Billyspunk

Hello, I was at my local Walmart yesterday looking at the new releases and I noticed something strange. There was a guy buying 20 copies of Transporter 2 DVD plus generic cases for them. Why would someone buy 20 copies? The first thing I thought was he was copying them and reselling, but if that was so why buy 20, just buy 1 and burn all you want? For the life of me I can't figure this one out. He paid over $380 cash for his purchase, this person obviously has money..What is going on?

dadaluholla

I think he was trying to show his support for the series in hopes of a third film.

Or he is giving them out as gifts.

Shagrath

He probably owns a small mom&pop rental store. A lot of times, B&M stores like Wal-Mart and Best Buy will sell a title the first week on sale for less than this person could get it from a wholesaler. It's cheaper for them to just go to a store and buy a bunch of copies to rent out that way.

Atreus

That's what my first thought was before I even read your post. When I read he was also buying extra case I was sure.

tdilia

Most likely that is the reason. The place I rent from does it. I've asked for titles and the clerk will tell that the owner hasn't gotten it from Best Buy or whatever place he gets them from yet.

johnglad

Wally World often sells dvds the first few days at their Tier 1 stores for below cost. Your math comes out to $19 per dvd, but the cost on Transporter 2 is probably $15-$16. My Walmart was selling it for $15.96 I believe.

Damed

Is it legal for a mom&pop store to buy a DVD from Bestbuy and use it for rent? I thought they had to buy through different channels at higher prices because they are making profit from the film

Shagrath

This was true for VHS, where rental copies were upwards of $100. I don't believe studios have this same setup for dvds.

I think the reason it was so high back then is because VHS movies came out for rental 6 months to a year before you could pick it up in the store, and therefore rental stores had to pay a "premium" to get them early in order to get that sweet rental time before anybody could go pick it up at a store.

Since dvds are released for rental at the same time as they are for retail purchase, this plan kind of went out the window. Of course, this is all purely speculation on my part, and someone who is/was in the rental business might better answer this question.

DRG

Because it's "ONE HELL OF A RIDE!"*

* ABC Network Radio

cisman

I know someone who owns a small store and he does this as well. He says it's much cheaper to do than getting from the wholesaler.

The problem comes from finding stores that will let you buy that many.

At one point I was accepting preorders on ebay for dvd's and when it came out the TUE i would buy how many I need and ship them out.

It's nuts people would pay $20.00 for a dvd when I could get it for $15.00 at the store...so bascially they were paying $5.00 for me to go pick it up for them.

I stopped because it was way too much hassle trying to find stores that would go for it. I remember when LOTR: The Two Towers came out I had like 30 orders and that was murder trying to buy all those. Managers would come out asking all kinds of questions and some would not let me do it. It was walmart that gave the most out and that was only because I would go to the front display and load up and hit the cash register.

Hope that helps explains some

fumanstan

Maybe we need a "How many copies of Transporter 2 are you buying on?" thread for that one fellow purchasing 20+

gbub

Yeah, that doesn't sound right. I thought they had to go through the distributor because the studio is supposed to get a cut of the rental fees. If you could do that, couldn't we all rent out our DVD libraries?

Sweet Baby James

TimeandTide

It speaks also to the majority who aren't really savvy when it comes to DVD purchases. My ex-wife paid $20 for Madagascar when it was on sale for $15 at Target just a day earlier. A friend of mine bough The Notebook from Borders for $29.99, the same day it was available at Best Buy for $10. But for the vendor who does buy 20 for $15 on release day (like Madagascar), a slight markup to $20 (which is what Mad. is priced now at Target) makes pretty good business sense (whether as rental or re-sale).

onebyone

It's funny you started this, because I saw a man doing this yesterday at Fred Meyer, where there was no great sale on the DVD. He walked out with every Transporter 2 on the shelves. I was perplexed.

mrcoaster

Is there really such a demand for Transporter 2 that a mom & pop shop would want to have 20 copies of it on hand?

darkshadowdog

Ive seen people doing this with higher quality dvds (criterions, disney treasures tins etc..) but never with something like this... Idk....

Sweet Baby James

Maybe it's a drug ring and they're using the Transporter DVD to smuggle it into the country.

spartanstew

I once bought 25 copies of Speed to hand out as rewards at a meeting (had to go to several stores). It was for a restaurant company and the theme of the meeting was faster service. The top store received a DVD for each member of the crew (as well as other stuff).

Maybe this guy's using them as prizes or giveaways at his company.

TimeandTide

I think there's a huge demand for action DVDs in general at rental places. Hollywood Video's shelves are teeming with straight-to-video action flicks starring the likes of Lundgren and Segal.

dvd_luver

Ok......

I do not know why somebody would purchase 20 copys of that film. Not me, that's for sure.

chemosh6969

And the losers get empty generic cases?

JCWBobC

I just wanted to comment on what shagrath posted.

It wasn't that tapes were released for rental 6 months before they were released for sale. Most tapes were released at a retail price of between $95-$105.
(If I remember correctly Platoon was the first title to go above $100.)

Stores bought them to rent but anyone could have bought the tape if they want to pay that price. After about 6-8 months the studios would release the same movie at a sell-through price, which was between $19.95-$29.95.

Sometime the studios would release a title at the sell-through price initially because they knew it was a movie people would want to own, rather than just watch once. Batman was such a big sell-through movie I remember it being on the news that people were waiting in line for it because stores couldn't sell it before 12AM on the release date. Of course once video got really big stores would break the street date all the time.

Their is no law that says where a video store has to buy their product so if they can get it cheaper by purchasing it from a Best Buy, BJs, or some other store they can.

Peep

1st place: 20 copies of "Transporter 2"
2nd place: 20 generic DVD cases
3rd place: YOU'RE FIRED!!

Sweet Baby James

"Get the chalk, get the chalk, put me on the fucking Transporter 2 DVD board!"