Yeah, I suppose I did. Still, it sounds odd to me. I mean, what kind of competition does Wal-Mart have regarding DVDs? And who is the competition? The only competition I see are the studios who just want more money, so it's not about the store-level competition. At least to me.

But the guy is still a dork. :D

Honestly I dont think the studios want to see the bins go. I dont even think they want the prices up. Its about sales to them. And how else are they going to move those Full Frame dvds :hscratch: More likely the dying breed of FYE, Borders and all the full list retailers that hate Wal-Mart.

I think its the rental of Dvd's that are hurting the sales of Dvd's and not the bins. Just about every grocery store I have been into has a rental machine, plus the on-line rental places and blockbuster, etc.

this is why OVGUIDE.COM
people go there especially the younger generation, then you have rentals.
just like the music business check out how low cd sales are, they have never recovered from napster, same thing is beginning to happen to the film industry. once the cat is out of the bag, there is no going back. also look at tv now, I watched the whole season 3 of LOST on abc.com for free instead of buying the sets like I did for season 1 and 2.

New to the boards, hi everyone.

I don't like going to Wal-Mart, but, I personally, love the $5 dump bins. The prices video rental places are charging its almost cheaper to wait until a movie hits the $5 bin. I know Movie Gallery charges $4 something for rentals new or old.

I wonder.

As many here know Pick N' Save has been putting up their three dollar cardboard bins (A and B movies). Are they picking up the media surplus that Wal-Mart was buying? I say this since it's quite odd. More so they're re-stocking the bins. It's getting me wondering.

You couldn't be more wrong. The studios hate that the perceived value of movies have dropped so low, primarily because of stores constantly slashing the prices of new releases and old catalog titles.

Personally, I loved the bargains I found in the "dump bins." Hell, I just bought The Magnificent Seven Ride last week! I didn't want it bad enough to pay $7.50 when they had it on that rack, but as soon as they popped in the the $5.00 bin that was the price point at which I couldn't say no.

I've probably purchased 25 or 30 dvd's out of their dump bins over the years. I even found the Escape From New York 2 Disc SE (a purchase I'm very glad I was able to make).

I do think the set up - DVD's just strewn about - was poor. Some better, more organized racks with $5.00 DVD's would be more effective. But I was willing to wade through all the discs to pick out the gems among the garbage.

We'll see how this plays out.

If the studios don't want lower prices at retail all they have to do is bump up the price to the distributor who will pass it on to the store with a very healthy markup who will mark it up again and "put it on sale" in an attempt to convince the consumer it's really a good price.

The dump bin exists, in part, because studios overestimated the allure of a title or its' popularity has waned and they are paying to have them stored in a warehouse somewhere. It's cheaper to unload than to store it.

Here are some numbers from 2002:

"Wall Street analyst Jessica Reif Cohen of Merrill Lynch has estimated the 2002 profit margins for DVD at 66%. The average wholesale unit price is $16 with $2.75 for marketing, $1 for duplication, 90¢ for packaging and 80¢ for distribution, leading to a $10.55 gross profit per unit. A hit selling 11 million DVDs equals a $121 million profit."

And *that's* for a "hot" title using 6 year old numbers. Considering quite a few of the dump bin titles received *no* marketing (or it's already been recovered when the title sold for "normal" prices) and that duplication/packaging costs are now significantly lower (easily under $1 per unit combined for *both* in lots as small as 1000) and you can see there is the potential for huge profits on dump bin titles. Even if the title was manufactured with the numbers listed, it's still selling for 100% or more of its' manufacturing costs and the studio is most likely breaking even.

So the store will typically make a profit even if it's only a few cents unless it's a "loss leader". That's one of the reasons I try to PM at WM so if there's a loss it's at WMs expense. :)

It is not just the media outlets that are unhappy with Walmart's practice (and Walmart's pricing on a lot of goods has plenty of other retailers unhappy...but that is a different topic) the actual studios are involved as well. There is a post here that explains why even with such a low price tag DVDs at Walmart sell with a profit. This is a nice thought...but very isolated and lacking any relation to the big picture - DVD business isn't growing and expanding anymore. DVD is a "capped" format and to a great extent so is the market it occupies. Whatever little "profit" if any DVD is making from Walmart sales, if any, are more than likely erased by disappointing sales of DVD product elsewhere. The devaluation of DVD, something Warren Lieberfarb was well on track promoting with his "supermarket big box" theory, is now a reality.

