Introduction from Holland

[AcmeMoviestores]

Hi Guys, just introducing our company:
Acme Moviestores from The Netherlands. We sell a lot of Lord of the Rings stuff including Sideshow Collectibles. If you ever visit Holland or live in Holland visit one of our 7 stores:
see this link: www.acmemoviestore.com (http://www.acmemoviestore.com)
Hope to see you soon!

[Lasher33]

Of course everyone will :D

Raising the price of the "Ringwraith on Steed" from E499,- to E750,- when it was still available from the SSW site, because "it is soon to sell out" will definitely draw hosts of people to you shop :p
The same happened with the Fell Beast...
I found this to be one of the retailers that cashes in on the craze.:\
Only last week they ordered all their shops (who are all independent dealers btw and collectively setting prices is an illegal form of trading in the EU) to raise the prices of the Legolas statue from E199,- to E229,- because the statues are now so popular. 8o

Don't get me wrong: beautiful shops with some good items available, but be prepared to pay for it.

grtz,

Peter
(lasher33)

[AcmeMoviestores]

Hallo Peter, even in het Nederlands:

Aangezien wij veel beelden terugkopen van verzamelaars zijn wij genoodzaakt een aantal prijzen te verhogen. Tevens is de verhoging die wij aan onze winkels doorgeven slechts een advies, ze moeten zich er niet aan houden, slechts een advies, dus niet illegaal. Wij doen veel moeite om stukken die niet meer te verkrijgen zijn alsnog aan te bieden.

Er zijn ergere winkels in NL. Witchking voor 700 euro terwijl ze net uit zijn etc.

[dstephan]

Hey no fair, Babelfish doesn't do Dutch!:p

[Lasher33]

Hey Acme,

Thanks for your message and reading back upon mine, I realise that it did have an unintended overly negative feel about it.

Just a couple of remarks, though...

You mention that you buy back statues from (ex-)collectors and that you therefore have to ask some higher prices, but you are able to offer long gone items because you do.
I am fully aware of the worldwide price rage and of course I know about the retail situation here in Holland... With that I mean wholesaler, shipping costs, previous high dollar exchange rate and BTW (sales tax).
In those particular cases I fully agree with you and have absolutley nothing against your prices or your methods. Quite the contrary! I have bought stuff from you in the past (and will likely do so again in the future) because where all the others were sold out, you still had some stuff coming in.

What I was talking about is the fact that you raise the prices of quite easily obtainable items that you did not buy back from collectors, just because all of a suden they have become very popular. I guess that as a collector I have some serious objections against this. In my example I stated the Legolas statue or the Ringwraith on Steed (when it could still be ordered form both PBM and SSW). The Legolas statue can still be ordered, but you raised the suggested retail price nonetheless.
And even though you say that the raising of the prices is merely an advice, I was told by two different shopmanagers in widely separated locations that if they did not follow suit, they would have a severe problem with the motheroffice in Scheveningen. This could of course be an excuse from them to explain the price increase, but in that case it would be good for you to know that this is the story they tell and where they put the blame.

Don't get me wrong, I am not critisising you or your chain of shops... You have a great chain of shops! They do provide a service second to none and I am glad that they are there!
And if you can raise your prices and take extra advantage of the fact that becasue of its popularity people are prepared to pay more for LotR merchandise, so be it. I wish you all the best and good fortune in your business and I'm sure that we will see eachother often when I buy more stuff off you to complete my collection.

I just hope I can do so before another price increase ;)

grtz,

Peter
(lasher33)

[Lynxje]

If anyone is looking for one, this shop in Scheveningen (The Hague) has a Balrog for sale (at least, they had it last sunday). You need to bring 2000 euro's to take it home though (a little under 2500 US dollars with the current exchange rate). Also, they have a Fell Beast selling for 449 euro (a little over 550 US Dollar).

Nice shops, but for anyone who can buy his or her collectibles on the internet, they're just too expensive.

[Sarlacc]

Which shop is near amsterdam? i have to go over here in a couple of weeks...

[kierbaudy]

Do they sell and ship to customers in the US?

[AcmeMoviestores]

Yes, we do, what are you interested in. You can email us at scheveningen@acmemoviestore.com

[Ericske]

I visited 2 shops of the ACME MOVIE STORE chain and it's true, they are nice and have a lot of nice stuff (last Saturday i visited the shop in UTRECHT and they still had an Elrond statue for example). But like Lasher said, you need to bring some serious money to obtain some stuff. And i can 'understand' when it involves a 'sold out statue' but not a statue that's still around (like the Gandalf the Grey statue).

I was interested in the BOOKENDS, they were there on display but when i informed, the salesperson herself said that it was a very expensive piece ('since it comes with the book' (LOTR trilogy off course), the price was more than double than on the site...Ordered it Monday..

Last summer, i went to SCHEVENINGEN, specially for the store there, they had a RINGWRAITH AND STEED there, costs more than 600€. This piece was (back then) still available through the site, ordered it there...

So, it's a shame but i use it to SEE stuff and then buy somewhere else (if possible)..but i guess that's not the purpose of a store... :rolleyes

Ericske