October 10, 2023, marks the end of an era, as long-time anime merchandise platform Right Stuf shuts down and migrates its products to Crunchyroll‘s online store. After providing competitive prices for decades, the closure of the online shop is a shock. The move comes as Crunchyroll continues to seek new avenues to expand its online services.
Right Stuf, which has operated since 1987, has provided DVDs, Blu-rays, figurines, manga, and various other products for sale and delivery. While it was purchased earlier last year, the shutdown of the store and brand in favor of Crunchyroll feels sudden. While products will migrate to the new shop, there are still many unknowns about how the Crunchyroll Store will handle the new stock.
The Crunchyroll Store Will Change The Right Stuf Sales Model
News of Right Stuf’s closure came from multiple sources, including the Manga Mogura RE X account and Anime News Network. Earlier last August, the online store announced it had been acquired by Crunchyroll as part of a bid to expand its online offerings. Right Stuf’s press release at the time promised that it would remain open, merely just “in the family”, so the announcement on 22 September that the brand and store would shut down in a matter of weeks, while migrating all products to the Crunchyroll store, is both a sudden and sour turn of events for long-time customers.
Many questions remain about how Crunchyroll will steward Right Stuf’s former catalog. While the former says it intends to run equivalent events, like annual holiday sales, it has already said that they would be done with vaguely defined “changes to how the sale operates”, which haven’t been explained in detail. Right Stuf had also maintained competitive and low prices, and it remains to be seen what Crunchyroll will offer for the same products, or even if it will sell all of them: the older store sold a variety of live-action TV shows and movies, which Crunchyroll has yet to stock.
Right Stuf began selling anime-related media in 1987, starting with licensed VHS tapes of Astro Boy and 8 Man (localized as Tobor: The 8th Man), and has operated for some 36 years. This has garnered strong brand loyalty, intrinsically tied to the words “Right Stuf”. Crunchyroll ought to tread carefully if it thinks absorbing the stock also means retaining the same customers. With Crunchyroll already using coy language about “changes”, customers are more than likely to assume the worst in regard to costs and seek greener pastures, no matter how loyal they were to Right Stuf’s business.
