Re: Best Buy Finished w/ Physical Media?
 

I haven't looked in a while, but Target and Walmart might still have poster racks. The trouble is that I've hit that age where "I saw that pretty recently" can mean "15 years ago".

Re: Best Buy Finished w/ Physical Media?
 

There's one at the Walmart I frequent. It's on an endcap in the toy section. Mostly kids' movies, athletes, and pop singers.

Spencer's also had posters the last time I looked. And the hippie-dippy places shops that sell "water pipes," incense, and swords also tend to have lots of posters that lean heavily on music and pop culture. There's one head shop at the mall that has about six of those filpper displays in addition to smaller 12x18 prints in racks, and stuff hanging on the walls.

And places like Michaels and Hobby Lobby also sell posters; Michaels, at least, has one of those big flipper displays with rolled posters in addition to selling posters flat and shrink-wrapped on big pieces of cardboard. The posters in the flipper tend to be movie and sports related, whereas the ones sold flat tend to be more artwork-based, but I've seen movie posters there, too. Been ages since I've been in a Hobby Lobby, but I assume it's probably the same.

They're still in all of the places they used to be, but there are just fewer of those places. (ie, Suncoast and record stores.)

Re: Best Buy Finished w/ Physical Media?
 

Yes Amazon matched many of Best Buy's black friday deals. What makes anyone think they would all of a sudden start to have deals of their own once there's less competition? That's the problem.

Re: Best Buy Finished w/ Physical Media?
 

We'll find out next year. Or maybe even this year, if Best Buy decides not to do a big Black Friday sale for media.

Re: Best Buy Finished w/ Physical Media?
 

I think Best Buy's decline started about 10-12 years ago? When new releases got more expensive. New movies were like $12.99 to $16 and you all were blind buying crap and spending 100's every week. And then prices went up and BDs and DVDs are being sold as "sale" for $19.99 to $24.99. And it just continued to get more expensive. And then physical sale ads eventually went away, And now $28-30 is considered a "sale" price. Admit it, you all stopped going to Best Buy regularly once that happened and only popped in there during post-Thanksgiving sales.

Re: Best Buy Finished w/ Physical Media?
 

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/dvdtalk...b23e315989.gif

Re: Best Buy Finished w/ Physical Media?
 

I'm still surprised they didn't have Top Gun Maverick at loss leader prices. That would've been a natural for them not too long ago. I'll have to watch it on digital now before deciding if I really need it in my collection.

Re: Best Buy Finished w/ Physical Media?
 

Wonder what happens to all the returned steelbook copies.

Does BestBuy send it straight to the garbage dump, for tax writeoff purposes?

Re: Best Buy Finished w/ Physical Media?
 

I wonder if they'll have a big sale to help clear out inventory?

Re: Best Buy Finished w/ Physical Media?
 

Perhaps they will use this coming black friday for this purge?

Re: Best Buy Finished w/ Physical Media?
 

Yep, Best Buy started to decline after they put places like Media Play and Circuit City out of business...when they eliminated their brick and mortar competition, they stopped being a great place to get cheap physical media. Now that Best Buy (and Target) are getting out of the physical media business, expect far fewer discounts at Amazon.

Re: Best Buy Finished w/ Physical Media?
 

A few of the Best Buy B&Ms in my area were consistently stocking titles I wanted, so this is a bit of a bummer.

It didn't help that on various forums, folks were waiting for Amazon to Price Match Best Buy's sales rather than support. Although, I don't think Best Buy's long game was to remain in Physical Media sales anyway. Those days have been long gone.

There are plenty of Target & Walmart B&Ms in the area but combined, those stores have less variety and focus a bit more on DVD.

There's still a wonderful chain of independent stores that sell 4Ks, BDs & DVDs about 35-minutes from where I live, so I'll probably be spending more time there in 2024 for my in-store purchases.

Re: Best Buy Finished w/ Physical Media?
 

That's when I would pinpoint Best Buy's long slide into irrelevance: Circuit City's collapse and Amazon's increasing prominence as a media retailer around 2009-2010. They coasted off their reputation and customer goodwill for awhile after that point.

Re: Best Buy Finished w/ Physical Media?
 

Best Buy never had much goodwill with me, at best they had a decent selection of movies (but not as good as a real media store) always below list price.

If Best Buy goes under altogether, who will be left for electronics? That’ll be an even bigger challenge than media.

Re: Best Buy Finished w/ Physical Media?
 

It might go back to independent audio/video hardware shops, which were common in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Re: Best Buy Finished w/ Physical Media?
 

Just like independent book stores and independent video stores have made a big comeback? I don't think so.

