Continuing On From Patti's Thread..

Has anyone else noticed a decline in VHS and DVD sales over the past 12 months?

After posting in the thread Patti started i actually checked our stats quickly for a couple of places, MovieMountain, TLA and it would appear, at least on the face of it, now that surfers can access full length movies in pretty much any paysite these days, physical product sales have dropped.

Is this just isolated to us or have more of you noticed this?

By giving surfers exactly what they are demanding of us, are we, in effect, killing the profitability of the industry overall?

Just something to think about.

Regards,

Lee

I don't think that dippin' DVD/VHS sales would equate to lost profits for the industry as a whole. If profits on VOD/PPV are goin' up, as well as profits for membership sites run by video companies and featurin' clips from their movies, then the money's bein made somewhere and for someone, if not the online retail sites.

And that's assuming the online retails sites are actually seeing dippin' sales on the whole and it's not somethin' unique to your stats alone.

I mean it'd be like suggesting DVD sales hurt the industry on the whole because the VHS-only retailers were seeing sagging #s.

I think there's plenty of room for everyone to do well.

I hear what you are saying Brian.

However, when i g back 36 months and see that 6% of our total yearly profits were made up of DVD/VHS sales compared to only 2-4% in the last 12 months, thats quite a big drop.

Actually, im going to look in to these stats a little more and see where that drop in sales has been added elsewhere.

Regards,

Lee

did i hear my name?

if we are able to make money selling paysites memberships instead of a physical video, we are not necessarily killing the profitability so much as moving the profit to a slightly different part of the industry.

i've never sold videos or dvds. i've been selling paysite and avs memberships since 1997 - before that, we got paid per click. to me, more content in the member area = better retention, which equals more money for someone.

Okay so i just pulled the last 3 years of sales figures from one of our companies and this is what i see..

2002 Breakdown:

Paysites - 79%
Dialers - 6%
Toys - 4%
VHS / DVD - 11%
VOD - 0%
Herbals - 0%

2003 Breakdown:

Paysites - 73%
Dialers - 4%
Toys - 2%
VHS / DVD - 6%
VOD - 10%
Herbals - 5%

2004 Breakdown:

Paysites - 70%
Dialers - 4%
Toys - 2%
VHS / DVD - 4%
VOD - 17%
Herbals - 3%

Those figures are based on around 50k in sales from the first financial 1/4 of the year.

It does look like product sales overall have dropped in the last 3 years and, its also interesting to note that VOD sales have risen almost as much as VHS/DVD sales have dropped year after year, the end result is around the same dollar amount, it just means the source of the revenues has changed.

Regards,

Lee

Well has the traffic increased or decreased in that same time frame? not to mention the source of the traffic, as those would also have a bearing on the sales, wouldn't they? :coffee:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gaystoryman

Well has the traffic increased or decreased in that same time frame? not to mention the source of the traffic, as those would also have a bearing on the sales, wouldn't they? :coffee:

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Traffic has steadily increased by about 10-15% year over year for that companies sites.

As for where the traffic was actually going, i only started statistical analysis of that this year so i honestly wouldnt know LOL

Regards,

Lee

Well certainly would be interesting to see how this plays out over the next year or so as well... I know a few on the other side of the pond and they are enjoying good DVD sales over last year, but I am wondering if the dynamics of the unsettled economic situation in the US is partialy to blame rather than over saturation?

Actually, you do bring up a good point about the economy, it could also be partially based on the political climate in the US presently to.

Hopefully this years figures will be of some help in seeing whether either of those factors play a role, if anything, id imagine the figures to be a lot lower all round if the economy or political climates had any effect on them.

Regards,

Lee

Well I think, and only my opinion, that given the political climate and the way the news goes about portraying the industry down there, that it would be interesting to compare some of the stats. I mean, perhaps paysite sales are up or vod simply because of the fear of having it come to the home & become known? Not to mention that the disposable income available has shrunk as well.

yeah, but you can join a large video site and save the videos so you can watch the ones you like over and over.

not necessarily, but rebills rock, too.

i mean, i used to promote these three tv sites, and my average member spent 5.5 months in the site. that means i made $96.11 per join (minus ccbill fees) rather than $30 or $35. so did the site owners.

so sites that have killer retention can pay more for videos - or video production companies can have websites. the money is still being spent, it's just coming in differently.

Well, I'll tell you..

I think that if your product is good enough, it will transcend the trend.

What I mean is this... If your stuff sucks, and people get to see it on the web, they're going to not bother buying it. But since we added our full-length movies to Fratmen, our DVD sales have actually gone UP.

And our members tell us that the reason that they buy the DVDs is that they want to have it on hard copy forever. Quality goes a long way, even in the adult industry.

:yeah:

what jasun says has also been the experience of sites i've worked witth. a lot of paysite members in really good exclusive paysites buy the dvd's even though they've already downloaded the videos :)

just a quick note - i'm inside a topbucks reality site right now, and if you want to see the full version of each video (which is presented in clips) you have to pay and see it VOD.

i'm not sure how happy the members are with this, how well it retains, or what percentage of the members actually pay to see the full video, but this is another potential option.

Interestingly we have seen on both our retail sites, wehovideo.com and gayasianshop.com an increase in DVD sales, an obvious decline in VHS sales with the change in formats

Our overall sales have increased substantially year over year for the past 3 years on the retail side of things..without revealing numbers, let's just say it has driven our company to a very major financial milestone as a result.

We have also noticed an increase in VOD sales, both as a producer of content and an affiliate to VOD Sites.

WE have also been trying to forcast how long the typical retail purchase and product delivery sales model will hold out and when it will have to give way to a majority of sales in online delivery. I think it woudl be a mistake for any retailer that does not take this into consideration. yes, there will always be some stores, there will always be some retail sales in physical products for those that are quality collectors, but at some point I believe the majority of sales will be for VOD delivery of products.

We actually have been working on a retail purchasing option that will blend with the website on a per video basis, to give the purchaser the option of buying the DVD or watching online as a hedge against what we consider to be an eventuality.

For many years, we sold Big Dick (gay & straight) videos.
From 1999 - 2002, video sales warranted us hiring a person solely to package and ship the product.

Those days are now gone, and not only because of the video sites (VOD, PPV etc), but more so due to the lack of new titles, for the specific niche.

Every video distributor, which I have been in contact with over the last few years, offer/think the exact same thing: oh, you want newer (2003-2005) big dick titles; here check these out ... : links to interracial, anal, gagging, gapping and gonzo titles.
Guess the industry is trying to tell me only black men have a big dick. For those that did actually have a few big dick titles, what they offered are from the 90's.

WOW, so they stopped making white big dicks back in the 90’s. (Before anyone starts-up with me ... NO, I am not a racist - I am somewhat olive brown and many consider me a visible minority - I just know what our members want!)

It was pathetic how one company passed off a link that redirected to their anal section ... you fuckers; you've just been added to my shat/negative/black list! Now here is your hat … you know what to do to it!

don't forget the torrent sites, a lot of which have thousands of members