Monday, October 27, 2008

Ingram Video or VPD Questions

chuck said...

My name is Chuck Newton and the name of our company is DVD Rentals, LLC. We have eight machines currently in operation with six more to deploy. Our machines are located in WI, IL and VA. The machines are located in a large grocery store chain in WI and IL and in a convenience store chain in VA. We use Ingram to purchase the DVDs as they are less expensive than VPD. Also, they are going to begin putting on the RFID tags and load stickers for us. I would love any pearls of wisdom you have regarding advertising as we are struggling with that part.

Mike at ReadyDVD said...

Chuck, about how much money are you saving on DVD's from Ingram. Also, how much would you be paying them for their RFID tags? Are they going to be charging for them to be put on the DVD's for you? Do you have access to a newsletter that you can set up for your customers? We have also recently received a contract with Universal Studios that they want us to sign. Did you get that?

Great stuff Chuck,

Sincerely,

Mike
http://readydvd.com



Mike and Chris,

Ok, have just gotten the approval to announce the following:

-- Ingram is ready, willing and able to put the RFID and load stickers on DVDs purchased from them for $0.29 cents per DVD. You need to provide the RFIDs and Load Stickers.

-- The pricing they have me loaded at is "Margin plus 5%". As an example, pre-order for Dark Knight was $18.92, Hancock was $19.26 and Wall-E was $18.94.

-- You can call Bill Watson, Ingram Sales Manager at 301 490-1166 and he will refer you to your local Ingram rep or if you already know who your local rep is have them mirror my account set up (DVD Rentals, LLC). They are going to treat us a buying group.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Chuck Newton


chuck newton said...

Mike,

Sorry for the delayed response but I wanted to make sure it was ok to talk about my deal with Ingram. Anyway, the pricing is not significantly less although every little bit helps. With VPD we were paying an average of $19.07 and with Ingram we are paying an average of $18.50 or so. Since we have machines in WI and IL, the biggest savings for us is having Ingram put on the RFID tags and load stickers. They are charging approx $0.30 per DVD but we are saving $60.00 per week in shipping costs. If you order more than $25.00 per week, Ingram waives the shipping charges and since they are now shipping the DVD direct to the WI and IL locations, we do not incur the additional shipping charges. So for us, it makes sense. Ingram does not currently have a newsletter but I have mentioned it to them and they are looking into it. Let me know if you have any additional questions.

Chuck Newton
Mike at ReadyDVD said...

Hi Chuck,
Where can we get in touch with them? I like the free shipping. That's getting pretty expensive with VPD. Also, do they have all the movies that VPD does? How much do they charge for the RFID tag on the movie?

Sincerely,
Mike Weiland
http://readydvd.com

Chris and Jerrae said...

The pricing I got from Ingram was pretty high. Can't remember exactly but it was significantly higher than VPD. Not sure if it's my volume of business vs. that of others.

My name is Chris and my wife and I are putting in kiosk in the Gilbert area of Arizona. Our company is DVD Express and we've had success with getting signed up to advertise on the kiosk before they go into a location.

Does anyone have any input on the types of TV's that work best on the kiosks?


chuck newton said...

Mike and Chris,

Ok, have just gotten the approval to announce the following:

-- Ingram is ready, willing and able to put the RFID and load stickers on DVDs purchased from them for $0.29 cents per DVD. You need to provide the RFIDs and Load Stickers.

-- The pricing they have me loaded at is "Margin plus 5%". As an example, pre-order for Dark Knight was $18.92, Hancock was $19.26 and Wall-E was $18.94.

-- You can call Bill Watson, Ingram Sales Manager at 301 490-1166 and he will refer you to your local Ingram rep or if you already know who your local rep is have them mirror my account set up (DVD Rentals, LLC). They are going to treat us a buying group.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Chuck Newton

5 comments:

chuck newton said...

Mike,

One additional point to make, Ingram, to my knowledge, does NOT offer the following: a newletter that can be mailed to your customers and a buy-back program. VPD offers both of these. Please keep these two items in mind when trying to decide between VPD and Ingram. Thanks.

Chuck

Mike at ReadyDVD said...

Absolutely, Plus, I have to say, Rhonda is absolutely awesome over there. I haven't ever had a problem with these folks. Brian Bino is also an incredible hand at making the newsletter as awesome as it can be. On my end strictly, it's going to take several more dollars in savings to convince me to move to Ingram. If the folks reading this post haven't seen the newsletter that we get "free of charge" for our customers, they are in for a surprise. My customers read them and love them. Also, you drop html and anything else you want into them to customize the for your customers. Rhonda has asked me about the RFID tag thing before and I am just not too interested in it. I think I can put them on myself. Also, I noticed that you had to supply your own RFID tags for Ingram. I feel a little more comfortable doing it myself. If one doesn't work, then I can just pop a new one on. Just seems like there's too many steps to keep track of on my end. I give all my locations RFID tags anyway. They do all the work for me (I like it that way)

Sincerely,
Mike Weiland
http://readydvd.com

Anonymous said...

I wanted to get some feedback on an idea... every Tuesday that the movies are released, I pay my courier $ 10 per machine to purchase the movies, apply stickers/tags, and load the movies into the machines for me. I am seeing HUGE savings as I stopped purchasing from VPD and started sending my courier to WalMart the day they are released. A lot of people don't know, but WalMart has a promo on the street date only of $ 15.99... no matter the title! With this method I recoupe my $10 per kiosk courier fee with only 2 disks per kiosk... and I never have to do the work. All I do is manage connections. Any ideas? thoughts? concerns?

Thanks,
Jason

Mike at ReadyDVD said...

I find that the problem is that the movies I want aren't always at Walmart. I send my kiosk art a month ahead of time for the slots. This wouldn't work out for me. I also give my host store managers the opportunity to watch the movies before they go into the kiosk (that way, they can tell people about the movie)..nice perk on their end. PLUS, you don't have to worry about the machine being opened mysteriously and movies borrowed.

Sincerely,
Mike Weiland
http://readydvd.com

Rodrigo Fuentes said...

Jasper,

Did you implement your courier idea? Please let us know how you did.

-Rodrigo