Ciao,
Pro-B

Last weekend I saw Raging Bull in the dump bin. Can't find Sgt. Pepper like that?

Maybe if studios would actually try and create stellar releases, they wouldn't have such a problem making a profit.

Devaluation? It's just another word for GREED.

It's the same shit that has caused the last two WG strikes. Studios don't want to compromise. They want virtually all profits to themselves, and they want an iron-clad guarantee against theatrical shitstorms and flops. Simply put--they want the best of both worlds.

Just like any free market society, you have to re-design and re-think your product as things change, and competition increases. But studio chiefs and studios refuse to do it. They pump out cheap and stupid editions, rarely putting out a "definitive" edition.

So, the studios have themselves to blame. And they need to pull their panties up and get their thumbs out of their mouths.

And for a little history. If you go back to 2002, you find stories and articles about studios being afraid of downloading movies from the net. They've had sufficient time to get a plan...but have failed. And so they bitch and whine about piracy, global warming, UFO abductions, and just about any fucking thing they can put blame on.

Hell, Stephen Einhorn commented in 2002 that VOD was "further down the road than most people think..." I mean, this is the kind of laid-back, I don't give a fuck, but I'll still try to fuck you Mr. Consumer as we go along behavior we've seen for years. Decades, even. Unwillingness to change with consumer demand, and attempts to devalue the product themselves by releasing multiple versions of one title.

If we remember back to around 2002, studios really didnt like High-Def. It's apparent studios don't perceive quality in hardly anything they do, unless pressured by others.

I have to say, things like the Walmart bins have devalued DVDs for me. I used to collect them like crazy when they were more expensive and I was proud to get a deal around this price. But now that DVDs can be had at Walmart, Blockbuster (used), Circuit City, Dollar General and Best Buy for so cheaply, I've gotten rid of most of mine. Just makes no sense to have a huge collection when I can rent one from RedBox for $1 or get one I want to watch anytime for $5 and then resell it for $2-$3.

For me, DVDs used to be about enjoying movies and collecting. Now they're just about enjoying movies. I've gone from nearly 600 to under 100. About the only ones I buy for near full price are Disney movies and such that don't devalue a month after they debut.

???? oooooooooookkkkkkkkkkkkk, if you are looking at your movie collection as an investment I can see that. But what happened to collecting movies because you want to own the movie and have it for anytime you want to watch??? I don't give a crap how much value my movie has. I buy a movie cuz I wanna see/keep the damn thing. This is not the stock market where our product's value is really looked after. Once I buy a movie I don't give a crap it's selling for anymore, it's mine to do with what i want which is the big deal for me.

hell after dump bins became common I went from 150 dvd's to about 400 + and I have 190 Hi def movies (mix of Blu and HD DVD). Devaluation my ass.

I agree...I'm not buying DVDs because of their potential resale value, I'm buying because I like being able to watch whenever I want,as many times as I want. That so many great movies are available on DVD is the best of all possible situations to be in, in my mind...and they're so much clearer and better in every way than VHS ever was, too.

Consumer demand has been gradually decreasing and studios have been very much hell bent on reinvigorating the SDVD boom via HDM. The format's current progression is practically a carbon-copy of what we witnessed with SDVD.

For the most part studios have also been rather good at improving their products. There is a very small percentage of notable DVD sellers that have not been upgraded to a better standard (anamorphic enhancement, added extras, etc).

So, what you are trying to describe above is far from reality. The bargain bins have not only devaluated SDVD but in more than a few highly discussed occasions have also contributed to a regression of quality (reintroducing PAN/SCAN versions of films previously available in their OAR). As I mentioned earlier one of the reasons why Mr. Lieberfarb was asked to leave WB is precisely because his vision of discounted pricing for DVD resulted in centralized but "capped" Big-Box sales where profit margins were practically eliminated.

