I got an e-mail from Reel.com, just like everyone else in the world, asking if I would be interested in being a Reel.com affiliate. I threw caution to the wind and e-mailed him back asking why Lilies cost so much when the rest of their movies cost $10. This is the correspondence.


darrenn@reel.com wrote:

Hello Webmaster,

My name is Darren Nelson and I am a Business Development Associate for Reel.com, the Best Place to Buy Movies. We would be honored if you would accept this invitation to join other top sites on the web as a Reel.com producer by linking your page to us. We are the number one online video retailer and we need good producers to associate with. etc. etc. etc.

If you need more info or have questions, please give me a call at 510-549-3333 x267 or write me at darrenn@reel.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks and great luck with the site!

Darren Nelson



I wrote:

Hi Darren,

I understand that these e-mails have probably been sent en masse and that you aren't expecting individual responses, particularly about individual web sites. So maybe you could just take this as a bit of information.

I'm not sure where you got my e-mail address, but I'm the webmaster of the unofficial Lilies site (https://members.tripod.com/~dezzdimona/lilies). It would be appropriate to have a link to buy the movie, which you sell, and people have e-mailed me asking where they can buy it. I appreciate that you guys even sell the movie, since it's relatively hard to find. However, Reel.com's list price for it is $76.99. I don't know if I could, in clear conscience, recommend to people that they buy the movie from Reel when it has a price tag that huge. I realize that it's Canadian, but it has an American distributor (Alliance) and shouldn't cost that much. I got my copy for $16 through HMV. There has to be a cheaper way for Reel to get copies of that movie. If the price tag was knocked down a bit, even by $10, then I would gladly be an associate site. But $77 is too much money for anything that lasts an hour and 30 minutes, except maybe surgery.

Cheers.

Samantha Craggs



Hello Samantha,

The reason it is that high is because it is priced for rental. The movie studios do not get royalties for rentals at the local chains so if they have a movie that they think will not sell huge on the open market like Titanic, they will price it in the $75-$100 range so that they will make their money off the rental companies. I will forward you letter to the purchasing department to see if the pricing has changed on the video. If so, we will reduce the price to a reasonable level. If not, then we can only sell it at the price we get it for. Hope this helps.

Darren



So, I'm an affiliate site and I set up a video store. All of the movies, with the exception of Lilies, are priced at very reasonable rates. So, please check it out.