Forum - View topicNEWS: Manga in Walmart
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littlegreenwolf
 Posts: 4796 Location: Seattle, WA |
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 I'm just thrilled now that those 6 dollar CCS manga I saw in my Walmart half a year ago wasn't to be the last of them. Yes, Walmart kills small businesses, but there is no way walmart will ever have the selection an anime store will have, or a book store for that matter in anime and manga. Anime-wise, I've seen my walmart get a title here and there. In dvds they went a poor way by bringing in anime dvds that weren't from volume one. Ex. Chobits vol 3, .hack//sign 2, ect, but then again I wasn't too unhappy with seeing Jin-Roh and the Escaflowne movie in my walmart. What sucks in about 3 weeks later they get rid off all the dvds that weren't sold or something, and I never see those dvds in the store again. Hopefully they'll dedicate a nice little section to anime now, but there will still be no way they have have the selection that an anime store will have. There's just too much anime out there. Walmart won't be shutting down any stores any time soon.
And as to the Tokyopop loosing money on this deal... I just find that funny. Walmart buys things in bulk so they can sell for as cheaply as they do. Tokyopop will be loosing no money, they'll just be expanding to more people. >.> Course then there's the issue of WHAT manga they'll be selling. I think you can be sure that there will only be family safe titles unless they set up some thing were people an get other titles behind counters near the cigarettes. Walmart doesn't want any grandmothers suing them for exposing their kids to porn in the book section.
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Abel
 Posts: 143 Location: AnimeTen.com |
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An interesting article about the Walmart Effect.
Free registration is required and the article is a long read. Another article about the Walmart you do not know. No registration is required. Another one I just found about Walmart affecting the toy industry. TP manga has been available at Target longer then it has been for Walmart. Price is about the same. I can see this as a postitive boon for TP (and perhaps the manga industry in general) since this would possibly increase distribution. TP's situtation may be better then some other suppliers who have endured the Walmart effect since they have a monopoly on titles they own. Walmart can only pressure them with the threat of dropping their product altogether since there is no other foreign or domestic supplier of their titles. As the articles above illustrate, suppliers have to streamline their operations to meet the prices Walmart expects. TP should be able to handle it since most of their translations are obtained cheaply and going overseas will not lower their production costs. The ill effect of Walmart is the loss of better wage US jobs and deflation. Deflation sounds like a good thing but when it personally affects your wages in terms of raises or benefits you tend to cry foul (aka the supermarket strike in California). People tend to be cheap so we will never see the end of this. For those that feel that the specialty store can be a better option this is another interesting read. I am sad that my favorite bookstore in Little Tokyo will be closing forever at the end of Janurary. Yet another loss for us in L.A. 
Abel AnimeTen |
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Emerje
 Posts: 7338 Location: Maine |
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Eh, that's really only about how it's effecting the competition rather than how it's effecting the toy companies. I feel no sympathy for either TRU or KBToys, they're both run by monkeies. I've been collecting toys for the past 10 years and these two just keep getting worse over the years. TRU: -Most items sold $1 more than MSRP -Over priced exclusives (Transformers reissues, Stan Winston Creatures, exclusive box sets) -Whenever sales start to slump they waste thousands on reorganizing and redesiging their stores -And my favorite, John H. Eyler, Jr, current Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of TRU. Former Chairman of FAO Schwarz and often credited for driving FAO into the ground in the firs place, TRU hasn't been the same since. KBToys: -Often sell many dollars above MSRP -"False discounts" uses special price stickers on many items that show a redline strike through and "old" price and a new price "written in" on new items giving the false perception that they've been discounted when in fact they're still higher than MSRP. -Also has a habit of lowering prices just to raise them again, some times even moreso than the original price when they become rare. (example, $12 item, MSRP $9.99, on clearance at $7.99, restickered and put back on shelves for $18 when it became rare.) -Courts recently force KB to hold a store wide sale as punishment of price gouging. $3million dollars needed to be raised from sale, the difference after sale would have to go to charities in the form of new toys. -sells on eBay Meh, those two drive themselves into the ground, they don't need Walmart's help. Emerje |
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Tenchi
 Posts: 4469 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
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Meh... I won't debate the off-topic things, and, in fact, I don't feel like making any more points about Wal-Mart, period, other than to reiterate my point before that I do not think anime and manga sales at Wal-Mart will leech too many regular anime and manga customers away from buying elsewhere and that I think the primary target audience for anime and manga at Wal-Mart is those people who watch anime on Cartoon Network but live in towns too small to have reatalers whom would carry the stuff in the first place, but, as for the alleged benefits of "independent retailers", which, in the North American anime and manga fandom sphere means comic book stores, all I can say from my own experience is that, once the mainstream video retailers in the Montreal area, like Metro Video and HMV, got dedicated anime DVD sections, none of the comic book stores I know of could compete for selection, let alone price. And I think personalized service is overrated... I'm a shy guy and actually prefer service to be a little impersonal.
Comic book stores around here used to have a much better selection of manga in English, but now Chapters and Indigo are rapidly catching up, and, one of the twists here in Montreal you don't get in too many other places in North America is that I have, since about 1995, had an alternative in the form of French-translated manga, which used to be half the price of English-translated manga before Tokyopop brought the price of English-translated manga down to more reasonable levels per volume, and, for some titles, even as a Quebec Anglophone (mother tongue English), even when there was an English version of some things available, I bought the French version since it was half the price and available at every mainstream bookstore. In short, the best thing that happened to anime and manga fans in Montreal is that we don't need to buy our stuff at the comic book stores anymore, and the anime and manga-related business was moving away from comic book stores quite independently of Wal-Mart entering the fray. |
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marcyu
Posts: 28 Location: Destin, Florida |
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I sell manga and DVD's for 20% off and still make money. Not a lot, mind you, but enough to have 6 employees, 2 locations, and maintain positive cash flow. People come to our stores because we've always sold manga for $7.99 and our employees are infinitely more knowledgeable about manga and anime than any Wal-Mart employee. And the only Wal-Mart within 30 miles is just 2 blocks down the same street from our anchor store. And we're planning on opening 3 more stores soon. I don't see how they could ever compete against us.
-Marc |
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Boomi21
Posts: 1 |
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I will read time to time that
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