Currently, they wrap everything in bubble wrap and send this in cardboard enveloppes, which is pretty neat.
It depends. That's the issue. Too many people don't know this. They see some high prices, which they think are the norm, and it's another case of "It's awfully expensive".
But it's not. Some are, yes, even at Arrow. I remember fondly when I bought Sullivan's Travels £12.99. Now, I've paid £15.99 for Pit Stop, but only £10.99 for If... at MoC. We're still comparing equivalent things, but one can already sense the difference there can be.
Plus, at the moment of looking, the DVDs equivalent of a given movie will still be less expensive than the BD (except specific sales, of course). The issue is : I'm sure I'm paying less my BDs than most people their DVDs.
I live in France. The usual MSRP price of a new title on DVD is 19.99€. Usual MSRP price on BD is 24.99€.
The CNC (the National Cinematography Comitee) says the average DVD selling price is 17.11€ for a new movie, 8.26€ for a catalog movie.
For BD, it's 22.86€ and 13.13€.
That's a wide difference, setting a 33% and a 59% oncost for BD.
Except that on my 1200+ BDs, my average buying price is 16.24€, 13.81€ per movie if I start splitting the boxsets prices. And this includes 179 Criterion which are quite expensive to import to France (usually around 24€ per title, the most expensive price / movie I'm putting on a regular basis).
I've been in the poor consumer behaviour, which basically only was an excuse to go cheap on buyings. But I've learnt that it's just a silly excuse. Tons of movies are being currently sold on BD for $4.99 in the US, or £6-7 in the UK, or 6€ in France, including new movies. That's certainly much less than 17€, or even sometimes less than 8€.
Even some beautiful objects. One can argue "My god, I'd love to get the Rohmer set, but 200€ is just too much". Well, try on Amazon.it and save 50€.
I've been able to get the Ten Commandments US UCE for the same price than the barebones French release. I got the Ben Hur and the Casablanca ones for 25€ each. This isn't expensive. At all.
France is notorious for high prices on video releases.
Even Manuel Chiche from Wild Side said "When you look at Arrow or MoC, DF releases with tons of extras + a booklet, and then look at their prices, you might wonder what are their financial system."
I went to Fopp at Glasgow last week. Lots of movies at low prices : £9 for Possession, £7 for From Beyond. Tons of BFI at £7 or £9. This isn't expensive, especially for a French person.
But nobody care. People don't want to take 5 min comparing prices. They don't want to wait 2 months to get a discounted price. They prefer to complain "It's too expensive" in order to justify poor consumer behaviour because they only buy 3 movies per year but they pay a price that probably no one on this forum would be willing to pay except if fully aware that's a full price.
But you have to remember : in 2014, you still need to remind them that BD players can also playback DVDs.
But you can't expect from a general audience to be a specialised one.
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