RACS top selling anime releases (2012)

[WTK]

LINK

- How curious- I thought for sure that "Madoka" would've made the top 50. I also find it rather interesting that not a single title from Media Blasters landed in the top 50 (same deal with Aniplex and Bandai, but that doesn't surprise me).

I wonder, though- which three OOP titles would've made the top 50 if they were still around?

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- I'll make a few observations.

Madoka is an AniPlex title. Nothing they release is going to be a high unit seller due to their high MSRP. I doubt Madoka would rank in the top 200 per unit volume, but might rank quite a bit higher on a list sorted by gross revenue instead.

I'm pretty sure the only thing that MB released this entire year that was new material was Squid Girl, and that title sold poorly. It's way down there. I'm can't publish our actual sales numbers, but for reference if we sold 1,000 Okami-san boxes, we would have sold less than 40 each of either Squid Girl DVD.

Great Guardians would have made the list, but it got kiboshed.

The only thing that Bandai released this year was the K-On box and it's on there, along with a couple other OOP releases that people have pretty much been panic buying since September. If the list went down to 100, a good chunk of the 50-100 section would be older Bandai stuff that is being bought up before they close down.
What about Arrietty? Granted, we sold a lot of it but not enough to make the top 50 list and the reason is simple. Our discount from Buena Vista (Disney) stinks and we have to price their stuff pretty high, so we won't see the kind of sell through on a title like that that a big box store will. Disney doens't give a squirt about indy retailers like us.

There are NO S.A.V.E editions on the list. We do sell a lot of those, but find that by the time a title gets to that price point, there is only a small demand left in the market. Most people that buy S.A.V.E's and other heavily discounted titles are usually the folks that can't afford to buy a lot of Anime, or are picking up a title that they probably would not have bought otherwise except for the price. Once you get into the S.A.V.E edition customer column, you start competing heavily with torrents and streaming services and you are into a consumer category were folks are reluctant to buy Anime at any price.

Obviously I filtered this list of old 'H' titles or that would have been half the list. -_^ Surprised? Shouldn't be.

I knew someone would ask what the other 3 were. You guys just gotta know everything! Actually, I don't remember exactly but I'm pretty sure all three were Funi Limited's that have since been replaced by standards were the LE's versions are sold out.

Running a list like this is slightly jaded due to some titles having been on the street longer than others, but not by much. 85% of the total lifetime sales volume for any given release will usually come in the first 60 days after street. 10 years ago it took much longer, but today these guys have a much shorter sell through / fan interest cycle.

Finally, we don't do targeted sales and discounting, only general coupon offers, so our numbers across the board should be pretty solid as a reflection of the market. People can speculate all day on discussion groups and social media about what's going with what in the industry, or what Anime is better than another one, but we get to see what people actually buy.

[MelancholicMariya]

Or Madoka Magica is primarily sold at TRSI and not RACS. RACS buys from TRSI (and other outlets, but in this case specifically TRSI) as we all know, and RACS is selling the LE at $4 over MSRP ($98 total) where as TRSI is selling the LE at $75. Of course no one is going to buy it from your store Robert. Jesus.

[AKX20000]

I'm with Damius on wanting comparison lists.(despite probably not happening)

I feel like either TRSI or Amazon would give a better idea of actual top sellers than this even is anyways.