Re: Best Buy Finished w/ Physical Media?
 

I think this might depend on the size of the city in which you live. Here in Toronto, independent bookstores definitely took a hit over the years, and especially during COVID when several outright closed up, but there were some survivors, and some new ones have popped up since then. They won’t likely proliferate as in the past, but there’s still a niche for them as long as the population is big enough that they can become little hubs for the neighbourhoods around them, and people who still like some ‘curation’ in their content that doesn’t come from algorithms. Kinda like independent record stores have had some traction in recent years, but again I suspect that depends on the size of the city.

Video stores are tougher because no one really needs to rent anymore, but up here there are two that have figured out how to survive, with a mix of rentals (including lots of offbeat cult stuff, so very indie), new release sales (especially cult/genre stuff from the boutiques), and regular ‘back room’ screenings of cult classics in conjunction with other businesses or artists, etc. I’d imagine there are places like this in the U.S. as well, but similarly in bigger cities where their odds of survival are better. Would be nice to see the idea spread a bit, but yeah it’s unlikely.

Not sure about the concept of indie electronics retailers making a big comeback, but I would think any void left by Best Buy completely closing might be filled with a new chain that simply dispenses with the idea of massive warehouse-sized stores. The few Best Buys that I’ve been in over the past couple of years – in the U.S. and Canada – seem more sparsely stocked than ever. They just don’t need all that room anymore.

Re: Best Buy Finished w/ Physical Media?
 

We have a multi-media right down the street that is called 2nd & Charles and that place is always crazy busy. Going in there is like visiting an old movie, music or bookstore. Just on a much larger scale and all combined. They sell a mix of new and used and do big business out of buying and trading your old stuff. But they basically pay pennies for it from you. Another example just like it is called McKay's in Nashville and North Carolina.

I can see places that that possibly taking over in spots...but that is the problem. None of those are nationwide or as ubiquitous as BB, Target or Wal-Mart.

I don't know how anyone shops for movies at Wal-Mart. All of mine (which I rarely even want to enter) has movie sections that are always just a mess. You cannot find anything if you want something in particular. I guess if you really want something, you can order it for store pick-up. But browsing there is a nightmare around here.

Re: Best Buy Finished w/ Physical Media?
 

Same at the Walmarts near me. Complete disarray and the new release end caps were almost empty.

Re: Best Buy Finished w/ Physical Media?
 

IIRC they still had great sale prices long after CC went away. Shoot gamers club lasted for years and years.

For me, I stopped buying as many blu-rays when the steelbooks became trivial to find (no longer any reason to get it on release or miss out) and they started deep discounting not on release but afterwards. When release date was the best deal, it made sense to rush in, when you could just wait and get it cheaper (and/or watch it on streaming first) the FOMO was gone.

Re: Best Buy Finished w/ Physical Media?
 

The Disc Replay locations here in the Chicago suburbs started out selling used music but quickly added used DVDs when the format took off, now used movies is their main stock. And in recent years they've started carrying new video game accessories (like third party controllers and those multi play systems that play old Nintendo cartridges) and then new toys/collectibles (tons of those horrid Funko pops) and also new vinyl and most recently they've started carrying new copies of stuff from several boutique labels like Arrow, Shout, Vinegar Syndrome and the like.

If the customer base stays around, I can see them adding more mainstream new Blu-ray titles too.

Re: Best Buy Finished w/ Physical Media?
 

Do you honestly believe that Best Buy is going to go out of business because they stop selling physical media?

Re: Best Buy Finished w/ Physical Media?
 

2nd and Charles is a chain and is owned by Books-A-Million, which is another bookstore chain. There are actually two 2nd and Charles locations near me, and I love shopping there, but yeah, they're not everywhere.

Both of the ones near me are in former Borders locations.

Re: Best Buy Finished w/ Physical Media?
 

Who knows what else they might decide to stop selling later? Besides, they’re not really a great electronics store on their own. Aside from ones that have the “Magnolia” sections (and last one of those I checked out was practically empty) they aren’t really geared towards enthusiasts.

The last big thing I bought at Best Buy was an NVidia Shield, which ironically has given me less need to go into a Best Buy ever again. If I were Best Buy I would question whether selling these were good for our business, though now dropping movies that’s less of a concern now.

Re: Best Buy Finished w/ Physical Media?
 

Since when has Best Buy been geared to those who can afford items in the Magnolia section? It's a mainstream electronics store for the masses. My one remaining store that was remodeled last year is now 85% mobile, computers/networking, tvs and appliances. I don't see the masses not wanting any of these items in the foreseeable future.