PRODUCERS, are market conditions improving?

[Algenon5]

Anyone who regularly checks out what is new at NicheClips can't help
but notice there recently have been signs of improving sales. These are:

>A number of major producers have stopped re-releasing old videos instead
of new titles, and seen to have returned to full production. (I do not include
in this PFK's welcome inclusion of a large number of archived titles in their
NicheClips lineup, since PFK never ceased highly-active production.)

>The completely inactive Punished Heroines has returned to regular production.

>I haven't noticed any new fire sales, and the ones that are still around aren't
being replaced as they lapse.

>In general, video prices seem to be increasing. (I'm not crazy about this one!)

>I no longer receive those "preferred customer" emails from NicheClips, begging
me to visit the site.

Taken individually all of the above could be the result of circumstances other
than improved sales. However, taken collectively they seem to indicate a
noticeable upturn in the snuff fetish business.

A final item: In a recent email conversation with someone who owns a paysite
and hosts a number of others, he mentioned only 20% of his business comes from
the U.S.. Although much of his site's content comes from U.S producers, most of
his customers are non-English speaking. Are our producers who market directly
having the same experience?

Comments from producer/members would be very welcome.

Al

[JohnM]

In 2007 I produced 4-6 movies a month sold through one outlet to survive.

In 2010 I have to produce around 20 movies a month and market them through several outlets to survive.

But, I also have more expenses then I did in 2007.

But, there was actually a lot more competition in 2007.

So, given less competition, having to produce more, even with my expenses going up, I see that there is definately a struggle still.

Here is another factor. Back in 2007, one movie for me would sell 100's of copies.

In 2010, reaching 100 makes it a blockbuster.

Part of that is simply market over-saturation. You an only make so many meteor plummeting toward the earth movies.



JohnM

[Algenon5]

Hey JohnM,

I didn't in any way mean to imply it isn't rough out there. Regardless,
you and other established producers are apparently riding out the
storm, for which we're all grateful. It's possible the positive indicators
I mentioned are just a mirage or temporary blip, but I certainly hope
not. Ultimately I believe the future looks bright. The reason is increasing
broadband access.

At present - either through lack of local infrastructure or affordability
issues - on a per-capita basis only 40% of the U.S. has broadband access.
This ranks us 16th in the world behind countries like South Korea and
Finland. Shocking, ain't it? As you probably know, there is a government
initiative to change this absurd situation, but it's slow in taking effect.
The problem being the big ISPs are dragging their feet, much preferring
to fight it out in high-population-density areas. Nevertheless there is slow
improvement. In fact access must improve if the U.S. isn't to become a
technological backwater. At least in this regard I'm reasonably upbeat
about the future.

Al

P.S. Yeah, Blue, I know Canada is 12th in world access ranking. Our
moose are still better than your moose!

[Bluestone]

Not so, Al!

Our moose can beat your moose any old day, and they have better broadband moosenet too

As for sales, I continue to find them slow, but steady. Hopefully, my new store will frustrate the hell out of hacker pirates who have been stealing my work and causing prices to rise by their actions. If piracy continues to impact producers' sales, they will either go out of business or leave the public domain and produce only customs with no site versions. Then, it'll cost thousands of dollars for the type of videos that I now offer for $13 to $18. So, yes, the economy is bad, but the piracy issue, I.M.H.O., is worse. JohnM can no longer sell hundreds of copies of videos not just because there are many more producers in the community.

Well, I'm sticking around for the long haul, but luckily I don't depend on the income, or lack thereof, from my video sales. If I didn't have the day job, I certainly wouldn't be investing the time and money to fly in top notch talent to produce videos that I barely break even on.

Only one producer's outlook, however. I'm sure there are many more and differing views.

Blue

[Algenon5]

Not so, Al!

Our moose can beat your moose any old day, and they have better broadband moosenet too

Blue

Your moose could beat our moose? Utter nonsense. To prove it I suggest a
moose-off - antlers at ten paces on the ides of November. Moosenet? Balderdash!
If there was such a thing I would be on it.

