Heat

There is a grocery store chain (Shop & Save) around here that has all of their DVDs, including their new releases, for $1. I rent from them once or twice per week, catching most of the new releases and watching a lot of the older DVDs (I still buy DVDs, but maybe one per month, and that being DVDs that are not mainstream, thus wouldn't be carried by rental stores).

Anyway, in the last few days they integrated all of the DVDs with their VHS tapes, title by title. All of their titles are alphabetical across the walls, with VHS tapes and DVDs being present as available. Thus, as an example, if you find Unbreakable on the shelf, you then need to look to see if the copies are VHS or DVD. More anoying is that they have a lot of older titles for which they don't have DVDs, thus you see a title and walk away disapointed when you realize that there are no DVDs.

I tried to explain to the guy behind the counter (a manager!, the service desk handles tape and DVD rentals) that it was very hard to find the DVDs now and his attitude was that if I didn't like it, I didn't have to rent there. I am sure that he was as annoyed with me as I was with him and their system. Oh well, the other Shop & Save's don't have the same retarded system, I will just rent at the other stores.

X

I guess it's better than sorting by ASIN, UPC or weight.

buffotoad

My gripe (minor) is when the stores sort them by "category". Many times the store's determination of what category a film falls into is different than mine, or a movie can fall into more than one category. It keeps me guessing, but I eventually find what I'm looking for.

Movie_Man

Stores do that for the people that don't know what they want. "I feel like a comedy tonight". I imagine most people here know exactly what they want before walking into the store, but as we all know, the stores must appeal to the lowest common denominator.
Where I usually go, all the DVDs are by title, except for a wall of new releases.

greenerdog

Blockbuster puts the DVDs for sale on the shelf angled. That way, you can't see the front, and looking at the spine at an angle is difficult. It also doesn't divide the titles very well.

If you don't display them from the front, you won't sell them as well.

DWilson

I have a similar complaint about the "Schnucks" grocery store chain (I'm in Missouri). They used to keep their DVDs all together in one location, -now, they've filed them in with the VHS. Now its too much aggravation to find any particular DVD, so I've stopped bothering with them at all. On the other hand, my local Blockbuster keeps the DVDs together, but they've broken them into somewhat arbitrary "categories". That's made things a little more annoying , too...

Cornfed

I have both Shop n Save and Schnucks in my town and prefer Schnucks to Shop n Save. Either is a good alternative to Blockbuster's $4 overnight rentals. With the 99 cent rentals, Shop n Save never has what I want. On Tuesdays, all the new releases are gone by 11 am.

Heat

I know, I usually just wait a week before I even hope to find a new release. But $0.99 when you do find it... There are three Shop & Saves in Springfield, I drive by two of them on my way home from work (as well as a Schnucks) so it is easy to stop by a Shop & Save and find something to watch.

By the way, the Shop & Save in question apparently switched back to the original way of sorting the movies, by keeping the VHS tapes and DVDs separated.

nekobus

My local indie stores do it a couple of different ways. The small store has all DVDs in one area separated by new release(more expensive than a regular rental) and foreign(alphabetical). The rest are in alphabetical order with a few directors broken out in their own sections.

The other store(much larger) has DVDs in their own sections for new releases, foreign(by country), type(comedy, action). The DVDs are mixed in with the VHS only in the director's sections(alphabetical). Many directors are broken out into their own sections and both their VHS and DVD releases are next to each other(alphabetical). It works out pretty well because if you are looking for a particular movie by a certain director, on the shelf is both formats and you can pick the one you want. It's great when you go to grab a movie by a director and you didn't realize it had been released on DVD.