asian line,raves from the webmasters who buys our asian web content, and a partner for a members website.
Still we'd like to get paid
DVDs aren't dead nor are they going anywhere. We are selling anywhere between 5 and 15 dvds a day. But we also do not work with distributors. We are our own distributor and sell our products on our stores. But no, dvds arent' dead in fact they're selling better and bettter. :cash: :cash: :cash:
actually our wholesale and direct to consumer online sales have been very good. In particular among our three studios, "Rising Son " titles always premiere in the number spot on the JRL asian charts and stay # 1 for at least four weeks. Sales of course, only count if you get paid for them :-(
anyone seeking Firepower Rising Sun or Ameriecreme dvds can contact me directly
GayPornCowboy, do you have a website that we can view? We may purchase stock from you. Email me your information to DerekT@SebastiansStudios.com and I may be able to work something out with you. :luke:
sorry for being repetitive, pont being, , feel free to contact us direct for title for these three studios for the moment, we expect to have a distributor announcement, at least for Rising son, as early as after the holiday weekend :-)