Enough already. I agree that a solution must be found for the piracy problem.
There doesn't seem to be a technological fix. DRM certainly isn't the answer.
In fact I recently posted an item on its legal removal in the Image Forum; not
to aid theft (which DRM really doesn't prevent), but because it restricts a legally
owned video's legal use. Besides, any answer technology provides would be sure
to be beaten in short order. In any event, Piracy may not be the main problem.
We haven't mentioned that five-hundred-pound gorilla sitting over there in the
corner - NicheClips and its absurd 40% commission. Find an answer to this,
and piracy might not as big an issue as it is now.

An open forum isn't the place to discuss possible solutions. So I hope some of
you reputable producers will get together privately, disregard all other issues
and work together to develop a practical, cooperative marketing method. Your
ultimate success and even survival may depend on it. Finding an alternative
to NicheClips is one thing competing producers must not compete on.

Al

[JohnM]

I will say something about the 40%.

In 2003 or so, we (Hank and I with Ruemorgue) offered the community of producers our own version of Nicheclips. We had the website ready, had invested in the programming and infrastructure and made an announcement to see if producers were interested in supporting this project.

No one was.

At the time, we were thinking of taking about 25%. Then, about a year later, Nicheclips launched and producers gladly went that route instead. I guess we were too cheap.

But, to be real, that rate would have been short lived. Clips4Sale, Nicheclips, Clips.com and most others all take 35-40% and the reason is that the staffing needed to prevent fraud and keep consumers and merchants safe, plus the complexity of the system itself and upkeep, plus the massive storage and cost of dedicated servers more then justifies that amount.

Certainly, if I had my own solution--just for myself, the costs would be lower. But, manually scrubbing each transactions to prevent fraud, or worrying about customer support and chargebacks, or fending off DOS attacks, would probably take up enough of my time to significantly affect my product. Yes, 40% is a lot, but I look at what is being done that I don't have to do and I see it as a cost I am willing to pay.

And, no, clips are not marked up 40% as some might suggest. It is simply the cost of doing business, like the cost of piracy, the cost of a troubled economy. My prices have stayed pretty much the same over the years because it is important that I am consistant for my customers. I price the product based on what it cost me to produce and the overall content package.

My profit may fluctuate depending on where or how I am selling it, but I do not punish my customers for that in any way.

I make the highest profit by you sending me a check. But, do I really? I have to take a break from editing and go to the post office to get the mail. That's 30-45min round trip. I have to process the order, i.e. physically open the letter, extract the payment, set up an FTP directory, upload the movie. That can take 30-1hour. Later, I have to remember to delete the directory to avoid piracy. Even later, I take the check to the bank and hope it does not bounce 7 days out. All that for a $14 movie. Or, someone orders it from Nicheclips or TPAP, gets it instantly, and I get $8.40 and they get $5.60 to do all that for me so I can keep editing, answering emails, and booking shoots.

Maybe it is a wash. :-)

JohnM

[Algenon5]

JohnM, I don't doubt anything you say. Nevertheless I'm convinced a
workable solution is out there, even though I'm not smart enough or
knowledgeable enough to know what it is.

Thinking out loud, it doesn't seem like five or ten consistent producers
banded together would require a massive NicheClips-type operation.
But then what the hell do I know? I didn't even realize Clips4Sale was
still around. Don't they have some sort of cockamamie, checks-only
payment system where it takes two or three weeks to get a video?

Well, whatever. I still don't believe the idea of a more affordable sales
outlet should be abandoned.

Al

[tommygun]

It is a sad commentary on our times that people think that getting something for nothing, from a pirate source, is good. Actually, it just restricts the quantity and quality of material, because as is said continuously, no one really makes any money out of this production business. Thus, I keep saying that the prices of the clips need to slowly go up to allow more to be invested in quality models and quality production. When I think of the $20 i used to spend at a video store renting four or five movies that took a couple of hours to scan, hoping I'd find at least one truly interesting scene, I still think this community has become incredibly lucky in the internet age because of the material produced specifically for our interests at prices that are incredibly low actually.

In other words, everytime someone buys a clip, whether from NicheClips or a direct store site, they are actually investing in the next round of productions, and the quality of material they will find on the net.

