JohnIan

This is one of a couple places I haunt.

Looking about, I came across this on Reddit - their "dvdcollection" sub, posted by Bbanks2121.

He goes on...

Rumor has it that Best Buy is transitioning to online only titles, less physical stock.

We are days from the store stopping CD sales. Now this? Sadly it doesn't seem that out of line with what the store has been doing. Smaller and smaller still.

This could be his store, but suspect it isn't.

Thoughts?

kd5

Our Best Buy already has a lot of wide open spaces in the store, they want more? At the cost of fewer walk in customers? They wipe the media sections and I (and others I'm sure) won't have any reason to stop there any more. Dumb fuckers.

Re slipcovers: Seems the only way to be sure you get one these days is buy it on or close to release day, or shop Ebay where oftentimes you'll get a pic of the actual product, or you can message them for details.

You try messaging Amazon for details and you'll get a lot of I'm sorry sir but we can't check that, from someone in India (sorry, no offense intended to anyone from India).

MooMooMooMoo

The "INDUSTRIES" have decided that we're all going to stream from now on.

Alan Smithee

Best Buy already sold CinemaNow, which sucked for the most part and is now defunct. What are they going to get out of streaming? Haven't had much reason to go in their stores, and with no media available what'll be my motivation to buy more equipment, when there's nothing to watch on it? Why upgrade to see clearer compression artifacts and hear compressed audio?

E Unit

I could care less. The excitement I used to get from walking into B&M stores went away a long time ago. I'm assuming the store in Austin is the Research one. It was about 7 large aisles. I only go now when I'm actually driving near one and want to stop by just to walk around. But 99% of my purchases are online (not just Amazon). So Best Buy ditching physical media will only hurt themselves in the long run. I can't see those Samsung areas making big bank for them.

OldBoy

with Amazon, it really doesn't bother me. some SteelBook™ exclusives might, but i have weened off them for the most part...

E Unit

Well Best Buy won't be eliminating everything, so the new releases including the steelbook exclusives will still show up in stores. I'm fairly sure of that.

JohnIan

When Blu-Ray became viable (after the death of HD-DVD), Best Buy started to shaft DVD. Little things like not listing a title on their website - only on BD, quite not true.

It is on DVD, but the store won't sell it.

Now it's blatant - the weekly ad won't even list DVDs (unless it's only in that format). Click on a particular title and no mention that its in that format. You have to do a website search to see that they're selling it too. Having to do that very thing for some time now; my weekly sale posts.

The reason is - they saw Blu-Ray as something customers will rebuy for; from big screens to players to sounds systems. Even using it to promote their home theater store installation service. Now they see a way to repeat.

4k BDs.

Time to rebuy all over again. And some have already. Best Buy is ditching BD (like DVDs), not because of what the public wants. But rather to focus higher profits, THINKING people will just follow.

What happens next will be easy to predict. Much smaller titles in stock... far less BDs, even less DVDs, but they will carry ALL available 4k titles.

Best Buy home of 4k!!! Would not surprise me at all, if they actually started to advertise this as their selling point.

So it's not about servicing customers, but rather trying to reshape demand - artificially.

'Sorry, we don't have this on Blu-Ray, but we do have it on 4k. Would you like me to show you how amazing it is? We have 4k TVs, 4k players and other 4k systems. We can build a home theater for you.'

This is what's happening, but the error they're making is thinking it will repeat. When HD-DVD perished, online purchases were still new; "Cyber Monday" was only three years old when HD-DVD died in 2008.

A majority of folks continued to make in store purchases. Just look at the volume of post in the archive here to see conversations about deals to be had in store(s). It was massive. Not overnight, but a shift occurred; now, most would argue it was to avoid traffic and crowds - to buy online; their time became more valuable or any number of reasons. Since then, various sites from unexpected places started selling home video titles; even used book websites.

Best Buy's miscalculation is thinking they still have lightening in a jar. AND that kind of brand loyalty.

People want the better deal, just that. And they'll spend their money on who can make that price point. Let's be honest, a lot of the time - it's not Best Buy. Hell, even competition from Ebay.

What I'm seeing is Circuit City 2.0 on the horizon.

Media was their bread and butter; CDs, DVDs and BDs. What was doing poorly was sales of large appliances. Their solution - smash their media area for large appliances... when that didn't work. New plan, fire their knowledge staff (replace with newbies) and keep pushing large appliances.

Surely that will bring in the big bucks?

Surely, focusing on 4K will bring in the big bucks? Customers will rebuy it all.. from us.

Remember when it was spilled how much contempt they had for their shoppers?

Back in 2008 an internal document was leaked online. How they gave ranking to customers; how to fix them and to cater to the good ones. One more on the pile of things to piss off their patrons.

The store has a long history of screwing themselves over. Just as Alan Smithee commented earlier; they had their own streaming service - "Cinema Now" from 2010 to 2014. That was so heavily advertised, even their bonus discs talked about more exclusive content on "Cinema Now". Such when the first "Despicable Me" came to home video - the Minions' conversations could be translated into English... if you had "Cinema Now". And with all the effort, it bombed.

In the end they sold it off, losing millions.

And before that when they partnered with Napster; selling legal MP3 services. I still rememer all those clustered kiosks in stores. That failed too. Can't imagine how much money they lost in that scheme as well.

Or the disaster that was having reduced floor space to accommodate a mini-Guitar Center in stores. Remember that?

Now it's 4k; rinse and repeat.

Best Buy's bread and butter - just like Circuit City's was their massive media area, because they offered wide selections at decent prices. True, sales have slowed, but that's to be expected. But that should not discourage inventory since it the very reason people come in - fuel for their various players.

I see Best Buy becoming, quite peripheral. All the while blaming the market on their own continued failures.

Hell, I've been noticing a trend where people have just stopped buying physical media altogether. Not embracing streaming for convenience, but rather because they don't want to rebuy. Another factor not included in the store's plot to reel the greenbacks in.

Furthermore, they haven't even been trying as of late. Their weekly sale prices for months have been parroting Target's. They're not standing out, no distinction to buy from them. What they got going is various exclusives, not so much on the rest.