Star Trek: Voyager specs and art (1 Viewer)

[Bill Williams]

$139.95 MSRP for a five-disc set? Major bad decision.

Paramount, you need to start bringing down your prices on your Star Trek box sets. Not everyone has $100+ to shell out every time. Why do you think people are paying less through eBay, Amazon.com and other discount DVD sites? Realistically, a 5-disc set like this should street for about $65 and appear in the stores discounted to about $50, like with the Smallville Season 1 set.

 

[Jodee]

Yes, that price is now making me reconsider my decision to buy.

Charging the same as a 7 disc set of a much better series is a foolish move.

 

[Scott Kimball]

Where did you get that price?

Paramount has not had a MSRP for any Trek on DVD to date. These should sell for about $100 per set, with further discounted prices available if you shop around - in line with TNG and DS9.

-Scott

 

[Dave Scarpa]

Might be the First Trek Series I Netflix

 

[Jodee]

It's up for pre-order at DVD Empire for $97.99! Says it is 30% off list price.



Amazon has it for $90.99--30% off of 128.99.

The list price on this should be no more than $100 so you could buy it for around $70 or so.

 

[Bill Williams]

DVDFile has a report on it, and they clearly mention $139.95 as the MSRP.

Even at a $99.99 discount at some stores, there's still no justification in my getting this set. This is one time where Paramount is not getting my business.

 

[David M.]

I was afraid that Paramount would charge the same price for a 7 disc set. $120 Cdn is just too much for a 5 disc tv set.

 

[David Lambert]

They got it from either me, or from DVDPlanet (where I got it from), or from another site that's reporting what DVDPlanet says.

There IS no MSRP for this, as Scott points out.

The sets will sell for "under $100", as Paramount says in their press release at StarTrek.com they have said this about all TNG and DS9 sets, and will continue this for STV as well.

However, that represents the "street price". Follow this logic:

When something lists (MSRP) for $19.99, and actually sells to consumers (the "street price") at $14.99, then the retailer actually pays less than that, right? Let's suppose that the "wholesale cost" is $9.99 each (don't know if that's reasonable, but we're just playing with numbers as an example).

Well, if one studio decides to wholesale an item at $9.99 and declares that there IS no SRP on the item, then the retailers no longer have a basis to tell consumers "it lists for this, but we discount it down to this". Since that is part of the retailer marketing strategy, they must figure out what the MSRP "should be" on that item. So they compare it to other items that wholesale for $9.99, decide what the "SRP is" for that item ("because other items that wholesale for $9.99 mostly have an SPR of $19.99, then we dub the SRP of this item to be $19.99, too"). That gives them the basis to discount "the $19.99 SRP item" down to $14.99 for a street price.


This is what's happening with EVERY ONE of the Star Trek season sets. Since Paramount won't declare an SRP on them, then retailers are comparing it to the SRP of other 6- or 7-disc SciFi sets that wholesale in the same price range. Not many other choices, are there? Yeah...X-Files is about the only other one I can think of. And Fox states it's SRP as $149.95, so it's reasonable for retailers to dub the pseudo-SRP of all the Star Trek season sets to also be $149.95.

Now the Voyager S1 set is probably being adjusted to $139.95 because it's 1 disc shy of the others.


But it's a "virtual SRP", made up by the retailers (and each one may come up with a different amount). At TVShowsOnDVD, we don't list the street prices...we list the SRPs. Because discounts vary on a retailer-by-retailer basis, we can't tell you that $99.99 is "the price" on a Star Trek set, when you may find it for $109.99-$124.99 at your local Best Buy just a month after the street date. So we're kinda forced to play along with the "virtual SRP" game on these releases.

We'd rather not, but what are ya gonna do?


The REAL problem I have with this whole thing is that Paramount is assuring fans with each press release that the sets will street for "under $100". That may be true for 1st-week sales, but a short time later it is very difficult to continue to find these for under $100. B&M Chains regularly charge more than that, as a quick survey of most retailers will quickly prove:

Star Trek Deep Space Nine - Season 5 (10/7 street date):
* Best Buy: $109.99 (although they DO have an online-only sale for 20% off on "collector sets", good through 11/29)
* Circuit City: $129.98
* Wal-Mart: 104.99 (my local store...prices vary by location)
* Borders: $135.99
* Costco: Not available
* Suncoast/MediaPlay: $129.98
* Tower Records: $114.99
* Amazon.com: $97.49


"Under $100"? Yeah, right! Thanks to something called "free enterprise", ironically the Enterprise and her fellow Starfleet ships are not only far from free, they don't even come in at the price range intended by the studio.

 

[Scott Kimball]

DVDFile has a report on it, and they clearly mention $139.95 as the MSRP.

Read that again. They do not say "MSRP" in the text.

"Retail for this five-disc set will run you $139.95. "

It may well be that retailers are quoting a $139.95 list price, so they can put it on "sale" - but if history is a guide, these sets will be available in the $80-$100 range at discount.

-EDIT-
stuff deleted, as it duplicates what David said...

-Scott

 

[Scott Kimball]

The REAL problem I have with this whole thing is that Paramount is assuring fans with each press release that the sets will street for "under $100". That may be true for 1st-week sales, but a short time later it is very difficult to continue to find these for under $100. B&M Chains regularly charge more than that, as a quick survey of most retailers will quickly prove:

That may be true, and I don't like the game either - but you can also walk into a warehouse club (Sam's, BJ's) and pick up an older DS9 set for $89. Internet prices also will tend to be lower than B&M - though, like David, I prefer to buy from a local B&M store, when possible.

