Re. Canadian distribution and prices ...
I am a frequent DVD purchaser and a regular shopper at retail outlets in Toronto. I've notice that prices for Criterion discs have been dropping here for about the past year.
"The Ice Storm" has been selling for 31.99 at most places including major outlets HMV and Sunrise. At least, that's the 'new release' price. And that is the same price it was going for on amazon and the criterion site. It seems like Criterion prices in Canada have been coming down to basically match the U.S. prices. I thought that might be related to recent changes in the value of the Canadian vs. the U.S. dollar.
With Criterion discs, it does seem that most retailers offer a 'new release' price for maybe 1 - 4 weeks, and then jack the price up. I could see a few reasons for this business practice. It doesn't seem to be happening as much lately with the new releases though - the price increases are not as big.
However, the older Criterion stock in the stores seems to be stuck at the old inflated prices, some of which are just plain ridiculous. I wonder if the flagship HMV store in downtown Toronto even wants to sell their older Criterions, at the prices they ask. I'm thinking maybe they like to have the complete collection on display just for show, and if you really want to buy that single disc for $60, well go ahead. To be fair, HMV does offer some sales and markdowns on Criterions where some good deals are to be had.
Contrast that with the Sunrise store across the street, where prices on Criterions seem to go off in every direction. Still the same high prices on the older stock, but some good mark-downs for card holders, with 10% off all the time and sometimes 20% (double discount!). But for most new Criterion releases, even the discounted Sunrise price will still be higher than the price at HMV. Go figure.
While you can get a pretty good deal at either of these places on ocassion, I've found that for the Toronto area, Bay St. Video has the most consistently low prices on Criterion products. They match or beat the new release price at HMV as well as the 10% discounted card-holder price at Sunrise. Plus, they've got the absolute best prices on older Criterion stock (and no, I am not in the business and have absolutely nothing to do with Bay St. Video, except as a customer).
I don't shop on-line, but living in a large urban area with product readily available, I have no real need to. I really get a rush when I find a great deal on a Criterion DVD!
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grandeprairieboy
17 years ago
Regarding older Criterion titles....they are starting to slowly drop in price as well. If you check out Amazon.ca there are a number of older titles being sold at the new price points.
I think what's happening, is that all the old merchandise from the previous distributor is still being sold at the higher price point since the stores paid much more originally...but as they sell out and reorder the titles from IMAGE, they are being sold at Image's new price point for criterions. Probably why there are a lot of titles out of stock at amazon.ca as well. When they get new inventory in, I'm sure they will have price drops of 50 percent of what they were previously being sold at.
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MacAindrais
17 years ago
I just actually went and picked up the criterion version this one. Price was 31.99, competely reasonable price.
also, not only were there copies of the CC version, but there were also newly in stock copies of the original dvd.
Its good to see some of the prices dropping now. Most shocking to me was the Last Emporer dvd, priced at 49.99. For a dvd of that size from CC usually the price would be 80+
Whats most impressive is that these prices are lower than even the CC retail price, available for the same price as the criterion online store deal. (i.e ice storm is retail price 39.99, for sale directly from criterion for 31.99; Lasgt Emperor is retail 59.99, 47.96 directly from CC store)
Good sign for all us criterion nuts. I'm excited to see the price scale for some of the more art house classics coming out and the overall great line up for the next few months of releases.
regarding older titles, they're all still at the same price as of yet, hopefully they will in fact go down soon.
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