Update on the Current Discotek / Eastern Star Backorder Situation

As many of you are aware, we've been having increasing problems restocking Discotek and Eastern Star releases for the past few months. So much so that we have discontinued ordering exclusively from their master distributor and are restocking from all available sources. Even so, Discotek catalog titles are selling out (especially their BluRay releases) and many haven't been available for restocks since last year. New releases are also starting to fall to the wayside, and I have been concerned that the boys at Discotek might be having some "business" problems, if you understand my meaning.

On June 12th, they finally made the following post on their Facebook page to address the issues:

"We're been working through some major issues with the new warehouse/distribution center, and it’s causing delays. They are having problems checking the stock into their system and sending to retailers. Also attempting to restock catalog titles (Fist of the North Star movie BD, SF II movie BD, Rayearth BD, etc). Sonic X SDBD and Twelve Kingdoms BD both were delayed. Hopefully will ship by the end of June. Also, we are planning to have the out of stock catalog titles back by the end of June. Our distributor moved their warehouse and staff to new locations at the beggining of 2019 and it’s caused many delays."

We're going to take their explanation at face value, but I've been in this business a long time and have seen a lot of publishers go to the wayside. Physical media sales of Anime continue to fall across the board - especially DVD format - which makes up most of Discotek's back catalog. It always starts with supply problems and catalog stock outs, as it's hard to order another 500 or 1000 units of a catalog title that's annual national sales have dropped to a couple hundred units or less. Then it moves to delays on new releases. And then..... I think the inquiries about the delays in shipping the May releases finally obliged them to post something about it, and I'm glad they did.

Just the same, I would also advise everyone who is interested in their titles to think about picking up what you want while they are available. Anime is a funny business, and you never know what's going to happen.