What stops the man on the street ordering 4k steelbooks?

[ThalliumBook]

Excuse my ignorance, but what is stopping a lay man such as myself from ordering 4000 steelbooks of a movie?

I have the money in savings. Assuming retailers sell each one for £15, I could drum up £60,000 for a 4k print run, which I've read is the minimum order (I assume it's less though otherwise retailers wouldn't make a profit).

I've read that the studios have to approve it? So if it's a release that's already been made, it's already approved? Or at least, it's not beyond the realms of possibility.

It'd be a massive gamble (and probably a full time job to sell them), and no doubt the tax man would want a word, but what's to stop opening a shop on ebay (or something else) and doing this?

 

[Snappychappy]

4k is still in it's infancy so your market would be very limited.

 

[Horhay]

It's probably easier said than done, believe me. There are many factors that come into when attempting to go and make your own steelbook run, many times it's halted by a studio not wanting to license you the title. So yeah it's not as as easy as it seems, you can certainly buy 4k steelbooks, empty cases from Scanavo I am sure, but chances of it containing a movie are slim. Just my .02.

 

[danman227460]

I believe besides having the money, you need the green light from the studio. A regular person off the street wouldn't have the pull to reach the higher ups who would be able to approve a SB run.

And also there are a lot of hidden costs that isn't being said like maybe paying the studio a license fee. You are basing your fee on the "average" price but remember retailers get a discount, I doubt a regular person would have that pull.

 

[n3wk1d]

Errm.. If you do not have the IP right of the movie, you can't print any of the art on the steelbook. Not even a sticker without permission from the studio.

If you have the moolah, wonders can happen.

 

[SaberTooth]

Do it OP, then come back and tell us how it went :movie:

 

[Starling]

With no infrastructure in place for storage, ordering, delivery, customer returns, billing, packing, packaging, advertising, tax, studio liaison, insurance etc, your 60k is far better spent on building up an eBay outlet to begin with. Blu rays have little margin in profit, with quantity driving profitability. The workload of offloading 4,000 steelbooks as a one man business has zero hope of making you anything worthwhile.