Pricing puzzle : some explanation about Why movies are priced all the same ?

As we've previously seen, it's not sure that economic rules have an explanation of the unique pricing for all movies. The prediction of the future success seems to be nearly impossible to get in advance. Studies made by Arthur de Vany, professor of economics, University of California, show that close to 78 % of the released movies are losing money (but the 22% are very profitable !). Such prediction could help in defining a tailor made pricing for each movie.

In the mid XXth century, movies were classified A, B or C depending on the (expected) quality which favoured a different pricing for each class of movie. That classification has gone...

One of the possible answer to that puzzle may be found in the fact that movies have a very short time of life expectancy : 25% of chance to last 7 or more weeks and only 15% chance to last more than 10 weeks. This rule apply whatever the kind of movie and, more important, whatever the budget spend. Implementing a differentiated pricing would give insights to customers about the expected life length and would therefore put in risk the public's judgement...

That's the best explanation I could find about this pricing puzzle !

Any other idea ?

Here are some examples of similar pricing between movies:

Play Food

Vanessa Dualib is a young artist from Sao Paulo who uses food to create strange characters with poetry. Her work can be bought here. She's also a good photograph which work is available in Flickr here.

For other post about Play Food (Saxton Freymann) see here.

Andy Warhol quotes

I shot Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup cans in the MOMA, NYC

32 canvases ordered like groceries in a store, from Tomato to Turkey Vegetable in the same order as Campbell launched the products.

As Warhol wrote : " I used to drink it. I used to have the same lunch everyday, for twenty years, I guess, the same thing over and over again".

"The most beautiful thing in Tokyo is McDonald's

The most beautiful thing in Stockholm is McDonald's

The most beautiful thing in Florence is McDonald's

Peking and Moscow don't have anything beautiful yet."

wrote in 1975

" There are three things that always look very beautiful to me : my same good pair of shoes that don't hurt, my own bedroom, and U.S. Customs on the way back home."

"When Picasso died, I read in a magazine that he had made four thousand masterpieces in his lifetime and I thought, "Gee, I could do that in a day." So I started. And then I found out, "Gee it takes more than a day to do four thousand pictures".

extract from The philosophy of Andy Warhol (from A to B and Back Again)

chicken pics in retail

Here are some pics of chicken shot all over the world.

Chicken feet, sold in Carrefour Mexico. Very common there and used in soups.


Chicken promotion in Wal-Mart




Chicken promotion in, Shanghai Carrefour China
Chicken promotion in Ushuaia, Argentina in a La Anonima store. There, chicken is mainly sold frozen...

Pricing puzzle : Why movies are priced all the same ?

Young Indiana Jones fan puzzled by the pricing of the movie

As everybody knows, prices are, basically, the result of the law of offer and demand. But it's not always the case, as we've previously commented in the ice cream category (here) where all flavors are sold the same price whatever the cost of the raw material.

What I always found strange is that Movie theaters charge different prices depending on clients ages and time of the day or days in the week (morning and mondays are sometimes cheaper). Restaurants do the same with happy hours promotion. But when restaurants charge you different prices depending on the meal you order, Movies theater charge you the same price whatever the movie you choose to see.

That seems to be a universal rule (anyone do have a counter example ?). Same price, whatever the movie is an absolute blockbuster with millions of revenues or a total failure ; if designed for the whole family or more focused on special kind of public ; whatever the production cost they're all priced the same !

What's strange is that this do not apply to concerts or theater where, depending of the band / play differences may be huge between prices tickets. That rule also do not apply with DVDs where you also find price differences between movies (new release vs. classical of all time).

In a future post we'll try to find some explanation...

amazing Zappos live animation

The famous shoe Web retailer Zappos is well-known for his outstanding customer policy (his 1# core value is "delivering WOW through service"), combining free shipping and free return policy. Free return is used as a marketing tool essential to the comercial model. More than 25% of the models ordered are returned ! Costly but essential to consolidate confidence to your shoe customers.

Zappos has also developed a fascinating application on his website, similar from the Wal Mart one that can be found here. You can watch live the orders made in the US, appearing the photo of the product and the city where it will be shipped !

have a look :

http://www.zappos.com/map/#