yellahoosh

I picked up these blu-rays:
The Reader $6.60
Day of the Dead $6.00
From Hell $5.40

They also had Downton Abbey blu-ray for $12 (Grrr!). We just bought the standard version. There were a lot of BBC shows and mini-series and oddball Criterions still hanging around. I hid a few things in the hopes that they will still be there when prices go down more. Sadly, at 60% for most of the standard DVDs and books, things are still practically in-line with internet prices and sales.

lmwong1977

I went yesterday and discounts were still 60%-70% for most of the stuff. San Francisco was in its final 6 days - 5 days today. Overheard one employee tell a customer if they came on Saturday, they were free to rattle the doors but they would be closed forever Friday evening.

Slim pickings for DVD/Blu-rays - did see a couple hidden between or behind books while I was browsing but nothing I thought worth hiding (Rollerball, Sex and the City movie). The discs were in 2 locked shelves up front, near where the new/best sellers used to be. There were a few DVDs around the checkout line but they were TV movie stuff.

Guess they're waiting til the last minute for the final drop. I would of waited if Saturday was the last day, but I can't get over there on Friday night, so took the 70% discount on some books that hardly ever drop in price.

rmw650

The one I went to yesterday in Scahumburg, IL actually had the TV shows still in locked up casings and they put the price tags on the side of the box and even at the discounts they offered, it was still overpriced. They had DVDs still on the top level of the store and then scattered all around the bottom floor. Just a mess.

jwstl

I was in the Chicago area on business last week and stopped in that Schaumburg, IL store. It was indeed a mess; it took me 15 minutes to find the Blu-rays. I did buy a few CDS but left without any movies as the BD selecton was poor and the DVDs were still overpriced. I imagine that was a nice store at one time.

mrcellophane

The Borders in Norman, OK still has a few Criterion DVDs amid a rather meager selection of BR and DVD. I picked up Make Way For Tomorrow for $12.00 and the Blu-Ray of The Golden Compass for $6.00.

MooMooMooMoo

At the last wave if closings they did the same crap on box sets being locked up at 70%. In 2 trips, I could only find an employee to unlock the 2nd time, so I was only able to buy 2: James Cagney Signature & Criterion Fanny & Alexander. Several others I wanted the first time were gone my 2nd trip.

Alan Smithee

I felt like just breaking the glass- if they expected people to go through that crap to buy stuff at full price, it's no wonder they're out of business.

rmw650

It just amazes me as to why they would be putting stuff in enclosed bookcases when the whole idea is to try and sell the stuff as quickly as possible, without goiung through this nonsense of getting an employee to open the casing. Just ridiculous and they had Voluime 2 of that WC Fields set for 60 bucks - 60% discount for 25 bucks, whereas at BL, it was going for just five bucks. That's a bargain at Borders? PLEASE!!!

Zbu

Yeah, I hit the same point a few days ago. I wanted a few TV shows and they were all in these cases that were supposedly already sold, yet they were still locked. Who is really kidding who? Just slam them on the open shelves and be done with it.

I also thought of just forcing the lock but that would make the workers' lives harder, and they were already miserable enough. I was really nice to them and kinder than I normally am. It's one thing to know see why the corporation was badly run. It's quite another to take it out on the victims.

jwstl

The 2 stores near me did that a few days ago. There's nothing in a case at either store. Not that it matters, but they might have sold a few more items over the years had they taken things out of the cases.

Mr. Reindeer

A few days ago in Gurnee, Il I bought:
Coraline Blu for $6
Pushing Daisies (season 1) Blu for $12

MooMooMooMoo

I thought the current "employees" were from the liquidator, not Borders??

Zbu

No, quite a few at the stores here in Michigan are Borders workers. Not that many, however: a lot of familiar faces are gone, probably taking off as soon as they had another job lined up. I imagine most of them darted ASAP.

Dr. Calamari

You in Ann Arbor?

I recall shopping at the original Borders on the U of M campus (on S. State St., I think) in about 1972, and it was a really cool place. They actually had comic books displayed prominently, very unusual at the time. I'm going to miss Borders.

LJG765

Of course, they may have sold a few more but they would have had more stolen than sold. At one point, between the store I worked at (I quit over a year ago) and a nearby one, a group of thieves stole several thousand dollars worth. The only ones not being stolen? The ones in the locked case.

I frequently had the conversation with my managers about price point being in the case and necessity it at all. I usually won when I pointed out how much money we lost and in fact, the company at one point had us take the doors off the case. That lasted less than a month before being instructed to put them back on.

