Redbox Instant Goes Live

Posted on March 26, 2013 by bermanevansretail
Redbox (owned by Coinstar) has been planning to expand beyond its video-rental vending machines to the online streaming of movies for quite a while. Now, that is a reality as Coinstar and Verizon have partnered to form Redbox Instant by Verizon. 
Roger Yu writes in a USA Today story that: “Redbox Instant is seeking to differentiate itself by mixing streaming with its network of 35,000 kiosks nationwide that offer newly released DVDs. But with only 4,600 streaming titles to start, its library is much smaller than more established competitors such as Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu Plus. For $8 a month, customers can stream movies without a monthly limit and receive four credits to rent DVDs at its kiosks. For $9, customers get streaming and four credits for Blu-ray rentals. Like Amazon and Apple’s iTunes, Redbox Instant also allows customers to rent or buy newly released video-on-demand titles that haven’t been made available for its library of free streaming movies. Customers will not be able to redeem their credits for online rentals and purchases.”
 Click the image to read more from Yu.

Photo by Damian Dovarganes/AP

 

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eBay’s New Fee Structure for Sellers

Posted on March 25, 2013 by bermanevansretail
In recent years, eBay has faced increasing competition from Amazon.com as the latter has added more new third-party sellers to its Web site. Now, eBay is introducing a new fee structure for its third-party sellers to encouage them to stay with eBay.
As Leena Rao writes for TechCrunch: “Ebay debuted a new fee structure and incentives for sellers on March 19 in an effort to remain the most competitive commerce platform next to E-commerce marketplace Amazon. For the first time, eBay is launching free listings for both non-stores and stores on the platform, as well as simpler pricing. Non-stores previously had fixed-price listings that charged $0.50 insertion fees, and then various ‘tranches,’ or levels, of final value fees, depending on the amount of the item. Fixed-price, non-store, final-value fee tranches didn’t have a cap, either. Now, non-store pricing has one, flat final-value fee rate of 10 percent capped at $250. So the max that any non-store seller will pay is 10 percent of the transaction. Non-store consumer sellers are also allowed 50 free listings (no insertion fees) if they list auction-only or buy-it-now items. After 50 listings, sellers will be charged $0.30 per listing.”
Click the image to read more of Rao’s story.

 

 

 

Posted in Online Retailing, Part 2: Ownership, Strategy Mix, Online, Nontraditional, Part 3: Targeting Customers and Gathering Information, Part 5: Managing a Retail Business, Part 6: Merchandise Management and Pricing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Secrets to Setting Competitive Prices

Posted on March 24, 2013 by bermanevansretail
It’s pretty hard for a retail firm to be successful if it (a) does not know what prices its competitors are offering and (b) it does not have a pricing strategy that reflects the competitive marketplace — whomever the retailer defines as its competitors.
As Gilon Miller writes for Upstream Commerce: “Setting prices today is not an easy task for retailers. It wasn’t so long ago when you could simply hire a secret shopper to see what the competition was up to in your geographical area or browse a few online Web sites for competitive retail pricing information. Now, your retail competition is global and you have to consider many thousands of online prices in addition to traditional brick-and-mortar pricing.”
Click the image to read Miller’s “secrets” to competitive pricing.

 

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