[Algenon5]

Tommygun, I don't think it's a sign of the times. For as long as I can
remember - and that's a pretty long time - people have always been after
something for nothing, when they could get away with it without fear
of repercussions.

As for prices, the $20 to $25 dollar range seems to be all that the market
can bear at present. And for this JohnM turns out some videos that are
almost an hour long. While in the very recent past, the lamented KHP
pumped out seven minute videos that successfully sold for $15. Go figure.

Al

[JohnM]

I didn't even realize Clips4Sale was
still around. Don't they have some sort of cockamamie, checks-only
payment system where it takes two or three weeks to get a video?

Al

Actually,

Clips4Sale has an Alexa traffic ranking of 3700, with Google being #1 and Nicheclips ranking around 57,000--that is huge traffic. There are something like 80,000 stores and many of them are the backbone or small, mom and pop porn businesses.

It is not a prepaid system. You just see what you want, whip out your card and get it.

At my C4S store you can find many of my Gun-Funs and Superheroine clips: http://clips4sale.com/studio/32490

And, here are most of the video mirrored from our Dirty Deed site. There is no descriptions, you simply have to already know what you are after: http://clips4sale.com/studio/39000/

JohnM

[Algenon5]

I didn't even realize Clips4Sale was
still around. Don't they have some sort of cockamamie, checks-only
payment system where it takes two or three weeks to get a video?

Al

Actually,

Clips4Sale has an Alexa traffic ranking of 3700, with Google being #1 and Nicheclips ranking around 57,000--that is huge traffic. There are something like 80,000 stores and many of them are the backbone or small, mom and pop porn businesses.

JohnM

er, right. When you first mentioned Clips4Sale, I went there and was amazed
to discover how huge the site is. It's so big it looks like it's a pain in the ass
to navigate. My only previous experience with Clips4Sale was years ago when
Paul had a small store there. At that time it was checks-only, so I ended up
getting videos directly from Paul, since sending him checks made more sense.

A last word about NicheClips: I have to admit that from a buyer's standpoint,
their customer service is first rate. The few times I had minor problems, they
responded to my emails within minutes and provided immediate fixes.

Al

[Bluestone]

Brand New Study Just In!!!!

Well, recently Bluestone Silk Videos moved from a bi-monthly release schedule to a weekly release schedule. You'd think that would have doubled sales, wouldn't you? Well, not so! After about a month on a weekly schedule, sales have not increased at all. So, double the titles, same number of sales. Makes me think that there are just so many dollars out there to spend on our type of products. So, here's one producer who is now convinced that market conditions have not improved. Not a good sign for producers in our community

Blue

[Algenon5]

Let's hope that was just an anomaly, and or the survey was based on a too-short sampling period.

Al

[Bluestone]

Well, Al, I just got my semi-monthly statement for the last 15 days, and double the titles available have actually resulted in a drop in sales from when I was only releasing two videos a month, instead of 4 or 5. So, as far as I'm concerned, market conditions right now are the worst that I've seen in the past several years that I've been in production. I also notice that message board traffic is down on all of the boards. Other producers may want to share their thoughts on this subject, but as far as I am concerned, the future of our industry is bleaker than I thought just yesterday

I for one, will be cutting back on shoots, until the market conditions improve. I have one scheduled with Jessica, Meredith and Kelli on December 6th, but that will probably be my last one until the Spring, unless custom orders are received. At this point in time, I feel that customs are all that are driving this business. If I don't have money up front to offset shoot costs, I just will save my cash and wait this market out. After all, as with Joseph and Egypt, I stored up an inventory of footage during the seven years of plenty to get me through the seven years of famine

At least you have one producer's further revised perspective on market conditions.

Blue

[tommygun]

Blue, unfortunately, I think your experience is the fact. There seem to be a lot more producers out there on NicheClips, selling a wide variety of material that effectively competes with our narrowly focused product. But the bottom line is that if 10% of this small market has lost a job, and another 10% lost a job a year ago and isn't "looking" and another 10% has had hours cut back, there are just fewer customers with less money. Yet, the cost of production hasn't gone down at all. So, the focus on fewer films and more quality has to be the right approach. I, for one, think you've got some good ones "in the can," and so I look forward to seeing you finish those up and offering them in the next few months!