In a perfect world, yes, it would have been nice to be able to trust customers not steal, but unfortunately, the few ruin it for the majority.

And please, don't take this in me denying the company deserves to close. The last few rounds of CEO's did not listen to the people in the field who had a clue and treated their employees quite poorly. They made a lot of bad decisions.

To make this on topic, this weekend I was able to get couple box sets for $2...two Mill Creek releases. Not too bad for 16 movies on one and 27 on the other. DVDs were 60% off

berigan

As a one time Borders employee (1994-1999) I can tell you theft was a VERY big issue on just about anything at wasn't bolted down...folks that are losing their jobs in a matter of days aren't going to be highly motivated right now. There may have been an edict to keep them locked up just to keep them from walking out the doors, with stores running with much smaller staffs.
They are going out of business because of Amazon. Just like Media Play, Tower Records,most of the FYE's etc, etc, etc.
Love Amazon, but brick and mortar stores can't really compete with a company that doesn't have to pay to lease stores all over the nation, nor does Amazon have to worry about professional thieves going from store to store ....No doubt B&N is on the way out...soon there will be no place to browse for books, cds, DVDs. I loved hanging out at "record stores" book stores, and thats soon a thing of the past, and that's sad to me...
back to the semi deals....

jwstl

I doubt that but if so they should have found another way. Like Barnes and Noble did. They have a section for music and movies with an alarm that goes off if you try to take something out of that section without paying. This accomplished 2 things: it allowed them to keep things on display and it also allowed them to be warned while the item was still in the store. Having the alarm go off as someone leaves the store is too late of a good thief.
Putting things in locked cases so you can't see the price or pick up the item to read the details hinders sales; it's just one of many things they did wrong. Don't get me wrong; I liked and will miss Borders but that doesn't stop me from pointing out their mistakes.

Zbu

Well, I'm from around the area.

I have yet to see a Borders that doesn't have the security gates that still locks up their DVDs. If they're that paranoid, then why even be in the business in the first place? I get the feeling they really don't have a rational reason why they locked up some DVDs and not others, and it contributes to the mishmash of why they're going out of business. Not only did they miss the Internet, they really didn't know what they were doing.

EarlB

Not that it makes any difference (especially now), but ... wow.

My local Borders (Plattsburgh NY) was one of the smaller outlets (on opening day, there was a representative from the company actually apologizing to customers for how small it was), but they never had their DVDs locked away. They were all out on open shelves, just like their books. Guess we up here didn't know how (comparatively) good we had it, at least in terms of actually being able to access the merchandise.

MooMooMooMoo

Could anyone list the current markdown %'s? (CD, DVD & BLU)?

Classic Films

Still

Blu ray 70% off
DVD 60% off
CDs 60% off
Books 60% - 80% off
Calendars 80%

Prices have been changing on Thursdays so may be different tomorrow.

Alan Smithee

I prefer buying stuff at regular stores rather than ordering online precisely because I can look the entire cover over before purchasing. If they absolutely have to lock up stuff, they should at least have the entire front cover showing and the price tag. If they just have it spine-out with the price tag on the front where I can't see it through the case, I'm usually not going to bother asking how much it is. I can see having the box sets locked up, but some Borders had ALL the Blu-Rays locked up, even the ones that sold for under $10! They all had the locked plastic holders on them too, which I thought already made them harder to steal.

I often see stuff locked up in thrift stores too that nobody would bother stealing in the first place (stealing from a thrift store has to be the ultimate in douchebaggery), or they put them so you can't fucking see it at all- typically they'll put in game cartridges with the titles facing AWAY from the front of the case! I once had the patience to ask someone to let me look at them, and they barely spoke English so I had to keep pointing to what I wanted them to get out!

Toys-R-Us had the best way of displaying stuff they didn't want you to steal- ever since the NES came out, they had complete front AND back cover scans of all the video game boxes out where you could see them, then under those they had tickets you took to buy them (so if the tickets were gone, you knew they were out of stock.)

dan31655

Might go one last time. If dvd's are 70% off tomorrow, theres no doubt I will go. They had two copies of twin peaks last week.

MooMooMooMoo

Thank you! As I think I mentioned before, the remaining Borders are pretty far from me, so I plan to do a vulture run at 90% & maybe browse at 70%, but not before.

Schloob1

Can someone on the east coast at least call 1st thing this morning at 9AM EST and report whether the Blu's moved to 80% and DVD's to 70% then, as I see the e-mail came out this morning but does not specifically state so. If it does at least at my store there are about 6 Blu's that I will be getting. Good luck to everyone today as this will probably the last chance to get anything good if that is the case.