DVD is an exhausted form of revenue for the distribs, it is that simple.

Ciao,
Pro-B

Consumer demand has been decreasing because studios have lost their magic at the theater and thereby reducing the magic to get it on video. And then you wonder why we have so many editions of one movie?

DVD is an exhausted form of revenue for the distribs, it is that simple.

Well, it's not that simple. But if you're pro-studio versus pro-consumer, then I guess it is.

The bargain bins have created more revenue for stores and studios than ever before, and if you want us DVD Talk members to think the studios' profit margins were practically eliminated, then I'm not sure what to think. These bargain bins would have been pulled several years ago if profits were the issue.

But now that Blu-ray is taking shape, it appears studios are trying to remove the choices for consumers. Kind of ironic, isn't it? Because Blu-ray is allegedly the choice of consumers? If it is the choice, then why are we seeing mandatory changes and idiot-minded excuses about DVD being devalued? I smell fear. I smell paranoia. I smell a conspiracy to herd consumers into one format option at higher prices.

The major reason why Mr. Lieberfarb was asked to leave was because he was pro-VOD. Of course WB wouldn't want such a person around. Lieberfarb was a highly smart individual who thought ahead, and who wanted mass adoption of DVD over VHS. In fact, he was primarily the reason WHY DVD sales jumped over VHS. Do you really think DVD would be as popular today if the average DVD was $20? I think not. Another reason why Lieberfarb left probably had to do with his stock dropping (by more than half) when the AOL Time Warner merger was approved.

WB didn't like, and still doesn't like, visionaries. Studios in general, don't like visionaries.

Actually... The reason Leiberfarb "left" was more financial, not for his forward thinking philosophies.

fitprod

Of course it was financial. That's why WB wanted him out. :hscratch: Care to elaborate on your sentence?

It's not about resale value. It's about lowering the price people are willing to pay for new discs. With the $5 titles so prevalent, people aren't willing to pay $20.

The dump bin/cabinet has spoiled me. If they remove it I still won't buy any new dvd for $20. I can just wait until it hits the used section at Movie Gallery. The only stuff thats valuable at around $20 are the Hi-Def discs. I think most consumers won't be willing to lay down more than $15 for a new dvd release anymore.

The $5 bin is great for those titles that you normally wouldn't pay full price for anyway...to remove them is a tad silly.

I disagree. How many on this forum have paid more than $5 for special 2-disc and 3-disc editions which are appropriately done, and are worthy of a $5+ price. I think you'll find many of us pay $10-15 and even more for worthy editions of our favorite titles.

And since we're on the topic, why could Hellboy 3-Disc DC be found at Ross for $4.99? Was this because of devaluation? Or was it simply because the studio discontinued it and is going to release yet ANOTHER edition.

Well, that's how they see it. It doesn't mean they are right.

But the studios say paying more is right and proper, and don't like DVD Bargain Bins (apparently). So, I'm assuming, paying $15 for a DVD is what a studio wants. I have no idea what the ideal price is for a DVD title according to studios.

Of course, they sure won't cry if we all were paying $50 per DVD, now would they.

the dump bins are a great thing. especally where in live in PA. we have alot of rednecks that love them. it is just not the rednecks it is everyone that thinks these are great. the economy sucks and poeple are making less money or even being laid off this is why the dump bins can't go because i don't look at the dump bins as devaluation. i look at it as a fair chance for everyone to get some decent stuff without having to pay a higher price. i have bought about 75-100 dvds from the bin and there is nothing wrong with them. like someone stated if they would put them on a rack and book shelf them . it would cause less craziness around this as some people have no morals and just drop or kick them all over the floor.

the one thing that walmart should do is with the bin is once a movies has x amount of copies and they are not selling blow them out for 2 bucks and never order it again. not sure about you guys but my bin is loaded with gigli and glitter and no one is gonan buy them .