-Scott

 

[David Lambert]

Update: I see the other posts that occurred while I was composing mine. I see Amazon says the SRP is $129.98, and DVDEmpire agrees with DVDPlanet (sort of) at $139.99!

Again, the "SRP" will be all over the map on this one, as with on all other Star Trek sets.

If DVDFile took DVDPlanet's price and phrased it to look like a "street price" instead of the virtual SRP, then that's a mistake, I would venture to say.


P.S.: Scott, not everyone has a club store in their neighborhood, or a membership card to one. For that matter, not everyone has the ability to buy things over the internet.

 

[Dave Scarpa]

I'm sure Costco will have these for $85 but in my opinion still too much for this series which is at a disadvantage to begin with because for the most part is stinks. If Paramount Priced these at a $59.95 retail I might bite otherwise I'd wait for used. But that of course would be pronouncing that this trek series is of a lesser value than the others (Which of course is true)

 

[David Lambert]

There's no "apology from Rick Berman", there's no "digitally-removed Neelix", there's no "execution of writers of the first three seasons." There's no reason to buy any of these sets.

Okay, I'm being sarcastic, but Voyager was generally bland at best and clueless at worst.

I don't entirely agree with all that...but I have a co-worker that is a die-hard Trek nut, and doesn't think that this person went far enough in their descriptions!


[ flame suit on ]

 

[Scott Kimball]

Yup... we're all entitled to an opinion... just as long as we all have the facts.

As for MY opinion...
I don't think Voyager "stinks," though it certainly isn't in the same league as TNG or DS9.

Would I buy them? Probably not.

I'm mulling over whether or not to review them... a lot of work goes into reviewing these sets. I will most definitely review season 1, and judge reaction from there.

-Scott

 

[Nelson Au]

It will be interesting to see if Best Buy will continue it's practice of including a limited number of sets with a bonus BB only disc. Since they did it with TNG and DS9, they will likely do it for Voyager. Which makes it a hard thing to pass up for someone like me should I go for these sets.

And then it will follow that the initial weeks release price will be $99.99 at Best Buy , if history repeats itself. Additionally, Paramount will likely reward the fans who buy the last 3 or 2 seasons with a rebate coupon as they did on TNG and now on DS9. I won't try to do the math right now, but it will mean each season is well below $100.00 from Best Buy.

Nelson

 

[Dave Scarpa]

I guess we can say wasted opportunity. And that fits even with Enterprise (Although I think that show better than voyager) The basic lost in space premise was bad to begin with but the characters were well concieved and had chemistry, that's the one thumbs up that I can give to berman and braga they create characters and cast them well, it's just the part of writing for them that suffers,
However the Pilot for Voyager was very good and the show had promise but they did nothing with this plot. Would the Starfleet Crew Clash with the renegade Marquis ? Nope issues resolved and they all played happy after the first few shows. Would the Voyager become a ship on the edge of disaster hunting for food and fuel? Well they touched on this as well but they were usually OK by the end of the ep, and despite getting shellacked in battle often, the ship looked pristine every episode. And Infinite Shuttles.

If they had let loose if they had the crew struggle so that when they got back to the Federation they would have grown to be different characters it would've been great. Instead they had the character always flip fopping in character. They had forced Romances between characters (Chakotay and Seven anyone) and too many Holodeck stories, here they are running for their lives and playing Captain Proton in the Holodeck ? Why would those damn things even be running taking up valuable resources?

I could go on but you all get the point.

 

[Jodee]

I agree with David that the pricing of this is entirely based on the wholesale cost. It also has to do with what type of margin a retailer usually expects to make on an item. I work in music, which is similar to video and the retailer margins typically are 35% (for non-discounted regular price stuff.)

So if we wholesale a CD for $10.97, the MSRP is $16.99, which allows the retailer to make their 35% margin.

My guess is that the wholesale cost on these box sets is at least $80-$85 which is why the retailers are setting the MSRP/"regular" price at $130-$140-- based on their usual margin.

Which explains why the retailers never sell these for much cheaper than $90-$100 or so.

I think Paramount should lower their wholesale cost to about $60-65 so then you might actually see "everyday" pricing of $100 or so.

Universal did the same thing when they announced to the press that CDs would start selling for $9.99 everywhere, even though they were charging a wholesale cost of $9.09. For most retailers to make their margin, they instead needed to price tham around $12.99. It is easy for a manufacturer to tell the press what they "think" the retail price should be, but if they are not lowering the wholesale by an adequate amount, they are expecting to retailer to take the hit.

 

[Dan Rudolph]

I though Voyager was okay, but I'm not paying more than $50/season. Less for season 1 since it's short.

 

[DeathStar1]

Thanks for the Costco info. That'll make s hopping for these at Christmas a whole lot easier. I'm asking for 3 sets of TNG as Christmas gifts, and 85$'s is alot more reasonable than 3 for $135's like you'd find at Sam Goody..

 

[Kai Zas]

It realy bugs me you have to wait a few seconds at the end of every special feature for the listing of available episodes and sets yet to come to pass. Who are those messages for anyway? Evidently the people who see those are the ones that already bought them, right? Do they realy need to tell us that we can buy the dvds wherever dvds and videotapes are sold? Come on! (They did this on TNG as well as on DS9. And they'll probably do it again on Voyager.)

Anybody got a clue as to why?