I stopped by the DD store tonight and was quite disappointed to see they've raised their prices on all their HD and BD discs by 20%.

For example, discs with a list at 29.95 are being sold for 23.82. They used to be 19.40 or 20.04. The Queen BD was over $30. Every discs I looked at had a higher price than it did when I was there two weeks ago.

Such a shame. They were really competitive with their pricing, but now there's no point in going there since they are easily priced above Fry's by a few bucks on every title.

What a shame.

I haven't tracked their pricing, but I can see their difficulty, Fry's (along with Best Buy and Circuit City) typically use their media as loss leaders to get you in to buy their electronics and monster cables, etc which have higher margins. Somehow DDD needs to make enough money on just DVD sales to pay their rent (probably $5K+ per month) and the salaries of their employees (another $25K+ per month, perhaps much more), and do this by making make perhaps $5 per DVD in profit. By my rough bad math, I think that would work out to selling a DVD every minute of every hour they are open.

I'm not sure if raising prices is going to help them become profitable. I haven't seen any ads since the first couple weeks they opened, and I live maybe 2 miles from the store. They need to advertise, they need coupons, and they need to discount new releases and match other stores prices. I don't know if they currently do any of that.

Considering how bad Best Buy and Circuit City's selection of HD movies are, there seems to be an opportunity for DDD to become the go-to place for Bluray and HD DVD. My experience going there is that they only stocked about half of available movies (still much better than BB & CC), but it's easier for me (and cheaper) to just order the movies from Amazon since I know they have everything. But like you mentioned, if a new release was around the price of Amazon ($20) and I knew for sure they stocked everything, I may just make them a regular stop and get the movie right away, and perhaps something else will catch my eye in the store and I buy something else. That's where a B&M advantage would come in.

I must be really out of the loop because I didn't even know DDD had B&M stores.

Other than a small store attached to their warehouse, the Naperville store is really the only store they have, and it's pretty new.

They have to pay the legal fees over the "Harry Potter" lawsuit somehow.

Hmm I was gonna get Pirates 2 (it was $23.something) so are you saying that it is likely now closer to $26 and change?

What? Link?

I don't know if the lawsuit is confirmed, but they did get into trouble for shipping the books early. I haven't heard anything further, but I will be shocked if Schoolastic doesn't try to get some kind of compensation.

Link.

LOL you could be right!

Probably. Other Disney BD's that list for $35 like POTC were around $30.

DVDs are simply a high-volume, extremely low-margin product. Consumers are so used to paying "loss-leader" pricing nowadays on new releases, they forget sometimes, the "reasonable" pricing they should be priced at.

$23.82 still represents a 20% discount off SRP which isn't horrible but not as deep as you're used to.

Stores have to keep the "lights on" people

Actually I just went in there. Their prices are not only not reasonable. They are completely unacceptable.

Disney's Dinosaur which used to be under $20, is now priced at $31.xx, Both Pirates movies which used to be priced at $23.xx are now $32.xx. I mean that's pretty bad when on they are even more expensive than Best Buy brick stores on basically every single title. Even Pirates is cheaper at Best Buy at $29.99. Best Buy who used to be the most expensive place to pay your Blu-rays. That's pretty sad when they have to sell it for $32 and change and say "Why pay $34.99?". Who's prices are they trying to fool people into thinking they are beating now? Practically my only reason to go there is now gone. Good job DD, and goodbye. Ridiculous.

Weird. I just went there and the Pirates movies are $26.83 each, and "Dinosaur" is $22.95.

Even factoring in that you have to pay Illinois+Chicago sales taxes, the prices shouldn't be as high as you're seeing.

lol so the one time dd doesn't take 6 weeks to geta product to someone they get screwed. good screw em

Go again. I was there at about 5 p.m. saturday and unless I'm going cooky I swear Dinosaur was above a sticker (they don't put stickers on their cases which I like) that said "Dinosaur" $31.(and some change). And Dead Man's Chest was over a sticker that said $32.(and some change). I would gladly pay $26 something plus tax for POTC 2 if it meant I wouldn't have to wait for amazon free shipping. And getting to pick out a case that isn't damaged.

Then why start out with different prices? They're not going to get my loyalty from a couple weeks of sale prices followed by 20% markups.

The first weeks had lower prices. It was not a sale, because when they were running the 20% off sale, it was taken off the previously lower shelf tag price.

And we're talking ALL HD and BD titles, not just new releases.

Bottom line: 20% off SRP is lower thN average except for stores with bad pricing like Best Buy and Borders. Personally, I never buy any discs unless it is at least 25% off SRP.

I have to keep my lights on too.

Sorry, I was looking at the prices on the Web site. I only get to the B&M a couple of times a year.

I would have asked them why the in-store prices were significantly higher than the online prices.

Why? It'd be pointless. They'd give some lame excuse and I would never shop there again. I just saved time having to listen to the lame excuse.

I was going to asks about the prices but I didn't see anyone that appeared to be management, and I doubt the cashier would know why.